A while ago I created a "general purposes" blog for my writing and it went nowhere. The thing I had the most fun doing was stupid comments on old comics with writing techniques that really shouldn't be held to modern standards, but I did any way. So here we are. And since this blog's title actively insults him, let's start with the Superman story.
This issue comes from the Silver Age Of Comics, named so because it seems it's authors drunk nothing but colloidal silver all through it. It was a time of blistering insanity and social tension, from the early fifties to late sixties nothing in comics made sense if you were the sort of person who was allowed on the streets.
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| "I told you to stay away from my wife Almighty Zeus" |
I think a lot of the Silver Age Of Comics can be explained by how DC at least formed stories. You see since a cohesive creative team was considered to be for draft dodgers and beatniks, the artists would create a cover, and then give it to the writers to do something with. The cover artists I suspect were arseholes, always drawing these series wrecking scenarios, like Superman actually being an alien, or a woman, or Batman, or Bruce Wayne but somehow not Batman. It is no wonder cover artists were born with middle fingers already extended.
So Superman has discovered images of his suspiciously identical father as a Earth superhero. By the looks of it he protected the world from ordinary lightning bolts. For all those stories that ask why do bad things still happen to good people in a world with a Superman, it's because he spends all his time flitting about in thunderstorms.
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| Cut into the comic and render the next page of actual story indecipherable! |
Ah Bob Hope, funny the contest subject should be him, as he had a comic himself. It was mainly about him committing rape by fraud. I guess a comic about a centenarian who spent his lifetime staging USO shows where he made golf jokes wouldn't have sold as well. We'll get to him someday
All the prizes make sense for a might be dodgy competition advertised in a comic, but what the hell is a "drawing outfit"? Is it like that vest getup Stan Lee used to wear in all the adds? Or did our elders' habit of putting poisonous materials in everything extend to drawing supplies? Did a professional artist need a bio-hazard suit to handle the botulism infused actual lead pencils?
I wonder if there's some old man wishing he hadn't parted with his perfect Bob Hope sketch.
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| "And if you aren't satisfied and DON'T return our mottoes we'll gut you and everyone you love... go in Christ" |
This add baffles me. So you don't pay any money for your initial supply of mottoes, but you're supposed to give them a cut of the sales? How do they enforce this? If someone kept all the money for himself did they send a massive square to break the kid's fingers? I guess they just wouldn't send any more but still seems like a good way to get scammed by a nine year old.
And how did they fix prices? I mean thirty five cents per motto isn't bad for pocket money in olden days money, but what's to stop kids from charging a dollar? Might seem steep but when you're out of cheesy nationalist sayings and HUAC is coming for dinner might seem like a good price to pay.
Also what is a "motto" a sticker? Or perhaps if you sent of for them Ned Flanders' granddad would arrive on your doorstep to shout them at you "Pass them on!".
And where's the true American adages, like "Better Dead Then Red" or "Separate But Equal"?
And how did they fix prices? I mean thirty five cents per motto isn't bad for pocket money in olden days money, but what's to stop kids from charging a dollar? Might seem steep but when you're out of cheesy nationalist sayings and HUAC is coming for dinner might seem like a good price to pay.
Also what is a "motto" a sticker? Or perhaps if you sent of for them Ned Flanders' granddad would arrive on your doorstep to shout them at you "Pass them on!".
And where's the true American adages, like "Better Dead Then Red" or "Separate But Equal"?
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| Day Three, as I slog through the adds my hope of reaching actual freaking story grows thinner and thinner. I have taken shelter in a cardboard submarine and I'm subsisting on mostly fruit pies. |
Jesus were all toy guns that realistic back then? Forget Vietnam as America killing it's youth, it was cops shooting all the kids who pulled BB guns on them.
Yes everyone is interested in Krypton because it's where Superman was born. Because being an incredibly technologically sophisticated, idyllic dead culture relatively nearby is not good enough on it's own.
And for an exploded planet there sure are a lot of stories set there. Sometimes I think a story set on Earth was a real surprise.
I've always wondered why Jor-El expected the Science Council to believe that Krypton was exploding, it was clearly just leisurely drifted apart. Didn't help he clearly had monopolistic tendencies as practically everything produced on the planet belonged to him one way or another.
The worst thing about this sequence is not that Superman randomly found a piece of Krypton with buildings and objects mostly intact after an explosion and thirty odd years in outer space. Yes there is is something worse. It happened again. But that chunk of Krypton had people living on it. Including his aunt and uncle.
Plus this whole fucking space island should be kryptonite.
So yeah Superman discovers perfectly intact reels of film, which shows a man identical to him doing the superhero thing. Though every second kryptonian man looks just like him so it could be anyone.
Now if I was Superman I would just assume at some point I time travelled to where those images were taken, considering Superman does that like every third Wednesday. But Superman forgets his superpowers pretty regularly. His sweat actually cures death and suffering but it slipped his mind about 42'.
