Godawful Comics (NWS)

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Lightning Lass, Sun Boy, Cham, and Superboy are all setting nerviously around a table, waiting for Mon-El to arrive. Proty sets on Chem's shoulder, dripping like a great ball of phlegm.

This is pretty minor but is there any particular reason for the name tags? It looks as though they're about to take part in a quiz.
Also, they're using folded carboard name labels in the 30th century, the writers obviously didn't put much thought into everyday technology of the future.

Fairlight wrote:

This is pretty minor but is there any particular reason for the name tags? It looks as though they're about to take part in a quiz.

The obvious reason is so the readers know who they are. What I am wondering is why the writers seem to think their readers have really short term memories, because every other page we are constantly rememinded at who the characters are, what their powers do and what the plot is.

Keith mentioned Tuxedo Mark's Supergirl a couple of pages back. That prodded me to mentally compare the Tuxedo Mark version with the comic book version, the events of her life, and her place in the greater Superman story. After thinking about the meta-context of the Silver Age version for a few minutes, I came to a conclusion: Supergirl is a shitty choice for a self insert Mary Sue in the first place.

Why? Because Supergirl is not a heroic character, like Superman. She is a tragic character.

And her tragic, fatal flaw is loving Superman.

Supergirl is like the Peter Parker of the DC universe. Compare her life with Superman's: he arrived as an infant, she arrived as a teenager, and struggled to assimilate. He had an idyllic childhood on a Kansas farm, she got dumped in an orphanage. He was openly a hero as a boy, she spent her youth hiding her strength. He had a successful career and a long, stable relationship that eventually resulted in a happy marriage, she could never hold down a single job for long, or maintain a long-term relationship.

He had a happy ending.

She could have had a happy ending, too. She had options. She could have literally gone anywhere, and done anything. There was the bottle city of Kandor: an entire Kryptonian civilization that was shrunken and preserved in the Fortress of Solitude. She was known and accepted on a thousand alien worlds, any one of which would have loved to have her.

Spoiler:

She had a place in the future, and a person who cared deeply her. Indeed, as an alien from a far more advanced world, she was more comfortable in the 30th century than the 20th. Yet she only acted as a reserve Legionnaire, allowing her cousin to take her place, sometimes letting years pass between each trip to the future. Brainy, for his part, silently carried a torch for her, not because he didn't want to try and get her, but because it's the only thing he could possibly do. History cannot change. She was already ten centuries dead when he met her. Even if he tried, she was destined to reject him, to return to her own time, and to die.

She could have left "Supergirl" behind. She tried, several times, but she could never really be content, because she felt like she was abandoning Superman. If she'd loved him just a little bit less, she could still have been a hero in the future, or in Kandor, or among the stars, away from a world that wasn't hers, in a place where she truly belonged. However, that would mean being away from Superman, and she could never force herself to do that. No matter how much she grew and changed as an individual, she never really outgrew being the kind of person who would try to get him to marry Helen of Troy so that he could be happy.

That bond always drove her away from her friends and lovers, away from her orphanage and her adopted family, and back to Earth, to the present, to Metropolis, and to her cousin. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't abandon a world where she didn't belong, and a set of ideals that were never really hers to begin with. All her life, she lived and breathed Superman.

Spoiler:

That's why it was praise for him on her lips when she died. She brushed aside all other commitments in her life, until he was all she had left, and then she died for him. And in death, she became an unperson. There was no place for her in the history of the new universe that was born from the Crisis. Nobody remembered her name: not her friends. Not her lover.

Not even Superman.

Supergirl is not a good self-insert character, because she was selfless to a fault. The S on her costume compromised her own sense of identity, in a way that led directly to her downfall. That's why, despite the supercats and merboyfriends and time-matchmaking, she's ultimately a complex character, and one I can respect, just as much as Mark fails to respect her.

And in spite of that, in spite of everything I just said . . . .

Spoiler:

. . . this story STILL has the funniest goddamn title I've ever seen. Damn, girl, didn't I warn you about that skirt?!

So yeah, I know I said no more Supergirl, but I kinda have to do this one just for the title.

