The MAN Of STEEL - COVER GALLERY...

Copyright DC COMICS.  Variant cover to #1

Back in the mid-'80s, DC COMICS decided to revamp and relaunch their most popular hero, SUPERMAN, in the wake of their 12 part maxi-series, CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS.  The face of the DC Universe was altered forever (well, at least 'til the next 'Crisis' when sales needed a boost) and JOHN BYRNE and others were called upon to revamp the line's premier superhero for a new generation.

So, here, for your entertainment and edification, are all 7 covers from the 6 part mini-series from 1986.  Enjoy!

    

Update: VOLKER STIEBER kindly got in touch to say that he'd won a specially bound copy of all six issues in a competition back around the mid-'80s.  In the style of  '60s DOUBLE-DOUBLE COMICS, the comics had the covers removed, were glued together, had another cover attached and were then trimmed.  Volker sent me scans of the finished result, along with his form letter from DC COMICS informing him he'd won a copy.

Thanks for taking the time and trouble, Volker.  Did you ever buy the 'proper' soft-cover collected edition of Man of Steel?

GADZOOKS! JOHNNY FUTURE Versus Mr. OPPOSITE - PART FOUR...

Copyright REBELLION

Let's not hold things back with my usual boring waffle.  All you really need to know is that the name of the artist is LUIS BERMEJO.  Right - grab your hats and let's go!

THE SIGNIFICANT SEVEN SINGS ITS SIREN SONG AND SOOTHES MY SOUL...

A slightly out-of-focus photo of me in Classroom 7 on May 10th 1988

Regular readers (all three of them) will know - from my many previous posts on the subject - of my overdeveloped sense of nostalgia and sentiment for all things relating to my childhood.  Here's yet another example of how my past continually calls to me, exerting its irresistible influence on my present behaviour.  I've previously related the fact that one of my primary schools is due for demolition, either before the end of the year or sometime into the beginning of the next one.

I've extensively photographed both inside and outside the school and have a plethora of photographs to look back on in the winter of my years when I eventually enter that final phase.  I was in the empty building again just the other day, and took the opportunity to remove the above letters from the door of the first classroom I was ever in when I became a new pupil on Wednesday, November 10th, 1965.

Originally the door was blue, and the plastic letters were white, but numerous coats of paint over the years had obscured the letters' ivory luminance.  I'm currently in the process of removing the various layers and restoring the letters to their pre-altered state, and when this is done I'll get a strip of wood, paint it blue and affix 'Classroom 7' to it.  Then I'll put the finished result onto my studio door as a memento of my long-vanished schooldays in a (by then) demolished building that a council 'Lend Lease' policy unfairly robbed of many more years as a more than perfectly adequate place of learning.

The numberplate of the house I lived in (77) when I attended the school is already on the door, so they can keep each other company.  Sometimes it helps to keep in mind where you came from in order to know exactly where you're headed.  (Or, indeed, to appreciate where you are now.)