Superman's Most Iconic Stories MEGA EPISODE (Superman Blue, Death of Superman, Superman's Ideal Version of Krypton)

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, super friends, and welcome to Geek History Lesson. You
have found the podcast where a Canadian comic book writer
that's me and a television writer from Kansas that is
Jason Inman teach you everything you need to know about
a character in about an hour. I am Ashley Victoria Robinson,
and you may have noticed there's been a lot of
discourse recently about what is a Superman story, what makes

(00:23):
a great Superman story, particularly with a movie called Superman
out in cinema's right now, and as a podcast that
has a Canson writer of our very own and a
lot of opinions about Superman, we thought we would open
up the annals of Geek History Lessons to explore Superman's
most iconic stories. So I welcome you, along with some

(00:43):
of our past guests, to this mega episode examining just
this hot button topic. Take it away, past Jason and
past Ashley.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
We're going to dive into the whole conversation about the
time that Superman earned the Blue in just a second.
But Ashley, I need to ask you a very important question,
probably the most important question I've ever asked you in
the entirety of Geek History Lesson History ready sure. Should
Superman always have a cape? Yes? Why?

Speaker 1 (01:17):
I just like the aesthetic of a cape. I'm very
pro cape. Incredibles can say whatever they want. And Edna
Mode is right about most things, but she is wrong.
Capes are very cool.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
Are you are you also agree with the sentimenta that
you don't tug on Superman's cape. You don't tug on
anyone's cape. You don't spit into the wind. Nope? Okay,
all right, everybody. That is the sign that this geek
history lesson is now in session. I'm Jason Electric Blue Inman.
I'm Ashley Victoria Robinson.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
Welcome to your mind University because you have stumbled onto
the podcast where we take one character construct or Superman
identity and teach you everything you need to know about
them in about an hour. And my friend, it is
Superman Year, and so we're back with another Superman.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
Yes, we're going to talk about Superman Blue aka Electric Superman,
but is most commonly known now as Superman Blue. What
in just one sentence, Ashley, how would you explain Superman Blue?

Speaker 1 (02:15):
So they decided that Superman needed a new look, and
they gave him all electric powers, and he was blue.

Speaker 2 (02:21):
And then he was red and he looks really great. Yeah.
So basically this happened in Superman number one twenty three.
It made history with a change that was so absolutely shocking,
absolutely shocking. The Man of Steel became the Man of Energy.
He received a complete overhaul of his superpowers as well
as a brand new costume, and a lot of people

(02:42):
viewed this move as a stunt, but the Superman titles
basically fully committed to exploring this character's brand new power
set for a full year. A lot of fans of
requested that were not a lot of fans, but a
lot of our listeners have requested this. I'm a big
fan of Superman Blue. I loved the look, I loved
the white, mild crazy swing of it all. I have
a whole, big passion piece plan for Superman Blue coming on.

(03:06):
But this was requested by one of our listeners. It
was requested by Mitch Trotter. Thank you, and would you
like to tell everybody else where they would like to
suggest a future geek cast lesson work? Did they do that?

Speaker 1 (03:16):
The best place where it won't get lost in the
fray to request a future Geekster lesson episode is on
Twitter tweet us at GHL podcast, they have weird character limits.
I would also like to just sort of tack onto
the like is it a gimmick? Is it a stunt
kind of thing? An idea can start out like that
and can turn into something pretty cool. I think Electric

(03:38):
Superman is really cool. And I mean Jane Foster Lady
Thor was this initially as well and turned out to
be a really great story. So you mean an event
in the stunt. Yeah, it was absolutely a hundred I
was like, she was not an electric character, no, but
it was like one hundred percent like a pandering stunt.
And if if something starts life as a pandering stunt
but is well executed as you say, and everyone went
even the JLA went really hard for this.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
Then it's cool. Everyone takes it seriously, then it's serious.
All right, Now it's time to jump into the ten
cent origin? What is that? Ashley?

Speaker 1 (04:08):
That is the first part of the podcast where Jason
is going to explain to you all the who's its
and what's its galore in case you go to a
cool Metropolis themed cocktail party and somebody doesn't understand your
specific nineties reference.

Speaker 2 (04:18):
So this is going to be a very short ten
cent origin, of course, because we've already done lots of
ten cent origins on Superman, but this is specifically for
Superman Blue. Superman Blue was a DC comic storyline from
mid nineteen ninety seven to mid nineteen ninety eight. Roughly
some of the writers involved included Carl Kessel, Dan Jurgens,
Mike Carlin, Louise Simons, and John Bugdanoff and more. Will

(04:38):
go so over some of his more powers later in
this lesson, so I'm not going to give them there,
but basically the ten cent origin is that it's Superman.
He's now blue. He could shoot lightning at you, and
the s shield looks like a lightning bolt, and the
head piece is so dumb but so good. So ninety Also.

Speaker 1 (04:56):
That Jimbrego has joined us in the recording studio for
the first time since we started the session today.

Speaker 2 (05:01):
Right now, let's get to the met cute.

Speaker 1 (05:03):
That is the second part of the podcast where we
stole a term from romantic comedy writing, and we're going
to tell you where.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
We first meeted this character and how cute did what? Ashley,
Where did you first meet Superman Blue or Electric Superman?

Speaker 1 (05:14):
I don't know because for most of my consciousness. I've
seen the images of Superman blue and Superman read because
I was so young when it happened. The first story
that I ever read was when I was going through
the Howard Porter JLA's collections that.

Speaker 2 (05:35):
You had, and you were like, why did he turn blue?

Speaker 1 (05:37):
And he literally just shows up one issue, Anda's blue,
and Kyle and Wally kind of like make some Snyder
remarks about it, and then Batman's like, you're you're just
gonna You're just gonna go with this and it's no
big deal. And then they do, and Superman is really
cool and it really doesn't matter that he's blue.

Speaker 2 (05:52):
Now, yeah, yeah, fair enough? All right? My meet cute
is actually Superman one twenty three. It's the very famous
cover of It's the first cover where he is Superman,
drawn by Dan Inger, but it is oh yes, I
recoid I had this issue. It's the first issue that

(06:13):
he gets his new electric blue costume, not as Bleaxer
Blue Powers and stuff like that. All right, So we're
gonna get into the big old history one on one,
but first we have a Patreon everybody. It's over at
patreon dot com. Slash Job and jawii in you might
be saying to yourself, oh my god, I support so
many Patreons. Why do I need to support more Patreon?

(06:33):
Ours is the best? Well, ours is the best one
hundred percent one is because it gives you access to
the exclusive Patreon or excuse the exclusive discard. There does
exclusive Patreon stuff. But we also have extra podcasts over there,
like geeksher Less, an extra which we do every single week,
which we talk more and more about. We recently did
pop Culture Talk with DJ Wolverds that's forty minutes over
there that you can only hear the Patreon. Every month,

(06:55):
we do Jason and Jeremy John about Justice League, which
is our Just League review podcast where almost through season
two over there, if you like this episode, you're really
going to like that. That one two episodes a month,
and then we just started a new podcast called Film Footsteps,
where Ashley and I are talking through our movies that
inspired our creative lives and our creative careers. And this
month's episode is about a pendent, So you go check

(07:17):
that out and we're going to be popping into some
Western So if you want to get all of that,
support this podcast. If you you know at the same
time and maybe even listen to ad free episodes. Keig,
Here's lesson do that all at patreon dot com slash
show on the Shawi. There's a link in this description
go check it out. I also want to let you know,
because I did some quick googling, you were correct it

(07:37):
was a Dan Drargins cover. That's my answer. Uh huh,
All right, let's getting a Superman Blue. Let's do it
well before we do that, Oh no, we have to
talk about the original Superman read Superman Blue story that
is actually an imaginary story that appeared first in Superman
volume one, number one, sixty two, because Superman one twenty

(07:58):
three is actually volume two is July nineteen sixty three.
The script was written by Leo Dorfmann with art by
the amazing Kurt Swan. In the story, Superman must complete
a list of unachieved goals, including enlarging the shrunken bottle
City of Candor also includes eliminating crime and evil on Earth.
Using various types of kryptonite, Superman invents a machine that

(08:21):
will increase his intelligence. The machine works and increases Superman's
intelligence one hundredfold, but it has the unexpected side effect
of splitting Superman into twin beans, one outfitted in an
all red Superman costume and the other in an all
blue version, and the twins call themselves Superman Red and

(08:43):
Superman Blue. Now, these two Superman's use their enhanced intellects,
and they first repaired Brainiac's enlarging ray, and after bringing
all of the fragments of Krypton together, they create new Krypton,
eliminating all existing crypt Den in the universe in the process,
successfully expanding Canndor on its surface and freeing its citizens

(09:06):
from their shrunken bottle prison. And at the urging of
Mermaid's Silver Age girlfriend Lorie Lamaris, the Superman's create an
underwater world for the citizens of Atlantis and enrange an
intercellar voyage to transport them to their new home, and
the two superman go on to create an anti evil ray,
which in cure it seems like, you know, it's so

(09:29):
silver Age. If only the police of our time would
come up with the anti evil ray, we would cure
all criminal tendencies anyone. These two Supermans also place the
ray into satellites in orbit around Earth, curing not only
villains as Lex Luthor and Mister Mixel Spilk, but reforming
communists such as Nikita Khrushchev and Fidel Krastrou. Can you

(09:50):
tell this was the sixties.

Speaker 3 (09:51):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (09:52):
The reformed Luther goes on to invent a serum that
cures all known diseases Wow, which the Superman dump into
the water supply. Supergirl then releases the entirety of the
Phantom Zone inmates, who are all reformed by the Anti
Criminality Ray, and they immigrate to New Krypton in a
spaceship provided by the Legion of Superheroes. With nearly all

(10:13):
the world's problems resolved, the two Superman can now focus
on their personal lives, and by splitting up, they can
finally resolve the love triangle between Superman Lois Lane and
Lana Lane. Superman Red proposes to Lois, and Superman Blue
proposes to Lana, and each woman claims her own Superman

(10:35):
and they have a triple wedding Superman Blue and Laanna,
Superman Red and Lois, And they also convince Lois's sister
Lucy Lane into marrying Jimmy Olsen. Because you see, because
of the Sixties, Lucy Lane, the younger sister, no longer
had to wait for the older sister Lois to marry.
Do you think the Superman's kissed different? Yes? What do

(10:56):
you think it is? A better kiss? Sir Red? A Superman.
Red decides to live on New Krypton with Lois, and
he renounces his powers and raises a family. Well, Blue
remains on Earth and retires to devote his entire life
to scientific research and starting a superfamily of his own.
Superman Red is a better kisser because he's feistier.

Speaker 1 (11:16):
If they're twins, yes, are their children's siblings instead of
being cousins?

Speaker 2 (11:22):
Uh? I mean biologically they are siblings. They're half siblings.
Biologically they would be half Sylbeans because they should have
the exact same genetics. Yeah, barring the mother of course. Yes,
the Superman's. Yeah, so they're actually making a one big
super family. Creepy. Actually that means that Lana and Lois
are part of a polyamorous family.

Speaker 1 (11:42):
I think Lanna and Lois ever like swap for the night.
They put on a wig and they're like, I'm Low's Laide.

Speaker 2 (11:47):
Well do you think the Superman swap they're colored? They can't.
Only their costumes are colored in the silver Rage.

Speaker 1 (11:53):
Oh, they don't have like the they don't have like
blue faces.

Speaker 2 (11:56):
Inherents like that. Nope, only the costumes. Their faces look
just like Superman.

Speaker 1 (12:01):
Also, I don't know if it's problematic that we call
them color and if it is, I apologize.

Speaker 2 (12:05):
Colors is in red and boe.

Speaker 1 (12:06):
Yeah, so they were just like Superman, but like with
a red costume.

Speaker 2 (12:13):
With a fully no color, just full red, full blue hot. Yeah. So, Ashley,
you're an editor in the nineteen nineties. Great, I was
an editor in the twenty tens. You're an editor in
the nineteen nineties working at DC Comics. I'm making a
good pay check. You're working in the nineteen nineties at
DC Comics in New York City, and your boss, Mike
Carlin comes up to you, Hey, Mike, great editor and says, hey,

(12:34):
we're gonna modernize Superman Red and Superman Blue. You just
read the storyline. I gave you all the details of it.
What elements from that storyline would you bring forward? Ignoring
what you know what they did? Okay?

Speaker 1 (12:48):
If it was me, Yeah, I am genuinely like when
you described them as twins, which I would not have considered. Yeah,
I'm really interested in that and using like the metaphor
of like Superman's duality, you could play out if they
are twins. Like that to me is very fascinating. The

(13:09):
color coding, of course, because you can sell two different
looks and you can sell two different acts, figures, t shirts, whatever.
But you're like, yeah, like, I really like the idea
that there's two of them at the same time. I
find that very amulant. I would also can like, I
would probably pitch because I like Superman and Lois being married.
What if they have twins.

Speaker 2 (13:31):
And they're they're red and blue?

Speaker 1 (13:33):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's probably where what I would That's
me off the top of my head. You're Mike Carlin,
and you've given me no warning that this, uh, but
you're very lovely that this meeting is happening. That would
be what I would pitch, certainly.

Speaker 2 (13:44):
Well, let's get into a little bit of the production
info on this, because the story was not long enough
to carry to an entire casualism, but the production info
behind this storyline is fascinating. Carl Kessel the amazing creator
of Impossible Jones who sometimes kicks our his books, but
he's mainly known as the create of Connor Kent or
con ell the Superboy clone, he says, and I quote

(14:05):
in an interview, the idea had come into my mind
to give Superman completely different powers. Not only would this
be a fun monkey wrench to throw at our hero,
but on a story level, I saw lots of possibilities
to show Superman struggling, something that is not easy to
do or often seen. With Superman for the first time,
he wouldn't know what he was capable of. He wouldn't

(14:27):
know what could or couldn't hurt him. And I liked
the idea of showing Superman learning, pushing himself, and sometimes
failing because he didn't know what worked. It also gave
us the opportunity to have fights with old enemies but
with a new twist. And in the end, even though
the real point of the arc would be it isn't

(14:47):
the powers that make Superman who he is, it's Superman himself.
And he said at the time, I had no idea
what those new powers might be. I actually wanted other
people in the Superman group to contribute that part so
that more people were invested in the story. And I
believe John Bogdanov suggested the energy powers. The whole red

(15:08):
and Blue thing came later. Now we should also explain,
and we explained this in the Superman Dark Ages episode
which came out a couple weeks ago. We should one
hundred percent and go listen to that. At this time,
all the Superman titles were sort of being written by
a group of writers, because there were five Superman titles.
There were Superman Action comics, Adventures of Superman, Man of Steel,

(15:28):
Superman the Man of Steel, and Superman The Man of Tomorrow,
all written by different people. But they were part of
the Triangle era, which is which makes it confusing to
try and organize your cover. So if you would look
at each of these covers each year, they would begin
with new numbering and you'd see a little triangle on
there and it would say like nineteen ninety six one,
and you would just follow those and you would know
in what order to in the storyline. So basically Superman

(15:48):
during this time was like a forever, not ending, ongoing
serialized narrative across five.

Speaker 1 (15:56):
Books, which is quite a feat to pull off. Yes,
I just want to say, Carl cusso some really great Harley.

Speaker 2 (16:01):
Coin comics as well. He did some of my favorites
he did. So this is how Superman actually got electric powers.
This is how Superman got his blue back. Yes, this
is how Superman blew himself airgame during That's a joke
for anybody out there. I hope you enjoyed it. During
the four issue event The Final Night, also written by

(16:24):
Carl kessel Hey, imagine that a being called the Sun
Eater attempted to destroy the Sun. This conflict temporarily blocked
out a portion of the Sun, which of course is
where Superman draws his powers from. The problem was that
Superman's powers didn't return once the conflict ended. What and
for a time he had to use the Fortress of
Solitude to absorb solar energy so that he could power up,

(16:47):
but it wasn't sustainable. His powers would always wear away.
Now Superman's powers eventually during this time, he noticed began
to shift and began to become more energy based. And
the actual prey to the electric Blue era is in
a storyline called Power Shift, which runs through Superman number
one twenty two, ventures A super Bowl number five forty

(17:08):
five at Action Comics number seven thirty two. In Superman
The Man of Steel number eighteen cover dated April through
May of nineteen ninety seven, The story actually has its
origins a few months earlier in this with the debut
of the post crisis version of Candor City, where Superman
gets zapped with energy by a literal space wizard that

(17:29):
changes them so much that the robots at the Forces
of Solitude no longer recognize his DNA as Kryptonian, and
by the time we pick up here, the changes are
becoming more pronounced and more permanent. In the Power Shift storyline.
This storyline also deals with a newly married Lois and Clark,
and Clark ruining their toaster with some vague definition of

(17:51):
inter electricity or magnetism that happens when he touches it.
But most of the storyline, rather than being in vulnerable,
he's now intangible bullets passed through him. He's wearing his
normal Superman suit and he's just like, what is going on?
And he tries to use his X ray vision, but
in his vision he sees an incomprehensible mess of electromagnetic spectrum.

