On the new Superman movie: Politics, performances and nitpicks

This post will obviously have spoilers for Superman. And, less obviously, for the 2006-2012 comic series The Boys...and maybe the 2003-2007 volume of The Outsiders too...

•Overall? I thought it was quite good. It's definitely the best Superman movie I've ever seen in a theater, and maybe the best Superman movie ever (I should note that I didn't actually sit down and watch the Christopher Reeve movies start to finish until I was an adult, and thus have no real nostalgia for those films, although, yeah, Reeve is a fantastic Superman and Clark Kent). 

I thought this was the first of all the Superman films that felt like it starred the comic book version of the character, rather than some new or different or original movie version of the character, and it is the first movie I've seen that seemed to be set in some recognizable version of a DC Universe. 

I think that bodes well for the future, given that this is the launch of a new (and hopefully improved) DC answer to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

•The change in approach. I think the most immediately telling difference between James Gunn's Superman and the previous iteration from Zack Snyder's 2013 The Man of Steel and the handful of "DC Extended Universe" films he appeared in is that the Snyder version seemed somewhat insecure and defensive in its very conception. 

That is, when Snyder and his studio bosses set out to make a new film version of Superman, a character universally known by his iconic costume, they seemed somewhat embarrassed by that costume's bright colors and the red trunks being worn over blue tights...or, if not embarrassed, than at least worried that such a character might not be taken seriously enough.

Gunn's Superman, on the other hand, not only has a costume featuring his traditionally bright primary colors, and that not only features the trunks, but he's also accompanied by his flying, super-strong dog with a matching cape.

It reminded me of something from a social media post that's stayed with me over the years. I wish I could remember who said it so I could properly credit them [Update: Kevin Hines informs me that it was Brett White, and he shares a screenshot of the original tweet.] It was in reaction to the fact that DC and/or Warner Bros or whoever were once again publicly hemming and hawing about the difficulty in making a Wonder Woman movie, while Marvel Studios was in the midst of advertising the then-upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy (so this would have been circa 2013 or 2014, I guess). 

The statement was along the lines of, "DC's like 'We're not sure people will get Wonder Woman', while Marvel's like, 'Here's a raccoon with a machine gun.'"

The raccoon with a machine gun film was, of course, directed by James Gunn. 

•The politics I've seen a fair amount of discussion about the politics of the new Superman film reflected on my Bluesky feed, probably a result of the fact that everything I tend to pay attention to online has to do with either comic books or politics. (And I'm not just referring to the silly statement from a particular actor who used to play a TV Superman saying, before he had even seen the movie, that it was somehow wrong or bad that Superman was being depicted as an immigrant...you know, just as he has been for 87 years now.)

Honestly, I think this headline from the Vulture review of the film by Alison Willmore, which I saw here, best captures the political agenda of the film: "Superman Isn't Trying to Be Political. We Just Have Real-Life Supervillains Now."

A relative of mine liked the new Superman film a lot, and, in texting me afterwards, she mentioned two points related to the real world.

First, she said that she got something of an Elon Musk vibe from Lex Luthor. Now, if Luthor reminds you of Musk, or Donald Trump, or any other rich, powerful person making your life worse, well, that's somewhat intentional....at least on the part of DC Comics, if not necessarily James Gunn.

That's because when John Byrne reconceived the entire Superman franchise for DC's emergent post-Crisis continuity in 1986, he purposefully turned Superman's perennial archenemy from a typical supervillain into a rich, powerful businessman/corporate CEO type—a then more relevant, visceral vision of evil than that of a mad scientist or crook in tights. Byrne's new Luthor was the sort of bad guy that hides in plain sight, being more-or-less accepted by society at large while engaged in nefarious acts in secret.

That's just who Luthor is, and has been for some 40 years now.

In the film he is, as expected, also duplicitous and manipulative, driven not only by greed, but also by his envy of Superman and, perhaps, a personal animus against aliens to commit his various bad actions. Again, that's just Lex Luthor being Lex Luthor. 

This particular version is also a pretty bad boss (I liked the bit where he yelled at his employees to clean up a mess he made, and then purposefully knocked over a mug holding pencils like a cat as they did so). And a rather shitty boyfriend. 

Oh, and he also engages the comic book supervillain equivalent version of using bots to help shape public opinion on social media. 

And, as we will learn near the climax, he wants to be a literal king.

If any of that reminds you of the current president, or Elon Musk, or any other real world figure, well, that probably reflects more on that figure's behavior than on any creative decisions Gunn made in his depiction of the Lex Luthor character (I will note a distinction that the above-cited critic, Alison Willmore made between Luthor and our real-world supervillains: Lex Luthor is really smart, while Trump and Musk are famously...not. I would also add that Luthor is, at least in this particular portrayal, also fairly young and rather handsome, and thus makes a poor filmic stand in for the likes of Trump or Musk).

Now, there are two specific points of the film that seem to more directly address real-world events. One I think was probably intentional on Gunn's part, the other is almost certainly a coincidence, and the fact that it's in the film at all is more a matter of unhappy circumstance in the real world than some attempt by Gunn to comment on it. That is, it is, again, more about the us having real supervillains than Gunn trying to make any particular political points.

One major plot point in the film is the invasion of one fictional country by its neighbor, another fictional country. The former, the victim nation, is Jarhanpur, while the latter, the aggressor, is Boravia.

While they both sounded vaguely familiar, I didn't recognize either when I first heard them mentioned, nor did I connect them to any particular DC comics past while I was sitting there in the theater. Looking them up when I got home, I saw that Jarhanpur appeared during Joe Kelly and Doug Mahnke's JLA run, being introduced in the "The Golden Perfect" story arc (fom 2002's #62-#64). 

There it was presented as an exotic, fantastical country, but it was, visually, coded to resemble a Middle Eastern, maybe Muslim majority coded country. The people all had brown skin, the buildings had minarets and Plastic Man made joking reference to belly dancers and Ramadan.

As for Boravia, it apparently appeared in a couple of stories in 1939's Superman #2 and 1958's Blackhawk #126. I don't think I've ever read either—I might have read and forgotten the Superman story, while I know I've neve read any Blackhawk comics—but it seems to be, as it sounds, a European country. 

Unlikely neighbors, then. 

Sometime before the film begins, Superman apparently intervened in Boravia's invasion of Jarhanpur, destroying some of Boravia's military hardware and then flying that country's leader into the dessert to essentially threaten him not to try it again.

I immediately took this to be an intentional parallel to Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022, thanks, I think, to the geography in play (In the movie, Boravia is immediately east of Jarhanpur, with which it shares a border). That and the rationale the president of the aggressor nation gave for the invasion in a press conference, something about liberating its people from their own fascist government.

A few days after I had seen the film, that relative I mentioned above asked if I thought this aspect might have been a nod to the Israel's war on the Palestinian people in the Gaza strip, launched in 2023 in retaliation to the October 7 terror attack by Hamas. She was not the only one to note this possible reading; I've seen social media posts reading the movie that way, with one noting that the film made Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu one of its villains.

Honestly, this reading didn't occur to me at all as I was in the theater, but, after hearing it, I could certainly see it: The apparent desert climate of the two countries, the fact that Jarhanpur's people seemed to be composed mainly of poor brown-skinned people, the fact that Boravia had a professional military with uniforms and tanks and jets and, at the climax, they line up to attack what looks essentially like a bunch of civilians. 

And now that I've picked up some old copies of JLA and see what Jarhanpur looked like in the comics, it certainly seems more like the Middle East than Eastern Europe. (Also, there's the fact that Luthor apparently did a deal with Boravia in which he would get a portion of the conquered land as his own, not unlike Trump expressing his desire for the United States to "own" the Gaza strip once Israel and/or the U.S. managed to quite illegally displace all of the people who live there.)

