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SUPERMAN #233 was a real revelation back in 1971. At long last readers were treated to intelligent storytelling of a kind not often seen in the comic mags of NATIONAL PERIODICAL PUBLICATIONS (nowadays officially known as DC COMICS). And what's interesting is that all of the more ridiculous elements of Superman's back-story were consigned to oblivion (or, at least, limbo) without the aid of a cosmos-shattering 'crisis' or the kind of 'rebooting' recently witnessed in the pages of DC's 'The New 52'.
No, anything considered silly or juvenile that might have detracted from the MAN Of STEEL's evolution into a more 'believable' type of character was dealt with by the radical approach of - are you ready for this? - simply ignoring it and not referring to it anymore. (KRYPTO was dismissed as being "off exploring in space" and was simply never seen nor heard from again.) What might be regarded as immature concepts preventing The MAN Of TOMORROW being taken seriously, such as BIZARRO, Mr. MXYZPTLYK, The FORTRESS Of SOLITUDE (at least for a while), and, by implication, the ridiculous LEGION Of SUPER-PETS, such as (are you ready for this?) STREAKY The SUPER-CAT, COMET The SUPER-HORSE, and BEPPO The SUPER-MONKEY, simply disappeared - and without requiring a 12 issue maxi-series to explain it.
This novel approach meant that any long-time fans who wished to believe the more ludicrous ingredients of Superman's continuity could do so, without those now-absent aspects turning off potential new readers who'd be certain to consider them infantile in the extreme. Of course, there are limits to how realistically you can portray the fantastic (can a super-powered alien ever truly be regarded as 'believable' in the strictest sense?), but readers, especially in the '70s, were more inclined to accept an incredible premise if it was presented in a recognizably-realistic context that wasn't patently absurd from the get-go.
Step forward DENNY O'NEIL, who for an all-too-brief nine issues, presented us with a tour-de-force of how The MAN from KRYPTON should be written. Superman's power levels were drastically reduced; suddenly it was never certain that he would always triumph - at least, not with the seeming ease with which he once had. He became a much more interesting and compelling character, and one that would surely be able to hold his own amongst the more 'socially relevant' tales that were coming forth from the stables of both DC and MARVEL.
However, it's true to say that some of these changes had already started to happen before this landmark issue, but this was the mag which cemented the new direction in the last son of Krypton's comics career. Gone at a stroke was the tired and predictable scenario of Supes being threatened by Kryptonite yet again, an all too-common (and boring) occurrence in years gone by. (Yawn!) Now he was free of his green-hued nemesis (and all its multi-coloured varieties) and could face fresh, new and nail-biting dangers where the resolution wasn't quite so obvious and set in stone. And the superbly sublime artwork of the dream-team supreme, CURT SWAN and MURPHY ANDERSON, was never better.
Unfortunately, reader response to The Amazing New Adventures of Superman didn't seem as positive as had been anticipated, and this factor, along with O'Neil's self-confessed lack of affinity for the character, meant that this ground-breaking new direction ended after only nine issues. (O'Neil wrote a couple more issues - #s 244 & 253 - but they were unconnected to the series which had preceded them.) However, what a bold and exciting nine issues they'd been. For those not fortunate to have been around at the time, you can now savour these cataclysmic chapters in KAL-EL's career in the hardback volume entitled DC COMICS CLASSICS LIBRARY - SUPERMAN: KRYPTONITE NEVERMORE - available at your local comicbook store. (Update: A superior version was published several years later.)
(ISBN: 978-1-4012-2085-3)
And, for all those completists out there, below is the cover to the issue itself, scanned from my own personal copy of the original comic (as are the internal pages above).
10 comments:
Nicely 'splained, Kid. I was one of those ready to give up on superheroes when this stuff came along and sucked me back in. Not to mention (though I am mentioning it) the artwork of Neal Adams on most covers, and his story art was dynamite. I went back to the Batman books when Adams did his stories, giving a much more mature feel to the characters.
Between Neal Adams, Curt Swan, Murphy Anderson, Joe Kubert and Gil Kane, that era was golden, even if it wasn't the official Golden Age of comics.
Just a shame that comics aren't as good now (in the main) as they were then, eh, Thom? They just seem full of talking heads these days, with nothing much happening.
Plenty of punching, though, I'll bet.
Try Grant Morrison's Action Comics. Far superior to that Denny O'Neil Superman which was terrible at the time and still is.
Grant, what've I told you about not putting your name to your comments? If you want a plug, just say so.
The truly impressive thing about that Superman run was how much more dynamic Curt Swan's art and layouts became all of a sudden - he took to the book's new style effortlessly, or that's how it looks.
I know that Carmine Infantino did layouts on the Origin of Superman strip for the '70s tabloid-sized edition and is reputed to have occasionally done the same for other Swan Superman strips, but I don't know if that applies in the case of this particular issue or how many issues he worked on overall.
Thom, I'm not sure. I can't remember the last time I saw a good ol, knock-down, drag-out fight of the sort Kirby used to do. I think the action takes a back-seat to the talking these days.
With all due respect to Zenith Fan, I'll take O'Neil's stuff to Morrison's any day.
O'Neil sure knew how to write, John. Probably still does, too.
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