Tagged: Superman

Mike Gold: Jack Larson, Jimmy Olsen, and My Generation

Jack LarsonI’m guessing it was 60 years ago. I was a mere tyke; five years old. My sister was eleven. We lived in an apartment on Chicago’s mid-northwest side, and we had a television set. There were “only” five VHF stations and one of them was educational – a betrayal of my sensibilities. I hated school, even if it was merely kindergarten, and the idea that someone would waste one of those few precious teevee channels on school was simply beyond my ken.

At that time I was only interested in cartoons and in Jack Benny. Yeah, I’ve been a Jack Benny fan since the light from the cathode ray tube first shined in our living room. And I wanted to watch Bugs Bunny. Being six and one-half years older, my sister had more sophisticated taste. She wanted to watch Superman. And, being six and one-half years older, my sister usually got her way. So I watched Superman with her, as though I had a choice.

The show wormed its way into my heart, not so much because of Superman or Lois, although Perry White and Inspector Henderson were pretty cool. No, the character that appealed to me most was Jimmy Olsen, as portrayed by Jack Larson.

Jimmy was, indeed, Superman’s pal and who wouldn’t want to be that? He was a bit of a doofus, but in a very endearing way. He was one of those guys who could fail upwards and turn a crisis into a victory. He was swell enough to enjoy Superman’s confidence (but not his secret identity) and to help Clark and Lois in their work – and share their danger. Even though I didn’t want to be him as I knew Superman didn’t really exist, I sure as hell wanted to live next door to him.

Just like every other baby boomer. Jack Larson helped raise my generation.

I first met him in 1977, give or take a year, in Neal Adams’ studio. There were about a dozen of us, and Jack was polite, funny, informative and charming – even more so than his alter-ego. This was before he became convinced that George (Superman) Reeves committed suicide, and his analysis of the various conspiracy theories was fascinating.

I’d seen him at conventions and various DC functions since then and became aware of his career as a producer and a writer, often working with his life-partner James Bridges. But it was his previous lover, Montgomery Clift, who told him he was hopelessly typecast as Jimmy Olsen and he should move behind the camera, where he was quite successful.

Due to Jack Larson, Jimmy Olsen became even more successful. Roughly mid-way through the television run, DC came out with their first Superman spin-off book, Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen. It ran for 163 issues, with subsequent revivals.

When DC was forced to abandon the Superman series due to the death of its star, they asked Jack if he would be interested in starring in his own Jimmy Olsen series. By then, John (Perry White) Hamilton had died, so they could take the show in just about any direction. Understandably, Jack declined.

Jack Larson had a major impact on an entire generation – and that was a damn large generation. He was the first television actor to make bow-ties cool.

We mourn for Jack, who died last Sunday at the age of 87. Thanks to him, Jimmy Olsen lives on.

Dennis O’Neil: A Funnyman

Funnyman1Imagine the nipper that was me 70 years ago, give or take, I’m just back from one of my irregular expeditions up and down Claxton Avenue, stopping at certain houses and trading comic books with the kids who lived in them.

(I no longer have any idea who these kids were – though Dard Schmidt may have been one of them – but I hereby tender to them much belated thanks.)

Anyway, I’m looking through the newly acquired comics and … what’s this?

A comic book about a guy dressed like a clown who calls himself Funnyman and fights criminals. Not exactly like Batman and Superman fight them, but I guess fighting criminals is fighting criminals and anyone who does that is a good guy and so let’s just open the cover and see what this Funnyman is doing these days,

I must have liked what I saw – after all, I did remember the character longer than your daddy’s been alive, despite having only one encounter with him (I think.)

I mentioned Superman, didn’t I? Well, back then, in post-war St. Louis, I doubt that I really understood what bylines were. Reading itself was a recently acquired skill. Fact is, I don’t know if Funnyman had bylines, but if it did, they would have featured the names Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.

Ringing any bells? Yep, that Siegel and Shuster, the creators of Superman. It seems that Jerry and Joe were in a legal hassle with their former employer, the publisher of Superman, and decided to try something new, something without a big red S on its chest.

Enter Vin Sullivan. Mr. Sullivan, who seems to be one of comics’ forgotten men, had worked with Jerry and Joe on the early Superman and had started his own publishing company, Magazine Enterprises. Mr. Sullivan gave Jerry and Joe’s latest creation his own comic and Funnyman was heading for glory. But not for long. The title lasted only six issues. Siegel and Shuster also tried Funnyman as a newspaper strip, and that did not fare well, either.