(18:13):
The best though, is that during the storyline his new
powers allow him to interface with computers, which is presented
and probably the greatest and most hilariously nineteen ninety seven
way possible when he touches a computer, he can read
all his emails at once. Wow with his mind mmmmm
cool yep aol yes and ever. Also, every time he

(18:36):
touches a computer during this storyline, he opens his mouth
and you hear that old like e you know, the
old like every time you logged into the Internet, which
everybody that is in gen Z has no clue what
that sounds like.

Speaker 1 (18:46):
Do you think he can interface with PC and Mac?

Speaker 2 (18:50):
But the PC's exploded immediately? What about Linux?

Speaker 4 (18:53):
Well?

Speaker 2 (18:53):
Linux is an operated system on PCs. I got so. Yeah.
So the story which is actually about a battle against
the Atomic Skull in a fight with Sarah Tak, an
alien who escapes Candor. Sarah Tak is a character that
also becomes scorn. He's a big blue guy with horns.
Oh yeah, he sometimes wears Superman's costume. He's best forgotten about,
but he does. He is a big part of Superman

(19:16):
does exist. He does exist. So this storyline was basically
designed to show off Superman's new powers, which replaces old
ones in an intriguing way. There's a bystanderh again, who
gets hit with a bullet that goes through Superman's in
tangil body, prompting a conservative newspaper colonist who works for
the Daily Planet to wonder if Superman is a Superman

(19:39):
or a super menace. And there are also actually a
few instances where Superman's body completely loses the cohesion before
he is able to pull it together. During the fight
with the Atomic Skull, it is shown that he can
absorb radiation, and with the fight with Sarahtak which also
happens during the storyline, it shows that he can well
make his hand. He can make an energy construct made

(20:02):
out of lightning that is basically a big skull how
Jordan's style and punched people in the face with it. Cool. Yeah.
By the end of it, the new powers have become
so overwhelming that Superman basically explodes into lightning and blacks
out the entirety of Metropolis for the second time that month.
Emil Hamilton Superman supporting character and person that works at

(20:26):
Star Labs. He solves the problem by building a containment
suit for Superman. However, the suit is not one hundred
percent until it's provided with a new like micro they
never quite discribed micro mesh fabric sure that is supplied
by Lex Luthor of course, which actually made everybody uncomfortable,
but the alternative was basically letting Superman dissipate away into nothing. Yeah. Yeah,

(20:50):
So Superman put on the suit, Wham bam, thinking Man,
he turned blue, and Superman flew to Kansas once his
powers were under control, where he said, hey, ma hey, Paul,
I'm a blue smurf with lightning powers. Now yeehaw, And
he took a little lightning finger and drew it on
his his new suit and made the lightning super bowled
ass and then he flew up into the sky. As

(21:12):
they were aping the original John Byrne the Man of
Steel when he first puts on the red and blue Superman.
It's almost exactly the same pose, except this time drawn
by Dan Jergens, a really cool kind of poster. So
in a second, we're going to talk about designing the
new Superman suit, which again was a new feat new
costume for Superman, and what exactly his new powers are.

(21:35):
But first we're gonna take an electric break and we're back.
Superman just got some new electric powers in a brand
new blue outfit, or as the Pimp. In nineteen seventy nine,
Superman the movie would say that's a bad outfit. Wow,
Ashley Jason, the electric blue Superman blue suit? Do you

(21:58):
like it? I do? What do you like about it?
It's just really cool.

Speaker 1 (22:03):
There is something so nineteen nineties about it, in the
same way that static or static shock, if you will,
just is really cool. I think a lot of it too,
is the color. The electric blue and the electric red
over that design are really feels very even though it's

(22:23):
like thirty years old now fresh and modern in contemporary.
When you just juxtapose them sure against the classic forty
Superman costume, I just always thow. Even before I was
really into Superman, I always thought that it was a cool,
cool look.

Speaker 2 (22:39):
I mean, you think it's a cool look. I do.
I really think it's a really well designed costume. I
think the idea to give Superman blue skin is like
what seals it? Yeah, it really when the right when
artists like Howard Porter or Dan Jurgen's draw it looks
awesome and I think it's the reason. And I even
think the lightning esh shield looks awesome.

Speaker 1 (23:01):
I love it when the lightning comes out of his
eyes and like off of his hair.

Speaker 2 (23:05):
I think that's really I.

Speaker 1 (23:06):
Think it makes Superman look truly alien for the first
time in a lot of ways, and powerful, very powerful.

Speaker 2 (23:12):
So they had an artist bake off for this, which
is something that they so in comics a lot of times.
What they'll do is they'll literally just open up to
the entire company and say, we need a new suit.
Fres draw anything, and whatever we think is the best
design is going to be the winner, and then you'll
find the concept art in the back of a collection.
A couple of years later, you can find they actually

(23:32):
published it in the DC comics. The alternate designs for this,
none of them are that great. I don't have a
link to it. You can find it, you can google it.
It's not bad. So I wanted to ask you they
had all the Superman artists to draw on the suit.
Do you know which artist is actually the designer of
the electric blue Superman suit. I really want to say John.

Speaker 1 (23:56):
Bog but John Bog Danna Yeah, but I don't know
if that's right.

Speaker 2 (24:00):
It is incorrect. I feel like you're gonna tell me
and I'm gonna be like, oh, yeah, I did. No.
So this is an artist that is not really connected
to Superman, but he worked on Superman during this time period,
so I will tell you, just tell me. In these designs,
Dan Jurgen's design sort of like a booster gold looking suit,
make sure he had normal skin. Stuart Immermann kind of

(24:22):
designed a thing where he kind of looks like he's
the Molten Man. And then John Bogg bogged enough made
him sort of like a more of a lightning guy.
But the artist who designed this is Ron Friends, who
is more famously known as the co creator of MC

(24:43):
two's Spider Girl. Right wait, writer Tom defalcon, Yeah, baby, so,
and that's also gonna bring us into in action figure spotlight.

Speaker 1 (24:56):
Oh boy, which of your twenty seven incorrect?

Speaker 2 (25:01):
There are not that many Superman Blue action figures, but
I do own a bunch of them. But in the
nineties they made a bunch of Justice League, uh you know,
Total Justice. They were Total Justice repaints of Superman Blue.
They did red and Blue, but the best ones ever
are for DC Classics. They did do Superman Red and
Superman bluin and the gave you little Lightning bolts. But
I also have fun ones from Superman Batman where they

(25:23):
base them on Ed McGinnis. Oh yeah, but I have
I have both of them and it's literally the same
actually just repainted. Yes, they're which is fine. I have
I think almost all of the Superman Blue. I'm a
couple of them. But I was surprised a couple of
years ago, uh in Target when we saw that there's
like larger twelve inch figure. Y. Yeah, and for one

(25:44):
of them, they did Superman Blue, which really surprising, which
just goes to tell you that that design is still
so Ron friends did a great deal. Ron Frands is
quoted insaying that the original inspiration for this design was
that for years, as a kid, he thought Superman's was
blue the highlight. So he that is so pure and

(26:06):
like so sweet. I love that he took that thought
and was just like, I'm gonna make Superman blue. And
he took it to the nth degree. Yeah, yeah, to
use it, dizeque and he did an astounding job on
this design.

Speaker 4 (26:18):
I think.

Speaker 2 (26:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (26:19):
It's also one of the reasons why, like every animated
show does a version of this, yes, because the look
is so good.

Speaker 2 (26:24):
Now, let's explain Superman's new powers. Okay, here's the big thing.
He now transforms into human Clark Kent. What does that mean? Okay,
when he's Superman Blue. He's fully electric, He's basically full energy,
and when he turns it off, he becomes basically naked.

(26:47):
Clark Kent completely invulnerable. He is a mortal, so he
can hurt his toe so completely, you use it. Invulnerable,
completely vulnerable, apologies, apologies. So he can stub his toe,
he can nick himself. He also has a hard time
when he goes the Daily Planet now because he's not
a speed typer anymore. Yeah, so that is like the

(27:08):
biggest change is that Clark Kent is actually immortal. So
if he's not wearing clothes when he turns into Superman Blue,
when he turns back to Clark Kent, he's naked. That's
very funny too, but he has to has to be
wearing clothes. Plus Clark's method of shaving. Previously, he'd reflect
his heat vision off a curve section of the spaceship
that brought him to Earth, because you know, there's nothing
more pleasant for Lois than to wake up each morning

(27:29):
to the smell of burning human hair. Love it. But
now I'm going to assume that he uses a Gillette
razor because that is not the sponsor of this podcast,
but was the sponsor of two only seventeen's Justice League. Everybody,
remember that that's true. That's why Bruce Wayne shaves his
beer during that movie. Remember when they sent you like
one hundred and fifty seven racers? They did, they did.

(27:49):
Thank you, Giuleette, please sponsor this podcast. Yeah, but Superman
Blue also had had energy power, such as sentient energy.
Having become a being made completely out of electromatic electromagnetic energy,
Superman had to concentrate at all times to have a
body at all, and once in a while, however, he'd
run into a situation where his containment suit could no
longer help him maintain his solidity, and he would become

(28:13):
formless electricity. He could also alter his appearance. Now it's
only shown a couple of times. Again, his suit would
be blue and white, although he could change his look.
One time he mimicked the Raise costume, although eventually he
was able to mimic everything to where he could completely

(28:33):
change his look. One time, when he impersonated a Candorian
peacekeeper officer, he could change his density. Instead of bullets
bouncing off of a Superman's body, they go right through
him and he had to actually consider who was standing
behind him. For the first time in this thing vision powers.
He lost telescopic he he lost X ray vision. Basically,

(28:53):
he gained the ability to see the energy signatures and
multiple wavelengths. He also could follow radiation trails in radio waves.
He could absorb energy. One of the reasons why the
Man of Steel was renamed the Man of Energy was
of the ability to absorb virtually any form of energy
into his body. One fee he performed repeatedly was absorbing

(29:15):
nuclear radiation and also when during the Grant Morrison Howard
Porter JLA Run, he absorbed the energy of a hologram
that was programmed by Lex Luthor as part of the
JLA Revenge Squad. Although if he absorbed too much energy,
he would sometimes have to release it or else he
would explode. So he could also do energy conversion. While

(29:38):
Superman's powers primarily involved electric and electric neetic energy, he
could actually convert numerous forms of energy into lightning and back.
He could also energy project basically shoot lightey bolts. Okay, yeah,
but he probably he became faster as Electric Superman Superman
belue because with his normal powers, Superman could zap to

(29:59):
any location he was familiar with virtually instantaneously, just by
clearly picturing it. He could also fly at a velocity
out in par with lightning. That's the speed of light. Yeah,
and generally his flight end zapping were signaled by a
loud thunderclap. One of the unique methods he found of travel.
It was actually inspired by the Adam Ray Palmer that

(30:20):
he had the ability that he could travel into a
phone line and go directly to somebody's location. And probably
his coolest new power magnets. Superman's suit emphasized the electric
nature of his powers, but his powers were actually electromagnetic.
He could magnetize metals, he could attract and repel metals,

(30:41):
basically creating his own personal tractor beam. And one time,
when the Demon Gasped began pulling the Moon towards Earth,
Superman up the ante by using the electricity from the
JLA Watchtower to create a magnetic field around the Moon
that was the opposite polarity to Earth's that automatically repelled

(31:03):
it from the planet. I have talked about this before,
I've said it again. This is the best use of
superman Blues powers in all of comic books, and this
is by Grant Morrison in the Justice League. We will
talk a little bit about that later, but not that much. Ashley,
you get one of the electric blues powers, which one

(31:24):
you take interesting?

Speaker 1 (31:26):
Probably the teleboarding I think. I think that would be
really useful. I would never have to go on a
plane again. I would basically be Kurt Wagner's the Incredible Nightcollar.
So like that is appealing to me. Yeah, I've probably
take celepretation.

Speaker 2 (31:39):
How about you? Uh yeah, one hundred percent. I think
the instant to be able to think about anywhere I
want to go and then boom, I'm there. Yeah, yeah,
that's really sweet. I don't need no phone line powers.
So here are some of the details about what happened
during this period of Superman Blue, because a lot of
it is just Superman discovering his powers and going to
Candor and fighting Matallo, and it's kind of same old,
same old, except Superman has electricity powers.

Speaker 3 (32:00):
Yeh.

Speaker 2 (32:01):
Jimmy Olsen during his time was no longer the Daily Planet,
and he was trying to make a name for himself
as a television reporter. So Jimmy Olsen during his time
believed that he had figured out his best friend superman
secret identity and he planned to announce it live on
the air for ratings. At the last minute, Jimmy chickened
out and falsely announced that Superman did not have a

(32:25):
secret identity, which caused him to be immediately fired from
his television job. Then we also got to meet a
brand new character, Ashley m Superman read. Hey, that's fun. Yeah.
So the next chapter in the saga was a Superman
Red and Superman Blue one shot, which I actually have
in this studio. It's somewhere over there. Yes, it's in

(32:47):
our spinner rack. Oh my god, I just realized that
it's speaking. It's three D. Yeah, it comes with three
D glass. I had no idea. Yeah. Wow. This storyline
had Cyborg Superman and toy Man trap Electric Superman in
a cage, which had the unintended effect of splitting the
Man of Steel into two beans. Superman Blue was calm
and preferred to use his intellect to solve problems, while

(33:09):
Superman Red was angry, quick to action, and decisive, and
these true grew to harbor immense disdain for each other,
which neither had any interest in becoming the same person again,
and this caused Lois Lane to literally kick them out
of their condo until the problem was resolved because you
couldn't stand them always arguing with each other. Now, Ashley, yes,

(33:33):
who do you like better? Superman Red or Superman Blue? Honestly,
think about that design? Do you think it works better
with blue? Think? Or looks better with red?

Speaker 1 (33:44):
Red is my favorite color, so I have a huge
bias toward it in that sense, I think it looks
better blue.

Speaker 2 (33:55):
I'm holding up the Superman Red Superman Blue comic to
I actually don't think I have three D glasses. So
with the whole issue, name would you who? I don't know,
I don't know what's of fad. I like your Man blue? Yeah,
I always like your Man Blue. Now, Secondly, Ashley Lois
is a modern woman, and I realized that it was
the nineties. But you know, why not? You know, uh,

(34:15):
double the battery if you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (34:17):
Yo, I have been holding that joke back for so long.

Speaker 2 (34:20):
I was like again, that's why I was like, who
do you think this is better?

Speaker 4 (34:23):
What?

Speaker 5 (34:24):
Like?

Speaker 2 (34:24):
Literally?

Speaker 4 (34:25):
Why not?

Speaker 2 (34:25):
They are both her husband? That's right, it's not cheating.
And if you go off the original storyline, somebody's getting
married and having a family no matter what.

Speaker 1 (34:34):
Right, uh huh uh huh I mean, look, I would
if I was Leslie.

Speaker 2 (34:40):
Do double that battery, for sure, double the battery. We
double the fun. Yeah, yeah, that's gonna be the theme song.
Here comes Superman Blue. He'll give you a son red Son. Yeah,
I get it all right. So of course this was
the story. This is a story that is a post
crisis update of the classics over hhale that I already
told you, Yes, John Bugdanoff, who I told you about earlier. Yes,

(35:03):
artist said, he said, and I quote that was really
fun because Superman Blue, for me at least, became this
serious Superman very much. The Dan Jurgens sort of grim
Hero and Superman Read was the late nineteen forties bantering
Superman who would just punch something and later make a
pun about it. He was a superman who seemed to
have a lot of fun doing super stuff. So I

(35:25):
really enjoyed Superman Read.

Speaker 1 (35:26):
Also, if you listen to our recent mega episode where
we go wh Jason goes through like all of Superman
history Golden eight, Superman like really did like punch people.

