And I declareth this day Superman Day !

Since the new MAN OF STEEL movie is starting in german movie theaters Today I thought it appropriate to participate in the meme of Superman Day that is going through most blogs lately. You see, this blog´s title alone pretty much makes it mandatory for me.

Now I´m not one hundred percent sure when Superman Day exactly is supposed to be ( according to Cleveland it´s on April the 18th , the day Action comics 1 appeared but at the 1940 World Fair Superman Day was on the 3rd of July ) but since I´m always behind on actual stuff as this I´m not too concerned with that. As you may have guessed from the title of my blog I´m a huge fan of Superman and there´s nothing I like more than to wax the philosophic about Superman lore. I know that some people have problems with the character of Superman, his perceived invulnerability or his supposedly weak rogues gallery but I have always liked the Superman universe because - let´s be honest - it´s the ultimate science fiction universe and I´ve always been a fan of science fiction.

GREAT RAO - GREAT STORIES

There are some of the best science fiction stories in the Superman canon ( some of the best comic stories of all times even ) like the classic trifecta MUST THERE BE A SUPERMAN ?, FOR THE MAN WHO HAS EVERYTHING and WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE MAN OF TOMORROW ? But also Grant Morrison´s rather recent ALL STAR SUPERMAN and SUPERMAN AND THE FIEND FROM DIMENSION 5 chronicled in Action Comics 1 to 18 of the NEW 52 book are a damn good read.

If you want to brush up on your Superman history, Comicbook Resources has compiled a master list of THE 75 GREATEST SUPERMAN STORIES OF ALL TIME where you can check out all the great ones. And while I´m a bit disappointed that some of my favorite Superman stories with art by Carlos Pacheco like CAMELOT FALLS or ABSOLUTE POWER aren´t higher in the ranking it is a pretty complete list of all the best of the best.

 
You can also find a list of THE TOP 10 SUPERMAN TRADE PAPERBACKS at Collected Edition, the number 1 website for wait - for - the - traders.

WHEN JIMMY DID YOU - KNOW - WHAT TO YOU - KNOW - WHO

Coming from best to worse Comicbook Resources I LOVE YA BUT YOU`RE STRANGE series has the weirdest of the weird Superman stories like the time Superman and Jimmy Olsen encountered a world based on horror movies , Superman murdering a guy so Lois won´t marry him , Superman adopting Jimmy Olsen then tormenting him ,  Lois planning to beat up Wonder Woman to score with Superman , Superman gaining the ability to shoot tiny Supermen out of his fingers or When Lois hypnotized a baby to get Superman to marry her .  You can get all these as well as other stories with Superman, Lois and Supergirl and the weirdest moments of comics in general through the big master list . 

Speaking about masters, since I mentioned Carlos Pacheco earlier on, fellow blog MAN OF BRONZE has provided the link to this really extensive interview with Carlos Pacheco where he talks at length about his comic career and his work on Superman. Sorry, but it´s in spanish.

Now I know I already posted this link to the SUPERMAN PAGE where you can get all the Superman audio plays but I just wanted to repost it for all those readers who missed it.

Superman celebrates his 75th anniversary this year and THE COPYDESK has a nice article called THE SUPERMAN LIVES AND HE`S 75 that explains - way better than I ever could - why the Man of Steel has been such an enduring concept over the ages.

From fellow blogger Max Romero at GREAT CEASAR`S POST comes a post about DC COMICS PRESENTS 10 by Cary Bates and Joe Staton in which Superman travels back in time, looses his memory and teams up with Sgt Rock and Easy Company to fight Nazis .

DC COMICS PRESENTS is a series that was very prominent in the german editions when I was a kid - which were done by Ehapa back then - but like always they were scattered through all the different Superman comics of that time like Superman / Batman, Superman Sonderband, Superman Extra, Superman Album and Superman Taschenbuch.

Those stories were always a treat especially those that Jose Luis Garcia Lopez illustrated like the team up with Adam Strange or the race between Superman and the Flash which has become something of a tradition and was even adapted in the animated series. Here´s the clip :



Like I already discussed in length in my Coverstory posts, for some strange reason word ballons were often eliminated from the german versions which I always found strange since they added much drama.

Superman Taschenbuch 20 cover from DC Comics Presents 6

And here is the original and much more dramatic cover

It´s been a while since I read them and for everybody who hasn´t read them my tip is to get the first volume of DC SHOWCASE PRESENTS, which reprints the first 26 issues. Since I have bought too many comics the last few weeks ( or more to the point a few that were a real bargain but still expensive ) I´ll have to skip on that one but I will definitely be on the lookout for the second volume that includes issue 36, written, penciled and inked by Jim Starlin and required reading for every fan of James Robinson´s STARMAN series. What a fantastic cover.