Spoiler:

Okay, even I have to admit: that's pretty fucking cute. In my personal continuity, this girl goes on to travel to the future, becomes Rainbow Girl, and fights crime with the Substitute Legion.

Then, we cut away to something a considerably less cute: a hostage situation! And among the hostages is Daily Planet reporter Clark Kent!

The Man of Steel weighs his options. There's no way to change into his costume without being spotted. His apartment is being painted, so the Superman robot there is out. That leaves him with no option but his own, personal "Plan C".

He signals Linda, who scopes out the situation. The crooks make their getaway clean, with nobody behind them but a teenage girl on a bike, and what threat could she possibly be?

She tails them to their hideout, and relates the information to Superman, who apprehends them.

"Now do you see why the world must never know a Supergirl exists?", Superman asks?

Uh . . . no? I mean, she could have flown in the window and punched them all, or even apprehended them at their hideout.

In any case, Superman is off to the Fortress to do some important, long-term scientific experiments. Supergirl decides to do a patrol before heading home. Above Kansas, she spots a high-altitude balloon carrying a pair of scientists who are a married couple. They've been investigating a comet that's flying close to the Earth, when suddenly the balloon and Supergirl are both exposed to particles from it's tail. The scientists are blinded, and Kara is exposed to everyone's favorite deus ex machina, Red Kryptonite.

After plummeting down to Earth, Kara discovers that much of her memory is gone. She no longer remembers most of what has happened since arriving on this planet, including her status as "Superman's Secret Weapon." She only remembers that she's a Kryptonian, her identity as Supergirl, and that she's Superman's cousin.

Spoiler:

She makes for Smallville, and spotting a sign with Superman's image, starts to display that same obsession with following in his footsteps that eventually leads to her death.

She soon spots the married scientists, who are staying in a public housing apartment. They pitifully ask Kara if she is their nurse. She says that she is, and spends the next however long caring for them. As they are blind, she has no problem using her superpowers to make things easier for them.

During some time off, she heads to the Superboy museum. She wanders through the place, taking in mementos of Superman's adventures in Smallville when he was her age, feeding her obsession.

Spoiler:

And then, the giant robot attacks.

Yeah, Smallville is littered with the things. Just go with it.

For the people of Smallville, Supergirl's first appearance must seem like something out of a dream, but she's real, she's there, and she saves the town.

She heads home, and begins changing in the living room, only to realize that the scientist couple have recovered their eyesight. The couple realizes that she's the new Supergirl everyone's talking about, and immediately express their gratitude for the way she took care of them. They admire her kind, courageous heart, and offer to adopt her and give her a home. Kara tearfully accepts their offer.

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Spoiler:

Supergirl is unbound for the first time ever. She has found her bliss.

. . . and then, Superman emerges from the Fortress, sees this, and DOUSES THE ENTIRE TOWN IN AMNESIA DUST.

Spoiler:

This is some real Big Brother shit, right here. He doesn't even ask Kara first; in fact, he adds a pinch of green kryptonite, and gasses her, too!

Then, he runs around town at super-speed, and removes all traces of her existence. He reprints and redistributes several days worth of newspapers to remove all articles concerning rumors of her appearance. HE SEPERATES HER FROM THE COUPLE THAT'S GOING TO ADOPT HER, AND REMOVES ANY MEMORIES OF HER EXISTENCE. THEY NEVER SEE EACH OTHER AGAIN.

This goes well beyond superdickery. This is supervillainy.

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Spoiler:

The end result: the Red-K wears off, but the gas doesn't. Kara, now back to being Linda Lee, stumbles back to the orphanage, replaces her robot decoy, and goes back to doing what she usually does: set in her bedroom, alone, and stare at the wall, imagining what it would be like to be loved.

This story just shits all over Superman's character, doesn't it? It doesn't even provide him with a misguided reason for being a complete dick. There's no red-k, no fake out, no fifth dimensional imp. He's just (and I use this word with the utmost sincerity) a super-dick.