Speaker 2 (35:34):
Yep, give him a stern word and move on, and
give him a stern joke and moved on. Now, eventually
these two Superman were lusted over by Queen Maxima, and
it built to a story that had to end in
a giant clue conclusion called Behold the Millennium Giants, and
we will tell you all about these Behold the Millennium
Giants right after this, and we're back Superman read Superman Blue,

(35:59):
double the Battery, double of fun. As we said, they're
fighting giant cow slash statue guys that are sort of
best forgotten and these things that are sort of best forgotten.
There are a race of monsters known as the Millennium
Giants who were summoned to Earth and began to march
all over the world and cause havoc and destruction. They
eventually obliterated the nation of Markovia, which is the home
of Terra of the New Teen Titans and Geo Forsta,

(36:21):
also a hero Better Lot Forgotten and the Jla rallied
to take up the fight and to defeat the Moneyum Giants.
Superman Red and Superman Blue both expended the entirety of
their energy, and according to Martian Manhunter, during that storyline,
he did some energy scans. Couldn't find Superman Red, couldn't

(36:43):
find Superman Blue, so thusly Superman died in nineteen ninety
eight for the second time. And yeah, I mean, Ashley,
how did you feel about the second death of Superman
in nineteen ninety eight, devas stuff? I mean, I don't
think I was a way of course you weren't aware

(37:04):
about it because of what didn't happen. Literally the next
month they published. They published in June of nineteen ninety eight,
they published an issue called Superman Forever, which is by
Carl Cassel, Dan Jurgen, Stuart Immom and John bugdanav Louise Simonson,
Tom Grumm and Valsamachus, John Byrn Kieren Dwyer, Norm Brayfuggle,
Anthony Williams, Dick Jior, Donald Scott Eaton, Steve Yo, Paul, Ryan,
Brett Breeding, Dennis Rode, air Klass Johnson, Hillary Barta, Joe

(37:25):
Robinstein and Jose Junior and Dennis Young k Basically anybody
that had worked on Superman within the last fifteen years
worked on this issue. Has a beautiful, beautiful what do
you lenticular cover yep, where it's an Alex Ross painting
and it is Superman Clark Kent getting ready to open

(37:47):
the shirt. And then when you turn it. He opens
a shirt and there's a Superman. He's taking off the classes.
So this is how Superman Forever begins. It reveals what
happened to Superman. He's not dead, he's just sleeping. But
he wakes up. Yep, he wakes up in a crater.
He lands out of the sky in a crater outside

(38:07):
the Kent Farm in Kansas, worrying nothing. His original Superman
costume and he has his old powers back comics. How
this happened his comics is literally never explained. Yeah, I

(38:31):
love it. The explanation is vague. And Superman talking to
Mau and Paul, he just goes, well, maybe ours rewarded
for saving the world. Mau and pauw and they're like, Clark,
that's stupid, and that's vague. Explain this.

Speaker 1 (38:45):
You're from Kansas. I cannot believe you're doing the sacks.

Speaker 2 (38:48):
I know, I know, I look at So he thinks
that he was returned to normal just through the good
of the universe. So it's basically swept under the rug.
So I went back to since the interview that I
had with the great creator Carl Kessel, and I should

(39:11):
have reached out to him. Actually us I should have
emailed the mask in this podcast. We ran out of time. Everybody,
It's fine, we'll get him on the show eventually one day.
But he actually talks about the ending of the Superman
Blue arc, and he's not really happy with it, you know.
So he says, and I quote, I don't think the

(39:33):
New Powers arc was resolved as well as it could
have been. Since I had come up with the idea,
I did propose an ending where we learned that some
new villain had found a way to switch his powers
with Superman. So now this villain had all of Superman's
powers while Superman had his, and just as Superman was
learning how to use these new powers, so was the

(39:55):
bad guy. The bad guy starts wrecking way havoc in
way Superman of course, would never do, and Superman has
to stop him, and basically Superman has to find a
way to defeat himself. He does, of course, and then
the powers are transferred back to the proper bodies. And
then that way, that gave us a villain with powers
that everyone knows can beat Superman's powers. I thought that

(40:16):
would be a cool note to end on Mike Carl
and the editor overruled that idea, saying that he felt
it was too much like Venom slash Spider Man, and
it didn't seem that way to me, but maybe it was.
How what do I know? So the status quo of
Superman is completely reset. We have Superman back in his
old costume, back with his old powers, Jimmy is suddenly

(40:39):
just working to the Daily Planet again, and Superman is Superman. Now.
This isn't the end of Electric Superman slash Superman Blue.
The character was sort of returned with with a character
named Strange Visitor, where she had the same costume and powers.
I don't think she's that interesting. Also, there was the
Lana Lang Superwoman series. She was basically a version of

(41:01):
a Superwoman read where she had electricity powers. And then
there are some hints at the time of this podcast
of John Kent becoming Electric in the future. But I
want to talk about why I love Electric Superman to
end this podcast. Please do. Here's why I love Electric Superman.
For me, the storyline is not bad. It's frustrating because

(41:24):
it has so much untapped potential. I think the problem
is that in the nineties nobody really did anything interesting
with it. It ran for an entire year fifty plus
comic books, and the only truly memorable use of these
powers were during the Grant Morrison Howard Porter Jla run,
which is also one of the best runs of the

(41:44):
nineties and the best Soos League run of all time.
But still, I thought that this was such an amazing
shocking no pun intended shocking. I did not see this coming.
I remember seeing this comic on stands and being stunned
by it. Yeah, and I love that because sometimes comic
books are too precious and too safe with their characters

(42:06):
and their franchises, and sometimes these wild alterations can lead
to amazing stories and amazing things. That's how we literally
got Star Trek the Next Generation in nineteen eighty seven
instead of them just making a reboot of Captain Kirk.
It's a wild swing, it's a great look, and I
would rather have my favorite characters take wild chances even

(42:30):
when they don't work, than just give me the same
story of somebody locking up the Joker and Ragham Asylum
again for the five thousandth time. So that's why I
love Superman Blue. I maybe I love it for the potential,
but I don't think it ever got to where it
should have been, and if I ever get to write Superman,

(42:52):
I hopefully will change that. But I want to ask you, actually,
what are your thoughts overall on Superman Blue.

Speaker 1 (43:01):
I've always enjoyed every Superman Blue I've ever read. I've
never I'm not like super super proficient and familiar with
the character and with the run, but I've never never
not I've always had a good time engaging with this
character in this form, and.

Speaker 2 (43:17):
I think you really nailed it.

Speaker 1 (43:18):
Like I admire the audacity of the creators and of
DC doing this with Superman, particularly in the wake of
the death of Superman, where they'd already presented so many
alternate takes on Superman and really like messed with an
updated and challenged his continuity and who he is as
a character like this, coming on the keels of that

(43:41):
is a really brave choice, because they could have just
settled back with the status quo, which is kind of
what happens to him after this for quite a while,
until till John comes along, or I guess arguably in
the New fifty two where were just kind of like
reboot him. But yeah, I think Superman Blue is cool,
and I think think a lot of the reason why
this character persists is because the visual is so strong.

(44:04):
There's always somebody cause playing this character at any convention
you go to.

Speaker 2 (44:08):
Because it's a cool look. Yeah. Like whether or not
you think the run is perfect, it's not.

Speaker 1 (44:13):
It resonates. It's this character resonates for a lot of reasons.
And I think that's also why they keep making action
figures of them. And again they keep putting this character
in cartoons.

Speaker 2 (44:22):
Because it's cool. Yeah, there you go. All right, now
it's time to get into the recommended reading.

Speaker 1 (44:26):
Yes where if you enjoyed this and you want to
go on your own electric journey with Superman, you can
go to geek history lesson dot com, slash recommended reading,
pick up Jason's recommendations in your reading form of choice,
and learn something.

Speaker 2 (44:37):
Why don't chest? So there are not many Superman Blue
stories available in print, so I had to stretch on
this one. The first one is there's a trade called
Superman Blue. Yeah, they released it a couple of years ago.
It only collects like, I think the like first twenty
issues of the storyline or the first like fifteen. It's

(44:59):
really awesome. It's a really great trade. I don't think
it's sold very well. I don't know if we'll ever
see a volume two, but I think you would need
like four volumes to complete it. All that sounds about right.
If they do, I will buy every one of them.
I don't think they're going to do it, but they're
all on DC un limit if you want. But the
next one is Our World's at War, which is the

(45:20):
next Superman. That's where Jeff Lobe and stuff like that,
and I talk about it because that's where Strange Visitor
pops up. Okay, yeah, so that is sort of continuing
the legacy of Superman Blue. And the last one is
Superman Red and Blue the anthology series, just because that
sort of plays in the AA and they're really great
one off stories, so go check that out. And it's
an alliteration on the name. But that's about it. There's

(45:40):
as much more I whack, like the first volume of
JLA on there. Second volume actually thanks what you're looking for, Yeah,
but that those are actually the best Superman Blue storylines,
Like if you go look for JLA Rock of Ages,
Superman Blue is all over that. And you could include
the Phil Jimenez Super One series as well, because she's
basically a Superman Blue as well. It's a good book,

(46:02):
and I remember being shocked by Indian reading that issue.
They're like, oh my god, they're doing Superman Red but
with Lana that's amazing. Yeah, so that's it. Let's get
into the Honor Roll. What is that, Ashley? The Honor
Roll is if you go to Apple Podcasts. I also
think we're going to start including Spotify. Are we really?
That's up to you. That's up to you. We'll go
leave it. Okay, Well, well you know what here we are.

(46:23):
We're gonna start from here, Ashley. I'm gonna leave it
to you that you can leave a fire star review
on Spotify I think, or Apple Podcasts and we will
read on the air.

Speaker 1 (46:32):
You're right, if you are a nice international person, at
least on Apple Podcasts, we can't see your reviews. Please
take a screenshot. Emails geek Histrails at gmail dot com
and let us know where.

Speaker 2 (46:40):
You are from. But if you want to break the
seal and see if we can see your international reviews
on Spotify, go for it. Yeah, why not?

Speaker 1 (46:46):
We have one Verson joining the Honor Roll today with
a wonderful, wonderful username of night Wing beyond three cool
who says totally dope podcast. Thanks for all the cool lessons.
I work night shift and you guys totally make my
time go by faster. Oh hear, Nightwing is my favorite,
just like Jason, So that made me like you all
right off the I understand you two are definitely the

(47:08):
namic duo of podcasting.

Speaker 2 (47:10):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (47:10):
I hope you eventually do a lesson on the question
or leaf Falk's the Phantom. Thank you again so much.

Speaker 2 (47:15):
I think the question is definitely going to happen, just
depends on when I think so, I mean the Phantom
per if they make a new Phantom movie.

Speaker 1 (47:23):
I was gonna say, if the character, like a lot
of people will be like, what are you going to
do this character? And it's like, oh, well, when something
lifts their profile usually is the answer.

Speaker 2 (47:31):
So welcome to the uh teachers le I think beyond
free it's going on there today. Jason in there, I
mean Jesus, Clark Kent came in again. Can't keep him
out and he ruined the toaster.

Speaker 3 (47:44):
M hm.

Speaker 2 (47:45):
So the toaster's on fire and Clark Kent's just kind
of staring at it. Yeah, and we all know, we
all saw the lightning bowl go from his fingers. We know, look,
look here, we all here at the Mine University Babble
of Safety in Smallville, Kansas. We all know that he's Superman.
But you know, if we tell him, it's gonna hurt

(48:07):
us feelings and then he might not save the earth
the next time imperio X comes around, and we can't
have that, there won't be an earth. So it's look it,
burnt toast. I'm sorry you're joining the teacher's lounge burnt
Toast on Burnt Toast day. But you know, just ignore
the big duns in the corner. And you know, next
time he tells you look, he might also rip open

(48:28):
his shirt and be like, look at my my electric
guess right here. Just ignore him. It's fine, just Pike Adam.
Just walk past him. He's fine, He's in us and
he's fine. That's what's going on in the teacher line. Great.
So if you want to follow and download this podcast,
don't forget to go to iTunes, go to Apple podcast
whatever it's called Spotify, click that follow, click that download,

(48:51):
and if you liked this episode, please tell a friend.
That's the easy sway for this podcast to grow. Ashley,
where can they find this podcast on social media.

Speaker 1 (48:58):
You can find us at Facebook dot com slash geek
History Lesson, on Twitter at GHL podcast, and on Instagram
at geek History Lesson. A. If you're leaving these reviews,
we're doing some giveaways on the Instagram, so I'll be
sure to pop that over, pop over there and take
advantage of that. I might win something.

Speaker 2 (49:13):
Follow Ashley on Twitter and Instagram at Ashley B Robinson.
Follow me on Twitter and Instagram at job and that's
jaw ii in coming over to the patroon if you
have some extra stuff and now it's time for.

Speaker 5 (49:26):
Stick around.

Speaker 2 (49:28):
So Ashley, So Jason, I want to ask you, because
I don't think this is going to ever happen in
the movie. Sure, will we ever see Electric Blue Superman
in a cartoon? Because to this point, as far as
I know, we have not and none of the DC

(49:51):
animated movies have we seen Electric Superman? Uh? Will we yes?
Will we may ye? Got to think about it's been
twenty years, Pope, more than twenty years has not happened once?
Can I tell you?

Speaker 1 (50:06):
Or I think a good place would be and a
good story might be the video games? Uh, DC League
of Superpets two because we dealt in the first movie
with separation anxiety with Crypto and Superman. Minor spoiler what
if he turned blue? Superman turned blue and then Crypto

(50:26):
had to learn like what happens when your fringe change?

Speaker 2 (50:30):
Interesting? He doesn't smell right. I have a feeling that
if they for that sequel, they're gonna do kid. I
have a feeling we're not getting a sequel. Oh that's true.

Speaker 1 (50:38):
Yeah, you're given recent circumstances.

Speaker 2 (50:41):
Earn that. But also Trulie Devistada, there should be a sequel. Yeah,
I would really.

Speaker 1 (50:47):
I think animation is the place where you can take
wilder swings like that. I think that's what we love
about something like Harley Quinn the animated series, and I
would love to see I think I would love to see.

Speaker 2 (50:58):
This in the animated movies. I think I know it
wouldn't sell, but I think a movie called Superman Blue
would be a lot of fun. And I think the
movie could play in a lot of interesting territory that
the storyline's never got to and him doing I think
it would be a really fun way. And if I

(51:18):
were to put this out there and please DC Animated
Movies hire mean in time, I would pitch it as
that he has Lois and he has John, and so
his powers turn when he has John, and so it's
like John having to help his dad learn his powers.
Again that's cute. Yeah, yeah, yeah, And so the the

(51:41):
lot of the story is like John being like, well,
I have to carry the slack because like Dad cannot
control his powers.

Speaker 1 (51:47):
I also think it would be like a fun one
off that you could do. It could be in a
different animation style. I'm surprised, honestly that there isn't a
d animated.

Speaker 2 (51:56):
It wasn't even referenced than Justice League. Yeah, but to me,
it kind of feels like Bruce tim was probably like, oh,
that's stupid, But I totally understand. But I think this
storyline is not remembered fondly. I remember it fondly, but
I remember it fondly for I think fans like this story.
I think fans like the idea of Superman Blue. I
don't think they like the storyline, because even I will

(52:17):
agree that the storyline is not that great. It's more
the look and the idea. Again, I love the storyline
for the untapped potential, and that's why I would love
to see something do something with it later. Like again,
it would be like if they ever made a Superman
video game, I would be like, there should be a
level where he turns electric for one level. I mean,
here's also like a hot take.

Speaker 1 (52:37):
If you wanted somebody as Superman and they only wanted
to do one movie as Superman, this would be a
really great one off.

Speaker 4 (52:43):
Sure.

Speaker 2 (52:44):
Yeah, because that suit's gonna look fantastic in live action.

Speaker 1 (52:47):
So good, especially low like an led, especially if you
can enhance it with the right way with V effects,
like it would be like next level cool.

Speaker 2 (52:54):
Yeah, it would be next lilevel cool. So there you go.
There is one storyline that changed comics and superheroes more
than any other, and this year it is celebrating its
thirtieth anniversary. It is time to discuss the death of Superman.
Because your Geek History Lesson is now in session. Hello

(53:17):
and welcome to Geek History Lesson. I'm Jason. My cape
is gonna fly on a stick Inman. I'm Ashay Victoria Robinson.

Speaker 1 (53:24):
Welcome to your Mind University because you have stumbled onto
the podcast where we take one character construct or incredibly
important event in art culture and teach you everything you
need to know about it in about an hour.

Speaker 2 (53:35):
And this week, I guess we're doing something kind of
a little different, I mean sorta.

Speaker 4 (53:40):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (53:40):
No, well, we're talking about a whole storyline, but it's
not a book club. Yeah, we're talking about the death
of Superman's boilers. I mean it's in the title, but
that is fair. There is Okay, there is. There is
a spoiler warning. Superman dies for a thirty year old
comic story thirty years ago. Got Betta. He's mining gul

(54:01):
Betta goal. Okay, bath, there is the deat someone in
England is so bad right now. I think I was
pulling out from a movie. I can't remember which one,
but there you go. The death of Superman's storyline is,
of course, one of DC comics most iconic tales. It
basically forever changed the way that death operates, I would say,

(54:22):
not only in superhero comic books, but in television and
in movies. It was published between nineteen ninety two and
nineteen ninety three, and basically, if you've never read the storyline,
this is going to be an interesting We're going to
go through a lot of the publication history about why
they decided to kill off. They're basically most famousest of

(54:45):
a superheroes in nineteen ninety two, and it's a really
fascinating storyline. So the Deaes Superman storyline we're gonna talk
about today, of course, started with Superman's fatal battle with Doomsday,
which is called the Doomsday storyline, the superhero community's response
to Superman's death, which is called Funeral for a Friend,
the emergence of four characters claiming to be Superman, which

(55:06):
was Rain of the Superman, and then eventually it led
to the return of Superman. And and this is this
is another thing why I wanted to celebrate this, because
this storyline is so unique, and it's so unique in
so many different ways because it was told across four
different monthly Superman titles. Yeah, do you hate crossovers? You

(55:28):
can thank this event. Yes.