Farewell, Funnyman.

But might the character be revivable? Maybe hype up his alter ego, a comedian named Larry Davis, and borrow some tropes from the trickster myths and … Oh wait! I’ve got it! We’ll have him run for governor – no, not governor, let’s go big time…we’ll have him campaign for the presidency (of the United States) and he says that he will eliminate most of the country’s problems during his first week in office by firing all the stupid people. Then comes the mightiest plank in his platform: He will deal with crime by building this great big wall … did I say “great big?” I meant huge – HUGE! A trillion feet high! And really, really long. And then, he’ll put all of the bad criminals on one side of the huge wall and never, ever let them back into the country even if they ask very politely.

One more thing: let’s give Larry Davis his own television show. What do you think – Sunday nights on NBC?

 

Mike Gold: Crawling Out Of The Primordial Slime

Superman Old

Superman was studying for his Bar Mitzvah on the day I was born.

I’ll save you the math. Superman was “born” in 1938. Both of his parents were Jewish. It is safe to assume that by the time a Jewish boy is 12 he’s probably studying for his Bar Mitzvah.

That means that your erstwhile writer and man-about-town is now a senior citizen. Actually, that happened yesterday, as you read these words. I’m posting this on August 3rd, so even if I get hit by a truck the day before Medicare you still get to read me whining and moaning and bitching about my antiquity.

It’s a shame that comic books have become respectable. Quite frankly, I’d make that argument even if I were only half my age, and that would still be twice the age I act. Because there has been damn little “respectable” about the first 65 years of my life, I plan on leaving through that same door.

I want to hear some even older drug store geezer walk over to his comic book rack scream “Hey! You! Geriatric twit! This ain’t no library!”

Come to think of it, I’ll settle for finding a drug store with a comic book rack.

Unlike every major and about a billion minor mainstream superheroes, I doubt any of us will get rebooted. As you regulars know, I’m not crazy about reboots. If they have to happen at all, they should only happen to people who are held together by staples.

On the other hand, I am held together by a team of people as patient with me as they are critical to me. First and foremost, by daughter Adriane Nash, who transformed my life entirely and massively for the better. All of my brothers and sisters here at ComicMix; it’s amazing what we’ve all went through this past decade. Even amazinger, we made it through the muck. My friends, which include my professional collaborators, which means I am goddamned motherfucking lucky.

To take a step back, what holds me together is the love, support, ego, and craft of the entire comics community. Talent, bureaucrats (yep; I’m one of them), fans, bloggers, store owners, store workers, technicians, movie makers, television show makers, cosplayers, and creative malcontents and misfits: That’s our comics community, and I’m proud and grateful to have been part of that all these ridiculous years.

This pocket dimension of ours is so cool even people who loathe each other do so on a first-name basis. That’s really cool. I mean, when was the last time you heard somebody scream “You degenerate piece of shit! I damn you and all your children born and unborn for the next seven generations…” followed by that person’s first name. There’s a strong possibility that this phrase was uttered after two friends disagreed as to which Jack Kirby creation was better: the Silver Surfer, or Thor.

(Thor. Hate me if you must.)

You gotta love it. My deepest thanks to each and every one of you.

Let’s see how much longer I can milk this puppy.

Thanks and a tip of my hat to Denny O’Neil and John Ostrander, who got there first and showed me the way.

 

Dennis O’Neil: Is Superman Super-Smart?

superman

Yeah, I’ve heard that Superman is super smart as well as super all the other stuff he’s super at, but I don’t know. I can’t recall a single instance where he thought his way past some obstacle. More likely, he’d just uproot the obstacle and toss it to somewhere like Jupiter. Maybe he is really bright and it’s just easier to toss a problem to Jupiter than cogitate about it. But the question is there.

I mean, if he’s so smart how come he can’t remember his own name? You ask how I know that he can’t? (Maybe you’re not so smart?) It’s that big S on his chest. The darn thing serves on purpose other than that of forcing script writers to jump through hoops explaining why it’s there. And why is that? Could it be that the S is a prompt for those times, after a long bout with Kryptonite, say, when the Man of Steel needs a little help in the memory department. A quick glance at the torso and… oh, yeah, S. I’m Superman. Now if only I could recall what I’m faster than…

Allow me to escort you out of the world where we treat Superman like someone who actually exists and into the present moment, where/when we will let ourselves wonder why Joe Shuster, the guy who did the visual part of creating Supes, decided to put the S where it is in the first place. I looked at the earliest drawing I could find and yep, there it is, the S, encased in something that resembles an arrowhead. Present at the beginning, albeit in a pre-evolved form. What inspired teenage Joe to add it, that Cleveland summer’s day some 82 tears ago?

