Many were the times stories written by Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel left his brainchild ineffectual, impotent or dead.
The world’s most powerful man, powerless. How ironic, as they used to say in the comic books.
The 1950s and 1960s were a sad, sketchy period for Siegel, so maybe it’s understandable that he’d have his most famous creation share his despair. Or maybe the having Siegel write such stories was some kind of punitive joke arranged by Superman editor Mort Weisinger.
But whatever the reason, there they are. The pattern is unmistakable.
His energy duplicate Super Menace defeated Superman, but then vaporized himself along with his own evil foster parents in Superman 137 (May 1960).
The Man of Tomorrow was unable to repair yesterday by preventing the destruction of his home world in Superman’s Return to Krypton (Superman 141, November 1960).
A super-powered Lana Lang was forced to exile herself from Earth because her powers overshadowed the despairing Superman’s in The Wife of Superman! (Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane 26, July 1961).
And The Death of Superman (Superman 149, November 1961) speaks for itself.
One of these stories introduced me to the Legion of Super-Heroes, in fact.
Lightning Lad rescued Superboy and Krypto from the young Lex Luthor’s Army of Living Kryptonite Men in Superboy 86 (Jan. 1961).
Using a telekinetic helmet of his own invention, Luthor had buried Superboy in kryptonite on an asteroid. Krypto fell into the death trap trying to save him.
But the Legion of Super-Heroes was watching through their time viewer, so they sent a boy from tomorrow to save the doomed Boy of Tomorrow single-handedly —a deus ex machina if there ever was one.
One of the more insightful comics writers once remarked that as Batman stories are thematically concerned with light and darkness, Superman stories are about power and weakness.
Superman’s first stories celebrated his power. Twenty years later, they explored the many ways in which power couldn’t save him.
Mark Engblom wrote: Weisinger, despite his many personality flaws, was brilliant when it came to identifying and catering to his primary audience. With almost surgical precision, he infused the Superman books with the myriad anxieties and preoccupations of the children who read them. A young boy’s worries about playground or inter-familial rivalries and pecking orders were routinely echoed (and conquered) by Superman. A young girl’s anxiety about her appearance or agency constantly reflected back to her from Lois, Lana and Supergirl. Even the more ”grown up” subjects of love and mortality addressed the anxiety and mystery of their own inevitable (yet still distant) adulthoods. True, the whimsical settings and truncated nature of the storytelling tended to blunt these psychological elements, but they were undeniably and purposefully there for the audience to experience, internally process, and even learn from.
ReplyDeleteGregory Coben said: If it's an exceptional story from that period it was probably written by Jerry.
ReplyDeleteJohnny Williams wrote: That 'Army Of Kryptonite Men' story is what prompted the very little boy me to have his First 'Favorite Legionnaire'. It was 'Lightning Lad'. I just thought that his power was So cool, and the alliteration of his name was appealing also.
ReplyDeleteSo, you can just Imagine how I felt when a few years later they killed him off.
Michael Fraley wrote: This is the element of the silver age Superman that really grabbed me, and which made him instantly relatable, no matter how powerful he was in those days. As a boy, I had experienced great loss, and death was no stranger. These kinds of stories placed Superman directly in my known world.
ReplyDeleteChris Juricich wrote: (Dan's) thoughts are astute and make sense to me. Power and weakness. Well, given that Superman was supposedly able to use stars or the sun as substitute birthday candles which he could blow out, his power was literally immeasurable. As a consequence, finding stories where a character is invulnerable, can never be physically harmed, it only makes sense that they would start messing with his emotions and human heart. Magic effected him, green kryptonite and the other variants could effect him, other super-powered characters could effect him. For the time, it was entertaining for me as a pre-teen and early teen. In 1971 as the more experienced fans will remember, he was severely depowered in some mystical way (Superman 233) which put some limits on his power and strength. They also got rid of all the kryptonite on earth somehow; that didn't last long, though.
ReplyDeletePaul Zuckerman wrote: And those stories are among the most memorable Superman stories of all time, and remain among my favorites. And don't forget the Siegel-penned story about how Superboy goes back in time to try and save Abraham Lincoln from being shot, and fails because an adult Luthor mistakenly thinks that Superboy was looking for him. In this story, you see the humanization of Luthor who, while he hates Superman and is a criminal, is distraught over finding that fate made him the instrument of stopping Superboy from preventing the assassination
ReplyDeleteBob Doncaster wrote: Besides him losing his powers, there were lots of stories where his supporting cast got super powers. Lana you mentioned but others as well. As for the treatment of Siegel, have you read The Adventures Of Cavalier and Clay? Highly recommend it.
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