Review by Win Wiacek
The daily Superman newspaper comic strip launched on 16th January 1939, but this selection picks up with Episode 107 running from April 6th to July 11th 1959.
Sidney Friedfertig’s introduction explains how and why Jerry Siegel transformed recently published comic tales into daily newspaper continuities for that apparently more sophisticated and discerning audience. It involved major rewrites, frequent plot and tone changes and occasionally merging two stories into one. However, these are not mere rehashes, but variations on an idea for an audience perceived as completely separate.
‘Earth’s Super-Idiot!’ by Siegel and Swan is mostly original, but borrows from the author’s own ‘The Trio of Steel’, showcasing an unscrupulous telepathic alien producer of “Realies” who blackmails Superman into making a fool and villain of himself for extraterrestrial viewers.
Our hero then learns Lois Lane is to marry a brutish wrestler, and he acts to foil her plans. After that Superman reluctantly tries to make a dying billionaire laugh in return for the miserable misanthrope signing over his entire fortune to charity.
‘Captive of the Amazons’ takes the strip from 1959 to 1960 and details how alien queen Jena arrives on Earth intent on marrying Superman. When he refuses she removes his Kryptonian abilities, subsequently trapping the Daily Planet staff in a lost valley of monsters.
‘The Superman of the Future’ has Superman swap places with a hyper-evolved descendent intent on preventing four catastrophic historical disasters, and ‘The Cry-Baby of Metropolis’ finds Lois disastrously exposing herself to a youth ray. ‘The Super-Servant of Crime’ sees Superman outsmarting a petty crook who bamboozles the Action Ace into granting him five wishes, after which ‘The Super-Sword’ reveals an ancient knight with a magic blade able to penetrate his Superman’s invulnerable skin.
‘Superman’s Return to Krypton’ tells a subtly different tale of epic love lost as an accident maroons the adoptive Earth hero in the past on his doomed home-world. Reconciled to dying with his people, Kal-El befriends his own parents only to be returned to Earth against his will in a cruel twist of fate. This strip is one of Swan’s most beautiful art jobs and, although the bold comic version was a fan favourite for decades, the restoration of this more mature interpretation might have some rethinking their decision.
Wayne Boring again picks up the art with ‘The Lady and the Lion’, wherein the Man of Steel transforms into an inhuman beast. Starting 1961, Siegel then adapts ‘The Great Superman Hoax’ in which a cunning criminal tries to convince Lois and Clark he’s actually the Man of Might, blissfully unaware of who he was failing to fool.
Superman using brains as well as brawn thwarts an alien invasion in ‘The Duel for Earth’ followed by the deliciously wry ‘Superman’s Billion-Dollar Debt’, as an ambitious IRS agent attempts to prise unpaid back taxes from the Man of Steel.‘The Great Mento’ is a tawdry showbiz masked mind-reader who threatens to expose Superman’s precious secret identity.
In ‘The Perfect Husband’ Lois is tricked onto a TV dating show, but meets her ideal man. Then ‘The Mad Woman of Metropolis’ finds her persecuted by a vengeance-hungry killer, a rare chance to see the girl-reporter and shameless butt of so many male gags show her true mettle by solving the case without the Man of Tomorrow’s avuncular, often patronising assistance.
This huge (305 x 236mm), lavish, high-end hardback collections is a welcome addition to the superb commemorative series of Library of American Comics. If you love the era, these stories are great reading, and this is a book you simply must have. Along with Vol. 2: 1961-1963.
