COLLECTED EDITIONS – SUPERMAN: KRISIS OF THE KRIMSON KRYPTONITE

(Collected Editions is a listing of the various trade paperbacks, hardcovers, omnibuses, etc. that are in my Superman collection.  The goal is to not only inventory my collection of trades, hardcovers, etc. but also to display said collection and produce something resembling a resource for other Superman readers, collectors and fans.)

Nuts and Bolts

• Released on August 21, 1996
• Original Price $12.95
• 176 pages
• Cover by Jerry Ordway

Contents

• Introduction by Roger Stern
• No Story Title from Superman (Vol. 2) #49
• Clark Kent — Man of Steel! from Adventures of Superman #472
• The End of a Legend? from Starman (Vol. 1) #28
• Breakout! from Action Comics #659
• The Human Factor from Superman (Vol. 2) #50
• Rings of Fire from Adventures of Superman #473
• Certain Death from Action Comics #660

Notes

• This story was significant on a couple of levels.
• On the lower level this story was a follow up to a chapter of the Exile story.  In Superman #31 Lex Luthor had to deal with Mr. Mxyzptlk while Superman was…well, exiled in space.
• During that encounter Mxyzptlk learned a valuable lesson from Lex; how to lie.  So it was neat to see that pay off during this story.
• The trade also traces the last days of Lex Luthor or maybe the better way to describe that would be the supposed last days of Lex Luthor as Lex doesn’t actually die but that’s a note for another post.
• Krisis of the Krimson Kryptonite was also the first Post-Crisis appearance of Red Kryptonite.  It was Red-K in name only and didn’t possess any of the properties that it did during the Silver and Bronze Age but it was pretty cool to see the creators bring it back.  A common complaint of the Byrne revamp is that he threw the baby out with the bathwater but during his run and afterwards many elements from Superman’s history were reintroduced for a new audience.
• Finally this was the storyline where Clark proposes to Lois.  This was huge.  Like making the national news huge.  I remember opening the paper one Saturday morning and seeing a piece about the engagement.  It was a big deal for me as a reader too.  I had been buying the Superman titles for about three years at that point and felt I was there for something momentous.
• Fun fact that I didn’t know at the time but learned later.  When I originally bought Superman #50 it had this cover.

• Notice the copy at the top.  “Historic Engagement Issue.”  It always struck me as odd that they would put that right there on the cover.  I always assumed that it was there to sell books.  Years later when Jeffrey Taylor and I covered this issue on From Crisis to Crisis (with special guest Jon Wilson) I talked about that and a listener wrote in to say that the issue I had was a second printing.  Because I am a completist I tracked down a copy of the first printing.

• Speaking of that cover…Jerry Ordway drew inspiration for this image from the box art for the Superman Aurora Model kit that originally appeared in 1964 and was re-released several times over the next few decades.
• One of the stories printed in this trade appears in an abbreviated form.  Starman #28 was reprinted without pages 8 and 9 of the original issue.  This was more than likely due to the fact that it had to do with stuff going on in Starman and in all honesty losing the pages didn’t slow the story down at all.
• Roger Stern wrote a great introduction for this trade but then again I am a mark for introductions.