Both Joe and his writer-collaborator, Jerry Siegel, are gone and, I think, they weren’t nearly as often interviewed as they should have been, so, barring some new information, we’ll probably never know what was in Joe’s head. The best guesses I’ve heard regarding superhero suits, is that they were inspired by circus costumes and/or the illustrations in the science fiction pulps that Joe and Jerry almost certainly read.

Seems reasonable. But: no thoracic initials in those clothes. And none on the Phantom’s wardrobe, either. The Phantom’s creator, Lee Falk, later said that the Phantom’s outfit was inspired by the movies’ Robin Hood. Wherever it came from, it certainly is a recognizable superhero costume. But no dorsal P. Falk debuted the Phantom in 1936 and so his masked jungle dweller beat Superman into print by about two years. But Superman was created as a newspaper strip in 1933 and languished until Joe and Jerry peddled it to Max Gaines for use in one of those new funny book magazines. So the Phantom likely didn’t influence Superman and vice versa.

But the meme Joe and Jerry created, the costumed superman, influenced dozens – hundreds? thousands? – of later creations, a number of whom had something on their chests. No initials: that element of the meme was not widely imitated. But lanterns, lightning bolts, bats, stars, and my favorite, sported by a character named E-Man, Einstein’s E=MC2. Yep, world’s most famous equation, right there below his collarbone.

Ah, but does any of this mean anything? Well, does it?

 

Dennis O’Neil: Caitlyn And The Real Us

O'Neil Faces

You! Yeah, you over there… you as sick of seeing pictures of Caitlyn Jenner as I am? I mean, they’re all over the place and the media are riding the story – paltry little story – like a merry-go-round unicorn.

What? You’re not sick of Jenner pix? Well, go dump your bumple – while I try to elide the above into something at least remotely appropriate for this column, which is supposed to be about comic books or pop culture or something. Here we go. I’ll assume for an as-yet undetermined amount of bandwidth that you have for the past month been on your bi-annual Zen retreat up there in those mountains, far from screens and speakers and media in general (which might explain why you’re not sick of Jenneriana) and so you don’t know that one-time Olympic medal winner Bruce Jenner has become an almost-transexual, posed for a magazine looking hotter than any 65-year-old, of any gender, ought to look, and in the process did a name-change: Bruce, look in the mirror and meet Caitlyn. Caitlyn apparently hasn’t had surgery – hence my labeling her “almost” – but in all other ways the transformation is a fact.

I commend her. Hers could not have been an easy decision to make. Let’s believe what she says – I have no reason to doubt her sincerity – and assume that all these years, from her winning Olympic glory in 1976 through semi-stardom in the Kardashian reality TV ventures after Bruce married Kardashian matriarch Kris, right up to her present notoriety glut, Jenner was hiding her real identity behind an assumed identity. “Bruce” was a mask; Caitlyn was the real person.

Claiming one’s truth is a noble act. But I can’t help wondering why it was done so publicly. The Vanity Fair cover, the television interviews, all the spangly show-biz… it’s almost as though she’s plastering a new mask over the old Bruce one. (Norma Jeane Mortenson, meet Marilyn Monroe.) And basking in the fleeting warmth of the spotlight? Again?

Some of this may seem familiar to comics fans. Ever heard, or even participated in, a debate over which is the real person Bruce Wayne or Batman? Clark Kent or Superman? Part of the appeal of the double identity trope, which isn’t limited to superheroes, is that it acknowledges and delineates basic human reality: we all present different faces to the world depending on the occasion. The you who has pizza with pals is different from the you who has dinner with grannie – and many of us, I suspect, feel that the individual society sees is not the real us. (And it probably isn’t.)

Part of me chooses to believe that Caitlyn is moving toward something valid that’s not just her ego finding another way to demand attention. (Is Batman an exhibitionist, despite his penchant for shadows?)

Now, your turn. Go and get a mask and put it on. Then find somebody who might want to look at it.