Speaker 1 (55:30):
Actually, this, this event, in my opinion, exemplifies crossovers done
really well.

Speaker 2 (55:33):
Yes. And you know, it featured the talents of some
amazing people like former GHL guest Dan Jurgen's Icon, Louise Simonson,
Roger Stern, Jerry Ordway, Carl Kesselkon, Tom Grummitt Icon, John
Bogdanovac icon I call him John bog Okay, you know
Jackson geis bread beating, breeding and more.

Speaker 1 (55:51):
Everyone who worked on this is like incredibly important in
comics history.

Speaker 2 (55:55):
Now there, I'm gonna say it. They're all legends. Yeah,
they are all legends at the top of their game.
They were at the top of their game in nineteen
eighty two. They're at the top of their game still. Yeah,
this is gonna be a fun episode again, full of
discussions in info and don't forget. We also are gonna
have an interesting discussion. We have comic creator Charlie Stickney.
He's going to be joining us to give us some
comic fan and also he was a comic book publisher

(56:17):
at one time, so he's gonna be giving this that
perspective on the storyline later on. So let's get to
this ten cent origin of the death of Superman. Yes,
what's the tenthent Originationally, thank you.

Speaker 1 (56:29):
That's the first part of the podcast where we teach
you pretty good for I didn't realize I had to
set you up. I'm sorry you do every time where
Professor Jason is going to tell you all of the basics,
who's its, whatscalore? In case you go to a dope
DC Comics themed cocktail party and some nice person is like, Hey,
what was the deal with the death of Superman?

Speaker 2 (56:47):
So The Death Superman is a DC Comics crossover story
event featured in DC Comics Superman related publications. It was
edited by Mike Carlin. It was written by Dan Jurgens,
Roger Stern, Louis Simons, and Jerry word Way in Carl Kessel.
It began in December of nineteen ninety two and it
lasted until October of nineteen ninety three. Now, wow, not

(57:09):
just the death, it includes the other storyline It was
published in, specifically these titles Superman Action Comics, The Adventures
of Superman, Superman, The Man of Steel, Justice League of America,
and Green Lantern. Now let's get to the met cute.
That is the second part of the podcast, where we
are going to tell you the first time we meet
did the story and how cute it was. Ashley, where

(57:29):
did you first read or hear of the death of Superman?

Speaker 1 (57:33):
I mean, who knows, honestly, because I was a baby
when this happened. So for me, this has always been
something that I've known has happened in the pop culture sphere.

Speaker 2 (57:43):
When did you first read it? I guess then is
the question.

Speaker 1 (57:47):
After geek History listen started, Oh boy, maybe twenty fifteen
or twenty sixteen, kind of in that Oh I've never
read this. I know this is important. I should check
get out and it's awesome. I'd seen about one hundred
million copies of it before then, because when you work
in comic book retail, you got a lot of people
coming in with the poly bag thinking that that issue

(58:09):
is worth a lot of money.

Speaker 2 (58:10):
Which specific issue is that that's the one where he dies,
which the number which is whatever is that? I have
no idea. Oh boy, okay, Superman number seventy five. I like,
we can't. We can't assume then our listeners.

Speaker 1 (58:23):
When people bring it and brought it to me, it
was always in the black poly bag, So I literally
had no idea.

Speaker 2 (58:28):
I apologize. There was like three I believe there were
three different of the specific issue that Superman died, which
is Superman seventy five. Yeah, I believe there were three
specific editions. There was the normal just comic book newstand
version where it's his cape fluttering the wind. It's all
the trades now very famous iconic image there is the image.

(58:50):
There's the black poly bag. It was a white poly
bag as well. There's it's it was called the platinum
poly bag. It was and when you open that one up,
it was it had a platinum silver cover. The black
poly bag one apparently came with the Superman armband. You
wear the armband like all the superheroes going to Superman's funeral.

Speaker 1 (59:10):
So yeah, it was so popular they printed them in
such high demand, which is why they're not They're not
worth anything anymore.

Speaker 2 (59:18):
Better off spending your money on the collection. So yeah,
where did you first meet? And cute? I mean, I'm
assuming you read this lot. I did not read this live.
I read this after I read this. I've told the storyline,
the story on GHL. Before this trade paperback of Death
of Superman I bought in a gas station in Erie, Kansas.

(59:40):
Had no idea. I'd heard about the storyline. I'd heard
about on the news like this made the news like
regular people news, not like comic book. But I didn't
read the storyline until I think maybe the next year.
After the storyline, but I had the trade of Death
of Superman and it ends with of course where he dies.
Spoilers climax, and you know, it was really my introduction

(01:00:08):
into the DC universe. It made me be like, oh wow,
there's Batman, there's Green Lannard, there are always people here.
I still have that very first straight I mean, this
is the storyline that is responsible, I would say for
me reading any kind of comics in a large scale facility,
facility at play capacity capacity. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (01:00:28):
And you have that version signed by Dandragrins, which we
told on I don't know if I don't know if
it was that episode or the.

Speaker 2 (01:00:34):
Extrap but we did tell that story. Yeah, yeah, all right,
So we're gonna dive deep into the death of Superman
and we're gonna have a great conversation. And if you
like this conversation and you need more, this week's Geek
History Lesson extra episode on Patreon is gonna be comic
deaths that did and did not work, plus comic talk
with the creator Charlie Stickney, our guest. So head on

(01:00:55):
over to patreon dot com slash jawin that's jaw ii
in and joined to get more podcasts like that and
our Just League podcast, which is Jason and Jeremy John
about Just League, where we review every episode of Justice
League the animated series. You're also going to get four
bonus episodes of JHL Extra Marvel Club, two episodes of
Justice Pod month. There's a lot of extra bonus episodes

(01:01:17):
over there, and add free episodes of Geeksher Last, So
head on over there. Thank you to all our super
friends that support us each and every month at patreon
dot com slash showIn We love you all right, So
let's get behind the scenes of the Death of Superman.
So Superman had been rebooted in nineteen eighty six, back

(01:01:40):
to Square one. Clark Kenton supporting cast was brought to
be in a nineteen eighties worldview because of a major
event called Crisis on Infinite Earth's usually we wait a
while until we get to this. Ashley, would you like
to explain Christ and If and Earth to somebody in
case this is their very first episode.

Speaker 1 (01:01:58):
Well, you know, i'd really encourage you to go back
and into our six part series Crisis Club, which you
can find and protracted versions in this field. Actually Crisis
on Infinite Arts, which if you haven't read, like Death
of Superman is like required reading.

Speaker 2 (01:02:10):
Yeah, but not until you have some comic books. Er yourum,
don't make this your first.

Speaker 1 (01:02:13):
No, But I mean, if you've been a comic book
fan and you've been sleeping on Crisis, these reread Crisis.
There were so many multi verses, and DC was like, oh,
there's so many multiverses. So then the Anti monitor ate them,
and then he pooped out one universe and everybody got
a reboot except Batman, who got a real soft reboot.

Speaker 2 (01:02:30):
Yes, and some other characters too, But I'm not sorry,
but Superman got a full, pretty pretty hard readbo into.

Speaker 1 (01:02:35):
I'm going I'm going to say it probably but prior
to the birth of John Kent my favorite version of
Superman and co I'm going.

Speaker 2 (01:02:44):
To say that this is probably my favorite era of Superman. Yeah. So,
now Lois and Clark were restored to newspaper reporters for
the Daily Planet because they Clark Kent had been a
television reporter before this. Lex Luthor was transformed from a
mad scientist of delusions of world conquest into a sort
of very famous, very overweight businessman with delusions of gold,

(01:03:06):
toilets and world conquest. Later creators would add the science
angle back to Lex Luthor, making it more believable, but
this had a very dramatic change, because you know, this
led into a brand new Superman basically under the control
of writer artist John Byrne, who's a very famous X
Man and Fantastic Four artist. And now the time we

(01:03:28):
hit the early nineties, Superman started not selling. Now, well,
it basically kind of started losing its sales after John
Byrne departed because he'd successily like redefined Superman, and in
an effort to halt the slide of sales, editorial decided
to up the romance of Lois and Clark by making

(01:03:51):
them engaged. This was a good choice, yep. Lois Land
and Clark Kent became engaged in nineteen ninety one in
Superman issue fifty, but it would take another couple of
months before Clark could be truly honest with Lois and
reveal his secret identity to her. So he proposed as
Clark Kent, and then it took him a couple of

(01:04:11):
issues to be like, Oh, by the way, I'm Superman.
And that issue where that happens is the very famous
cover where it's Lois looking right at the camera and
she's holding Clark Kent's glasses and the glasses of the
reflection of the Superman s Shields very iconic cover. With
this change, comic status quo had truly changed. Forever marriage

(01:04:32):
was on was on the books, and the comic had
planned for the wedding to happen in nineteen ninety three.
Now this happened in the past, Ashley. But I want
to ask you, at the point that we are talking
about current day, Yes, do you think it's possible to
do a non married Superman and Lois anymore? Do you

(01:04:55):
think that Superman and Lois being married is just such
in the zy guys and such a pop culture that
you know, I mean, think about we have a TV
show called Superman Alois where a married Superman Alis, Superman
a Lois are married in the comic books, I got
married in the DC. They got married in the DC.
You didn't, well, he proposed to her. Oh that's true,
that's true, super Ransom are I mean, there was a

(01:05:18):
period very recently actually where Superman was single and stuff
like that. But do you think like we are just
in this point of like Dick Grayson always being night
Wing now and we're about to cross the period where
Dick Grayson will have been night Wing just as long
as he's been Robbin. It'll happen next year, actually, do
we think? Do you think we're at the point in
a return where like, hey, it's Superman and Lois are married.

(01:05:39):
That's just the game, I hope.

Speaker 1 (01:05:41):
So I feel the very same way about Peter Parker
and Mary Jane Watson. I think it's way more interesting
to explore that side of their personas and their personalities
because we've spent so much time doing the other thing,
and because comic books is the perpetual second act. I
think it appeals to me the idea that these characters
can kind of move on. It's what I find satisfying

(01:06:03):
about Dick Grayson as a character is that he's fully
moved on from the Robin identity. If they ever did
another hard To reboot where like Dick went back to
being Robin and Lois didn't know who Superman was, like,
I think it would feel very strange. I hadn't considered,
as you put it out, the implications in television and film,
but I think that I think if it's not cemented

(01:06:25):
in pop culture and in sort of the cultural psychist,
it's certainly on its way. And obviously the.

Speaker 2 (01:06:31):
The also the emergence of John Kens. I was going
to say, the.

Speaker 1 (01:06:33):
Addition of John Kent to the larger canon is certainly
going to cement. I mean, you could have them get divorced,
but I hope not. I don't They're going to keep
Batman unmarried. Excuse me, so I hope you know, I
don't know if saying a Superman divorced story. Superman, Look,
being divorced doesn't make you bad person. This is not
I just want to clear that up for this is
not a value. I don't want to be divorced. But Superman

(01:06:54):
is the big blue boy scout. He is the broad
strokes and Potatoes Americana ideal, and that is, you know,
tied up in certain cultural and religious expectations, and one
of them is that you stayed married. So I don't
see Superman getting divorced. But I mean, in the realm
of all things possible, it could happen.

Speaker 2 (01:07:16):
I hope he stays married.

Speaker 1 (01:07:17):
I love married family Man, Superman, I really do well.

Speaker 2 (01:07:22):
In nineteen eighty nine, Time Warner turned their attention to
DC Comics and began promoting Batman and Superman aggressively. Batman
got a movie series in an animated series. Superman got
a pair of television shows from nineteen eighty eight to
nineteen ninety two. He had the Superboy television show, which
was the adventures of a teenaged Clark Kent, and then

(01:07:44):
came nineteen ninety threes Lois and Clark, The New Adventures
of Superman The New Adventures of Old Christine starring Terry
Hatcher and Dean Kin, which aired on Sundays on ABC.
I specifically remember it watching that on Sundays. This focused
on the adventures of adult Clark Kent and his rival
slash love interest Lois Lane, and Superman was actually pushed

(01:08:04):
to the back burner as a character also because they
couldn't afford the special effects. This was done to save
on budget and to make when Superman showed up more impressive.
It actually was a huge success of a television show.
Can't believe they let Terry Hatcher play Superman. She did
a great job. Yes, she's amazing. Nothing else eas to
be said about that cast. Because of the success of

(01:08:25):
the television show, this actually made Time Warner look more
positively on Superman.

Speaker 1 (01:08:30):
And that show is beloved for people who watched it
at the time. There is a nostalgia and a love
for that series.

Speaker 2 (01:08:37):
I mean, I watched that show, or I watched most
of it live. It does not hold up, but I
remember it fondly just for the reason that it was
the only super Hero live action show at the time.
It was literally all we had. Yeah, so it was
good for what it was. I'm glad it was a
fun Sunday night. I'll just say that. Look, and there's a.

Speaker 1 (01:08:58):
Direct line between that show with all of its you know,
problems that we would put on it now, and Smallville
and Superman and low s Lane.

Speaker 2 (01:09:07):
So Superman's comic line during this drastically expanded. The long
running sell titled Superman was now retitled Adventures of Superman.
There was action comics, there was The Man of Steel,
and they had a newly launched Superman which would cover
the Life and times of Clark Kent. This made for
basically one Superman comic being released a week. That's a

(01:09:27):
great the Life and Times of Clark Kent. That's a
great title. Yeah. Now, the plotlines would intersect between issues
of the run and DC would eventually event what is
called the cover triangle for Superman. This would be a
little Triangle era. This is coluiquily known I miss pronounced
so low quill. Thank you, Ashley as the Triangle era,
and you'll see it as there. You'll find some Superman

(01:09:49):
comics that have a triangle on the cover and I'll
say like nineteen ninety three one Little Yellow Trent, nineteen
ninety four two. Yeah, it actually makes organizing your comics
really So this I'm gonna just say the trianglera is
it's my favor ere a Superman comics. I'm just saying
that right now. So Time Warner at this time was
all about brand synergy because that's what these corporations want

(01:10:11):
to do. So with a brand new show about Lois
and Clark being romantically flirty and not married, the higher
ups figured people would get confused when they weren't married
in the show, but they were married in the comics.
So eventually Lois and Clark The Adventures of Superman had
Superman proposed to Lois Lane. Now with Superman was now

(01:10:34):
engaged to Lois Lane in the show and the comics,
but the comics and the TV show were now competing
on who would get to walk Lewis and Clark down
the aisle first. I kind of love that yeah, So
Superman group editor Mike Carlin and DC president Janet Kahn
decided that the highly anticipated wedding should take place in

(01:10:57):
the show. First, you got the comics. With the barest
of Google searches. You can find the full wedding clip
on the U two's fun fact they get married twice
in the show, do they really? Because the first time,
spoilers Clark marys a faux Lois or right, it is

(01:11:19):
not actually the real Lowest Lane. She's been kidnapping take
off somewhere, and so they didn't do the real wedding.
I think they like in the next season. Is she
a luthor? I don't remember, Ashley, I don't know. If
you want to go watch Lowis and Clark The Adventures
of Superman, it's all HBO Max Have Fun. Were not
sponsored by HBO Max L So the postponed wedding in
the comics between Clark Kent and Lewis Lane had to

(01:11:39):
be replaced with something else, and the writing team at
the time was kind of stumped because the wedding was
supposed to take up and all the honeymoon and all
that stuff was supposed to have a year's worth of
stories and now they had to throw it all out
in the trash. So during the annual Superman summit where
the writers would all meet to come up with story ideas,
apparently this is a legendary story that every single year

(01:12:02):
when they would get stuck, Jerry Ordway would just yell out,
we should kill Superman. It's also literally the opposite of
a wedding in a lot of ways. But apparently he'd
been saying this for.

Speaker 1 (01:12:12):
Like the last three or four years. You're aware of
the stories, Yeah, as an apocryphal or not.

Speaker 2 (01:12:16):
Yes, as a joke, And because of this year, and
because they were all like, oh, we just had to
throw out an entire year of planning Jerry Ordway throughout
the joke, Let's just kill them. And Louise Simonson actually said,
maybe that's not a bad idea. And so, according to interviews,
Louise Simonson writing Superman The Man of Steel, liked the idea.

