One weird thing to me about SUPERMAN VS. MUHAMMAD ALI is that it’s not available digitally.
As touched upon at the end of Publisher’s Weekly review…
Afraid that the violence-prone Earthlings pose a danger to the galaxy, the alien Scrubb (more intimidating than their name suggests) have blockaded Earth. They have agreed to leave if Earth’s champion defeats theirs in single combat. But who should defend the planet in this ultimate prizefight: superhuman alien Superman, or world-champion boxer Muhammad Ali? The answer lies in this reissue of the original 1978 teamup.
Authorized by Ali at the height of his fame, DC handed the reins to the creative team that rejuvenated Green Lantern/Green Arrow with gritty social relevance…
Writer O’Neill handles the challenge of an absurd premise expertly, engineering a plot that allows Superman and Ali to work together, while still giving fans several scenes of the two going at it in the ring.
His characterization is sharp, particularly catching Ali’s unique combination of swagger and social conscience. Adams’s pencils (finished by the late Dick Giordano and then rookie Terry Austin) are simply gorgeous. He handles street scenes and spaceship battles with equal aplomb. And the centerpiece prizefight is expertly staged and rendered with the dynamism that made Adams a superstar artist. Adams handles quieter moments equally well, conveying subtle emotions in just a few pencil lines.
Long unseen due to licensing issues, this holds up as a solid story despite the hokey premise.
Licensing with the Muhammad Ali estate (and others perhaps on the cover?) surely isn’t an issue any longer since this has been back in print since 2010.
Then again, “digital rights,” if that’s a “thing” separate from a print publication, may be a hurdle that wasn’t able to be cleared.
Either way, it’s just a fun and “silly” story, and very much of it’s time.
And with, of course, awesome… awesome, awesome Neal Adams art.
Cool moment at LCS today. Was there with daughter and this was in our stack. The owner pointed out a customer who was browsing and said, “he inked this issue.” So, he signed the copy to my daughter. Had no idea he lived in our small city. She was happy, so good day.
@ds090ddsl If you like the Superman vs. Muhammad Ali Treasury you might be interested in this thread where I and other DCUI members shared our thoughts on the Treasury Editions.
Thanks for starting this thread, @moro ! I’m a little late to the party, but thought I’d chime in with a few thoughts:
I’m also the type of Superman fan that enjoys a whole bunch of different comics and movies and TV shows. I don’t like everything, but I can normally find at least something I appreciate.
I think Superman’s rogues gallery is definitely underrated. As great as Luthor, Brainiac, and Zod are, there’s so much more. Metallo and Parasite are great threats that I think could almost always be used more. I enjoy Eradicator and Cyborg Superman. I think Conduit could be revived. Tomasi and Gleason used Manchester Black well a few years back. I like a creepy take on Toyman, especially if he’s not robbing banks to get less money than it would take to build his toys. I liked Blanque from Jurgens’ most recent run.
Comics-wise I’ve spent the last year and a half reading post-Crisis Superman. I’ve made it from Man of Steel to somewhere in 2001. I think almost everything from Exile to the Fall of Metropolis is just great.
I’m a big fan of Geoff Johns’ run on Action Comics in the late 2000s, Grant Morrison’s New 52 Action Comics, and all of the Tomasi/Gleason and Jurgens Rebirth stuff.
Outside main continuity, some of my favorites are All-Star Superman, Superman: Secret Identity, Superman: Up in the Sky, Superman Smashes the Klan, and the Baltazar/Franco stuff (Superman Family Adventures, Super Powers, Superman of Smallville).
First off, welcome to the thread. No such thing as late to the party. This is meant as an ongoing topic for all things Superman .
You are a dedicated man! I’ve read all of the Byrne volumes, then skipped ahead to Triangle Era. I’m still in the early 90s, but I’ve already read Death & Return & Superman Blue/Red, so will be some more skipping coming up. Also concurrently reading Golden Age stuff, albeit very slowly. As you can tell I’m typically all over the place with my Superman reading. I do however lean more towards the 2000s onwards.
You mentioned Tomasi, and that seams to be a fan favorite. Funny thing is, I thought the run was good, but I never counted it as a personal favorite. However, with Superman & Clark on the CW, I’m starting to see what folks admired about it. The family situation is quite different between the show & that comic run, but the similarities are there. Given how much I’m enjoying Superman & Lois, I might just pay Tomasi’s Rebirth run another visit some day .
When I read post-Crisis stuff on DCUI, I’ve been trying to read a month’s worth of comics at a time. Normally I can find 2 or 3 days a week where I can make the time for that era’s 4 monthly books.
I’ve enjoyed almost everything in the Triangle Era. (Technically I’m still in it, but all the creative teams turned over in late 1999.) The only thing I remember really strongly disliking was the end of the Superman Blue/Red stuff.
There is some great stuff between the end of Byrne and the official beginning of the Triangle Era in 1991: Exile, the Brainiac Trilogy, The Day of the Krypton Man, Krisis of the Krimson Kryptonite. I think it’s worth your time to check out. Stern and Ordway were great, and Jurgens gets started in there, too.
I’m pretty easy to please, so I’m a big fan of pre-Crisis stuff as well. Golden Age, Silver Age, Bronze Age, you name it. I’ve been spending more time post-Crisis because that’s so much more complete on DCUI. And while I don’t need ongoing continuity, it can be really fun.
I remember being upset that they didn’t really give an explanation for why his powers changed when the obvious, probably seemed like a cop-out answer was still the best: Mxyzptlk changed him because he was ‘bored’ with his classic powers.
Here’s a question for my fellow Superman fans: Who would be on your Superman writer Mount Rushmore? Pick your four favorite writers, or pick the ones you think made the biggest contribution to the Superman mythology, or whatever you want!
