Episode 215: Superman vs Aliens
Welcome to the two hundredth and fifteenth episode of From Crisis to Crisis: A Superman Podcast! This podcast has a simple premise; examine just about every Superman comic published between Man of Steel #1 in 1986 to Adventures of Superman #649 in 2006 in an informative and hopefully entertaining format.
Part index. Part commentary. Part history lesson. All podcast.
In space, no one can hear you scream.
On this podcast you can hear Mike and Jeff talking about the first cross-company crossover of the show!
To be fair you might be able to hear this episode in space, but you would need to have some kind of special suit, or you would have to listen to it in the ship you are traveling in, but that is beside the point.
This time out the boys are looking at the DC Comics/Dark Horse Comics crossover Superman/Aliens or, as the spine of the book calls it, Superman vs. Aliens. Have you ever wondered who would win in a fight between the Man of Steel and a Xenomorph? Well this is the three issue prestige format series for you. Written by Dan Jurgens with art by Jurgens and Kevin Nowlan, this series kicks off when a distress buoy covered in Kryptonian writing crashes to Earth and Lexcorp calls in Clark Kent and Lois Lane to cover the story. The Kryptonian writing has Clark’s interest so he travels to where the buoy came from on a Lexcorp space craft and discovers what he believes to be a lost Kryptonian city that somehow survived the planet’s destruction. He meets a young woman named Kara but also comes across the Xenomorphs from the Aliens franchise and because he is far from a yellow sun his powers are waning. Add to that problem are the four survivors Superman sent back to Earth who, unbeknownst to the Man of Steel, are carrying chest bursters. Superman and Kara must survive the Aliens attacking them, so he can get back to Earth to save it from the destructive creatures he inadvertently sent there.
Before getting into that Jeff and Mike have a healthy discussion about the Alien franchise in general. They discuss the movies and touch on other media like the comics and the video games. But mostly they talk about the movies.
Because the first two are amazing.
Below is a gallery of covers and selected pages from the comics discussed.
And here is a gallery of bits and bobs from the edition of Previews where the first issue was solicited.
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Next Time: The beginning of a two part look at the Superman related annuals from 1995, which fell under the Year One banner! Issues covered are Superman: The Man of Steel Annual #4, Superman Annual #7, Superboy Annual #2 and, to a very lesser extent, Shadow Dragon Annual #1.