Was Gunn referencing either—or both—of these conflicts? 

Maybe. 

Given when these particular crises started, he would have certainly had the lead time to work them into his screenplay. 

On the other hand, it could be as simple a matter as Gunn making the rather broad, anodyne and hard to argue with statement that the unprovoked military invasion of a neighboring country is wrong, or, even more broadly, that the strong should not victimize the weak. 

I think, a few years ago, all Americans could agree on that, but, when presented with real world examples like the conflicts mentioned above, Americans have various opinions. One imagines that just like so many Republicans in congress and right-wing influencers are either pro-Russia or, at least, ambivalent to the fate of Ukraine, they would similarly be unmoved by the plight of Jarhanpur if they were serving in the DCU's congress or doing their podcasts there.

The other plot point that is echoing real life? Well, it's not exactly subtle. 

The alien Superman, who illegally "immigrated" to Earth and lived his whole life as an upstanding American citizen and productive member of society, is, at one point, roughed up by a man in a mask working on the behalf of the U.S. government and then whisked from American soil to a "foreign" forever prison without the benefit of any due process, literally being told that, as an "alien", he has no rights. 

That's some evil supervillain shit, obviously, but, given the lead time needed to make a movie of this size and expense, Gunn and his fellow filmmakers had almost certainly written, filmed and had maybe even produced the special effects for those scenes well before masked goons kidnapping immigrants from our streets and putting them in detention facilities or shipping them to foreign countries without any due process was yet a common occurrence in America. (Trump didn't invoke the Alien Enemies Act until March 14 of this year, for example.)

Personally, I think Gunn was just using his imagination to come up with something wicked and un-American to show just how evil Lex Luthor is. He probably wasn't imagining that the Trump administration would be regularly doing that very thing by the time his big, summer film started playing in theaters. 

Finally, one of the two most evil things Luthor does, or threatens to do in this film, includes threatening to "euthanize" the perfectly healthy (if often misbehaving) dog Krypto, making a point of telling a helpless Superman that doing so will probably be quite painful for the dog. Meanwhile, here in the real world, the current secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, and thus a person quite high up on the organizational chart when it comes to implementing the policy of snatching up immigrants to send to prisons abroad, is Kristi Noem, a woman who rather famously shot her perfectly healthy dog Cricket to death due to its behavior problems. 

Again, Gunn likely wasn't calling Noem out. He was probably just demonstrating that Luthor is evil. So is Noem.

•David Corenswet I thought David Corenswet did a phenomenal job with what turned out to be a fairly complex job. Rather than a simple dual role, in which he had to play Clark Kent and Superman as two entirely different characters, his Superman was conceived in such a way that there were various layers to the character, and to what degree he was being himself in any particular scene.

I found it interesting that, in this particular outing, both Clark Kent and Superman are sorts of public performances that the real character playing them both, who I guess we can call Kal-El for clarity's sake (even though I don't remember that name being used in the film at all), takes on at different points. 

We only see that real character behind them both, Kal-El, in a few instances. When starting dinner in Lois' apartment, for example, or when he's recovering from his pocket universe ordeal at his parents' farmhouse in Kansas...and, I suppose, occasionally bleeding into his Superman persona, when he's alone with Lois in front of the "interdimensional imp" battle, or gets angry or frustrated while wearing the suit.

I think this is probably most evident during the interview scene, when he says "Miss Lane," and essentially turns his Superman persona on as if he was flipping a switch. Throughout, as he gets frustrated at some of her questioning, we can see his real, Kal-El self keeps intruding on his Superman performance, too.

It's a rather nuanced performance, far more than the just looking handsome and strong and inspirational and nice that one might expect of a Superman actor.

I do sort of regret that we didn't get to see more of Corenswet's Clark Kent performance in the film, but, I suppose, that needed to be sacrificed in order to give us a version of Superman that has already revealed his secret identity to Lois. Still, with such a big and interesting cast in the Daily Planet scenes, it would have been nice to see more of Clark; maybe in a sequel...?

Corenswet, Gunn and company did a good enough job of making Clak and Superman seem like two entiely different people that it was easy to believe that no one made the connection between the two (I know Guy Gardner references the hypno-glasses, a bit of forgotten Superman lore that I've never actually encountered in a comic book, but then do you want to take Guy Gardner's word for anything...?

•Nicholas Hoult Nicholas Hoult's Lex Luthor was similarly great. It was certainly the best live-action performance of the character that I've ever seen, although I've never seen any of the TV Luthors that weren't animated (I know a lot of folks really like Michael Rosenbaum's Smallville Luthor).

Hoult's Luthor is handsome, quick-witted and charming, and it's easy to see how this Luthor could prove to be charismatic enough to be the leader of a company or sell the U.S. government on his metahuman Planet Watch force (or whatever it was called) or be a popular media figure.

Part of this Luthor's enmity towards Superman seems to be that the hero pulls the world's focus away from Luthor himself, who thinks he should be the center of the world's attention, and Hoult's Luthor is one that we could imagine being that center of attention.

He also, more than any of the previous actors, looks and acts like the Luthor I recognize from the comic books of the last 25 years or so. 

•Luthor is so bald And speaking of Luthor, I don't know exactly how they did it, but man, this Luthor is so bald. Like, there is no hair anywhere on his head at all. There are close-up scenes where, on the big screen, you can see Hoult's head filling that gigantic space, and you can see the little roots of hairs left on his clean-shaven face, but his scalp...? Nothing. I don't know if they used a bald cap or, like, digitally removed any and all hairs on his shaven head in post, but Superman's Lex Luthor is, like, the baldest anyone has ever been in a movie. 

•It needed more purple and greenThere's a brief shot of a flag at the decommissioned army base by "the river" where Luthor keeps one of his pocket universe portals, the place with all the tents (I am 99% sure that those scenes were filmed at a beach in Mentor, Ohio, where I used to live and still work, and that the river in the back ground is actually Lake Erie). That flag is yellow and green, rather than purple and green. For the life of me, I can't imagine why they didn't go with purple and green in that shot.

Similarly, I wish that Luthor's "Raptors" wore purple and green armor, rather than the kind of generic black/metallic coloring they have. Given the deepness of the cuts in the film—the hypno-glasses, Boravia—I have to imagine the filmmakers at last had a conversation about coloring the Raptors purple and green and must have had some reason not to do so. 

•Rachel Brosnahan Rachel Brosnahan is also a particularly strong Lois Lane. She definitely looks the part, and I think she captured the character pretty well. I think because of the fact that we're already past the learning of the secret identity point of the relationship, it frees her up to do more, and be a more active partner in Superman's life, while, at the same time, their relationship is new enough that there is still some drama in it; that is, they haven't yet reached some sort of happily ever after point with one another, where they tend to be in the comics these days, just yet.

I like that we got to see her doing some journalism and we got to see her doing some mild adventuring and we got to see her doing some journalism while doing some adventuring, in that scene at the climax where she's dictating a story while piloting a UFO. That's some quality DCU journalism right there. 

•The origins of Krpto I heard an interview with Gunn on NPR last week where he talked about how this particular portrayal of Krypto was inspired by his own experience with a terribly behaved dog. 

Still, after seeing the film, I wondered if Gunn had ever read Mark Russell's The Superman Stories. Russell, who admitted that he hadn't really paid any attention to actual Superman comics before writing his prose stories, presents a very different vision of a Superdog, but the gag with Russell's is just how terrifying and what a public menace a dog with all of the powers of Superman would actually be. I thought of Russell's Superdog in the scene where we see that Krypto has broken through the glass storefront of a pet store and helped himself to some dog food, which reminded me of Russell's dog's depredations. 