I love how the Legion story about Lightning Lad's death took a break from the usual fantastical super-heroics and super-dickery to give us a raw and honest portrayal of people dealing with bereavement and coming to terms with their own mortality. Oh, wait, they just ran around the galaxy trying to find ways to bring him back to life (and actually found one, instead of learning a lesson). Does anyone who's not a superhero or a superhero's loved one ever get brought back to life by crazy plot devices in DC Comics? I mean, wouldn't it be nice to have Gandhi back to solve world conflict, or Einstein to make more discoveries? And I realized as I was writing that that I was paraphrasing the discussion among the Linear Men in World Without A Superman about why they couldn't bring Superman back with their time travel powers.

Keith Fraser wrote:

I love how the Legion story about Lightning Lad's death took a break from the usual fantastical super-heroics and super-dickery to give us a raw and honest portrayal of people dealing with bereavement and coming to terms with their own mortality.

I gotta disagree with you there, buddy. These stories were about DC testing the waters for exactly that kind of story. The last part is framed as a "saving someone" story rather than a "losing someone" story (because that's what the Comics Code demanded at the time), however they do stop to mourn Lightning Lad occasionally in the issues between the ones I snarked, and it's pretty obvious that they showed that simply to see if they could get away with it. The fact that they were willing to essentially commit suicide was also skirting the edge of what was acceptable.

They did get away with it. Not long after this, the first story where a Legionnaire died off for real (and stayed dead) was published. This helped transition into the Bronze Age, where the Legion learned all sorts of exciting things about their own collective mortality!

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Does anyone who's not a superhero or a superhero's loved one ever get brought back to life by crazy plot devices in DC Comics?

At the moment? Yeah. In fact, they're ALL coming back. Everyone who's ever died.

To consume the living.

Except Dove.

Oh, poor Legion! They're bashing you so. Of course I can say that because I read the title in the '70s, when they did reasonable attempts at writing standard superhero stories for them. And for all of the complaints about Cosmic Boy's 70's costume at least Mike Grell was making an attempt to balance the skimpiness equation.

One thing I always find interesting about the Legion is that what makes some of the members superheroes is simply that they don't sit around on their asses like the rest of their people! Many of the members gain powers via the traditional superhero tropes eg Sun Boy got his power from being locked in a nuclear reactor. But a lot of the Legion members had powers simply because of where they came from. Take Salu Digby of Imsk, a planet where people can change their size from normal human size to as far as microscopic. Unlike the rest of her lazy ass people she decides to go off planet, takes the code name Shrinking Violet, and uses her abilities to help fight evil. And this holds true for a bunch of the rest of the Legion, such as Phantom Girl and Chameleon Boy. At least with Chameleon Boy they eventually explained that he was a bit of an oddball as far as his people went in that he wasn't a rabid isolationist(just like his retconned father, Legion financial backer RJ Brande.). But Phantom Girl? All the people from her other dimensional planet of Bgztl can become intangible. She just happens to be the only one who thinks using her powers to help people elsewhere is a good idea.

The Legion did have a rule for many years that you had to have at least one power unique to you to gain membership, which explains why you didn't have a Phantom Lad join up. But there was nothing apparently stopping anyone with powers from being a solo hero, so why you never saw a Bgztlian other than Phantom Girl in action is another question.

ATTENTION, OH SULTANS OF SNARK:

I was running out of stuff to do, and mostly relying on Wikipedia to uncover details about the overall stories to discuss.

That's all in the past now, thanks to a a friend seeing this and hooking me up, I now have access to all of Superman's Girlfriend Lois Lane, Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen, virtually all early Legion stories, and assorted other stuff. Like the New Guardians (SNOWFLAME!), and the introduction of modern Supergirl (underage nudity!).

That's right, all of them. Every single one of the wacky things, plus more. And brother, there are a lot.

Considering that Lois and Jimmy somehow ran monthly for roughly twenty freaking years and make up about half of Superdickery, I'd now be open to suggestions as to which ones to snark. If you see a cover on Superdickery.com and would like to know the context, or if you have a favorite godawful comic book series or story, and would like me to check out the issue to see if it's crazy enough to work into a snark, then by all means, shoot me a PM. Even if it's not good material for a snark, I'll try to see if I can't at least summarize the story for you briefly. I'd be happy to help.

It doesn't even have to be published in Jimmy or Lois, or even in the Silver Age. Believe me, if it's out there, I can probably find it and review it.