(01:12:38):
She had worked on the death prone X Men franchise
was Chris Claremont, and she thought it would be a
great idea to tell a story about how much the
deceased character meant to all the other characters. In the
Sporting Cast editorial approved it. Jerry Ordway has later said
in interviews that he was actually speechless when the plans began,
when they're actually planning how to kill this guy. But

(01:13:01):
the original idea was that Superman would die in Superman
seventy five and come back to life and adventures to
Superman number five hundred, keeping milestone issues on both ends.
And it all started with a certain character named Doomsday. Now, Ashley,
how would you describe the villain to Doomsday? Excuse me?

(01:13:22):
How would you describe How would you describe villains to Doomsday?
If you're talking to Doomsday and you have a dinner
with Doomsday? Okay, how would you describe a How would
you describe a villain Doomsday? So you know what you are? Rah,
that's a villain. Yeah, that's my dooms Day Price. Yeah,
that sounds like Tim Allen from From Home I Movement
fairly also a villain? Yeah, alsoin so, but how would

(01:13:43):
you describe Doomsday to somebody who's never read this storyline?
Are you asked me to describe him as a character
of visually? I don't care either or the question is
open to interpretation.

Speaker 1 (01:13:52):
He looks like a big gray monster with bony spikes
that I guess according to his rage or the whim
of the artists, and the story can elongate as necessary.

Speaker 2 (01:14:06):
He comes from space and he comes to Krypton. It
comes from Krypton.

Speaker 1 (01:14:13):
He's He's Kryptonian, and uh, he's most famous for killing Superman.

Speaker 2 (01:14:19):
What do you think about the choice to have a
brand new villain whose first appearance is this is the
death of Superman, kill Superman over like classic Superman villains
like Brainiac or Lex Luthor. I have kind of two
schools of thought on this.

Speaker 1 (01:14:37):
This happens in every single comic book. Like ever, they
always introduce a new character. Sometimes they pretend to be
their friend, like if it's Godspeed in the Flash, and
then they wind up being like this is a very
tried and true trope. On the one hand, it does
feel a little convenient to suddenly introduce a villain who

(01:14:57):
is suddenly capable of murdering Superman, which is something that
he dodged for like fifty.

Speaker 2 (01:15:02):
Years up to this point.

Speaker 1 (01:15:04):
And on the other hand, if it was one of
his rogues gallery, then how come they didn't kill him
all along?

Speaker 2 (01:15:14):
It would also it immediately.

Speaker 1 (01:15:16):
Elevates one of those characters above all the rest of
the staples.

Speaker 2 (01:15:19):
Well, I actually don't think it elevates. I think it
demotes because then that character, if you ever want to
tell a future story with that character, will always be
connected to this storyline.

Speaker 1 (01:15:29):
But also, they killed Superman, so they're better than everybody else.

Speaker 2 (01:15:32):
But the play on most of these characters is especially
like Lex Luthor somebody like that, is that you sometimes
get to play him as Superman's friend, I understand, and
if you have him kill Superman, that is gone, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:15:44):
One hundred percent. Or like Brainiac is like fascinated by
super it'd be like Magneto stabbing Professor Ax in the chest.
Like the fun of Magneto and Professor Axes that they
get to.

Speaker 2 (01:15:53):
Help they sized the same. Yeah, they get to have
the tet To tet you know. Yeah, So I understand.
I ultimately think.

Speaker 1 (01:16:02):
It's a good choice, but I can understand people who
might feel dissatisfied by it at the same time.

Speaker 2 (01:16:08):
Well, so Doomsday kind of has two origins. Mike Carlin
came up with a name for the original villain because
he wrote on the whiteboard Doomsday for Superman, and they
just thought that that was a really great name. The
design for the villain came from sketches that Dan Jurgens
had had for like sort of a monstrous character that
he just always wanted to do but just had never

(01:16:29):
used anywhere. Yeah, So when they decided what villain should
kill Superman, they thought that the existing foes were like
too much on technology and intellect, and they did not
want to kill Superman by using kryptonite. That was off
the table. They were like, we will not use any

(01:16:51):
part of kryptonite to kill Superman. So in the month
prior to the death of Superman, each of Superman's stories
began with a massive, green gloved fist hitting a metal wall,
just saying Doomsday was coming. And as the month wore on,
the glove began to collapse, revealing gray skin and bony
protrusions like demented and monstrous Wolverine. And suddenly the wall

(01:17:16):
broke open and Doomsday was here. Dune, Dune done Now.
Superman's long, bloody fight against Doomsday would take place across
four issues, leading towards the climatic finale and Superman Number
seventy five. In the seventy seventy fifth issue, Dan Jergens
wanted the final issue to be told through splash pages

(01:17:38):
and emphasizing the suspense and the action. And if you
read this storyline it's only four issues, you will notice
something special. And I've talked about this on this podcast before.
Adventures of Superman number four ninety seven was the first
part of the storyline. It would use four panels per
page on every single path. Action Comics six' eighty four

(01:17:58):
was part two, and it was reduced to three panels
per page. Man Is Still nineteen had two panels per page,
leading to death, the death the Superman Superman seventy five
having one panel, so it is a countdown to his death.
Can I let me let me finish and tell you
whose idea this was?

Speaker 4 (01:18:15):
Real?

Speaker 2 (01:18:15):
Quick? Okay? Sure, Brett Breeding was the one who came
up with this idea and thought process.

Speaker 1 (01:18:21):
Okay, So now I know for sure what year I
read this. It was twenty fifteen, because this was when
Jason and I were at the height of creating and
pitching comics and doing a lot of stuff for anthologies,
and you, Jason, were a big part of like helping
me understand what you can do different in a comics medium,
And you pointed this out to me as an example

(01:18:43):
of how you can use format to tell a story,
and like how format affects the pace of reading.

Speaker 2 (01:18:48):
And that's why I initially read the Death of Superman.
Ah Okay, so Superman's superpowered battle basically happened in the
heart of Metropolis. Superman was going to die fighting Doomsday.
He dies on the steps of the Daily Planet, and
the heartbreaking final page of Superman seventy five was a
triple page spread featuring Lois Lane engulfed in tears as

(01:19:11):
Superman laid dead in the wreckage. Ashley, Yes, let's talk
about this classic image. Yeah, everybody if you have read
any combooks, I think has seen this classic Dan Jurgen's
image yep of the cape in the background and lowest crying.

Speaker 1 (01:19:28):
In the collected editions. If it's not the cape on
the stick, it's this image.

Speaker 2 (01:19:32):
On the cover alway almost all the time, you know,
you it's funny. At this point, I was going to
ask you about, you know, people bringing their issues to
seventy five up to the comic cop it's literally my nose.
Ask Ashley about Superman seventy one.

Speaker 1 (01:19:47):
We used to tell people this is no drag. It's
a great issue. It's a great story. But again there's
just such a prolifery. It's like it's the same thing
any ninety Spider Man issues worthless, we used to tell
people because people would die, like Superman dies in this issue.
It's so important, and we'd be like, it is not
worth the paper.

Speaker 2 (01:20:02):
It's printed. He's died like two more times since then.

Speaker 1 (01:20:05):
Then if it was in the poly bag, people would say,
but it's in the bag, it's ever been open. And
so because I was not a kind and generous person,
I would be like, oh, yeah, those are blank pages
and there they didn't even print the comic.

Speaker 2 (01:20:19):
Fun fact, I have never ever owned the poly bag
version of this issue.

Speaker 1 (01:20:24):
I can I can buy I can go walk and
get you on right now for a dollar yes I know,
oh they mean twenty five cents.

Speaker 2 (01:20:31):
Yeah. There are new versions of it. They just published
like a thirtieth anniversary special. Yeah, yeah, no, they're amazing.
One of them has like an armband in it. I
thought about it going to get it.

Speaker 4 (01:20:38):
Yeah, I want that armband.

Speaker 1 (01:20:45):
Honestly, you know enough retailers, someone will just throw twelve
copies of.

Speaker 2 (01:20:49):
That issue at you to get them out of their
storage space. But what do you think about this image, Ashley,
what do you think about the choice to have Superman
die on the steps of the Daily Planet? Okay, so
Superman's dead. Thoughts, oh, insights about this specific moment Superman's
actual death that he dies, is the city safe? He

(01:21:10):
turned the page, He turn the page and he goes
he does. Yeah, you can hear the win and Lois
goes from no like Joe, like you can just hear
her wails.

Speaker 1 (01:21:21):
Yeah, it's very It's very dramatic in the way that
like comic books are melodrama, that is the in soap opera,
like that is that is the tone at all accounts?
I think it's I think it is such a clear
distillation of everything that Superman is and everything that he
stands for. Like, he dies, he dies at work, he

(01:21:45):
kind of the arms of the love of his life.

Speaker 2 (01:21:47):
Well, he dies at work saving the city from doomsday,
but he also dies on the foot feet of the deal.
I know, I know. But Superman is sort of his
work job too. Yeah, he works two jobs and he
dies at both of them. He's how american is that
he doesn't live in imagine like Bruce Wayne. Now he's
working two jobs and he's killed for it.

Speaker 1 (01:22:03):
Yeah, and he's murdered and dies in the arms of
the love of his light like it.

Speaker 2 (01:22:07):
He dies at work, yeah, doing both of his jobs. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:22:11):
I think it is such a clear distillation of who
Superman is and what they were trying to say about
this character and his impact.

Speaker 2 (01:22:18):
Uh huh. And it's a really.

Speaker 1 (01:22:20):
Stunning image, like just as not even a piece of
comic book, ar but just as a piece of art.

Speaker 2 (01:22:27):
It is really arresting.

Speaker 1 (01:22:28):
And like you said earlier, you can hear Lois Lane screen,
Like if you can hear you can have like an
ASMR experience of a comic book.

Speaker 2 (01:22:35):
That's that's quite something. Now. DC did not intend for
Superman's death to be permanent, but they kept the secret
because you know, they know how to sol a story,
and they also there was no Internet for people to
spoil everything, and they all sign non disclosure agreements preventing
them from revealing when the character would return. Mike Carland
expected fans to know the death would be temporary, but

(01:22:56):
he did say in an interview in twenty eighteen that
he could not believe how many newspaper reporters and TV
reporters interviewed him like the death was permanent. However, the
teams delayed all Superman comics ever changed comic book journalism.
Teams delayed all Superman comic books for three months after
his death to create the illusion that he had been

(01:23:18):
killed because of the solicitation cycle would have spoiled his
resurrection in the venture comics. Yeah, now, Ashley, let's explain
you worked in comics. Are explain the solicitation cycle in
case people aren't that familiar with how comic books are
like sort of sold to combo show. Yeah. So, because
we're beholden to Diamond, which is something that which is

(01:23:38):
not true anymore.

Speaker 1 (01:23:39):
Well, it's becoming increasingly less true. You have to order
on the Diamond schedule, which means that.

Speaker 2 (01:23:45):
You whose Diamond. Just in case somebody doesn't know, Diamond
is a distributory.

Speaker 1 (01:23:49):
So they're the ones who when they receive from the
printers or the publishers all the issues, they're the ones
who break them up and send them to your local
comic book store.

Speaker 2 (01:23:59):
They're awful, They suck. They're the worst.

Speaker 1 (01:24:03):
Moving away from driving is the best thing the comic
industry is on in years, and so ordering on their
cycle means that they send out a catalog called previews
physical and digital now, and you have to order five
months in advance. So you, as a retailer or sometimes
a manager in a retail space, have to guess what
your customers are going to want five months from now.

(01:24:23):
But as a result, depending on the quality of the solicitation,
which is the little blurb describing what happened, sometimes stuff
gets really spoiled. So this is actually in terms of
like a macrocosmic view of how the comic book publishing industry.

Speaker 2 (01:24:41):
This is a genius move, really smart. So this storyline
tore through news media. I remember, I can remember seeing
a news report on television about the death of Superman.
I can remember. This will show you how old I
am twenty five. I can remember member reading a newspaper

(01:25:01):
article about the death of Superman. Yeah, I believe USA
today or they all covered it, put on the front page. Yeah.
So this issue sold like gangbusters. Yeah. First edition copies
of Superman seventy five sold expensively on the secondary market,
and the runaway success of the entire endeavor would convince

(01:25:22):
DC editorial bosses that they should do the same exact
thing to all their other superhero murder that so in
That's such a DC in a bunch of in a
bunch of movies. Batman's back was soon broken. The next
couple of years, Greenland and hal Jordan lost his city
and turned into a villain. There were plans in place
to kill off Wonder Woman, Flash and Green Arrow, although

(01:25:45):
only Green Arrow happened. And and it has been said
in later interviews that the death of Superman is the
entire reason why the spider Man clone saga happens over
at Marvel, where Spider Man is replaced by his clone. Now, Ashley,
I want to ask you, do you think any of
these other replacement storylines or maim or hurt or kill

(01:26:09):
our hero storylines are successful?

Speaker 1 (01:26:12):
Ooh, the Batman one is Batman's Nightfall? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
the whole bane of it all. I think the Green
Lantern one is a successful The Green.

Speaker 2 (01:26:22):
Lantern one is pretty successful. I mean, I hate hal
Jordan's although a lot of people were very angry about
how they villainized, how they turned how Jordan evil. Yeah,
a lot of people didn't know that Hell has always
been a villain. Ah.

Speaker 1 (01:26:34):
I think the all of one is successful as well.
Obviously it's a much more if you're looking at the
sort of again the macrocosmic view of like DC publishing,
it's a much smaller but like, that's a great storyline.
And some of the characters who come. Some of the
characters who come or step up out of these storylines,
including your very favorite as bat.

Speaker 2 (01:26:54):
Batman, are Connor Hawk, the second line Green Arrows, use.

Speaker 1 (01:26:57):
Me, yeah, are are really are some of my favorite
in their franchises. So, I mean, I would say when
you lay it out like that, it does feel very silly,
and again it feels like such and like that's such
a DC move to do. However, ultimately I would say
it's success. So these are all popular, well regarded storyline.

Speaker 2 (01:27:15):
It's funny because I would have never put the clone
saga together with being tied to death of Superman. But
when you think about it, you're like, oh, that is
one hundred percent of the reason they did before.

Speaker 1 (01:27:25):
And they literally eat their cake and have it too
because they have just another Peter Parker.

Speaker 2 (01:27:29):
Yeah yeah. Now, the media attention, which nobody on the
DC Warner boats side expected yeah yeah, caused Mike Carlin
to delay Superman's resurrection Beyond the Adventures of Superman Number
five hundred because the teams knew that bringing Superman back
that soon would be illogical, and they held an emergency

(01:27:50):
summit Superman some at a hotel in Terrytown, New York,
where they decided to plot and rewrite their story. They
decided to introduce a new version of Superman before bringing
back the original, which each writer coming back with different ideas.
Simonson Louis Simonson says that each writer create their own Superman,
which not only solved the problem of what the new

(01:28:11):
character would be like, but finally allowed each of these
Superman teams to have independence after years of each of
their storylines funneling into the next one. Yeah, yeah, now, Ashley, Yes,
I would like you to name the four replacements. Superman's
always when I forget of the reen of Superman, Superboy
in the best costume, Superboy, the Clone. Yes, that's correct,

(01:28:31):
so cute. We love him, such a such a piece
of war. Now, of course, all these characters for readers
and listeners, they were all called Superman when they debuted. Yeah,
super Boy actually was in the Adventures Superman Steel. Yes Steel,
John Henry irons he's the man in the iron man
like suit that looks like Superman. He's got a hammer.
He's amazing. We love him. He was Louise Simonson's character.

(01:28:53):
He was in Superman The Man of Steel.

Speaker 1 (01:28:54):
Yeah, if anyone has never read that series as well,
that's an amazing, excellent He's also gone on to be
like an incredibly important character in the Supergirl TV show,
and he's Superman Man Lewis as well. Yeah, really really awesome.

Speaker 2 (01:29:08):
Uh, there's the Eradicator, the Eradicator, Yes, which that's the
one I usually forget Rooster Gold Superman. Uh No, it's
just because of the glasses he has, Yeah, giant ye
also glass. He was actually a John Byrne character. It
was a villain. He is a Kryptonian computer program. He
looks like Clark Kent. He looks like Superman. Basically. He
was introduced in Action Comics. He was Roger Stearn's character.

(01:29:29):
Roger Stern said that he wanted to write Superman as
if he were like the Pope or like a messiah
like character. Yeah, that's that's fairly accurate. And then the
Cyborg Superman and the Cyborg Superman is Dan Jurgen's Superman
who Beard in Superman.

Speaker 1 (01:29:41):
He looks like what if Terminator in Superman had an
evil baby exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:29:45):
Apparently he was like an idea that Dan Jurgens had
had for like a future Superman, but then decided to
convert him into this good idea. So there you go.
Who's your favorite one?