For some reason he has Jor-El's journal, you know Lara could probably fitted in that rocket fine if they hadn't stuffed it with everything in that expansive junk draw. Clark probably fishes strange not-quite-screwdriver things out of it all the time.
And is that supposed to be a hologram of Jor-El? The captions imply Superman is reading text but then why is there a blue Jor-El in the book? With his science a hologram in a book isn't out of the question.
So this page is pretty standard Krypton gushing. You get it a lot in these stories. Yeah Krypton was this amazing society where science ran everything with the utmost ease and efficiency, manual labour was extinct and broccoli tasted like coke and so on and so forth.
That thing with the nursery students learning an atomic equation may sound impressive, but they can only learn one concept a week. Only in grade seven will they finally get to the letter A and not splitting atoms in the backyard with their atomic equations.
I love how homespun science is in old comics. Married men inject their pregnant wives with mutagen mega-strength potions, teenage assistants are bombarded with odd radiations, and mild mannered researchers drink the distilled essence of child molesters and serial killers to see if it can be harnessed for peace. Or in this case drill to the centre of their world from their suburban backyards!
Jor-El just a word of advice, it's the zoning you need to worry about when drilling to the centre of the planet, what if you hit a water pipe? Then the pressure's ruined for the whole neighbourhood!
And if your readings aren't proof what makes you think they foretell the end? Or do you just do this every-time anything out of the ordinary happens? "Gentlemen, my baby boy has not had a bowel movement in seventy two hours, Krypton is doomed!"
Also that bald disbelieving scientist in the bottom left panel is clearly Lex Luthor, no wonder Superman hates him.
Actually I think I now understand why Kal-El's destiny as a 10,000 year baby is special. Since they sprayed atomic radiation into the sky he probably was the only baby born that year. Also Lara-I mean Lora looks way too much like Lois for comfort, does add well to the fact Jor-El seemed to have impregnated her with his clone.
Where the fuck does Jor-El get the funding for all the crap he builds? Seriously he's considered a crackpot by his peers, and yet he has the clout to rent what looks like pretty good land, and raw materials to build a copy of a big city. And don't tell me it's because Krypton has no money, even then there'd be restrictions on resource use. Otherwise ill thought development schemes would litter the landscape. Skeletons of every ten year old's dream tree house would be a common, foreboding sight!
Oh and great discovery, your muscles work better in low gravity conditions. Jesus even we know that and Earth hasn't even mastered sky writing in radioactive fallout.
Oh no the only scientists who believe Jor-El want to force him to build them a rocket to leave, instead of building them a rocket to leave. That's like needing a blood transfusion and pulling a gun on the doctor going to get the plasma so he gets it.
For two of the most brilliant men on Krypton these guys sure do believe an obvious bluff. This because in old comics the second you tie someone up your mind is replaced with that of an ill educated thug probably from New Jersey judging by the typical accent.
I never got the invulnerability and flight bits of the low gravity thing. I mean sure there's less gravity but it's still there, it'll pull you down eventually. And how does lower gravity make bullets hurt less?
To be fair this is why they revealed later that Superman was a plant.
I wonder what these two will be charged with? Flying without a permit, conspiracy to commit illegal immigration? And at least after their rehabilitation veer brain control they'll have a great idea for a theme park.
Can you imagine if the 2012 nut-jobs pulled the kind of stuns Jor-El does? Like if when cinemas were showing 2012 tin foil wearing blubber monsters ran in front of the projector shouting "Documentary, documentary!". See that's the thing about Jor-El, rarely is he presented as trying to prove to everyone the danger better than most street preachers.
Well I guess our first foray into the Lunatic Superman was in fact a story of the Crazed Doom Sayer Jor-El. At least in covers the "Other Stories" part of the title.
Superman, your father didn't exactly do much with his powers, I mean the only "super feat" he pulled was fixing his own stupid mess. And I think I've discovered the cause of Krypton's destruction. Basically with every interesting or significant thing happening on the planet in the week leading up to the kaboom, time traveller visits, pirate attacks, robot alien invasions, ten thousand year anniversaries etcetera the world couldn't handle the sheer compression of the social calender.
Action Comics back then was an anthology, so there are a few other stories. But we'll revisit them later. For now let's look at something Xtraordinary-fuck it it's X-Men.
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| "How could an advanced, peaceful world survive without an equivalent of moi!?" |
Yes everyone is interested in Krypton because it's where Superman was born. Because being an incredibly technologically sophisticated, idyllic dead culture relatively nearby is not good enough on it's own.
And for an exploded planet there sure are a lot of stories set there. Sometimes I think a story set on Earth was a real surprise.
 |
| Recent surveys have concluded that with the amount of Kryptonian stuff floating around, Krypton must have made up ninety percent of the universe by volume. |
I've always wondered why Jor-El expected the Science Council to believe that Krypton was exploding, it was clearly just leisurely drifted apart. Didn't help he clearly had monopolistic tendencies as practically everything produced on the planet belonged to him one way or another.
