THE MAN FROM KRYPTON - PART EIGHT OF FAVOURITE COMICS OF THE PAST...

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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 it.)  However, what a bold and exciting nine issues they'd been.  For those not fortunate enough 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.

(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).