Speaker 1 (01:29:54):
Superboy is Superboy? No, honestly it's probably Steel Mine Steel.
But I do think this is my preferred version of Superboy.
Oh okay, is this version okay? Well, let me ask
you this, what do you think, Like, do you think
the Reign of Superman was successful?

Speaker 2 (01:30:13):
Yes, because these characters are alstoll around most of them are,
I mean Cyborgshupman's not around.

Speaker 1 (01:30:18):
Well, they're all around in that they show up regularly
or semi regularly in the comics, the TV shows, the
cartoons like they made a whole movie of the Reign of.

Speaker 2 (01:30:28):
The Superman and it's good. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:30:31):
So yeah, I mean I can't speak to the sales,
having blessedly never worked at Diamond. Yeah, but ultimately like, yeah,
I think I think through the long lens of history
and art history, definitely successful for sure.

Speaker 2 (01:30:46):
Jason has like eighty five of these actions. We're gonna
find out which ones I have right after this welcome
back figure. The podcast, all we do is talk about
action figures. So ball jointed action figures. Do we like them?

(01:31:08):
Yes or no?

Speaker 1 (01:31:08):
Ashley, No, I like them better as little figurines because
then they don't fall, their knees, don't buckle all the time, so.

Speaker 2 (01:31:15):
Irritated, mainly their ankles. So let's talk about which of
the rains of the Superman's that I have? So I
actually it's fun fact I have two. I actually have
action figures of all the rain of the Superman except
for Cyborg Superman. Do not have Cyborg Superman. I really
would liked one. The Mezco made one that's very expensive.
It's one hundred dollars and I'm not going to spend

(01:31:37):
a hundred dollars an action figure. Anyways.

Speaker 1 (01:31:38):
If you want to spend a hundred dollars on an
action figure for Jason, you can reach out to a
po box address.

Speaker 2 (01:31:44):
I have steel, and a very amazing steel and it
wasn't from the DC Universe Classics line. It was from
this weird Superman line that they had before that, and
that steel was actually gifted to me by Jeremy Skinner
being Jason and Jeremy John about just but I also
have a super Boy Action figure that I got very
recently that is from DC University. Yeah, and I believe,

(01:32:09):
I don't. It was gifted to me by a geekers
rust and listener, and I forgot who said it to me,
but I know you're listening, and I want to say
thank you. I remember because I had posted online that
it was like or I'd said on one of these
podcasts that I wanted to desperately, I really wanted that figure,
and I forgot who said it to me.

Speaker 1 (01:32:27):
Tweet us let us know at GHL podcast and we'll
give you a proper shout out there.

Speaker 2 (01:32:31):
You go, yeah, yeah, so we'll give it up there.
So but yeah, those are my two favorite figures. So
two of these guys turned out to be villains. Two
of these were good guys. And then a black suited
Superman with long hair showed up who was revealed to
be the real Superman. He had no powers and he
liked to carry guns, and he and this is the
first version of the black suit now Ashley. When the

(01:32:53):
black suited Superman showed up, yep, he walked up the
lowess and how do you think he proved to Lois
that he was the real Superman, Lois said, prove that
you are the real Superman. What do you think he
said to her? To prove that he was the real suit,
he ripped off his mustache, and that's how she knew.

(01:33:15):
He's like, I'm back from Mission impossible. Here I am.

Speaker 1 (01:33:17):
He kissed her right on the mouth, and he didn't
have to say anything because his tonsils did all that talking.

Speaker 2 (01:33:22):
No, he said, what about to kill a Mockingbird? Now
why is this significant? I don't know. To Kill a
Mockingbird is Clark Kent's favorite movie. Oh, there you go.
So that's how she knew this was the real Superman.
So when Superman came back in this long version, Dan

(01:33:44):
Jurgons did not simply want to use Superman's classic design
when he was revived, So that's why they gave him
the long hair, and the black suit was like an
idea they had for another story.

Speaker 1 (01:33:52):
Do you think that the black suit is in any
way derivative or inspired by.

Speaker 2 (01:33:56):
Spider Man's black suit?

Speaker 1 (01:33:57):
I mean sure, maybe intentionally are uninto subconsciousness.

Speaker 2 (01:34:01):
Maybe I don't know. So Ashley, what do you what
do you think is the real in story reason for
how Superman came back to life. It's pretty complicated in
a little gonzo oh Boy, but this is the actual
in universe comic science of how he survived.

Speaker 1 (01:34:21):
So Jorel, who lives inside the crystal, vibrated all of
his remaining Kryptonian essences into the crystals and they reached
down into the roots of the earth and shot Kryptonian
lightning into Superman's body where he was buried in like
a Kansas farm or whatever, and like frankensnine, and he

(01:34:44):
rose up out of the ground the coffin, and that's
how he got revived.

Speaker 2 (01:34:52):
Has nothing to do but a good guess. In the
aftermath of the death of Superman, it was revealed that
the Eradicator, the Crypto computer program, was activated. He stole
Superman's body from the crypt and he placed him inside
a Kryptonian device in the Fortress of Solitude called the
Regeneration Matrix. Back to tank yep, it's a dis x

(01:35:17):
machame machine. The Regeneration Matrix allowed the Eradicator to siphon
off Superman's powers for himself as a ord or to
pose as Superman. That's when he did this, and it
slowly revived him from death or at least left him
in a special Kryptonian deathlike state, because apparently with Kryptonians
there's a difference between mostly dead and all dead. Upon

(01:35:40):
Superman's resurrection, the Eradicator made sure to note, probably because
of the input of DC editorial.

Speaker 1 (01:35:51):
They just called him up on their little phone matrix
and were like, look here, a radicator, you gotta say
this line.

Speaker 2 (01:35:59):
The Eradicator basically told Superman it's safe to say that
something like this will never be possible. Again, that's not
true at all. Yeah, I know two more times, even
though I think Superman has yet died a couple more times.
So they all teamed up all these rains of the
Superman's to defeat the cyborg Superman, who at this point
in the story and had revealed himself as a full

(01:36:19):
villain because he blew up Coast City Green Lanterns home,
and then the real Superman eventually beat him up and
got his red and blue costume again in basically a
page flip, and the team also in this design, they
decided to deepen the red and the blue of Superman's
costume to signify that things had changed.

Speaker 1 (01:36:39):
I also like that in English, the word rain has
three or four meetings. Yeah, so you said the reins
of the Superman, and I just imagine, like Clark can't
like pulling a chariot up before.

Speaker 2 (01:36:52):
Replaced in Superman. Anyways, So fun fact, this issue of
Superman that he returned actually came with a poster of
the long haired Superman flying away from this and I
had this. I had that poster on my wall for

(01:37:13):
several years. I'm just gonna throw that now. Let's talk
about in the some of the sales stuff. The bump
in sales that DC had taken from the death had
of course slumped during the return and to make matters worse,
the whole reason they delayed the marriage in the comic
was because of the Lowest and Clark television show. And
the television show they would not marry until October nineteen

(01:37:35):
ninety six, three years later, in an episode titled Swear
to God, this time we're not getting Season four, episode three. Yep,
the comics would finally be allowed to marry that year
as well, with the delay of the wedding, simply having
this excuse is that life is weird when you're a Superman.
This is funny because it's giving me real flashbacks to

(01:37:56):
the Batman non wedding in more recent comic books history,
so much drama around the idea that these characters might
want to put a ring on it. Yeah. Well, and
then also the wedding eventually allowed. This is where Superman
eventually cut off his hair, so we got short haired
Superman came back for the wedding. So generally, overall, DC

(01:38:16):
writers and DC editorial have denied that the death Superman
was a publicity stunt. But Ashley, I want to ask you,
is is the death of Superman a publicity stunt? Yes?
Or over the years has it morphed into something else?

Speaker 1 (01:38:32):
You know, it's one hundred percent of publicity stunt. It's
just a really freaking good one that happened. Like luckily
because there were, as we stated at the top of this,
so many geniuses worry on this happened to actually be
worth a damn. This is like making Jane Foster thor
is a publicity stunt. It just happened to be a

(01:38:53):
really good one that actually worked. I think it's a
perfect example of that necessity is the mother of invention.

Speaker 2 (01:38:59):
I agree. Can I ask you a question? Yeah? Sure,
Because we were.

Speaker 1 (01:39:01):
Talking about the weddings and taperhero weddings and stuff. What's
your favorite superhero wedding.

Speaker 2 (01:39:06):
There aren't many, to be honest with you. I mean,
Gene Gray and Cyclops' wedding is pretty good. Yeah, the
Superman Lois Wedding issue is pretty good. Yeah. It's a
little goofy, So I've always liked that one. The cover
is fantastic. It's a John Byrne cover where they're flying
in the sky and they're like both smiling. I had

(01:39:26):
that issue. I uh, that's a great cover.

Speaker 1 (01:39:29):
I think my favorite is still the Olie and Dinah
like the wedding album storyline.

Speaker 2 (01:39:36):
Oh, I'm not a fan of that one. I really
like that. I find it very charming. I don't. I
don't like that one because that that wedding does the
thing that Lois and Clark did, where like you find
out that the Oliver that was during that in that
wedding was not Oliver, and so I was like, oh,
where is he? And then you're like, well, so are
they married or are they not married?

Speaker 3 (01:39:52):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (01:39:53):
I mean, but like I think the wedding itself and
like them having to like beat up bad guys at
their wedding, like very charming.

Speaker 2 (01:39:58):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think it's a Yeah. So, actually,
what do you think is the legacy of death a
Superman later?

Speaker 1 (01:40:05):
I mean, it changed, it changed everything. My mom knows
about this storyline.

Speaker 2 (01:40:10):
Yeah, my mom does do, which is wild.

Speaker 1 (01:40:11):
Because she knows like nothing about comic books. I don't
even think she knows that there's more than one Robin.
The legacy of this is is it's very similar actually
to night Wings legacy. It's that these characters can change
and they can bloom and grow. This opened the door

(01:40:32):
for I mean, you said there's not a lot of weddings.

Speaker 2 (01:40:34):
There's not at the top of my head, there's not really,
but there are some. There's a lot of deaths, There
are a lot of this. There are a lot of.

Speaker 1 (01:40:42):
Couples like Batman and Selina aave if they're not married, right,
like they're a relationship. Also, we cans evolve from this
point to where it is now, where we're all basically
like yeah, but they're married though. Yeah, and there's a.

Speaker 2 (01:40:52):
Lot of deaths.

Speaker 1 (01:40:53):
But it also this changes the precedence on death and
death's permanence. And you know, you made this joke ages
and ages ago, and like shit, comic book nerds say
where you were like, oh well, they'll never bring Bucky back.
Oh well, they'll never bring on cole Ben back, like
they've brought everybody back, whether it's an alternate universe, whether

(01:41:15):
it's a blip like we have seen Gwen Stacy and
Peter Parker talk about their grief for each other together
like this change, like this changed everything in a lot
of ways. There's a reason that it's revered, the reason
there's a thirtieth anniversary special, there's a reason there's new
stories being.

Speaker 2 (01:41:31):
Told in that.

Speaker 1 (01:41:33):
It's because that's how much it matters, and that's how
much people still get.

Speaker 2 (01:41:36):
That's why we're talking about this today and not the
Clone Salka. Yeah, although we might tell you what the
Clone Tuga eventually. That might be a fun one to do. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I have never read The Clone Tuga spoiler alert. I
have read it take for the Death stoper in twice.
I have read it from start to finish. I did
it once because I think there was a sale on
Comics Ology or something like that, so I bought them
all and I decided to dive in. I remember that

(01:41:58):
and I read it and it is so bad. It
is mind numbingly bad. Yeah, it is like watching a
Roger Korman movie that thinks it's an Oscar movie. Yeah,
and I like Roger Korman.

Speaker 1 (01:42:14):
But there's also a difference between being bad but still
being charming.

Speaker 2 (01:42:18):
Yes, like Sam Raimi, Yeah, honestly, Yeah, Yeah, you're exactly correct.
I think there is a before death of Superman in
comic books, and there is an after exactly like Crisis.
And in some ways it might be the biggest and
also the most important Superman storyline of all time.

Speaker 1 (01:42:41):
And there's certainly, if there's certainly an argument for have
we done best Superman stories?

Speaker 2 (01:42:45):
Yeah, I don't know. I don't know anyways, So we're
gonna talk about this a little bit more. We have
a special guest comic book expert. We have the writer
of White Ash, Glarion, the Game, The Adept, and uh
the former's publisher of Scout Comics Overall Comicspan, Charlie Stickney,
here to talk about death of Superman. Charlie Stickney, Welcome

(01:43:10):
to Geek History Lesson.

Speaker 4 (01:43:12):
Oh, thank you so much for having me on.

Speaker 2 (01:43:14):
Well, I'm always it's always a pleasure to have a
you know, a lover of the comic book medium like
yourself onto the podcast. So, you know, we are deep
into Death of Superman and celebrating its thirtieth anniversary, and
I want to ask you, you know, in the nineteen nineties,
the early nineteen nineties, were you a big fan of
Superman or when, you know, when did you finally come

(01:43:36):
around to the big red and blue Well.

Speaker 4 (01:43:39):
So, you know, I think with a lot of us,
our fandom goes in waves for different things, and for me,
Superman was one of the first superheroes that I kind
of fell for in that you know, my parents gave
me this hardcover called Superman from the thirties to the seventies.

(01:43:59):
I know if you've ever seen that, and I think
they did another one.

Speaker 2 (01:44:03):
I think they've printed that recently. Actually, yeah, I think
the recently. It's great.

Speaker 4 (01:44:07):
Yeah, it's like it's got the first appearance of Batman
and Superman meeting each other and they're like on a
Kreuze cruise ship and like, you know, like they it
was just like it's really great because like you get
the sense of what the stories were like in the forties,
the fifties, the sixties, which then got all wacky. You
know that was like when Whacky Superman came out for
the first time, and then the seventies they started telling

(01:44:29):
these more hard hitting stories and you could tell a
little bit of like that that the nuclear threat had
sort of pervaded some of the stuff in terms of
some of the stories that were being told. But yeah,
like so for me, that was one of the first
introductions I had too superheroes. So I really like Superman

(01:44:50):
and then you know, I think my love for Superman
kind of waned and I wasn't really into comics. And
then when I came back to and this was like
I'm already like waxing and waning, and here I'm now
going to say, now I was eleven, you know, I
was like eleven, and I fell in love with comics again.

(01:45:11):
And at that point it was all Marvel and so
I was a big Spider Man fan and an X
Men fan. But eventually, like there's that I think I
like to call comics creep, where the longer you're in comics,
the more things you start incorporating from different companies, and
so you know, then it was okay, I'm going to
read this Batman book, and I think it was death

(01:45:34):
in the family that brought me back to Batman. I started, oh, okay,
I'll read this Batman series, and then you pull in
a Robin mini series and so you're like you're in
the universe. So I liked I had like a great
childhood love Superman, but I wasn't actively reading that many
superhero I mean Superman comics aside from the occasional events

(01:45:55):
like when he when he was going to propose to
Lois Lane in Action Comics. I think I started reading
the book so I would be all caught off when
that event happened.

Speaker 2 (01:46:05):
So that's very interesting because the the engagement is very
much integral to the reason why the death of Superman storyline,
and they did that as like a way to pull
in fans. So that worked on you, oh.

Speaker 4 (01:46:18):
In one hundred percent worked on me because you know,
you have to remember at the time, this was pre internet, right,
and so where were people getting their comic book news from?
And I think there were there were two sources that
people who weren't directly working at companies were getting news
is from. And one was the comic book Comic Shop News,
which you can still see that's that's given out in

(01:46:39):
some stores, and that was kind of a leave behind
that was stuffed in your bag when you got your books,
and that was like four pages worth of content and
it would just basically be advertising things that were upcoming.
But the other thing that because I you know, when
I was in college, and this is when Death of
Superman came out, I was a freshman in college. At

(01:47:01):
that time, I was pretty sure I was going to
work in the comic book industry. And I was wrong
for the next fifteen years after that, but eventually I
proved myself right and came back to it. But when
I was when I was like a freshman in college,
I was like, I'm going to be in comics, so
I need to get the trade. And if you're in Hollywood,
you know, there's things like the Hollywood Reporter and Variety

(01:47:23):
that people have read forever, and that's what you know,
again before Internet, where they went to get their news,
and in comics there was this one publication called the
Comic Buyer's Guide, which was a weekly comic book newspaper
that was around fifty two pages long that was filled
with articles and interviews with creators and with publishers about
their upcoming events. So I had been tracking the Death

(01:47:45):
of Superman event that was upcoming for a good two months,
and I was very excited about that, about it hitting
hitting these stores, and yeah, it was one hundred percent
like this is going to be an event, this is
you know, it got me excited and like that. When
Superman was going to propose, I think I bought the
three issues up to the proposal and the like the
two issues afterwards, and then I tapered off and I

(01:48:07):
was like, I got one hundred other comics. I'm gying.
I don't know if I'm still interested to see where
the Superman story goes, but with the death of Superman,
I definitely wanted to be part of that and see
what was going to happen.