•Mister Terrific I thought the film made great use of the Mister Terrific character, a really rather minor character in DC Comics history, being a legacy version of an even more minor, footnote of a Golden Age character. He's not a character one might expect to see turn up in a Superman movie, or even a movie dealing with any iteration of a Justice League as opposed to a Justice Society (His appearance in Justice League Unlimited cartoon notwithstanding).

I especially appreciate that they used him instead of Blue Beetle Ted Kord who, given the presence of Guy Gardner and Maxwell Lord, would have been the most obvious candidate for "the smart one" in a "Justice Gang"...especially since Ted came with his own flying vehicle, something so necessary for the film that they had to invent one for Mister Terrific (On the other hand, the old, bad DC Extended Universe produced a Blue Beetle film just two years ago, and, having never seen it, I'm not sure whether or not it had a Ted Kord character in it at all. Anyway, maybe it would have been weird to use another Blue Beetle in this film).

Edi Gathegi's performance as Mister Terrific was, well, terrific. I liked his deadpan delivery, and his ongoing frustrations with his colleague Guy Gardner, Lois and even Superman. His coolness and confidence seemed to be borne of the original conception of the character, as he appeared in that one issue of The Spectre that introduced him, more so than in his later, more popular appearances in various JSA titles. 

Gathegi looked a little smaller and less imposing than I would have imagined Michael Holt to be in real life (same with Hawkgirl, actually), but his costume couldn't have looked any better, seemingly pulled directly out of the comics with only the little Max Lord/"Justice Gang" symbol thingee on the chest added. Even that weird mask seemed to work in live-action.

•Most importantly So the line "I'm goddam Mister Terrific"...inspired by All-Star Batman and Robin, The Boy Wonder, or nah...? 

•Metamorpho In contrast, I didn't really care for the visual depiction of Metamorpho in the film and, the longer I think about it, I can't help but wonder if he's just a character that doesn't really work in live-action...or, at least, not as well as he does in comics, or the more comic-like medium of animation.

I think actor Anthony Carrigan did a decent enough job in the role, particularly as far as expressing the "freak" nature of the character and Rex Mason's resignation to that nature. He also did a fine job of expressing the rather tough ethical/moral dilemma the film put Rex in, forcing him to decide to inflict violence on a stranger or strangers so that no violence is inflicted upon his own son.

Still, Carrigan is a lot smaller than any of the Metamorphos I've read about, be it Ramona Fradon's original version from the '60s, or Bart Sears' version in Justice League Europe or  and those that followed in various Justice League books or crossovers or anthologies. 

Additionally, the film's version seems to have elaborate scoring or scarring on his face, suggesting the Metamorpho of the 2003-launched The Outsiders (who actually turned out to only be an aspect of Metamorpho, and took the name "Shift", I guess; retroactive spoiler alert!).

Finally, he looked weird wearing what looked like baggy shorts to, I suppose, protect his modesty. If they didn't want to go with the form-fitting briefs with an "M" on the belt buckle, they could have at least got him some better fitting trunks, akin to those Corenswet's Superman rocked.

Some of the demonstrations of his powers looked kind of cool (growing Kryptonite out of his hand, forming that big hammer in the climax), but others just looked...weird and indecipherable as when he was flying in a half-gaseous state, or when he had tentacles. Again, I think he mainly just isn't a comic book character that translates all that well to live action. 

•Green Lantern Speaking of, do Green Lanterns just not work in live action? Nathan Fillion is pretty great as Guy, and as glad as I was that they chose to use that particular Lantern (certainly the best one to choose when it comes to contrasting against Superman's personality or brand of heroics) his powers looked a bit weird and fake to me whenever he used them. His constructs looked more like cheap plastic than hard light. (I thought his powers looked far better when seen from a great distance, as when he and the J.G. are fighting the "imp" in the background, and all we see of Green Lantern are some green flashes, beams and giant baseball bat).

Also, Guy seemed to be able to fly without any sort of aura around him, which isn't how I thought their rings worked, but whatever, I suppose that varies from artists to artist. 

Anyway, after this and 2011's Green Lantern, which I don't recall really selling Green Lantern constructs terribly effectively either, I'm left wondering if, like Metamorpho, those characters' powers are ill-suited to being depicted in live action.

•Maybe Neil DeGrasse Tyson will weigh in You know the bit where Superman, Krypto, Joey and Metamorpho are all being dragged toward the black hole in the pocket universe, and Superman uses his super-breath to push them away from it? Would that really work?

I'm asking, as I have no idea. 

It felt a little dubious, though, and I woulda preferred if Metamorpho turning into a rocket would have been all that was necessary to free them, as that seems a bit more cut and dry and, well, um "believable" (You know, in a scene involving a flying dog in a cape and a guy who can turn himself into a rocket).

•Another deep cut? I like that they included a scene involving what was essentially the old Daily Planet flying newsroom, when Perry orders the staff onto Mister Terrific's ship, where they can finish up the Luthor expose while flying through the air, as the city is imperiled by the dimensional breach.

•But enough about DC Comics I wonder if the Ultraman reveal has any impact on The Boys, either the show, which has yet to wrap up, or the comic book which, while years old at this point, is probably going to still keep being new for some readers...many of whom, in the future, will likely have seen Superman before reading. 

I thought the reveal of what Ultraman looked like under his mask was spectacularly obvious, based on his costume alone (so I've been expecting it for months now) and, wow, they sure telegraphed it by the scene relatively early in the film where the Fortress opened up to allow Luthor, Ultraman and The Engineer entrance. 

Anyway, that Ultraman costume looked a fair bit like Black Noir's comic book costume and, if you've already read The Boys, then you know the way in which Ultraman's relationship to Superman is similar to Black Noir's relationship to Homelander, The Boys' version of Superman. 

I've never watched the TV show, but, from what I've heard, the showrunners were planning on going in a different direction at the end than Garth Ennis and company did in the comic (it sounds awfully different in general, really), and thus I imagine that one particular reveal will play out different. 

For the folks making the show and the audience enjoying it, I hope that's the case at this point; it would be too bad if the new Superman movie inadvertently spoiled the ends of The Boys TV show.

•The fates of the non-Luthor villains Finally, while I'm not entirely sure how it could have been done differently, I was a bit disappointed that both Ultraman and the Boravian leader seemingly died at the end of the film.

This is, of course, in large part because of how sour the ending of the Man of Steel was, in which Superman took the life of his opponent, perhaps the most un-Supermanly thing he could have done in a film. 

Gunn certainly seemed to telegraph early and often that that's not his Superman, as he not only spent a lot of time saving people and even checking on them to make sure they were alright, but he also took pains to save a random barking dog and a squirrel, and expressed frustration with the Justice Gang for killing a giant monster threatening the city, rather than finding a non-lethal solution to the problem. And, of course, the motivation for some of Superman's actions in the movie are his concerns for a dog, Krypto.

The point was hard to miss: Superman not only cares about human life, he cares about all life. 

So while the killing off of Ultraman is somewhat ambiguous, with Superman kinda sorta knocking him into a black hole and not saving him, it still seemed somewhat out-of-character for this Superman. I kind of wish either Superman managed to save him and turn him into a friend off-screen, and we got a shot of a happy Ultraman in the Fortress at the end, or, even more simply, they had given Lex a line or two in which he states that Ultraman technically isn't even alive, but is some sort of biological automaton or something. 

That said, if a future movie has Ultraman come out of a blackhole with chalk-white skin, wearing a homemade Superman costume and talking backwards, well then, I'm totally fine with it.

As for the Boravian leader, Hawkgirl seemingly drops him to his death, a moment meant to draw another sharp contrast between Superman and the Justice Gang's brand of justice. It seems awfully harsh—especially if we're meant to see him as a stand-in for Vladimir Putin or Benjamin Netanyahu—and given what a big deal Superman's intervention in Boravia's invasion plan was in the world of the movie, well, the assassination of its leader seems like a much, much bigger deal, no? 