Considering the now wide breadth of material we have to play with, I'd like to at least keep this running through the Snark-A-Thon month, so don't be shy about making suggestions. I haven't even begun to absorb this stuff yet, never mind coming up with a list or schedule.

In the meantime, I think I'll be busy absorbing some of this.

Stuff I remember from Superdickery that I'd love to see context for:

-The cover where Jimmy can't stop eating, and Superman keeps making him more food at super-speed.
-The issue where Lois gets spanked by one of Superman's robots.
-The issue where Lois becomes Cinderella (which I think is the Superdickery poster child on Wikipedia)
-I vaguely know the context for the infamous panel where it looks like Superman's about to rape Jimmy (Supes is removing his street clothing and Jimmy is crying into a pillow), but I'd still like to hear the whole story.

Keith Fraser wrote:

Stuff I remember from Superdickery that I'd love to see context for:

-The cover where Jimmy can't stop eating, and Superman keeps making him more food at super-speed.
-The issue where Lois gets spanked by one of Superman's robots.
-The issue where Lois becomes Cinderella (which I think is the Superdickery poster child on Wikipedia)
-I vaguely know the context for the infamous panel where it looks like Superman's about to rape Jimmy (Supes is removing his street clothing and Jimmy is crying into a pillow), but I'd still like to hear the whole story.

Oh, and it'd be easier if you included links, if that's possible.

Not that I don't like the site, but I already kinda have to read a lot of these things, now.

Keith Fraser wrote:

-I vaguely know the context for the infamous panel where it looks like Superman's about to rape Jimmy (Supes is removing his street clothing and Jimmy is crying into a pillow), but I'd still like to hear the whole story.

That wasn't Jimmy, if I remember correctly, it was some boy who was going to die and wanted to know the identity of Superman as his final wish, and when he found out that Superman was Clark Kent the reporter, he burst into tears not wanting to believe it.

EDIT: I did some looking around for Keiths requests, for some reason I cannot find the crying boy cover, I could have sworn it was under Seduction of the Innocent, but then again I was skimming the titles index, not actually going through the archive. I might go through them when I have the time.

Jimmy's Super Apetite
Spanking Robot: I could only find a panel referencing this, so it might not actually be helpful.
Cinderella Louis

I however would love to see a sporking of this one.

EDIT 2: Found it, not on SuperDickery, but who cares?

kuroineko wrote:

Spanking Robot

I can already tell you the context of this one without seeing the issue: Lois is fucking around in the Fortress, breaks a robot, it malfunctions, gets a hairbrush, and beats her ass.

It's almost certainly in an early Lois Lane, so I'll tell you if I spot it.

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I however would love to see a sporking of this one.

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Now obviously the explanation behind this cover is going to be
retarded, and will make everyone who learns it stupider for having
known it... but still I'm morbidly curious to find out what the story
behind it is.

The only problem with this statement is that the story behind it isn't really a story behind it.

So we start out at Clark Kent's sixteenth birthday party. Keep in mind that Superboy stories always take place a roughly fifteen years in the past. This was published in 1980, so Lana's wearing a dress that Lois might have worn in any of the Lois Lane issues I've done on here, as opposed to back then, when she dressed like an extra on Little House on the Prairie.

Lana asks why Clark's cake has seventeen candles, and he says it's "for luck." There appears to be a story behind this.

Spoiler:

The Kents muse on this, and then we transition "through the swirls of time . . . on a backward journey across a span of eight years . . . . eight birthdays into the PAST!"

And what do we see when we get there?

Spoiler:

Was this really necessary? I mean, I know the Silver Age is long over by this point, and people expect a modicum of an actual overall story in these things, but really? They're older in the past?

So we're here in this flashback to eight years . . . before fifteen years ago . . . in 1980, and it's Superboy's first full day operating publicly as Superboy. He's flying over Smallville, listening to people talking about him below. Some of them have an argument over rather or not he lives somewhere in Smallville.

Here's a hint, guys: look for the only 8 year old with the washboard stomach. That's your Superboy.

He's also being watched by some aliens. Who are viewing him through a parascope, having apparently confused their interstellar starship with a submarine.

Superboy almost ruins an airshow when he sees a plane and assumes it's crashing, because . . . well, it's Smallville.