The worst thing about this sequence is not that Superman randomly found a piece of Krypton with buildings and objects mostly intact after an explosion and thirty odd years in outer space. Yes there is is something worse. It happened again. But that chunk of Krypton had people living on it. Including his aunt and uncle.
Plus this whole fucking space island should be kryptonite.
So yeah Superman discovers perfectly intact reels of film, which shows a man identical to him doing the superhero thing. Though every second kryptonian man looks just like him so it could be anyone.
 |
| "I really have nothing to tell you Kal, just want you to know how awesome your lost home-world is compared to the dirt farm I sent you to." |
For some reason he has Jor-El's journal, you know Lara could probably fitted in that rocket fine if they hadn't stuffed it with everything in that expansive junk draw. Clark probably fishes strange not-quite-screwdriver things out of it all the time.
And is that supposed to be a hologram of Jor-El? The captions imply Superman is reading text but then why is there a blue Jor-El in the book? With his science a hologram in a book isn't out of the question.
So this page is pretty standard Krypton gushing. You get it a lot in these stories. Yeah Krypton was this amazing society where science ran everything with the utmost ease and efficiency, manual labour was extinct and broccoli tasted like coke and so on and so forth.
That thing with the nursery students learning an atomic equation may sound impressive, but they can only learn one concept a week. Only in grade seven will they finally get to the letter A and not splitting atoms in the backyard with their atomic equations.
 |
| "Frank get me a cold one, wife's been complaining of skin sloughing since I bored a hole to the radioactive core. Women eh?" |
I love how homespun science is in old comics. Married men inject their pregnant wives with mutagen mega-strength potions, teenage assistants are bombarded with odd radiations, and mild mannered researchers drink the distilled essence of child molesters and serial killers to see if it can be harnessed for peace. Or in this case drill to the centre of their world from their suburban backyards!
Jor-El just a word of advice, it's the zoning you need to worry about when drilling to the centre of the planet, what if you hit a water pipe? Then the pressure's ruined for the whole neighbourhood!
And if your readings aren't proof what makes you think they foretell the end? Or do you just do this every-time anything out of the ordinary happens? "Gentlemen, my baby boy has not had a bowel movement in seventy two hours, Krypton is doomed!"
Also that bald disbelieving scientist in the bottom left panel is clearly Lex Luthor, no wonder Superman hates him.
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| "As for all the other thousands or millions of babies born this year, fuck em' what'll they get to do?" |
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| "Should I just build a rocket for the family in case? Nah play acting in pretend Earth cities is more productive." |
Oh and great discovery, your muscles work better in low gravity conditions. Jesus even we know that and Earth hasn't even mastered sky writing in radioactive fallout.
 |
| We humans couldn't dream of a machine which bends metal, truly this is a world of scientific gods! |
Oh no the only scientists who believe Jor-El want to force him to build them a rocket to leave, instead of building them a rocket to leave. That's like needing a blood transfusion and pulling a gun on the doctor going to get the plasma so he gets it.
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| Turns out the condition they overlooked was the presence of Jimmy Olsen. |
For two of the most brilliant men on Krypton these guys sure do believe an obvious bluff. This because in old comics the second you tie someone up your mind is replaced with that of an ill educated thug probably from New Jersey judging by the typical accent.
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| So basically this is just a Superman story But On Krypton! |
I never got the invulnerability and flight bits of the low gravity thing. I mean sure there's less gravity but it's still there, it'll pull you down eventually. And how does lower gravity make bullets hurt less?
To be fair this is why they revealed later that Superman was a plant.
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| "Scientists still ponder what arbitrary point we started counting as society!" |
I wonder what these two will be charged with? Flying without a permit, conspiracy to commit illegal immigration? And at least after their rehabilitation veer brain control they'll have a great idea for a theme park.
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| "Should I take some readings of the reaction, or ruin a nice day for everyone?" |
Can you imagine if the 2012 nut-jobs pulled the kind of stuns Jor-El does? Like if when cinemas were showing 2012 tin foil wearing blubber monsters ran in front of the projector shouting "Documentary, documentary!". See that's the thing about Jor-El, rarely is he presented as trying to prove to everyone the danger better than most street preachers.
 |
| Is Jor-El giving a Nazi salute? |
Well I guess our first foray into the Lunatic Superman was in fact a story of the Crazed Doom Sayer Jor-El. At least in covers the "Other Stories" part of the title.
Superman, your father didn't exactly do much with his powers, I mean the only "super feat" he pulled was fixing his own stupid mess. And I think I've discovered the cause of Krypton's destruction. Basically with every interesting or significant thing happening on the planet in the week leading up to the kaboom, time traveller visits, pirate attacks, robot alien invasions, ten thousand year anniversaries etcetera the world couldn't handle the sheer compression of the social calender.
Action Comics back then was an anthology, so there are a few other stories. But we'll revisit them later. For now let's look at something Xtraordinary-fuck it it's X-Men.
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