Given that Gunn thinks it's important to explain why Krypto is such a poorly behaved dog during that surprise cameo at the end—surely Superman could properly train a dog—his lack of explanation regarding the deaths of Ultraman and, maybe, that of the Boravian leader felt a bit jarring. 

Credit where credit is due: Who created who in Superman

•Superman and Lois Lane were created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster in 1938's Action Comics #1.

•Lex Luthor was created by Siegel and Shuster in 1940's Action Comics #23...althgough this earliest iteration, a typical criminal scientist type, went only by "Luthor" and had a full head of hair. His signature baldness seems to have originated from an artistic mistake in the Superman daily comic strip, and in 1960 Siegel added the loss of his hair into Luthor's backstory in Adventure Comics #271 with artist Al Plastino. It was in that same year that Luthor finally got the first name Lex, 20 years after his introduction. The businessman/corporate CEO version of the character was an innovation of John Byrne's post-Crisis 1986 reboot of the franchise, which began in The Man of Steel. Following Byrne, the character is usually depicted as a synthesis of mad scientist, supervillain and businessman. 

•Krypto was created by Otto Binder, Curt Swan and Sy Barry in 1955's Adventure Comis #210.

•The original Green Lantern was created by Martin Nodell and Bill Finger in 1940's All-American Comics #16, although the name and concept was refigured by John Broome, Gil Kane and Julius Schwartz and applied to new character Hal Jordan in 1959's Showcase #22. The Guy Gardner character was introduced by Broome and Kane in 1968's Green Lantern #59...although it's Steve Englehart and Joe Staton's 1985 version of the character from the pages of Green Lantern, further popularized by his appearances in various Justice League-related titles, that has become the dominant one...and informed the Superman film. (Staton seems to have originated the signature hairstyle, although artist Kevin Maguire exaggerated and perfected it.)

•The original Hawkgirl was created by Gardner Fox, Dennis Neville and Sheldon Moldoff in 1941's All Star Comics #5, in which supporting character Shiera Sanders first donned her own version of Hawkman's costume. While the film never gives its Hawkgirl's real name, the latest Hawkgirl is the Kendra Saunders version of the character, which was apparently created by writers James Robinson and David Goyer and first drawn by artists Scott Benefiel and Mark Popst in 1999's JSA Secret Files & Origins #1. 

•The original Mister Terrific was created by Charles Reizenstein and Hal Sharp in 1942's Sensation Comics #1. The second version of the character, Michael Holt, was created by John Ostrander and Tom Mandrake in 1997's Spectre #54 (And you can read more about that issue in my previous post). I can't figure out who designed his costume and T-Spheres, though, both of which made their first published appearance in 1999's JSA Secret Files & Origins #1, drawn by an artist credited only as "Grey."

•"Rex" is, of course, Rex Mason, better known as Metamorpho, The Element Man. He was created by Bob Haney and Ramona Fradon in 1965's The Brave and The Bold #57. His girlfriend Sapphire Stagg makes an unnamed cameo in the film, and there's a sign for her father Simon Stagg's business briefly visible at one point.

•The Engineer was created by disgraced writer Warren Ellis and artist Bryan Hitch in 1999's The Authority.

•The creation of Perry White is a bit complicated, given that he was not original to the Superman comics but was instead created for the Adventures of Superman radio serial in 1940. The character's creation is credited to George Ludlam (the radio folks contributed a lot to the Superman mythos that was then integrated into the comics) and he was played by Julian Noa, who probably deserves some credit, too. Siegel and artist Wayne Boring then introduced White into the comics, in 1940's Superman #7. 

•Jimmy Olsen has a similarly convoluted creation story. He too was introduced in the Adventures of Superman radio show, and producer Bob Maxwell gets credit for his creation, although surely the show's writer or writers and voice actor deserve some credit too, right? He was introduced into the comics by Siegel and Shuster in 1941's Superman #13, although the character wouldn't really seem to become himself until actor Jack Larson's portrayal of him on the 1952 Adventures of Superman TV show popularized him. He then got his own title Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen in 1954, and editor Mort Weisinger refocused the character in outlandish, comedic stories, often involving unlikely transformations.

•Eve Tessmacher and Otis were both created by director Richard Donner and writer Mario Puzo for the 1978 film Superman, and they were played by Valerie Perrine and Ned Beatty, respectively. 

•Steve Lombard was created by Carey Bates and Curt Swan in 1973's Superman #264.

•Cat Grant was created by Marv Wolfman and Jerry Ordway in 1987's The Adventures of Superman #424.

•"Troupe" is Ron Troupe, and he was created by Jerry Ordway and Tom Grummet in 1991's The Adventures of Superman #480.

•Superman's biological parents Jor-El and Lara were introduced by Siegel and Shuster in the Superman newspaper comic strip in 1939.

•The Kents had another slow-rolling creation, evolving over the years and across media. Superman's first appearance mentioned only that he was found as a baby by "a passing motorist." Siegel and Shuster introduced his adoptive parents in 1939's Superman #1, naming only Mrs. Kent as "Mary." Their names and the specifics of their finding and adopting the baby Superman changed a lot in the Golden Age, depending on the medium, and their part in the Superman story remains fairly fluid, with different comic takes and different mass media adaptations differing in the specifics of Superman being found...and whether one or both of the Kents are still alive or if they have passed away.

•Maxwell Lord was created by Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis and Kevin Maguire in 1987's Justice League #1.

Finally, this one gets a mild spoiler warning, although I am assuming anyone who sees the film will figure it out almost as soon as he appears on screen, if not before, as I had...

•"Ultraman" is the name of Superman's evil opposite doppelganger from Earth-3 and was created by Gardner Fox and Mike Sekowsky in 1964's Justice League of America #29. The version who appears in the new film is an imperfect clone of Superman made by Lex Luthor, and this backstory somewhat resembles that of John Byrne's 1986, post-Crisis origins of long-time Superman enemy Bizarro from the pages of 1986's The Man of Steel #5. (The original Bizarro, for what it's worth, was created by Otto Binder and George Papp for 1958's Superboy #68.)

DC Versus Marvel Omnibus Pt. 16: The Incredible Hulk Vs. Superman #1

This was actually the first and only of the many DC/Marvel crossovers contained in this collection that bought off the shelf and read when it was originally released. 

My interest was piqued by artist Steve Rude's dynamic painted cover, which seemed to feature not the regular comic book version of Superman, but, instead, the "real" Superman, the figure that directly inspired other interpretations, like the Fleischer cartoons, the 1950's TV show from Nick at Nite, the cartoons of my youth and even the '90s comic books I had read. 

Rather than just another drawing of Superman, it looked like the Platonic ideal of Superman on that cover, smashing boulders being heaved by what looked like the original, Jack Kirby-designed version of the Hulk. 

A quick flip-through of the slim, 48-page volume, offering panel after panel and page after page of Rude's sleek, beautiful pencil art inked by Al Milgrom sold me: This was a comic book that a comic book reader needed to have standing on his bookshelf, even one as young, inexperienced and as Marvel ambivalent as me (At the time, DC Versus Marvel and All-Access were among the only Marvel-related comics I had ever bought*).

Re-reading it about 25 years later near the very end of the DC Versus Marvel Omnibus, I was pleased to find that it still held up quite well, and I'm as happy to recommend it to anyone now as I would have been back when I was still in college. 

Much of that is due to the work of Rude, whose work I've seen far too little of in the years since, but, along with a handful of other artists, I've always considered to be an ideal superhero artist. Like, when I close my eyes and imagine a comic book superhero, I'm quite likely to see a figure as drawn by Rude. 

Rude's lay-outs for the book consist of many six-panel pages, with regular breaks from the format to keep it from becoming monotonous, but nothing too radical. There's a stately, classic look and feel to the pages of the book.