When the audience spots him up there, he responds by hot dogging for them a bit, before the UFO swoops down and tags him with it's tractor beam, but that's not important right now. What's important is the flight show's announcer, who is completely unperturbed by any of this:

"Yessiree, good people, only the FLYING ACES STUNT SHOW could bring you Superboy- the world's most spectacular extra-added attraction! I don't quite know how to describe what we're see, but I guarantee, your eyes aren't deceiving you! Still another flying shape has suddenly appeared in the sky - out of nowhere -an honest-to-goodness unidentified flying object! Good heavens, it's attacking the unsuspecting Superboy - ray beaming him dead center! We know next to nothing about this Superboy who made his dramatic debut less than 24 hours ago! Can even his fantastic powers prove a match for whoever - or whatever - is piloting that strange craft from beyond the stars?"

This guy is not even surprised in the least to see a UFO abduct a small flying child in a bright colorful costume. Fuck the extra candle; I wanna know what the announcer's story is!

Abord the UFO, the aliens speak to Superboy over an intercom, announcing that they don't want to hurt him, and are interested in his invulerability. Superboy responds by quiping, and punching a hole in their ship. Nice.

Later on, his parents set him down for a slide-show of family pictures, which he of course resents. The aliens take over the projector (uh, somehow), which causes Johnathan Kent do declare "JEHOSHAPHAT!" That's how you know it's serious.

Spoiler:

The aliens are named Myla and Byrn, and they are from the planet of the yellow, bulldog-faced tacky dresses. We flash back to a million years before . . . eight years before . . . fifteen years before . . . thirty years ago. Maybe.

The aliens' homeworld was devistated by a disease, but by the time Myla and Byrn discovered the cure (bathing), it was too late to save their people. Then, they flew threw space, and radiation accidentally caused them to become immortal, as you do.

However, the boredom of immortality has long gotten to them, and they're ready to grow old and die themselves to death.

One minor thing, though:

Spoiler:

DID YOU EVER THINK TO MAYBE TRY LEAVING THE COCKPIT OF YOUR SHIP?!

So, back to the past present day of the past AROUND 1957 I THINK. The aliens have a device which can extract Superboy's "aging factor", which will make him an immortal 8 year old, and them not. Immortal, I mean. Not 8 years old. Because that would be silly.

Over the strong objections of his parents, Superboy agrees, and uses the device.

The aliens are overjoyed (and John and Martha slightly horrified), so the aliens say they will block this out of his memory, so if he hates never growing pubic hair, at least he will think that it was Earth's yellow sun, and not his own dumb ass that caused it. Then they leave.

Yeah, he's not really immortal. He faked it. Apparently, immortality can be cured with a placebo. How 'bout that?

The aliens go away to die, Clark forgets, and Martha puts an extra candle on his birthday cake because . . . actually, there isn't a reason, or if there is, this story didn't have anything to do with it.

So in a sense, this was all a complete waste of everyone's time.

That's it? Well, SuperDickery is right in that the story is retarded, but probably not in the way they were expecting. Still, a very funny read Lysander, and is that a Superboy Prime reference I spy?

Oh God, Lysander, you are the god of awesome sometimes. *loves* I'll have to go back and read every post thoroughly later.

For now, though - since this is the Godawful Comics thread (even though it might have devolved into Lysander's Thread On Why Superman Comics Are Silly and done so awesomely), I am disappointed that we've gotten four pages into it, and no one's mentioned the comic adaption of Anita Blake. I mean, for fuck's sake - the hair is haunting my dreams.

Spoiler:

And the pants - they aren't any kind of pants ever worn by a human (or vampire); they are horrible creations grafted to the skin of oversized thighs.

And observe - this is the only picture I have ever come across in which Anita Blake has a skin tone even approaching the colour of a living human. Usually, she's so blue-tinted pale that she makes the vampires look like healthy, sun-tanned citizens of happytown.

I didn't think she wore lipstick, either. O_o

I thought she only wore them on covers, but a bit of digging into the comic artist's devArt account produced this:

In which no amount of dialogue/narrative could explain what the fuck happens, and in which order I am supposed to read the panels. Also, WTF is going on with the "OOooh, my latex gloves are covered in bloooooood"-thing?