Speaker 2 (01:48:20):
What do you remember about the build up to Death
of Superman? Do you have any specific memories, because I
for I myself, and I said this earlier in the
podcast that I remember there being a newspaper articles about this,
and I remember there being local television news articles about
the death of Superman. The traditional media really believe that

(01:48:43):
he was going to be dead dead, and I think
the general public believed that as well, which is the
reason why the issues sold through Gangbuster. So I wanted
to know as somebody who you know, you were dabbling
a toe in the comic industry, as you said, you
were hoping to work in the comic industry when this
event happened. What what do you remember of this build up?
And you know, was it the buzz of you know

(01:49:07):
the era?

Speaker 4 (01:49:09):
Yeah, it was definitely one of the buzzes of the era. Uh.
I think I'm trying to remember in the chronology whether yea,
so Spider Man one had come out a couple of
years earlier, which is right right, right, yeah, and then
Spawn I think had also come out before this, So

(01:49:29):
like there had been a couple of big, big things,
and I think some of DC's thunder was going away
and Superman, you know, I think he's a character that's
hard to write well, and there's there's too many iterations
of him that, you know, people see it as boring
or not interesting. It's the same problem that Captain America
has had in some ways that you know, the characters
don't seem inherently flawed enough, and so you have to

(01:49:51):
be a really good writer to be able to handle that.
But for me, as someone getting into this, I never
thought he was going to die forever, right. I mean,
I thought it was going to be a big event
book that I that I wanted to get because I
knew that the collector's market was going to go crazy
for it, and so it was something that I was tracking.

(01:50:13):
But I was also, you know, a fan of stories,
so I wanted to see where it was going to go.
So I had bought like the one or two issues
again leading up to that, and I knew it was coming.
I figured, you know, at some point he was going
to come back, because you know, at that time, there
were two deaths that mattered. It was Captain Marvel and
Bucky and everyone else came back and you never thought

(01:50:35):
those two were going to come back.

Speaker 2 (01:50:37):
But I used to always say it was Angle Ben.
It was it was it was Uncle Ben and Bucky. Okay, yeah,
I never slipped Captain Marble on there. That's very funny.

Speaker 4 (01:50:46):
Yeah, it was different eras right of collecting.

Speaker 2 (01:50:49):
Yeah, so you so you did buy the issue, Well,
oh okay, here we go. The t comes out.

Speaker 4 (01:50:58):
This was the problem was. I think we as consumers
of the culture of comic books today are so much
more informed about how things work, and like New Comic
book Day is a thing that we all know. We
know that that's Wednesday, That's when the comics are put
on the shelves, right, And as much as I styled

(01:51:21):
myself as an aficionado of someone who understood the business
of comics, I didn't know that, like New Comic Book
Day was Wednesday, so I knew the week it was
coming out, and I think I had, you know, I
had the local shop because again, I was in college,
and when you're in college, you're in a little bit
of a vacuum, and so I wasn't seeing the mainstream.

(01:51:42):
I wasn't seeing any media. Like the only reason I
knew about it was because my Comic Buyer's Guide and
I had been planning for months. But I knew I
needed to get there early on the day or I
was going to sell out. So I walked into the store,
you know, as it opened that morning, and I'm looking
around and I'm like, I'm not seeing it. I'm not
seeing it, and you know, and I went This was

(01:52:04):
Iron Vick's Comics in Poughkeepson, New York. And I went
to Iron Vic and I was like, Vic, you know,
where's the Death of Superman. He's like, we're sold out. Like,
what do you mean You're sold out? And he's like,
it came out yesterday and you missed. It was totally
that and like I was crushed right because it wasn't

(01:52:30):
It wasn't just oh I missed out on this hot thing.
It was that sense that you knew what was going
on ahead of other people because you were informed. You
were in the know, that I was this educated comic
book collector, and all of that came crashing down because
I didn't know the day that the book was released
on and so like there was this disappointment in myself

(01:52:54):
that somehow I had screwed this thing up in a
way that you know, the lesson of say Spider and
a Man number one in the Bags and all of
that should have have taught me was to be really
prepared for this because because I had been there for that.
But even that, like I had pre ordered. I think
it was like the various different versions of the Spider

(01:53:14):
Man Bag, and a couple of them never showed up
because there was just.

Speaker 2 (01:53:17):
So when you when you say that school even myself,
I'm not familiar with this. So you're talking about so
when Tom McFarland, when he rebooted and relaunched Spider Man
in the early ninety Spider Man number one. Uh they
did they do like a collector's version of it in
a in a clear bag or something like that.

Speaker 4 (01:53:33):
Where are your collector versions in a bag? There was
the like it was all I'm trying to think of
whether they had a version that wasn't in a bag.
I think like they had these like there was this
is the horrible things, like right, they had that those
bad poly bags that they would put over these books
which were not you know, archival. So what do you do?

(01:53:53):
Do you remove it and make it non mintor to
leave it in this crappy bag to keep, you know,
for your your collection. But yeah, I wanted to manage.

Speaker 2 (01:54:01):
Yeah, I wanted to because yeah, oh sorry, go ahead.

Speaker 4 (01:54:06):
Yeah, So like I had, I had lived through that
kind of craziness, and there really was a craziness for
both Like there was there was a black addition and
then there was the regular red and green addition of
that first issue.

Speaker 2 (01:54:21):
Well, and that's I wanted to bring that up because
Death of Superman the same way has it also had
multi poly bagged versions. There was the regular version that
just had the cape you know, torn apart on the
stick they had the poly bagged red shield version and
then they had the platinum poly bagged version as well,

(01:54:44):
which when you opened that one up it was a
silver cover. And I I'm not certain, but I think
both the poly bagged versions came with a little armband
that you could have like a little Superman shields, so
you could act like you went to Superman's funeral as well.
And then I I, you know, and I didn't know
Spider into it as well, but I would remark that
I think Death the Superman and these multi poly bags

(01:55:06):
really kicked off the insane nature of the speculator and
variant you know, cover market of the nineties. So besides
the collecting of it all, I want to you know,
of course, you eventually got an issue or you got
a trade and you read it later.

Speaker 4 (01:55:21):
Yes, I got to the second print of it after Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:55:24):
So ah man sorcon right of course, what parts of
the story do you think really work and what parts
of the story do you think have not aged so well?

Speaker 4 (01:55:38):
Well? I think I think the part that works the
best was there was this mystery of it wasn't like
the death as much as the resurrection that I found interesting,
and I don't know if we want to get into
the resurrection.

Speaker 2 (01:55:51):
Oh to me, to me, I consider death of Superman,
Funeral for a friend, Reign of Superman, and then the return,
Like to me, they're all really one story, right right, yeah,
So so please, so please talk about all of it.

Speaker 4 (01:56:05):
Because like I think, you know, the event, like the
death was to me that the death wasn't as memorable
as what came afterwards. And I think like if you
you know, if you go agree with that, like that
was what they were thinking about, Like what's the interesting
story here? Is the reaction to the of the world
to what happens when the most powerful superhero dies, right,

(01:56:27):
and you know, they tracked back from that idea to
create the death. So the death was just this.

Speaker 2 (01:56:32):
Big battle and a lot of punching.

Speaker 4 (01:56:36):
Yeah, it's a lot of punching. It's a lot of battling,
And that's the kind of thing that there's just not
a lot of story there. And I think there's the
visceral reaction of seeing Superman die that has an impact,
but aside from that, like that, the rest of it
isn't really as exciting to me. What I think works

(01:56:57):
best is you know it's the host, you know, it's
the fallout from it, but it's also the mystery that
they started seeding right with the return of the four
different Superman, and because each of them are originally you
thought maybe had a chance to be Superman coming back,
that mystery was really interesting, and it also made you

(01:57:19):
buy all four series.

Speaker 2 (01:57:21):
Which of the four of the Reign of the Superman
were your favorite? Which of those four everybody has a favorite?
And I think it tells a lot about.

Speaker 4 (01:57:29):
You, I so, you know, I think part of it
is I was collecting it all out of obligation because
I wanted to see where it went. I think of
those I liked the Superboy story the best, just because
it felt a little bit fresher. And I think, if

(01:57:53):
I remember correctly, because I resisted going back to read
the issues because I still have them all and I
read so just you know, I read from a couple
of issues before all the way up all four of
those different series until he came back. And I remember
at the end of that there was some big fallout
with Green Lantern, right.

Speaker 2 (01:58:15):
Yes, Cyborg Superman destroys co City, which goes on to
turn how Jordan into the villain Parallax, which leads to
the creation of Kyle Rayner.

Speaker 4 (01:58:24):
Right right, right right, So like that all of that,
and then I think I checked out after that because
I didn't want to read that many titles and I
was trying to pare it down from like the sixty
I was collecting because I was in college, and I
think when you're in college, you start you start becoming
more picky. When I was in high school, I could
devote all my disposable income to comics and buy as

(01:58:45):
many as possible, But in collegy, like I want to
be able to eat because I'm now also paying for
those things. And at that point, I was like the
DC I transitioned to shortly thereafter with Sandman, and I
was looking at that, looking at dark Horse started having
their line with hell Boy and with sin City, and

(01:59:06):
so I was I was getting edgier. Do you think it?

Speaker 2 (01:59:11):
Do you think do you think it's possible in the
modern comic book market or even in the far future.
Do you think it's even possible that any comic book
publisher could repeat this success of the Death of Superman
in some way, because like they did this as a

(01:59:32):
sales stunt and Now, part of that was, you know,
massaged by they had to connect to Lois and Clark
the adventure Superman, which was also doing a wedding, so
they did a death instead of a wedding. But do
you think, like, could Marvel or could DC or even
Image or Boom pull this off in the future, like
a death an event that captures so many people outside

(01:59:56):
of comic books.

Speaker 4 (01:59:58):
I don't think so for a couple of reasons. First
of all, geek, I think culture has shifted in a
way that it's more inclusive now, and so what was
happening in the comic industry was secular, and it was

(02:00:18):
this mysterious world, right And when people started hearing that
the death of Superman was happening, that became a national
news story because no one was plugged in to what
Superman was doing, right, Like for a lot of adults,
I think it was just like, oh, it is that
that newspaper thing from the thirties or the forties, or
I watched these cartoons, or even there was that Christopher

(02:00:39):
Reeve movie twenty years earlier that I loved, and so
it was nostalgia and they wanted to see and they
sort of tapped in whereas now, you know, like the
DC universe is just like comics are everywhere, so I
don't think you get that same build up from you know,
you know, look at the big deaths that have happened

(02:01:00):
in the Marvel movies, right, you know, people leak those
and there are millions of people who are.

Speaker 2 (02:01:08):
Their autum before you even see the movie.

Speaker 4 (02:01:09):
Yeah, right, right, right, Like like I'm going to give
a spoiler for Avengers Endgame, so you know, if you
if any of your listeners it's not seeing that.

Speaker 2 (02:01:18):
It's a movie from twenty nineteen, I think you're fine, Okay, okay,
But when I appreciate the spoiler.

Speaker 3 (02:01:23):
Wring, you know, when Tony Stark dies, right, what like thanks,
I haven't seen it yet, but you know what I mean,
it's like like like there was no like the Ironman
at that point had become the biggest comic book character
arguably in pop culture.

Speaker 4 (02:01:41):
M hmm, right, and was there a huge outcry? Was
there all this interest? And and there's not the same interest.
You know, as much as I love all these movies,
they're not pushing people back to comic books. So they're
not and I think mainstream media right now wouldn't care
what comics are doing, because you know, the movies are happening,

(02:02:03):
and if the movies can't generate that kind of bump,
you know, like the death of iron Man in the movies,
like stories aren't being written by that, you know, if
that's not driving people in to hit the comic book shop,
I don't think like in the comics if iron Man died,
anyone would care.

Speaker 2 (02:02:20):
M that's fair, and he's already died like two or
three times, I think even the last twenty years. There
you go, what do you think if you were to
think about it, what would you say is the legacy
of the death of Superman event thirty years later?

Speaker 4 (02:02:39):
Well, I mean, I think the biggest thing that sadly
was happening in the early nineties was the need to
do these event series right, And I think the death
of Superman pushed the comic book market into a place

(02:03:01):
where it felt like you had to do two or
three of these or at least one every year for
any of your major lines. And you know, like Superman
started doing this, Batman was obviously doing it with the
Batman families, spider Man was doing it with the Spider
Man titles. X Men was starting to do it the Avengers,
and so I think that kind of changed the kind

(02:03:21):
of storytelling that was being done, both in a good
and a bad way, because they saw the power of
an event to draw in new readers. They saw the
way to tell a story across multiple titles as a
way to cross pollinate and bring the sales up on
all of those different titles. But I think people got fatigue,

(02:03:42):
and I'm not going to say that it began pushing
the comic book industry down a dark place. But the
more of these deaths also you have I mean between
like once Superman could die and come back, why are
you going to believe any character?

Speaker 2 (02:04:00):
Oh yeah, the first, right, the first super of all time? Like, yeah,
you can't. You can't beat him. You can't. You can't
beat him, no matter or how popular, Like you said,
like a character like iron Man is now you just
can't do it.

Speaker 4 (02:04:10):
Right. But but also like I think it's once you
tell a reader that that if you're dead, you're not
you know that that doesn't mean you're really dead, Why
do we care about any death after that? Right? And
I think comics readers, like the hardcore ones for the
longest time have always been like, oh Wolverine's dead. Sure

(02:04:32):
he's dead, right, Like, you're not going to kill off
your biggest character. Oh Batman's back is broken, he's never
going to get better, and you know that's the end
of Batman. No, because that's how DC, that's how Marvel.
They're making their money. They're not going to kill off
their money makers. And I think, you know, it's the
fool me once kind of attitude. And I think that

(02:04:52):
also did that, so I think, you know, so those
those are two bad things, I guess in terms of
the legacy of Superman in terms of like really pushing
event series and making it so no one ever believed
in the death of a character anymore. Just trying to
think if there's any good legacy that I would take

(02:05:14):
out of it. Maybe it brought more attention to the
comic industry. Hopefully it brought in some new readers that
were young at the time, that got them interested in comics,
because I think that's that's the hardest thing that's facing
the comic industry right now, is bringing in new readers,
especially with characters that have been around for at this point.

(02:05:34):
What I mean, the Superman was in the nineteen forties,
so we're pushing eighty years now, nineteen twenty nine.

Speaker 2 (02:05:41):
I yeah, he's this is I think next year is
going to be his eighty fifth anniversary, So you know,
it's funny. I would I make that same argument that
Death of Superman. I think that is the biggest legacy
is that I think it might be one of the
last events or stories of any kind to bring outsiders

(02:06:02):
in to real like a huge swath of outsiders. Because
in the many interviews with Dan Jerones that I did
over my course of working at DC Comics, the thing
that he would always tell me was he would say,
I would always get Death of Superman or Superman seventy five,
that that issue that he drew, and they would hand
it to him to get him signed, and they would say,
this was my first comic book. Yeah, And he was like,

(02:06:26):
and he was like, it would be hundreds of people,
you know, and you're I think you're very right on
that there are I think we don't have many events
like that anymore. I think comics of niche and niche
and niche even even more.

Speaker 4 (02:06:39):
I would say the closest thing in terms of an
event to bring people in would be something like when
you have a celebrity like Keanu Reeves doing Berserker right
and he's able to. I mean, like not that there
was I didn't even know what the story is there
with Berserker, but I know that a lot of people
who are Piano fans came to because of that, and

(02:07:01):
hopefully they're going to get hooked and go forward. But yeah,
it's really hard to bring in new readers right now,
who aren't people who are fans of comics.

Speaker 2 (02:07:10):
Well, speaking of new readers, we have lots of people
to listen to this podcast that are fans of comics.
And you have a kick ass comic out now called
The Game. Can you please tell our listeners about it?

Speaker 4 (02:07:22):
Sure? Well. The quick pitch I like to use is,
imagine if Sam from Quantum Leap the original series jumped
into the body of the Highlander and I had no
idea why this group of individuals was after him. The
slightly longer pitches, it's about a man named Eli Tanner
who turns thirty and all of a sudden starts seeing
this scoreboard that's tracking everything that he does. Like no

(02:07:44):
one else can see this score book for him, but
it's tracking everything he does in life from you whether
he has coffee in the morning, to whether he helps
someone cross the street, and what seems like this cruel,
cosmic joke that's just judging every action that he does,
turns out to be that he people have mistaken him
for player number three in a game that's going on
for thousands of years, and he needs to quickly find

(02:08:06):
out what's going on before things go para shaped. So
that's love. I love stories that people all of a
sudden find themselves in situations and then they just kind
of have to quickly think on their feet to get
themselves out of it, and in doing so, they start
uncovering this bigger and bigger world that they never realized

(02:08:26):
that they were a part of. But of course they
were all.