I've used the word "ideal" more than once to describe his work already, but that's really what his Superman looked like to me—and continues to look like, even if now I can see more specific influences in it. 

While Rude is very much working in his own particular style here, he, more than any other artist in this collection, also seems to be inspired and influenced by the work of the two characters' creators and, in Superman's case, later artists (and non-comics portrayals), to give us classic, original takes on the characters, characters that were, like all superhero comics characters, in constant flux and which, by the end of the '90s, didn't really resemble their original iterations all that strongly. 

The script, by Roger Stern, rather cleverly anchors the book in the modern day of 1999, while setting the majority of the story in some nebulous past, which I guess would probably be somewhere in the early 1960s or so, based on the looks of the fashions, cars and settings...and on the particular statuses of the featured characters.

Stern builds in a framing sequence that is set in the apparent "now" (or the now of 1999, anyway), with Lois Lane sitting on a couch watching a documentary about "Doctor Robert Bruce Banner-- --and the curse of the Incredible Hulk."

"Hi, Honey! I'm home..." Superman calls and, after entering through the window, the pair kiss and chat briefly, before the Man of Steel notices what she's watching. 

This leads to a bit of reflection, as Superman notes that both he and Banner have lead double lives ("Double Lives" is actually the title of the story) and he briefly re-tells their origins mostly for the benefit of the readers.

He then says, "I can't begin to imagine what life must have been like for Banner..." as a series of three panels zooms closer and closer to the Hulk's face, and, in the last panel in the sequence it looms large over the silhouette of a sleeping figure, crying "No! No!!" The words "...ALL THOSE YEARS AGO", apparently the end of Superman's sentence, run like a bridge beneath the panels and draw the reader into the story that will fill most of the book's pages.

At the end of that story, we return to Lois and Clark's living room in the present, where they reflect on the "ending" of Bruce's story, with his marriage to Betty Ross, his identity becoming public, and her death. They note how troubled Banner and Betty's life was, and how lucky they themselves are, and then, when Superman wonders where Bruce is now, the scene shifts to a row of television sets in storefront window, with Banner's reflection watching the final scenes of the documentary about his life, before turning and walking off, an image of the Hulk in the sky above his tiny figure. 

In between? Well, in that vague past that Stern sets his crossover in, Banner awakens from a nightmare—he was the sleeping figure in the abovementioned sequence, of course—in a hidden lab, and transforms into The Hulk, to the surprise of his friend and confidante, Rick Jones. 

Hulk storms off, eventually landing at a barbeque in Arizona, where the hungry brute avails himself of the chicken.

Meanwhile, reporter Clark Kent is at a midwestern college, interviewing a Professor Carson about his new breakthrough, a "triangulating seismograph" capable of predicting earthquakes. It's this machine that alerts Kent of something happening in Arizona, resulting in a big panel occupying two-thirds of a page, in which Superman stands atop a rock ledge, hands on his hips, to confront The Hulk, who is busily stuffing chicken into his mouth with his bare hands.

"So you're the big shot from back East, huh?" The Hulk says, as Superman floats down to him. "Well, I wouldn't say that--!" Superman replies. "Neither would I!" The Hulk says, throwing the first punch. Sick burn, Hulk!

After a brief scuffle, The Hulk throws Superman into space and, by the time the Man of Steel returns, The Hulk has moved on (I suppose it's worth noting that, in this story, the pair are much more evenly matched in terms of strength, as opposed to the first time they came to blows, way back in 1981's Marvel Treasury Edition #28). 

Back at the Daily Planet office (where the computers seem to suggest this is actually taking place sometime in the earlier '90s, as retro as so much of the rest of the book may look), Lois sees that Clark is researching The Hulk, and worried he's going to get another superhero scoop on her after his breaking the Superman story, she beats him to editor Perry White, asking him to assign her a story on The Hulk.

Clark, now needing a new assignment to cover his investigation of The Hulk as Superman, pitches a profile on Dr. Bruce Banner. At the time, the fact that Banner actually is The Hulk isn't common knowledge, but Banner is associated with The Hulk and seems to be in the general vicinity of him most of the time. 

They're not the only citizens of Metropolis heading to the American southwest, though. After Rick manages to track down The Hulk and toss some special tranquilizers down his mouth, Banner returns to the army base to meet with a corporate VIP that General Thaddeaus "Thunderbolt" Ross is hosting: Lex Luthor, who Rude draws as middle-aged, a little on the heavy side, and with notable red eyebrows and a fringe of red hair around the side and back of his bald head.

Luthor, a major army contractor, wants to recruit Banner for Lexcorp, which he is fairly obvious about, and, less so, The Hulk to battle Superman, and he has therefore come on something of a charm offensive...coupled with some espionage. 

Luthor's plotting ultimately involves a robot duplicate of The Hulk, which naturally leads to the real Hulk and Superman coming to blows again, this time for a longer, more drawn-out fight than their earlier skirmish. And before the two can manage to make nice, as battling superheroes inevitably do, Luthor turns Banner's massive Gamma Gun on them both.

Stern spends plenty of real estate on getting the two casts together in various configurations throughout, not just the title characters fighting, but their secret identities chatting, their love interests sharing a car ride and being imperiled together, Luthor and Ross talking about The Hulk and military might, and so on (Like Lois, using the sex appeal Rude gives her to try to get Rick's attention for an interview about the Hulk, for example).

While I'm certainly not as familiar with The Hulk as I am Superman (particularly this earlier, original iteration of the character), I have to imagine that with Stern and Rude doing so right by the characters, they also did right by their respective fans. 

This was, of course, one of the last few crossovers DC and Marvel would manage before they quit cooperating on stories again, so I'm glad that their collaboration lasted long enough to give it to us this particular crossover. 

Next: 2000's Batman/Daredevil: King of New York #1

*Oh, and The Ren & Stimpy Show #1 and #6.

DC Versus Marvel Omnibus Pt. 15: Superman/Fantastic Four #1

Despite their place of honor as Marvel's First Family and theirs being the original comic book that kicked off what would quite quickly become the Marvel Universe, the Fantastic Four had yet to appear in a DC/Marvel crossover as the 20th century was drawing to a close. Not even the 1996 DC Versus Marvel series, which seemed to feature everyone, had made any real room for them, with The Human Torch and The Thing sharing only a single-panel cameo in all of its pages, and the other half of the team not even getting that much space.

Perhaps that was simply because their number made them harder to pair with DC characters. Maybe it seemed like with four of them, there were just too many of them to meet up with DC's traditional crossover stars Superman or Batman, and yet there was also too few of them to battle against and/or team-up with a whole DC team, like the Justice League, Titans or New Gods. DC did have a couple of quartets in their character catalog, in the form of the Doom Patrol and Kirby-created Challengers of the Unknown, but perhaps neither was considered a good fit for the FF and a high-profile book like an inter-company crossover.

Whatever the reason, they seemed pretty low on the DC/Marvel crossover priority list, not being featured until they shared this 1999 book with The Man of Steel (Who, like the FF, was the first character in what would grow into a whole superhero universe).

It seems to have been writer/artist Dan Jurgens—who had at that point long been associated with DC Comics and Superman in particular but had more recently branched out to work for Marvel on Sensational Spider-Man and Thor—who found some connective tissue between the two franchises. 

He drew a line between Superman as the Last Son of Krypton and the FF's planet-destroying opponent Galactus, and further involved his own creation and pet character Cyborg Superman, whose own origin was so clearly based on that of the Fantastic Four. 

The resultant comic, officially entitled "The Infinite Destruction", would differ from most of the other DC/Marvel crossovers in two ways.

First, while it's not obvious from its collection in the DC Versus Marvel Omnibus we've been reviewing our way through, the book was published at the same bigger, 10-inch by 13.5-inch "treasury format" that the first three DC/Marvel crossovers of the late '70s and early '80s were.