And speaking of fantastic covers, you can find the Six Grooviest Superman Covers at fellow blog DIVERSIONS OF THE GROOVY KIND, including this intriguing cover. Yeah, Superman, finish that creep.

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Where does he get off dressing like you anyway ? Stinking phoney with his stupid excuses....an actor, right, tell me another one. And whoever has heard of a movie called MAN OF STEEL, no really ? 

IT`S THAT OLD FEELING OF SUPER DEJA VUE AGAIN

Of course no new post would be complete without a selection of homage covers from the vast collection of famous Superman covers. I thought about doing Action Comics 1 or the cover for the first DC / Marvel team up of Superman and Spider - Man but since I don´t have that much material on them I decided to go with another very famous cover featuring Superman : Crisis of Infinite Earths 7 by George Perez.

I mean the image is so iconic that it was used as one of the mock covers for the other universe in the FRINGE tv show.

Now, before CRISIS 7 there were two other covers with Superman in a similar pose. Only this time Lois Lane took Supergirl´s place.

Here are a few more homage covers :

And that´s all for this section. If you still haven´t read CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS you should definitely check it out since it not only is one of the best comic stories of all time and without any question one of the best works of the creative team of Marv Wolfman and George Perez.

No, it also shows how a company wide reboot SHOULD be done. This is the mother of all crossovers and if the guys at DC had any recollection of this masterpiece such a cluster - f - word like the NEW 52 would never have happened in the first place. Oh, the humanity !!!

HELLO SUPERGIRL - THE SUPERFASHION PART OF THE POST

Now I could do a whole post on Supergirl and her different costumes over the decades alone but there are a few things I wanted to include here since I have no idea when I will find the time to get around to do it.

The first one is this really awesome costume for Superwoman Laurel Kent from the Legion of Superheroes ( click here for the fullsize version ).  

The lineart is by Jesus Merino, the colors are by Spidermanfan2099 ( click here to check out more gorgeous pieces in his DeviantArt gallery ) .

Speaking of gorgeous pieces here is a cosplayer that makes Supergirl´s new costume look good.

It´s really strange that all those years that Supergirl had a shitty comic ever since the post - crisis era my brother was reading it, but now that she finally has a solid book with an interesting new angle and decent art I have to give him the first trade as a Christmas present to get him to read it. Some people really have no taste whatsoever !

And speaking about people who have no taste, I would be really neglecting my duties if I didn´t mention Superman´s much more interesting cousin from another earth. This nice piece by artist Nebaroth shows pretty good why you can´t just take Supergirl and suddenly turn her into the new Power Girl. It just doesn´t fit - in more ways than one !

( click here for the fullsize version and Nebaroth´s DeviantArt gallery )

Our final tidbit is this little Superman cartoon I found somewhere on the internet :

So that´s all for Today and look to the skies, fellow comic readers, for the Man of Steel who fights the neverending battle for truth, justice and the american way. Remember : we can all be heroes.

Wow, six posts this month and still counting, this must be a new record. I´m certainly making up for the first half of the year when I was down to one post a month. Just don´t expect this streak to hold on too long since I have to get some rest Tomorrow and will probably not do another post until next week. I´ll probably just give this post the final proof reading but there won´t be anything new. But it was good to get some new Superman - centric stuff on the blog. The new readers must be wondering what the heck this blog is about with all these strange posts about fish sandwiches, beer, old comics nobody gives a fart about and all this comic pimping. I just hope it still is entertaining to some extent.

Now, on the page where I found the TWO - FISTED TALES movie there was a link for CREEPSHOW 2 but after watching that I knew I couldn´t torture my readers with it. I totally forgot how bad it was. Anyway, the video I decided to post instead is more a treat to my german readers because it´s from one of the cartoon series that never made it to Germany. Whenever the guys at ComicGeek Speak talk about CHALLENGE OF THE SUPER FRIENDS it´s something I know nothing about.

And here´s where YouTube comes into play because that´s one gap in pop culture knowledge it can help fill. Now, for all who don´t know, Hannah Barbera did a searies of cartoons based on the Justice League and other heroes in the DC universe, with a whole plethora of titles, first SUPER FRIENDS and then THE ALL - NEW SUPER FRIENDS HOUR, CHALLENGE OF THE SUPER FRIENDS, THE WORLD´S GREATEST SUPER FRIENDS - AND JUSTICE FOR ALL, SUPER FRIENDS - A DANGEROUS FATE, SUPER FRIENDS - THE LOST EPISODES, SUPER FRIENDS - THE LEGENDARY SUPER POWERS SHOW to finally THE SUPER POWERS TEAM - GALACTIC GUARDIANS .

It´s from the latest that I picked the video, THE DEATH OF SUPERMAN which is the finale of the series. If you have seen it before, I hope you enjoy this trip down memory lane and if it´s your first time you might want to check out the other episodes of the various series which I´m sure you can find on YouTube ( click here for the wikipedia episode guide ) .



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