Favourite comics: Superman #247 - Must there be a Superman?

The early 1970's was the period that Superman shed his silver age trappings of silly hoaxes and imaginary stories in an effort to making him more relevant to the readers of the 1970's (and perhaps to also compete with Marvel). One of the central tales in the revamping of the character was the above #247 (January 1972) where the question was asked " Must there be a Superman?".

The first time I saw the above cover (by Curt Swant/Murphy Anderson) featuring the Guardians of the Universe I thought (hoped?) that this would involve a meeting between the Green Lantern and Superman. Instead the tale which was Elliot S Maggins very first comic book story, revolved around the much deeper (comic book) concept of whether or not Superman's very presence on Earth was hindering the development and evolution of Humanity. At the time (1972) this was a pretty mindblowing concept and a cracking issue.

Afer being knocked unconscious while trying to avert a tragedy in space Superman is rescued by the Guardians of the Universe who tell him that his actions may be impeding the progress of humans.

While Superman considers what they said, he gets involved in the problems in a migrant camp where some striking workers are being verbally and physically abused by their boss. A teen (Manuel) who was being assaulted tells Superman of his story of moving from Mexico to the US to find better opportunities. While visiting Manuels village the locals plead with Superman to sort out their labour problems for them, Just then an earthquake strikes which Superman stops. He then tells the crowd that while he can solve problems like natural disasters, they must be responsible for the things that they can control.

As he flies away, he hears a news story about a ship being battered by the waves at sea and jets off to save them. Back on Oa, the Guardians watch his actions on a large screen and are convinced that they have succeeded in making him reassess his role in humanity's development.

In additon to the above main story, this issue also included an excellent back-up tale of "The Private Life of Clark Kent" by Denny O'Neil with some stunning art by the SwanAnderson team.

In this sotry Clark Kent learns that a receptioanist at WGBS' brother is running with a teenage gang. Clark decides to help and confronts the youths without the aid of his Superman alter ego. This 8 page tale has some fun touches like the above page where Clark trys smoking a pipe.

This issue rounds up with a nice reprint from "Action Comics" #338 (1966) - back in 1972 we got a lot of quality comics for our 25 cents (or in my case 7 1/2p).

Bring on the Back-Ups - The Origin of Terra-Man - Dick Dillin & Neal Adams

As far as I was aware the above issue of Superman issue 249 cover dated March 1972 (cover by Neal Adams) featured the very first appearance of Terra-Man, a then new adversary for the Man of Steel. However, it always struck me as strange that the first story in this comic entitled “The Challenge of Terra -Man" written by Cary Bates with art by Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson, superseded Terra-Man’s actual origin story. That story took place after Terra-Man’s first encounter with Superman in the tale “The Origin of Terra-Man". Although this wasn’t the greatest origin tale or character this story has always stuck in my memory as it featured the art of two of my favourite comic artists, Dick Dillon and the legendary Neal Adams. Enjoy the pictures below:

Above: The splash page to the first Terra-Man tale "The Challenge of Terra -Man" by Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson.

A New Year and a new Superman, 1970’s style

1971 was an important year for myself as it was the year that I left the comfort of primary school to undertake my secondary school education. 1971 was also an important year for Superman as this was the year that he shed his Silver Age trappings and became a “modern character” for the 1970's. This transformation would see Superman lose some of his powers , the numerous multi-coloured Kryptonite’s that affected him were changed to iron, his boss changed from Perry White at the Daily Planet to Morgan Edge at Galaxy Broadcasting and the reliance on silly storylines, twists, hoaxes and flashbacks ended. To announce these changes, DC ran several 2 page house ads with the final one appearing (as the one page ad above) in Superman issue 233, an already impressive issue with that wonderfully iconic Neal Adams cover.

The second page of the DC house ads showed how Superman had evolved from the Golden age the Silver age and onto the then current Bronze Age. This page also summerised other changes that would take place across the entire DC Superman Family line of books with Jimmy Olsen being taken over by Jack Kirby, Lois Lane evolving into a more rounded character with a new back up feature "The Rose and the Thorn", Supergirl got a new costume and the Legion of Superheroes started to appear more regularly in the Superboy title.

The core of the new Superman storyline arc was the excellent “Sandman Saga" which appeared in Superman issues 233 - 235, 237 - 238, 240 - 242 (the latter 2 issues being my all time favourite Superman comics) . Following his memorable runs on the Batman books and Green Lantern/Green Arrow Denny O'Neil was brought in to write the new Superman tales. Along with Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson, one of comics greatest ever art teams (and Neal Adams on covers) they produced arguably the best Superman tale of the bronze age. Beginning with issue 233 the story began with an archetypal situation where a scientist is trying to create an engine powered by kryptonite, when the experiment suddenly goes wrong all kryptonite on Earth becomes harmless iron. However this accident also allows a Superman “double” to emerge from the dimension of Quarm. Superman discovers that this duplicate of himself is draining him of all his powers and that the duplicate is also intending to take over as Superman. Sadly after this excellent storyline concluded, DC pulled the plug on this "new" version of Superman and Cary Bates became the new writer from "Superman" #243 returning Superman for the most part, to his silver age roots. But those short lived stories of the NEW Superman were wonderful and the stunning Neal Adams covers below (issue 238 being by Infantino and Anderson)in no way outshine the great scripts and the wonderful art of the Swan/Anderson art team. This is "my" Superman and sometimes we simply shouldn’t let “auld acquaintances be forgotten”.