This was no doubt a great showcase for Jurgens' art, which is here finished by Art Thibert and colored by Gregory Wright. Even at the smaller size, it looks good; cleaner and smoother than usual. (Although, having seen so much of Jurgens' '90s art of late, I still think it looks best inked by Jerry Ordway in 1994's Zero Hour: Crisis in Time). 

The cover is pretty cool, too. You can't really tell from that bum image at the top of my post, but it was by Alex Ross, painting over Jurgens' pencils, and no doubt instilling the image with an epic sweep that flattered the book. 

Second, in terms of its premise, Superman/Fantastic Four was one of the few such stories in which the DC and Marvel Universes were treated as separate and distinct dimensions within the greater multiverse, their barrier breachable only under certain conditions. 

This was, of course, the case with the1996 Green Lantern/Silver Surfer: Unholy Alliances and Silver Surfer/Superman and, obviously, that same year's DC Versus Marvel, which established a regular means for traveling between the universes going forward in its character Access, who would go on to star in the DC/Marvel: All Access and Unlimited Access, both of which involved Superman travelling to the Marvel Universe (Though he never met the FF on either occasion). 

Here, the people in the Marvel Universe seem to know Superman quite well, but in a way similar to that in which the people of our universe know him: He has a cartoon show that Franklin Richards and Ben Grimm both watch, and Franklin has a Superman toy he carries around with him, apparently occasionally peppering his mother with questions about the DC Universe's hero.

When Superman receives a Kryptonian communication crystal that projects a hologram of his father Jor-El that tells him that Krypton's destruction was actually hastened along by a feeding Galactus, the Man of Steel notes aloud that he has "heard whispers of his existence from the heroes of the other universe." Realizing that if Galactus is able to enter into Superman's own universe, then he could potentially pose a threat to his Earth someday, and he flies off to find experts on the dangerous cosmic entity.

"And to find them...I need Access," he says.

Superman apparently finds him off-panel, and through his powers makes his way to the Marvel Universe, where the story picks up with Superman arriving at the Fantastic Four's then-base, Pier Four. No sooner does Superman arrive though, then villains attack. 

Hank Henshaw, the Cyborg Superman, emerges from the Kryptonian crystal (he had apparently seen it arriving in Earth orbit and hitched a ride) and he immediately possesses the FF's computers and defenses and uses them against the heroes. 

Meanwhile, Galactus arrives, abducts Superman, infuses him with the power cosmic and makes him his new herald, which involves a bit of a makeover: Superman's cape disappears, and his skin and costume both turn a shiny gold color.

Galactus teleports his new herald aboard his ship, with Reed wrapped around him, and then sets off to resume his planet-eating lifestyle.

Meanwhile, the remaining Fantastic three strike a bargain with Cyborg Superman: If he will help them track Galactus through space, using the Kryptonian crystal, then they will release him from Sue's forcefield cage. He agrees, largely because he wants to become Galactus' all-powerful herald (That is, after all, why he had been hiding in the intercepted crystal after all). 

What follows is an adventure through space, as the FF try to stop Superman and Galactus from finding and eating new, inhabited planets. This involves the FF fighting Superman and Galactus. But as Superman is in his new, souped-up herald form—Reed calls him the second most powerful being in existence, presumably behind only Galactus—they're even a less of a match for him then they would usually be.

It will eventually take Reed's smarts and Franklin reminding Superman of his true self to free the Man of Steel from Galactus' thrall, thwart the planet-eating giant, and reach a sort of detente with him that resolves the conflict long enough to end the book. 

There's not much more to it, really, and it turns out to be not necessarily that great of a Fantastic Four story, which was perhaps inevitable, given its main contributor being such a longtime Superman creator. That is, it's not that difficult to imagine this story existing without the FF in it at all; it can certainly be seen as a Superman/Galactus story more than a Superman/Fantastic Four story. 

As for concerns that Jurgens here irrevocably changes Superman lore by putting Galactus at Krypton as it dies, it turns out that story was an invention of the Cyborg Superman, who had over-written and altered the contents of the Kryptonian crystal when he possessed it. 

Thus, things go back to normal for all of the characters involved at the end of the crossover, as is ever the case. Although Franklin does get to keep Superman's cape as a souvenir.

At this late date, the crossovers were winding down, with only three more to go before they officially ceased. One of these—in fact, the very next one—would again feature Superman, and end up being perhaps one of the better, if not the all-around best, of the DC/Marvel crossovers.

Next: 1999's Incredible Hulk vs. Superman

DC Versus Marvel Omnibus Pt. 11: Silver Surfer/Superman #1

Okay, serious question for those who were reading Marvel comics at the time: Was the Silver Surfer a really popular character in the mid-90's...? 

I only ask because this was the second consecutive DC/Marvel crossover in which he starred, and if we look at all four of the standalone crossover one-shots that the two publishers released in 1995 and 1996, the Surfer was prominently featured in three of 'em. 

I know he was carrying his own ongoing title back then—according to Comics.org, The Silver Surfer launched in 1987 and lasted through 1998, running 146 issues—but when I think of popular Marvel characters of the '90s, I tend to think of Spider-Man, Wolverine, The Punisher and Ghost Rider, not Norrin Radd. 

Was he really one of their top characters, or was he simply over-represented in these crossovers, a Marvel character that the various creators involved just saw fit to repeatedly meet with members of the Distinguished Competition's roster? 

At any rate, the character returned to the spotlight in Silver Surfer/Superman #1, a one-shot special published just six months after the DC Versus Marvel miniseries wrapped; obviously, that event series wasn't meant to be any sort of climax or culmination of the publishers' 1990s crossovers, as they would continue unabated for a few more years. (Which means, of course, there are still plenty more posts yet to go in this series).

This time the creative team would consist of the popular and talented George Perez, here relegated to scripting only, with no hand in the art, and the prolific Ron Lim, who had by this point produced plenty of pages for the Silver Surfer comic, not to mention many of Marvel's other titles. (He'd also drawn Superman at that point, but not for any great length.) 

Perez, meanwhile, had written a run on Silver Surfer, and had plenty experience drawing Superman in different capacities for various titles.

Finally, rounding out the creative team was veteran inker Terry Austin, whose name didn't make the cover, as you can see above. (Nor did that of colorist Tom Smith.)

Their Silver Surfer/Superman story really seems premised on the meeting of the villains in the piece; while Superman and the Surfer do indeed have a couple of things in common, it's the villains of this story fulfill similar niches in each publisher's respective universe. In fact, a pretty strong case can made that one's portrayal is based on that of the other.

These villains are, of course, Mr. Mxyzptlk, a character dating back to a 1944 comic from Superman's creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, and The Impossible Man, a one-time Fantastic Four character created in 1963 by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee who had since gone on to mess with various other Marvel characters, the Surfer included.

Though their exact natures and powers varied a bit—Mxy was a fifth dimensional imp with seemingly limitless magic powers, while the Impossible Man hailed from the planet Poppup and had extraordinary shape-shifting abilities—both were diminutive pranksters that enjoyed teasing strait-laced heroes, and the stories featuring them were generally more comedic in nature, offering a temporary respite from the more standard and serious superhero fare. 

Thus, this story, entitled "Pop!" is really more of a Mr. Mxyzptlk/Impossible Man crossover than a Superman/Silver Surfer one. 

It's kind of too bad that the villains, if we can really call them that, are so prominently placed on the book's wraparound cover, as it spoils their presence, draining the What's going on? melodrama that our heroes experience at the beginning of the tale, when they find themselves in strange, even impossible circumstances. 

