Welcome to the seventieth 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.
Things go back to normal for Mike and Jeff this week but things definitely don’t let up at all for the Man of Steel! In this episode he faces international diplomacy and the perils of time travel. Superman #53 kicks off the Superman books with a March 1991 cover date and sees the Man of Steel having to escort the vile President Marlo as he is taken into custody. The problem? There are people that don’t want to see him stand trial and Marlo is one of those people. Then in Adventures of Superman #476 Superman gives fellow hero Booster Gold a hand with a time traveler known as the Linear Man and is blown to the 30th Century for his troubles as Time and Time Again begins. That story continues into Action Comics #663 as Superman is blown up again and lands in the year 1943 where he joins the circus.
No really. He joins the circus. Clark also gets to meet President Roosevelt and nearly encounters the Justice Society of America before the Spectre sends him into the path of a locomotive.
After that the boys cover Adventures of Superboy #14, which features the return of Brimstone as well as showing how Clark got his internship at the Bureau of Extra-Normal Matters. Finally there is the usual Elsewhere in the DCU, Elsewhere in the Elsewhere and even an e-mail from one of the listeners.
Also the episode is under three hours, so y’all get a little break this week.
And now…the scans!
This is an amazing shot of Superman and Lois though as Michael pointed out during the episode Elroy has lost all interest in the conversation.
Behold the nineties in all it’s glory.
In all seriousness this is a very solid design. Does it look dated? Maybe but only in the sense that they don’t design characters like this anymore. The neat thing about this character is that he has an old west, bounty hunter feel mixed with the futuristic cybernetic limbs. This is what separates the Linear Man from the cyborg out of time pack.
This is the Wayne Boring-esque panel that Mike was talking about during the episode. Apparently Clark did a lot of upper body exercises during his stint with the circus.
This page is a good example of how good a capeless Superman looks when drawn by Bob McLeod. It is also a good example of how awesome the black/blue costume looked as well.
The Justice Society as drawn by Bob McLeod. Sweet.
This is the last page of the Action Comics. Mike mentioned on the show that he would have preferred Superman to have said, “Oh boy,” a la Sam on Quantum Leap. Through the miracle of Photoshop we can now see what that would have looked like.
And that is it for this time out. Hope you enjoyed the scans!
Next Week: Time and Time Again continues! It’s Nazis and Legionnaires and Dinosaurs, oh my!