 

Monday Mix-Up: SUPERMANDREAS

Monday Mix-Up: SUPERMANDREAS

From creator Nick Acosta:

…a new disaster movie starring The Rock called “San Andreas” is slated to premiere in theaters. From the trailer I noticed that some of the film’s big disaster set pieces (the destruction of the Hoover Dam and Golden Gate bridge) looked very familiar to me. They are almost shot for shot the same as from one my favorite movies growing up – the 1978 film “Superman.” So I decided to re-edit the “San Andreas” trailer to take out The Rock and put in a 27-year-old Christopher Reeve as Superman. I even rotoscoped him flying from the 1978 film into “San Andreas.” Christopher Reeve’s Superman was my first childhood hero growing up. I still consider him the definitive Superman and I still can hear his voice when I read new Superman comics. So it was an immense pleasure to drop him into a modern day movie and see him fly one more time in his prime. Please check out “San Andreas” re-cut to the 1978 film “Superman,” I call it SUPERMANDREAS For more info on how this was made and to compare it to the actual “San Andreas” trailer you can goto my portfolio site.

Enjoy.

Mike Gold: The Daredevil Issue

Lately there’s been some controversy about the creator credits on the Daredevil teevee series. To be specific, the hubbub revolves around the use of the name and comments of some comics industry notables with respect to the issue. In other words, we have a controversy about a controversy.

Both are important issues, and are quite different from one another. But for the purpose of this particular polemic, I’m going to focus on the root issue, which is, as I understand it, as the creator of the costume used in the program, whether or not Wallace Wood deserves a creator co-credit.

The issues revolving around creator credits, a subset of the entire creators’ rights movement, are of vital concern. But they’re not very cut-and-dried. For example, there’s a good reason that the creator credit on Superman reads: “Superman created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.” That seems simple and straightforward. It is not.

I think we can all agree that Siegel and Shuster created Superman. If not; go away. I can’t deal with you. We may agree that they also created Lois Lane. Maybe. But, how about… Jimmy Olsen? Kryptonite? Perry White? Almost certainly not; all three were created for the Superman radio series and adopted by the newspaper strip, the comic books and the subsequent media manifestations. Okay, that’s just an example. I can cite dozens more. Maybe hundreds.

In the case of Daredevil, the first issue of the comic book was something of a train wreck. I read it off the stands and loved it, but I didn’t know that artist Bill Everett had enormous difficulty completing the issue and “various hands” were brought in to finish the job. Joe Orlando took over with the second issue, and Wally Wood followed Joe starting with issue #5, often with the credited assistance of Bob Powell. Bob penciled issue #11 and Woody inked it, and Jack Kirby and John Romita took over with #12. The briefness of Wally Wood’s tenure is not an issue here.

Woody changed the coloring of the costume from yellow-and-black to all-red in issue #7, which, coincidentally, costarred the Sub-Mariner – Bill Everett’s creation. The popularly held story, and there’s no reason to doubt it, is that Wood thought Everett’s costume was silly and that if the guy is called anything-devil, he should be in red.

So, some contend, because it is the Wally Wood costume that is being used in the television series, Wally Wood should get a creator’s credit.

I am second to no one in my admiration of and lust for Wally Wood’s artwork. I believe he was the first artist who’s work I could recognize by name – because Woody signed his stuff and Jack Kirby did not. But the immense quality of his craft does not enter into this argument.

There are comics creators, almost always writers, who believe that because they were the ones who came up with the original idea they were the true, and sole, creators of the property. Generally I reject this because comics is, first and foremost, a visual medium and the person or persons who create the visuals are also critical to the creation of the property. When I work on a creator-owned property, as I do almost exclusively these days, I insist the creators have a signed agreement stating their ownership positions. This makes life easier for everybody. I really do not care what those positions may be – as long as it’s not totally egregious, it’s not my business. If it is totally egregious, I know that it will blow up before long and possibly take the project down with it. That’s the only horse I have in the race.

After that point, things get a little tricky. Can you imagine the creators’ credits on any contemporary Superman story? Damn, the credits on Superman The Movie ran longer than some life-forms. Imagine adding the names of the people who came up with all the other characters and unique elements of the saga.

Of course, Batman’s “creator” will get his contractually due credit in next year’s Batman/Superman movie. I won’t get into the issue of just who created Batman right now; it has little to do with the Daredevil situation and, besides, my head would explode. Just consider my quotation marks to be editorial comment.