Superman is just finishing up a routine patrol of Metropolis when he disappears in a "Pop", reappearing on what seems to be an intact and populated Krypton...although he can tell from the positions of the stars that he hasn't traveled back in time, and that, as impossible as it seems, this Krypton exists in the present day.

After tangling with Kryptonian soldiers, he's faced with a much more formidable foe: The Super-Skrull!

Meanwhile, The Silver Surfer is investigating a mysterious planet in deep space, when he also disappears in a "Pop", reappearing in Metropolis, where he finds things are very wrong. It's not just that everyone's afraid of him and calling for a "Superman" to come save them, but his powers don't seem to be working quite right, and when he tries to flee for space, he rams into and shatters some sort of glass barrier.

The Surfer soon finds himself standing outside a miniaturized, "bottled" Metropolis, in what appears to be Superman's Fortress of Solitude...although the fortress seems endless, ever-changing, sentient and...to have a sense of humor...?

Superman eventually figures out what's going on—or at least thinks he does—and he punches out the Super-Skrull while shouting in big red letters, "GAME OVER, IMP!!"

It turns out he's got the wrong alien prankster though, as the Super-Skrull was really the Impossible Man in disguise, not Mxyzptlk. Impossible Man then explains the situation to Superman: He ran into Mr. Mxyzptlk (who he continually refers to as "Mixed Pickles") in one of the "dimensional interfaces" that he travels through when popping. They hit it off, and came up with a challenge of sorts, where they would swap playmates with one another. 

Mxy doesn't play entirely fair, however, leading to he and Impossible Man battling one another in a fun four-page sequence where they each take on the appearances of heroes from their respective universes, only color-coded, so that green and purple Marvel characters fight orange and purple DC characters. This gives us a rapid succession of strange panels like Thanos punching out Plastic Man and Wonder Woman blocking Wolverine's claws with her bracelets and so on.

Eventually, thanks to the Impossible Man's trickery and some similar quick-thinking from our heroes, all four end up in the same place at the same time, and Mxy is prevailed upon to join his powers with the Impossible Man's and put the heroes back in their home universes.

This is, by the way, another crossover in which the DC and Marvel characters are explicitly denizens of two separate universes, their crossover only made possible by the villains' extraordinary powers piercing the border between the DC Universe and the Marvel Universe. Perhaps also worth mentioning? At one point, Access from DC Versus Marvel is name-dropped by the Impossible Man: "Mixed Pickles and I found out it took both our combined powers to make the switchover between you and the Surfer work," he explains to Superman, "Neither one of us is Access after all."

Overall, it's a rather fun outing, and the best kind of crossover, one that finds similar characters from each publisher and lets them play off of one another, comparing and contrasting them. It's just that in this case, somewhat unusually, it's the antagonists more than the heroes who are most similar.



Next: 1997's Batman & Captain America #1

DC Versus Marvel Omnibus Pt. 3: Marvel Treasury Edition #28

Superman vs. The Amazing Spider-Man must have been a success for DC and Marvel, as it was followed by a second crossover starring the pair, although almost everything other than the headliners would be different in the sequel: Different creators, different villains and a different way of assembling and publishing the book. 

Reading it in 2024, and immediately after reading its predecessor, I think it suffers somewhat in comparison with the original. Certainly, some of that may be due to the fact that this is the second go-round, and it therefore doesn't feel as special as the first, but that can't entirely account for what seems like an overall dip in quality. 

As previously mentioned, the second Superman/Spider-Man crossover wasn't as painfully, painstakingly produced as the first, with the two publishers negotiating over every decision and every panel. Instead, by the time of its publication in 1981 (and one does wonder why it took them five years for a follow-up), DC and Marvel decided to take turns producing their crossovers, with each publishing a crossover in-house (Marvel would handle this one, while DC would be responsible for the Batman/Hulk crossover published later that same year).

Thus the story was published in what was technically Marvel Treasury Edition #28, although the painted John Romita Sr. and Bob Larkin cover simply blares "Superman and Spider-Man". Marvel Treasury Edition, which launched in 1971 and ended with this very issue, consisted of Marvel comics printed in the "Treasury" format, meaning they were over-sized 10-inch-by-14-inch tabloids...so, as with the original crossover, this one would have been in a bigger format than those of most comics at the time.

This time the creative team would consist of writer Jim Shooter, who had previously written plenty of Superman comics for DC at the start of his career and was, at the time, the Editor-in-Chief of Marvel, and pencil artist John Buscema. The artist would be inked by a whole cadre of inkers; the credit box gives Joe Sinnnott a "figures inked by" credit, while nine different inkers are listed under "Backgrounds inked by" (These are all name artists that most modern readers would recognize and include the likes of Walt Simonson and Klaus Janson).

The villains our heroes would be facing off against this time are both rather odd choices, at least compared to the original crossover, which featured their respective archenemies Lex Luthor and Doctor Octopus.

Here the Marvel villain is Dr. Doom, who had, of course, crossed paths with Spider-Man (as well as most Marvel heroes) over the years, but is nevertheless more of a Fantastic Four villain or a Marvel Universe-in-general villain, rather than a Spidey-specific one (Although I do recall him being prominently featured in the opening sequence of 1981 Saturday morning cartoon Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends, one of my first introductions to Spider-Man). Of course, putting Superman and Doctor Doom in the same comic was probably a great temptation, so I don't suppose one can blame Shooter for taking this extremely rare opportunity to do so. 

As for the Superman villain, it's The Parasite, who is such a relatively minor member of the Man of Steel's rogues' gallery that he seems rather out of place here, especially considering that the previous crossover featured Luthor. Using Parasite in such a high-profile Superman story seems somewhat random, like using, I don't know, Terra-Man. In Marv Wolfman's introduction, which originally ran in 1991 collection Crossover Classics and is collected in the omnibus, he points out that Shooter had created The Parasite, which may explain the villain's presence here. 

Also somewhat odd for a Superman/Spider-Man crossover? The book has guest-stars. Both Marvel's The Incredible Hulk and DC's Wonder Woman appear rather prominently in the book, particularly the former, who is rather central to the plot (As for the latter, she seems almost shoehorned in, present mainly to offer a DC counterweight to the Hulk's appearance). Referring to Wolfman's introduction again, the reason for the pair's appearances in this book was apparently simply because both were on TV at the time, and so the publishers had requested they appear in the story as well. 

As for that story, it is driven by Doom's latest ambitious plan to conquer the world. This, which isn't thoroughly explained until fairly late into the 62-page story, involves controlling The Hulk with a sonic device, freeing Parasite from his special underground prison, a series of underground bases hidden under construction sites all over the world, destroying all of the world's fossil fuels, plunging the world into chaos and, finally, swooping in to reveal his new energy source, which he claims in equivalent to a small star, after which point he will be declared king of the world.

As for Parasite's role, it seems mainly manufactured to include him in the proceedings; Doom needs his powers to ultimately operate his new fuel source, but he strings Parasite along, promising to feed him the captured superheroes Doom collects throughout the story. 

The book opens with two parallel columns on the inside cover just as the previous crossover did, although here instead of introductions by that project's editors Stan Lee and Carmine Infantino, they are short prose pieces with seven tiny inset illustrations, dedicated to recapping the two heroes' origins.

After we're briefly introduced to the Spider-Man on the title page—the tale is officially called "The Heroes and the Holocaust!", although the holocaust in question refers to the dictionary definition of the word, not the historical one that immediately comes to mid—and a brief action sequence, we get two rather interminable pages of Doom talking to himself in his underground lair. It's so overdone as to almost be funny. Certainly, the point where Doom commands a lackey to make sure he's recording his "every utterance" and to produce a transcript he can review later on, is genuinely funny, but man, it just goes on and on.

I should here pause to note that I've never actually read anything Shooter has written before (at least, not to my knowledge, anyway), his time at DC and Marvel preceding my interest in comics by a decade or more, and I was rather surprised to find out just how wordy he is. Panels that could use a word balloon or two might get seven, and some panels where words aren't even necessary will get four paragraphs.