Here’s mine (in no particular order):
Jerry Siegel: not only did he set up the whole Superman/Clark Kent dual identity and introduce Lois Lane and Lex Luthor (and Mr. Mxyzptlk and—if you care—the Prankster), he also followed up his Golden Age contributions with a great Silver Age run
Otto Binder: maybe not necessarily my favorite storyteller, but he introduced Krypto, Kara Zor-El, the Legion of Super-Heroes, Titano, Bizarro, Braniac and the Bottle City of Kandor, Lucy Lane, Jimmy Olsen’s signal watch, and Jimmy as Elastic Lad
Dan Jurgens: my personal favorite Superman writer from the “Triangle Era,” plus he later introduced Superman and Lois’s son, Jon, and had a great Rebirth run
Grant Morrison: just because I love his Superman stories: All-Star Superman, New 52 Action Comics, Final Crisis: Superman Beyond
@brian_hofman Good question, and great picks. I didn’t know who Otto Binder was. Will have to check out some his writings sometime, so thanks for enlightening me. This is a tough one, because… well… only four. These questions are always easier when you can list as many as you want. My Mount Rushmore will be personal, though most of these writers names commonly pop up when googling “best Superman writers”. No particular order.
Dan Jurgens. The man has written and drawn so much Superman. Not only that, but he took a lot of risks and put the character through so many changes. Death & Return, Superman Blue & Red, the black suit, the mullet, the Rebirth run with crazy Jor-El. I still haven’t read all of his writing, but the sheer volume makes that a pretty time consuming task. I like how the story arcs are concise, with a sense of fun & action that I like to see in Superman stories. He is also one of few writers that writes the supporting characters very well.
John Byrne. Again, years of output writing and drawing Superman. Redefined the character for a generation. Yes there’s the updated origin, elements of which were used in recent movies. But for me, it’s how the heroic nature of Superman really shines through in his comics. Maybe it’s the way he drew Supes, and maybe because Byrne didn’t shy away from writing big Superman moments that translated very well on the page.
Brian Michael Bendis. I’m gonna get heat for this one, and that’s ok. He aged John. He revealed Clark’s identity. He emphasized the not so traditional nature of a family made up of a super powered father & son and a mother who happens to be the best reporter in the world. Many did not take kindly to these changes, but I ate it all up. Throughout it all, I felt like he gave Clark a voice I hadn’t read in some time in recent runs. His run was epic, ranging from Metropolis organized crime to threats of galactic proportions. It was an exciting run, and a heartfelt one at the same time.
The first three I’m pretty firm on, but this one I was wishy washy: Grant Morrison. All Star Superman and New 52. One of those is on practically every top 10 list of Superman stories online, and the other is how I got introduced to Superman comics. Morrison is very hit & miss for me; I don’t understand his writing half the time. Luckily I didn’t suffer that problem with his stellar work on the character. There are many other writers with one or two celebrated Superman stories to their name, but since New 52 started me on comics, Grant makes the list for me.
I came pretty close to picking Byrne myself. I really enjoy his reboot, and while I tend to enjoy the stuff that came afterward a little more (I briefly considered making my four the Death of Superman writers: Dan Jurgens, Jerry Ordway, Louise Simonson, Roger Stern), everyone else was definitely building on Byrne’s great foundation.
I haven’t read the last year or so of Bendis’s time yet. He’s not my all-time favorite, but overall I have enjoyed what I’ve read. I’m glad to hear you love it!
Superman: For All Seasons is liked by many but for me it sits at the top of my Superman list. It has so much heart and Loeb and Sale always knock it out of the park.
I love For All Seasons. The story is great and it’s really hard to put down. I loved the art. I read it for the first time last year and felt like reading it again almost immediately, which doesn’t happen with a lot of stories.
I totally agree. There are multiple moments, especially in the issues narrated by Pa Kent and Lana Lang, that bring so much emotion.
Side note: I really like Loeb’s trick of having a non-Superman character narrate. It’s great in For All Seasons, and he used it during his time writing the flagship Superman book as well.
I read Superman Red & Blue #1 a couple weeks ago, and I’ve been meaning to give my 10 cents ever since. Very minor spoilers ahead.
The adherence to only Red & Blue is not strict. There’s some flesh tones that I suppose qualify as shades of red. There’s some shades of gray and black & white, particularly with some of the clothes. Other than that though, the only true colors we get are really just shades of red & blue. And it’s very eye pleasing, in every single story.
The stories, apart from one, are not particularly action driven. They rather highlight different aspects of Clark’s personality/makeup, his history, and his interactions with others: the influence he has on them and that they have on him.
My favorite stories:
Human Colors. A simple one, this one. Starts off in a black & white world, and Superman’s primary colors of red & blue kinda seep in. It talks about what these colors stand for, and some insight into Clark’s psyche and makeup as a character. I particularly liked how red was the color of “blood spilled from the vein” and blue was the color of “blood inside the vein”. I don’t know what to make of that, other than how much Clark cherishes life, but it’s I find it very poetic.
The Boy Who Saved Superman. This is the one that has quite a bit of action, but it’s mostly of a kid saving an out of commission Clark in a very chaotic situation. I won’t spoil the ending of it, but to see Clark’s gratitude and admiration towards someone, instead of the usual other way around, was heartwarming.
Overall, yeah, highly recommended. Can’t wait to see what else they have in store.
I think that Superman is one of the hardest characters to write, which is one of the reasons that I enjoy an entertaining Superman comic. In my opinion, I would like to see Superman work harder to find more non-violent solutions to a problem (less hitting people/aliens). I also love the relationship between Clark and Jon. I especially liked it when Jon was a kid. Now, less so. Jon isn’t as sweet as he used to be. I believe that someone can be kind and still a compelling character.
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