In my view, Wally Wood did not recreate Daredevil’s costume. As dynamic as the change was – and, damn, it certainly was – it was a coloring change and a tiny bit of alteration akin to putting that yellow circle around Batman’s bat. I know I just pissed a lot of people off and I’m sorry about that.

But it’s a tough one. Marvel notes all (or most all) of the writers and artists whose work is adapted for each movie and television show, and I think it drives my daughter crazy when I freeze-frame that part of the end credits because we’re both enjoying the “coming next week” teaser. But I’ve never seen the end-credits on Daredevil because, at least on my Netflix delivery system, the screen shrinks down to an unreadable size so that Netflix can inform me of how much time I have to not read those credits before the next episode starts. My guess is that for those who believe Woody’s name should be prominently displayed wouldn’t be satisfied, and I get that.

Comic book characters that survive for any length of time are like snowballs going down a ski-slope: they get bigger and bigger as they roll on. To me, the phrase “created by” refers to the people who started that ball rolling.

And my love of and respect for the work of the late Wallace Wood remains undiminished.

 

Mindy Newell: Dear Supergirl…

Crisis_on_Infinite_Earths_7

Superman: C’mon, Kara…don’t give up. You’ll make it. Pl…please…please stay with us.

Supergirl: I can’t. B…But’s it’s okay…I knew what I was doing…I wanted…wanted you to be safe. You mean so much to me…so much to the world.

Superman: You succeeded in destroying the machines.

Supergirl: Thank heavens…the worlds…have a chance to live…y-you’re crying…please don’t,,,you taught me to be brave…and I was…I love you so much…for what you are…for…how good you are…

The Death of Supergirl, Crisis on Infinite Earths #7 October 1985, Marv Wolfman and George Perez

Dear Supergirl,

I watched the teaser. And though I generally don’t watch them because of their usually really bad quality, the bootleg version of the pilot episode mysteriously showed up in my e-mail box the other day; by the time you read this I will not have been able to resist. You are my favorite super-heroine of all time.

How many times have I mentioned you, Maid of Might – one of your nicknames back in the day – on these pages in the last two – or is it three – years? The last time was just two week’s ago in Occam’s Razor.

I was heartbroken when Marv and George decided to end your life in Crisis. I mourned both for you and for the death of my childhood dream. And I mourned for the end of an era – of all the changes that Crisis wrought, this was the one that struck me at my core, this was the one that felt real, felt irreversible.

And I felt old.

And even though you came back, you didn’t come back the same. You were no longer your cousin’s secret weapon, you were no longer hiding in an orphanage as an ordinary Earth girl named Linda Lee. You didn’t have a Linda Lee robot to cover for you when you were off doing super-missions on your own or for your cousin, and you didn’t have a best friend in the orphanage named Lena Thorul, whom you didn’t know was actually the sister of Lex Luthor, your cousin’s arch-enemy.

You didn’t have a cat – the only thing I didn’t like about you, because I’m a dog person – and you didn’t have a super-horse named Comet – which was another reason I loved you, because I’m a horse person – for the “strange brand” marking his hide. You weren’t a member of the Legion of Super-Heroes, and you didn’t have three boyfriends: the 31st century green-skinned, brilliant Brainiac 5, the Atlantean fish-tailed mer-boy Jerro, and ordinary Earthling and fellow orphan Dick Wilson.

Fred and Edna Danvers didn’t adopt you, and you didn’t rescue them from certain death, blowing your secret identity, which of course your cousin agreed you absolutely had to do. And the people of Earth never celebrated and honored you when your cousin finally said that you were ready to graduate and step out on your own, so you never met the President and you were never honored at the United Nations.

Well, there is one good thing. You were never kidnapped by Lesla-Lar of the bottled Kryptonian city of Kandor and brainwashed into believing you were she, living her life as a respected scientist in a city in a bottle kept by your cousin in his Fortress of Solitude while she lived your life on Earth.

All that history, and more, wiped out of existence as if it never happened, never inspired the imagination of one little girl and, I bet, thousands, maybe millions, like her, who read comics and dreamed of things that never were but could be.

All that history to draw from, to borrow, to homage, to even reinterpret…all the things that could be….

…when you, Supergirl, make your first debut on network television this fall.

I don’t know whether to laugh and cheer…

…or to cry and mourn once again.