Apparently, she wears lipstick at least some of the time? I am far too kind to myself to go digging through the whole Anita Black-epic to find out.

The funny thing is that in the novels she spends a lot of time being really grossed out and trying not to puke, all the while keeping up a facade of being this macho chick in front of the cops. So... I dunno, maybe THAT'S what's going on there?

(Also, I'm gonna go against the grain a bit. The first Anita Blake novels aren't good. They're okay, and I don't regret picking them up, but they aren't exactly what I'd call "good." I haven't gone far enough into the series to hit that slide into utter shit, just the first two.)

I've always said the first few Anita Blake books aren't bad. They're not high literature, but they're an enjoyable and interesting read. It's not until Burnt Offerings where Sue!Anita rears her head, and not until Narcissis in Chains when it becomes unbearable, IMO.

frostflowers wrote:

For now, though - since this is the Godawful Comics thread (even though it might have devolved into Lysander's Thread On Why Superman Comics Are Silly and done so awesomely), I am disappointed that we've gotten four pages into it, and no one's mentioned the comic adaption of Anita Blake.

You really don't have to take that semi-apologetic tone with me. I posted in here instead of starting a new thread, because this thread had like four responses and had been silent for two months, and I wanted to try to kick up some actual interest in talking about bad comics. By all means, discuss awful comics in this awful comics thread, and I'll keep on doin' my thing for you.

Speaking of which, I'm doing another one right now. I'll try to have it up tomorrow.

So, I wonder what Supergirl's up to this week?

Spoiler:

Getting some horrible trauma inflicted on her by Superman. You know, the usual.

She's "walking through the woods" again, and presumably crying about how nobody loves her and her home planet is dead, as in the previous instance of this happening. I honestly don't have any problem with this. It's not emo to cry if your life really is a lonely and futile waste of time.

Instead, she sees a rotten tree that's about to fall over and pancake some orphans, so she decides on a course of action:

Spoiler:

. . . changing clothes (while thinking of a long and complex explanation as to why she's changing clothes), digging underground, and yanking the tree so that it falls down in another direction, rather than on top of the orphans.

Which is a very round-about way of accomplishing the same thing as saying, "Hey, you kids! Get out of the way, that tree's gonna fall!"

Spoiler:

Ugh, the art in this story is shit. Does that even look like the same person as in the other stories we've done?

She continues to expound (via thought bubble) on how the only person she has on the entire planet doesn't trust her enough to even tell her his real name, and other aspects of her by-now crippling loneliness.

Spoiler:

So, with her super-vision, she spots Krypto flying around. He looks . . . yeah. However, I will give this story bonus points, as Krypto does not have thought bubbles and behaves like a dog.

She "impulsively" calls out to him, if by "impulsively" you mean "while struggling to keep from bursting into tears of joy and prayers of thanks to the gods of Krypton that now there is another living creature somewhere that she can confide in."

What follows are a few reasonably well drawn panels of Supergirl playing with her best last only friend on the entire planet. This means that Supergirl is, for a brief moment, happy. As you should all know by now, Supergirl is never happy, unless it is building her up so that she can fall into utter disgrace and sorrow and doom.

Spoiler:

And as usual, that sorrow and doom comes in the form of Superman, who is NOT HAPPY that she revealed her existence to KRYPTO.

KRYPTO THE DOG.

THE DOG WHICH CANNOT FUCKING SPEAK.

Y'know, the thing about Superdickery is that it generally misrepresents how Superman was in the Silver Age. The fact of the matter is, Superman stories have some of the most amazing covers of all time. They put a lot of work into them, sometimes coming up with the cover before they came up with the story behind it. They're meant to draw you in, and one of the easier ways of doing that is to portray Superman acting like a dick.

Of course, he's generally not a dick in the stories themselves. If he is, there is usually some red-k/magic/mind control/good intentions bullshit to explain why. However, in this story as in the last Supergirl one, this is not the case. Superman really is a dick.

So, what's her punishment for playing with Superman's dog?

Spoiler:

A YEAR IN SOLITARY CONFINEMENT.

Why is everyone always shooting Supergirl out into space?

