CAPES, COWLS & COSTUMES >> It’s Super, Man!

Yes, I still read comic books. At my age!

In all fairness, I still write the odd comic book script now and then and, sure, current stunts like INFINITE COUNTDOWN TO THE FINAL CIVIL WAR INITIATIVE CRISIS and the ilk don’t thrill me near as much as, say, a reprint of Silver Age JLA/JSA crossovers or THE AVENGERS: THE KREE/SKRULL WAR, I do keep up with what’s what in Comicsland. And, while I stopped collecting comic books a long time ago, I’ve never lost my love for — and my urge to collect — comic book books, specifically, novels (and short stories) based on comic book characters.

Full disclosure: On top of being a reader of comic book novels and short stories, I’ve also edited and written a few in my time, and I’m a member of the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers, an organization of professionals specializing in media tie-ins of all sorts.

As far back as the late-1930s, Whitman Publishing — of BIG LITTLE BOOK fame and a thousand other formats for kids over the decades — was publishing novels based on comic strips in its “Authorized Editions” line. These books were dust-jacketed hardcovers of about 250 pages, printed on cheap paper and featuring maybe two dozen full-page black-and-white illustrations. Most of the books starred various cowboys, film characters and movie stars, but many were based on popular comic strip characters like Dick Tracy, Little Orphan Annie, Tillie the Toiler, Blondie, and Smilin’ Jack.

1n 1942, Superman had already rocketed to fame in comic books, a newspaper strip, theatrical cartoons and on radio; he was, in short, a licensing tour de force. Among the many places you could find the Man of Steel was in THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN, a novel by George F. Lowther, one of the writers of the SUPERMAN radio program then running on the Mutual Network. The first novel to star a comic book character, THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN was written for kids, but was a serious treatment of this juvenile material and featured 10 full-page illustrations: four in full-color and dozens of rough pencil sketches by Man of Steel co-creator Joe Shuster.

It was the first in-depth telling of Superman’s origin, from details of his home world Krypton (including the use of the names Jor-El and Lara for his parents), to a fleshed-out description of his early life, raised by kindly farm-folk Sarah and Eben Kent (who officially became Martha and Jonathan in a 1952 issue of SUPERMAN comics) as his super powers slowly developed and revealed themselves to the last son of Krypton. What followed the innovative origin elements was a well-done, fast-paced story involving spies, Nazi saboteurs and the “Mystery of the Skeleton Ship” in a haunted shipyard. Aside from its original 1942 printing (as well as an Armed Forces edition for our boys over seas), THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN can still be found in a 1979 bootleg paperback edition (“reproduced for its historic literary content”) from Kassel Books and a 1995 DC Comics-authorized hardcover from Applewood Books.

The Man of Steel didn’t make it back to prose for more than 35 years, in 1978’s SUPERMAN: LAST SON OF KRYPTON by Elliot S. Maggin, one of the primary — and best — of the SUPERMAN comic book writers of the ‘70s and ‘80s. Due to legal entanglements involving Mario Puzo’s screenplay, this original novel was as close to an official movie tie-in as DC and Warner Books could get to the Christopher Reeve starrer SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE, although it had little if anything to with the film, beyond featuring a 16-page insert of still photographs and Lex Luthor … and not entirely as the villain of the piece.

LAST SON OF KRYPTON is firmly rooted in the Superman comics of the time, using such Metropolis supporting stalwarts as Lana Lang and bullying sportscaster Steve Lombard, in addition to Lois, Jimmy and Perry, not to mention the Green Lanterns and their bosses, the little blue men known as the Guardians of the Universe. And, a leitmotif to those familiar with Maggin’s work in the comics, Albert Einstein. Maggin masterfully blended all the elements of the Julius Schwartz-era comics with a real world feel made even those of us who thought nothing could be better than SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE sit up and take notice.

LAST SON remains — along with 1981’s SUPERMAN: MIRACLE MONDAY, also by Maggin and published in conjunction with SUPERMAN II (and likewise a victim of the Puzo screenplay brouhaha) — some of the best and most faithful superhero prose ever published. In this entry, Samael, the ruler of Hell, dispatches an agent of pure evil, C.W. Saturn, to Earth in order to corrupt the world’s greatest force for good, Superman. Saturn attempts to do so by possessing Kristin Wells, a time-traveling journalism student from the future who came to Superman’s present to learn how Miracle Monday, a holiday of unknown origin still celebrated in her time, came about.

The satanically possessed Kristin unleashes all sorts of hell on the world (including revealing Superman’s secret identity), which Saturn claims can only be halted by having Superman kill her. But no one dies on Superman’s watch and, miracle of miracles, the secret of Miracle Monday is tied up in one neat, albeit predictable, little package.

Next time: It’s Marvel’s turn! —Paul Kupperberg

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