I've always associated this sort of over-writing with early Marvel, and its founding writer/editor Stan Lee's efforts to contribute something of his own to the clear storytelling of his collaborators like Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, so I'm not sure how much of this is Shooter, and how much of it is simply Marvel's house style at the time, but there is a ton of verbiage in this comic, far more than in the crossover that preceded it. 

Anyway, in the tenth straight panel of Doom's monologuing, he reveals "Operation H!", which is to send The Hulk to Metropolis. Also on the way to Metropolis? Down on his luck Daily Bugle photog Peter Parker, who needs to make money to take girls to Elvis Costello concerts and pay his aunt's hospital bills; his editor, J. Jonah Jameson, points to a poster of Superman on his office wall (Funny we never see that in any other Marvel comics!) and tells Parker he would certainly pay for photos of a Hulk/Superman fight, which seems to be brewing. 

The fight does indeed take place, in an eight-page sequence in which the Man of Steel tries to talk the Hulk down to no effect, and blows are traded. Somewhat surprisingly, though the Hulk tackles Superman and gets in a devastating sucker punch, he's really no match for Superman, the fight ending with Superman planting his feet and letting Hulk strike him repeatedly, to no visible effect.

Superman: "Not this time, Hulk! You caught me by surprise--once! This time, I'm ready! And when I'm ready...and I don't want to be moved, no power on Earth-- --can move me!"  

Hulk: "RRRRAH!"

Having read other Superman/Hulk fights (in the pages of 1996's DC Versus Marvel, which will be collected in the upcoming DC Versus Marvel: The Amalgam Age Omnibus, and in Roger Stern and Steve Rude's 1999 The Incredible Hulk Vs. Superman #1, collected in this very volume), and having seen Superman beaten to death by the Hulk-like Doomsday in 1993, the one-sidedness of the fight seemed off, especially given the fact that this was a Marvel produced book, but then I suppose this is the pre-Crisis Superman, whose power levels were of the planet-juggling variety, and not even the strongest one there is can knock him on his heels.

After several panels of the Hulk trying to do just that, Superman's vision powers diagnose the problem: "A micro-miniature drone...emitting an ultrasonic screech at a frequency that drives the Hulk wild!" With that destroyed, Hulk loses interest in the fight—"Cape-Man talks stupid! Cape-Man is stupid! Hulk should smash anyway-- --but Hulk is tired!"—and reverts to a shirtless Bruce Banner and is taken away to S.T.A.R. Labs. (Peter Parker, who was there to take pictures of the fight, briefly suits up as Spider-Man, but Superman waves him off.)

What was the point of all that, other than to get the Hulk in the comic? Well, apparently Doom planned it so that at one point the Hulk would strike the ground in a specific spot with a powerful enough blow to free the Parasite from his prison.

While in town, Parker runs into Jimmy Olsen, who recognizes him and buys him a cup of coffee. They get to talking, and ultimately Parker sells his photos to the much-more-generous-than-Jameson Perry White, and he decides to stick around Metropolis for a while, freelancing for the Daily Planet. (And asking out Lana Lang and falling prey to one of Steve Lombard's practical jokes; at this point in his history, Parker was apparently single).

Meanwhile, Clark Kent relocates to New York City and goes to the Daily Bugle to look for some work while he's there. He suspects Doom is behind the Hulk rampage/Parasite prison escape business ("Only two men alive could have engineered something like that...and I happen to know that one of them, Lex Luthor, is safely locked away!"), so he wants to keep an eye on him, as well as maintain a high profile as Clark Kent in NYC, in an attempt to "draw fire" away from his friends in Metropolis.

But mainly it's just fun to see the two trade cities and supporting casts for a while.

Eventually, Spider-Man infiltrates one of Doom's underground bases, where he finds Wonder Woman rather randomly in the process of fighting off a horde of the villain's soldiers. She's eventually captured, and put into a stasis tube alongside the Hulk, who Doom had captured off-panel.

After hearing Doom's master plan as laid out to Parasite—a 12-panel sequence—Spidey goes for help and finds Superman. Together, the pair storm the base, battle the villains and, at the climax, team-up to stop Doom's malfunctioning experimental star-like power source, which threatens to destroy the entire world. To do this, Superman rushes into the reactor and hugs it, apparently keeping it from exploding with his bare hands, while he tells Spider-Man to figure out how to shut the thing off (Doom has long since retreated to a pre-readied rocket ship, having assumed the Earth was toast and planning to escape the planet.)

As impossible as their tasks may seem, the two heroes manage to save the day and, afterwards, return to their respective cities, jobs and supporting casts. 

Having already met one another once and gotten along, there is no need for the fight-then-team-up ritual here, and so the most exciting action sequences involve Superman vs. The Hulk and Spidey vs. The Parasite, who borrows his spider-powers from him (Though she initially tries to lasso him, Wonder Woman and Spider-Man never actually fight one another). 

So that aspect of a crossover is out, but, somewhat oddly, Superman and Spider-Man aren't really together throughout most of the book.  

During the Hulk battle, for example, when Spider-Man is about to confront the Hulk, taking over for the punched-out-of-the-panel Superman, the Man of Steel suddenly returns and shoos Spidey away: "Step aside, son! This is a job for Superman!" (Spidey responds with, "Hey! Hold on, big shot! What am I--? The water boy?" and then, after Superman has crushed the drone driving Hulk and solved the problem, the wall-crawler slinks back into an alley, saying "Now I know what a fifth wheel feels like!")

It's only at the climax that the two really work together, and even then, they don't share all that many panels with one another, as they divide up their world-saving duties. 

As with Shooter, I'm not terribly familiar with the work of artist John Buscema, although consulting his list of credits on Wikipedia, I see that I definitely read at least one book he drew (2001's Just Imagine Stan Lee and John Buscema Creating Superman), although given the number of comics he's drawn over the years for Marvel, I'm sure I've encountered his work at least a few times, likely in the pages of Conan collections or those phonebook-like Essential volumes.

He does a fine job on the art here, although it's notable that at no point does he seem to be given the sorts of showcases afforded Ross Andru in the first Superman/Spider-Man team-up, which featured multiple splashes and double-page splashes. The closest he gets is a single splash page, the title page, wherein most of the visual real estate is eaten up by the title and credits and the figure of Spider-Man swinging into action that appears is relatively small and seen from behind.

Later, when Superman first appears, he gets something of a splash page, although two inset panels also eat into it. 

The rest of the pages are fairly panel-packed, which, when coupled-with all of Shooter's dialogue bubbles and narration boxes, gives the book a cramped, crowded feel. I do wonder how it would have read in the bigger size it was originally published in, but Marvel doesn't seem to have taken special advantage of that size to really show off its heroes, their crossing paths or Buscema's art. 

The real pleasure of the book—aside from seeing the two heroes' secret identities working at one another's newspapers, which is obviously a lot of fun—is probably Shooter and Buscema pitting the world's greatest hero (That would be Superman, obviously) against the comic books' greatest villain (Doctor Doom). It's little surprise, then, that the strongest scene is that in which Superman visits the Latverian embassy and the two characters trade dialogue and worldviews before Doom tries to kill Superman, fails and then simply crosses his arms and says "Bah!" when Superman foils him, as his diplomatic immunity spares him of facing any real consequences. 

Overall though, this isn't a particularly strong comic, which is quite disappointing given the relative rarity of DC and Marvel characters sharing space and, of course, that the previous effort was so much stronger. But, as mentioned earlier, this wasn't 1981's only DC/Marvel crossover and, thankfully, the other one turned out pretty great. 

Next: 1981's DC Special Series #27, featuring Batman and The Hulk