Spoiler:

Anyway, she is now "utterly alone", because being the second-last survivor of her homeworld, an orphan, and having no friends just wasn't alone enough. Actually, now that I type that, I kinda wonder exactly how this is any different than her everyday life. Wait, she doesn't have a TV on that asteroid. I guess that kinda sucks.

So, she sets around on the asteroid. She builds a home, which takes five minutes with superpowers. She tosses some chunks of space-ice at the Earth, and puts out a few fires. Mostly, she just sets there, staring up at Earth and watching other kids have fun, while practicing using her superpowers.

Again, not that much different from her ordinary life.

A week passes. Krypto arrives with a message: a plot device is happening, requiring her to return to Earth for a single day. Kara gleefully takes the opportunity to leap back into her horrifying life at the orphanage for a few hours. However, she soon spots the search parties, and discovers that sixteen year old girls cannot vanish for a week without certain questions being raised. Questions that she's not prepared to answer. Questions like "which sexual predator has kidnapped and probably murdered Linda Lee?"

Spoiler:

Fortunately, the orphanage where Superman chose to leave his beloved cousin lies near a place caused Dismal Swamp, which is large enough to get lost in for a week.

At least she's smart enough not to try to fake a kidnapping. That never works out well. Has there ever been a person who didn't sound like a complete idiot while trying to fake a kidnapping? "What did the kidnapper look like? Well, he was a tall . . . dark . . .black . . . Mexican . . . Puerto Rican."

Unfortunately, she doesn't sound very convincing as she tries to fake getting lost to the reporters.

"No berries or fruit ever grew in Dismal Swamp! Yet, you don't look starved after a week without food, Linda."

"Well . . . uh . . . I could have taken a lunch along on my hike, if you stop to think about it."

"Your whole story sounds fishy to me, Linda! How did you escape the wild wolves in Dismal Swamp? And the mosquitoes swarm there!"

No food? Mosquitoes? STARVING WOLVES? Jesus Christ, is Midvale Orphanage even in the United States?
Because it kinda seems like it belongs in some poor godforsaken third world country.

It turns out that the suspicious reporter is Clark Kent, testing her ability to conceal her secret identity. Instead, she discovers his.

So, what's his explanation for all these horrible things he's done?

Spoiler:

Hey, Superfuck. That man-search alone cost thousands of dollars and hundreds of manhours. Someone could have been hurt or devoured by wolves while tramping around in Dismal Swamp.

Spoiler:

Even Supergirl doesn't buy that bullshit, so he makes up a second explanation on the spot, proving that being a bad liar runs in the family.

"My goodness! You mean it all led up to telling me you were Clark Kent?"

"Uh . . . yes, Supergirl! Only you . . . er . . . found it out by yourself! Is my face red!"

Yeah, keep telling yourself that.

You Kryptonain cockbite.

Looking at this latest story and some of the others, it seems like the focus of Silver Age comics was rarely if ever on the superheroes actually saving lives/doing good etc., but on them palling around with each other, protecting their secret identities, and the like. Was this because they were all overpowered and lacking in decent adversaries (eventually necessitating the de-powering retcons), or because audiences were tired of/uninterested in actual super-heroics and more obsessed with the superheroes' daily lives, kind of like modern fanfic writers?

Also, am I right in thinking that the DC stuff we've been discussing pre-dates the appearance of X-Men, Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four from Marvel? Those franchises seem to have done a better job of the whole "superheroes as real people with interpersonal relationship problems", as well as keeping their heroes on a reasonable level of power and/or confronting them with awesomely powerful adversaries who were an actual challenge.

Keith Fraser wrote:

Looking at this latest story and some of the others, it seems like the focus of Silver Age comics was rarely if ever on the superheroes actually saving lives/doing good etc., but on them palling around with each other, protecting their secret identities, and the like. Was this because they were all overpowered and lacking in decent adversaries (eventually necessitating the de-powering retcons), or because audiences were tired of/uninterested in actual super-heroics and more obsessed with the superheroes' daily lives, kind of like modern fanfic writers?

Was it something to do with the Comics Code basically defanging everybody and banning depictions of violence?

Keith Fraser wrote:

Looking at this latest story and some of the others, it seems like the focus of Silver Age comics was rarely if ever
on the superheroes actually saving lives/doing good etc., but on them palling around with each other, protecting their secret identities, and the like. Was this because they were all overpowered and lacking in decent adversaries (eventually necessitating the de-powering retcons), or because audiences were tired of/uninterested in actual super-heroics and more obsessed with the superheroes' daily lives, kind of like modern fanfic writers?

They do show them saving lives pretty often, it's just not always the main focus of the story. There's usually a scene where Superman rescues an airplane or something, even in these red-k, secret identity stories. Supergirl's attention seems to be mostly focused on keeping the denizens of her horrible man-eating swamp school alive. It's harder than you'd think, what with all the wolves and swarms of mosquitoes and all.

Villains were around, but often ended up as guest stars, more than anything else. That started to change a bit after the Batman TV show made some of them really popular for the first time. In the meantime, we'll always have Jungle King and the Legion of Supermonsters.

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Also, am I right in thinking that the DC stuff we've been discussing pre-dates the appearance of X-Men, Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four from Marvel? Those franchises seem to have done a better job of the whole "superheroes as real people with interpersonal relationship problems", as well as keeping their heroes on a reasonable level of power and/or confronting them with awesomely powerful adversaries who were an actual challenge.

For the most part. This is due largely to the influence of Mort Weisinger, the DC editor at the time of these books.

The man was crazy, but in an "as a fox" sort of way. He'd publish anything, if he thought kids would buy it. They did. If you compare sales from back then to sales from today, then you'll see that Jimmy Olsen far outsold anything currently on the shelves by a wide margin.

He also hired an actual 14 year old fanfic writer to do the Legion stories. This made them considerably better. So no, this isn't really like bad fanfic. The lack of (intentional) gayness is evidence enough for that. This is worse.

Stan Lee and Jack Kirby invented the formula that you're thinking of in the early 60's, and it worked very well. They had a parting of the ways in about 1970, and Kirby ended up coming to DC, where he did some of his trippiest and most mature work (the Fourth World). This was at the same time as Weisinger's retirement, which was what ultimately brought an end to stories like these.

Of course, Marvel had their fair share of silliness, too. Don't make me find the one where the X-Men lose a fight to a pack of carnies, 'cause you'll regret it.

Also, "slice of life" stories are still pretty common, but it's mostly because of the decompressed way that comic stories are told nowadays. You can get a lot more done in a six-issue story arch than you can in a seven page backup feature.

Cyberwulf wrote:

Was it something to do with the Comics Code basically defanging everybody and banning depictions of violence?

No, not really. There was nothing in the Code stopping Superman from punching Lex Luthor. Batman and Robin kicked the shit out of random goons all the time. That was all above the board.

The problem wasn't with portraying violence; the problem was with portraying crime. I mentioned earlier that the unspoken, underlying goal of the CCA was to drive EC Comics out of business. One of EC's biggest revenue generators was Crime stories, which was sorta like Sin City, only it was written back when people actually talked like Frank Miller writes nobody ever talked like Frank Miller. Because of this, the original Comics Code contains a lot of asinine rules which prevent comics from "glorifying" crime, intended to make it impossible for EC to publish Code-Approved crime comics.

However, to quote the original Comics Code:

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Crimes shall never be presented in such a way as to create sympathy
for the criminal, to promote distrust of the forces of law and justice,
or to inspire others with a desire to imitate criminals.

No comics shall explicitly present the unique details and methods of a crime.

If crime is depicted it shall be as a sordid and unpleasant activity.

Criminals shall not be presented so as to be rendered glamorous or to occupy a position which creates a desire for emulation.

In every instance good shall triumph over evil and the criminal punished for his misdeeds.

Kinda makes it hard to write a convincing supervillain, don't it?

Comics Code was so shock-full of bullshit it's a miracle that the paper it was written on didn't turn brown.

And Supergirl has to be the saddest super-powered character in the entire universe. Was there anyone who actually liked her among the other characters? Is there ANY story in which she comes out on top without first being exiled into space or something?

Poor girl.

Lysander wrote:

If crime is depicted it shall be as a sordid and unpleasant activity.

I always wondered if there was a reason for Norman Osbourne's hair.