Speaker 2 (02:08:29):
Along, and you just had a very successful kickstar campaign
for the game. But him listeners still pre order the
book and still pick up a copy.

Speaker 4 (02:08:38):
Yeah, if you go to our Kickstarter page for the game,
and I can give you the link for that, there
will be a pre order link to the game and
to everything else I do through my white Ash Comics imprint,
including white Ash Larian, How I Slip my Way through
College and other tales from Freshman Year and be.

Speaker 2 (02:08:59):
Adept and listeners. We will have a link to that
in the episode notes. Go check out all of those comics.
They are excellent. Charlie, thank you so much for talking
about the death of Superman with us on Gee hitche Lesson.
I can't wait to talk about the death of the
Game or the death of White Ash in thirty years time.
I'm really looking forward to having you back on for
that one.

Speaker 4 (02:09:18):
Oh, thanks so much. I mean, if we can, I
hope it's an event that brings in at least ten
percent of the people.

Speaker 2 (02:09:26):
Well only if you give armbands out or do a
platinum edition.

Speaker 4 (02:09:29):
I think happy to go that far.

Speaker 2 (02:09:31):
And that was a great conversation with Charlie. Awesome. Let's
move into the recommended reading Ashley.

Speaker 1 (02:09:37):
That is where if you go to Gekishisten at Composts
recommended Reading, you can pick up anything here that you
liked if you want to know more about the death
of Superman, Jason.

Speaker 2 (02:09:45):
It's very simple here. What do we got everybody? It's
very simple these.

Speaker 1 (02:09:48):
I don't know book, I don't know what was that?
I was like, I don't know, I don't know. How
can it be that simple? How can this title, How
can this episode be the time?

Speaker 2 (02:09:56):
I didn't know if you were hyperventilating on the podcasting
only intentionally. It's very simple everyone. These books have never
gone out of print in thirty years. There are new versions. Basically.
There are three trades actually in the document that I
usually share with you recommended reading. I didn't even put
them down. These are so easily searchable. Yeah, there's a

(02:10:19):
trade called the Death of Superman. There's a trade called
Funeral for a Friend. There's a trade called Reign of
the Superman, Return of Superman. Just get all three. It's
a whole storilan. It's very easy. Actually, a couple of
years ago they reprinted them all in like a trade dress.
So if you put them side by side, yeah, that's cool.
The spines make the bloody s of the Death of Superman.

(02:10:40):
So it's very simple. So go read it. That's it,
and then if you guess you want to bonus, you
can go read the Clone saga, but I don't recommend it.
Don't go by that Clon Soka, but go check out
those over at geekish lesson dot com slash recommended reading.
Do you want to read the Clon Saga? Get it
from your library. There you go, that's a great great
ask your local library and to help you find the
clone saga. Even your local librarian will be like, more,

(02:11:01):
are you serious? What are you doing here?

Speaker 6 (02:11:03):
Kid?

Speaker 2 (02:11:05):
They might slap you. Just throw it up there you
get slapped by your librarian. Please let us know. That
would be so funny. I would admire the library.

Speaker 1 (02:11:13):
It's like a nice sixty five year old lady with
like glasses shade and a shawl or rholders slapping kids.

Speaker 2 (02:11:19):
Runner. I'm not even going to explain to you why
that's dumb. I'm just gonna slash. I'm just imagining a
Meldstond and smacking people. Ashley. Let's get to the honor Roll.
What's that?

Speaker 1 (02:11:28):
The honor Roll is where if you go over to
Apple Podcasts or iTunes or whatever we're calling you right now,
and you write us a five star review, we will
read whatever you say. And if you're a nice international person,
please do the same thing. But then take a screenshot
and email at to geek History Lesson at gmail dot
com because we can't see your international.

Speaker 2 (02:11:46):
Apple Who's joining the honor Roll this week? Ashley?

Speaker 1 (02:11:48):
Do really nice folks, including trap Jow twenty six, who
says great podcast. I found this podcast very recently and
it immediately became one of my favorite podcasts. So might
just a lession on the Umbrella Academy comics. I read
them over and over and I'm always learning new stuff
from the story. I think it would make a great lesson.

Speaker 2 (02:12:06):
Bye, So thank you. Trap Jaw twenty.

Speaker 1 (02:12:12):
Six good user name and also joining them is a
Rocket with Riswell, who says love the show.

Speaker 2 (02:12:19):
I love the show.

Speaker 1 (02:12:20):
It's great to learn about someone you haven't read before
but want to learn some background for a new series,
and great to refresh you on your favorites. Love the
list episodes too. Wish to wish the recommended reading page
on the site was searchable or at least had page jumps.

Speaker 2 (02:12:35):
It has page jumps at the bottom.

Speaker 1 (02:12:37):
As a newer listener, it's hard to get all the
way back to the older episodes recommended reading.

Speaker 2 (02:12:41):
Look. If you're we have the site designer, you can
email us gigas you listen amail dot com.

Speaker 1 (02:12:46):
Welcome gentleman Rocket Riswell or lady or nice non binary
friend Rocket Riswell.

Speaker 2 (02:12:53):
Yeah. If you use Google Search, that's how you can
hop through the.

Speaker 1 (02:12:57):
Recommend Geekaus your listen to recommend reading Comma whatever the
title is.

Speaker 2 (02:13:01):
And yeah that our tags are very good and that work.
I know that because that's how I do it. It
takes you right to the episode you want. So there
you go. Thanks for those comments to both of you.
So what is going on to the teacher slunge today? Jason? Nothing?
Because Superman died. We're kinda it's so sad. That's really funny.
It's a sad day. There's nobody in the school's out today. Oh, okay,

(02:13:25):
this Superman died. Hey have you heard the news? Pretty
sure Superman died today.

Speaker 1 (02:13:32):
Dan Jurggens is a professor teacher's Lunge somewhere Sandreds podcast.
So he is a professor, So go, uh, you know,
go talk to him. Dan SEP's really nice, so go
talk to him on Twitter.

Speaker 2 (02:13:41):
Hey, have you heard the news Superman died today? I
don't know what song your parodying from Walkhart, Okay, I
certainly don't know. Yeah, but no, the teacher's lounge is
not open to day. So where is professor Jeremy and
Catherine Hunt at Superman's funeral? What are we doing here? What?
What are we doing here. We we always work, Ashley.
That's the true. That's true. We always that's not even uh,

(02:14:05):
that's not even Joe. But thank you everybody. If you
wanted to come into the teacher's lounge when it's open, uh,
don't forget to follow us and download this podcast on
Spotify and Apple everywhere there are podcast apps. If you
like this episode, please tell your friends Ashley where can
they follow the show? On social media?

Speaker 1 (02:14:21):
You can follow us at geek History lesson dot com
if you put a slash blog at the end. We
do all kinds of amazing posts every Thursday, including geeky
travel blogs from our adventures all over the world. You
can also find us at Facebook dot com slash Geekistory Lesson,
on Twitter at GHL Podcasts, and on Instagram at geek
History Lesson. We also have a tiki talkie that we're

(02:14:43):
thinking about doing something with but.

Speaker 2 (02:14:45):
Tbd yes, and that's at geek History Lesson. You can
find Ashley on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok at Ashley V. Robinson.
You can find me on Instagram, in Twitter at jaw on,
jwii in and at TikTok at Jason Inman Writer and
now it's time for stay around because you're stuck through

(02:15:05):
all the plugs. We have a little bit of bonus
for you, Ashley. You are Oh, hold on a second, Hello,
hold on a second. Oh no, here we go, God
damn it. Hello. Hello. I'm Louis Simonson.

Speaker 4 (02:15:22):
Hi.

Speaker 2 (02:15:23):
Hi, I don't know why I'm slightly English, but that's okay.
You're distinguished and well educated. Thank you so much. I
love a big fan of geek kistory lesson.

Speaker 1 (02:15:31):
I mean, I wish that were true, because we've been
trying to get you on the podcast.

Speaker 2 (02:15:35):
I know, and I know, and I've been avoiding your calls,
but I've seen emails. I know you've emailed me several
times tried to pull me on this podcast. We love you, Yes,
I you know. I want to ask you a question
here because you know I am a talented writer. Yes,
incredibly Yes. If we didn't use doomsday to kill Superman,

(02:15:57):
who should we have used.

Speaker 1 (02:15:59):
Big eaty or sized chunk of cryptoity.

Speaker 2 (02:16:04):
I'm going to hang up now so you can talk
to this y. Yeah. I just don't think that the
idea looks okay? Why so? Actually that's the question, I think, Louis,
I was like, my pitch, you want to kill Superman
with a Grand Canyon sized asteroid? I just thought it
was fighting, so it was anithetical that everything they want. Yeah,
but who okay, what doesn't he have to be a villain?

(02:16:25):
How do you kill Superman if you're not using doomsday?
Yeah you're nineteen ninety two, how do you kill Superman?

Speaker 4 (02:16:32):
Or or who?

Speaker 2 (02:16:32):
What villain would you have kill Superman?

Speaker 1 (02:16:34):
My my pitch in the room would be that it's
it's not actually Lois Lane, but it's like somebody impersonating
or puppeteering or like use his greatest love talking about
him ste because that's like, you know, you taught me this.
That's his greatest strength and weakness is his heart. Like
that would be my pitch.

Speaker 2 (02:16:53):
Of the room. I wouldn't if it was. If I
was in that room, I would have knock that down
because I'd be.

Speaker 1 (02:16:58):
Like, I don't think I would have committed to it
because a love Lois, But I would have I would
have tried to come up with like a sort of
a like not a monster beating him to death?

Speaker 2 (02:17:06):
Yeah, because I'd be like, man, that might ruin life,
I know. And she's like the greatest female charage in
the DCU. Yeah, yeah, I don't know. I would have.
I would have tried something.

Speaker 1 (02:17:16):
I think I would have gone a little more like
someone manipulating something. But I really like Brainiac. I know
when we did our Best Superman Villains, I ranked Brainiac
really high, so that might have been where I would
have started, would have been like something with Brainiac. I
just think he's so.

Speaker 2 (02:17:32):
Cool, interesting, interesting. What's your initial impulse? Uh, I mean
that's kind of where my impulse goes is Brainiac.

Speaker 1 (02:17:40):
I just don't see giving it to Luthor because you're
right then it it destroys those moments of camaraderie that
they do have, which are like one of my favorites
is like when Clark goes to interview Lex in prison
in I was like the Grant Morrison Superman, and you're right,
you could never have that back.

Speaker 2 (02:18:00):
I think that. And it's funny you bring up All
Stirs Superman because I was gonna bring this up. I
actually think that All Star Superman is like Death of
Superman done on an Oscar movie level, because that storyline
is about Superman dying. It's twelve issues of Superman.

Speaker 1 (02:18:21):
Yeah, but he's not kill Like I think they wanted
the brutality and him being killed, and which is very
nineties as well, in nineties comics especially.

Speaker 2 (02:18:29):
And I say this as somebody who loves Death of Superman.
I think it's really well done. Yeah, you could love
it and still like have a different picture. Superman dying
by flying into the r sun, the source of all
his powers, and having to restart the sun is almost
the perfect death for Superman.

Speaker 1 (02:18:48):
But also, like you know, to paraphrase Lewis Lade, is
he dead or is he living there? No, he's watching
over all of us.

Speaker 2 (02:18:53):
He's one percent dead. It's symbolic. The idea of in
that storyline of Superman going into the sun is like
Hercules going to a limbit.

Speaker 1 (02:19:01):
It's so funny because when I think of that, like
I imagine, you know, in in like Soviet posters which
they like, where it's where it's the laborer moving, like
I just imagine Superman in there making the sun work.

Speaker 2 (02:19:13):
Yeah, no, that is mich Apollo. No, he's dead. He
is one. That's not like, that's not the read that
I take. Yeah, No, he is dead. Interesting, he's there
and he and and and it's funny and I know,
like a lot of fans will be but that Superman
does returne in DC one million one okay, yeah, but
two there's a little robot Robin and DC one million

(02:19:35):
cool Robin the toy Wonder. Yes, I love him. He
should make an action for him. They never will.

Speaker 1 (02:19:39):
Should make an action sure. And also the little Robin
robot from the Just League of China.

Speaker 2 (02:19:45):
How did we get on Robin robots?

Speaker 4 (02:19:46):
Here?

Speaker 2 (02:19:47):
You brought up DC one million. DC one million is great.
It is one of awesome. It's awesome. It would make
a great movie, like an animated movie. It would make
a great anime movie. Anyways, that Superman, that's where he
got the idea because in that storyline, Superman has been
living in the sun for like eight thousand years and
he comes out of the sun and he's basically an

(02:20:07):
energy being. Yeah yeah, yeah, so he comes out of
that storyline. If they're connected, they don't have to be.
He comes out of that sun as like sort of
like he is transferred to the next step, Like he's
not Superman anymore. He's like this sort of like otherworldly being. Yeah. Yeah,
he looks like Superman, but he doesn't act like super

(02:20:28):
He's like the superman that is Clark Kent that goes
into that sun is gone. He has transformed, he has evolved.
Now I call that death doesn't have to be death,
but to me, it's a similar.

Speaker 1 (02:20:40):
It's it's like transcending this this mortal life bingo q.

Speaker 2 (02:20:44):
So even if he is in that son like fixing
it and making it worse, he's not like the superman
that we think of when he comes back out of it. Ye,
it is. It is like similar. If you watch Star
Trek D Space nine, Yeah, yeah yeah. When Ben Cisco
spoilers for a thirty year old series, when Ben says
goes into the wormhole at the end of that series,
if he were to ever come back, he would not
be Benson. You look at that as his death. Yes,

(02:21:06):
it is death. That's so funny. You know he comes
back and goes to the person who wrote that episode
said he dies. Yeah, well you would know he dies.
I've read that interview he was. He was like, I'm
going to do the one thing I received and Bear
wrote an interview he said when he was writing the
finale D Space nine, he said, you know genius, He's

(02:21:26):
there's another genius like Grandmore is on the same level.
And just like Dan, we're talking about a lot of
very talented people in this episode. I love it do
a gjail in talented people.

Speaker 4 (02:21:38):
Read.

Speaker 2 (02:21:39):
The reason why he did that ending is he said
that he was like, I'm going to do the one
thing that no other Star Trek series has done. I'm
going to kill the captain.

Speaker 1 (02:21:46):
That's so funny because again I don't look at maybe
that's like maybe that's me, or maybe that's like like
a feminine view of the world or a masculine but
I don't, like I agree. It's like it's a trick.
I don't do it his death because to me, like
he always comes back and goes to bijor.

Speaker 2 (02:22:00):
Yes, and I know, like just like Superman in that series,
there's a version of him that talks to his wife. Yeah,
if you listen to the way he acts, it's not him.

Speaker 5 (02:22:13):
I can't deal with the idea that he would leave Jake. Yeah,
he didn't lean my choice. I know, I know, but
it's very similar. All of these myths have an idea
that like if that person comes back, they're not going
to be the same person.

Speaker 2 (02:22:28):
It's so it's very similar to or it's just like
momed right, like Mohammed never said it's like Jesus, it's
that same myth. I mean it's the Osiris smith in Smith. Yeah,
very anterot to bring it back to our same conversation.
It's so funny because I don't hear a lot of
people think about that way. But like I have always

(02:22:50):
seen the All Star Superman storyline as like, oh, this
is death of Superman, but like done in sort of
like an artsy way.

Speaker 1 (02:22:58):
I mean, is uh with It's like what if death
of Superman in the twelve Laborers of Hercules had your baby.

Speaker 2 (02:23:05):
One of my favorite issues is when Lewis becus your Superpowers.
It's great issue too, but yeah it's a It'sue three thing.
But yeah, that's it's so funny because so that's how
I would do. Like to me, I'm like, I can't
even think of a better version because I'm like, also
a Superman did Death a Superman a million times better
than I could. They also made a great movie of it,
they did. Yeah, written by their late great Duayne McDuffie. Yeah,
another genius. Hey have you heard the news Superman died today? Yeah,

(02:23:32):
so there you go, death the Superman. There you go.
Does that mean that this is the death of this episode?
I mean yeah, I think it's about that time. Hello,
and welcome to Geek History Lesson. I am Jason Inman.

Speaker 4 (02:23:53):
And I'm Jeremy Skinner.

Speaker 2 (02:23:54):
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Speaker 4 (02:23:56):
I snuck in.

Speaker 2 (02:23:57):
Hi, Jeremy former GHL guest and also Jason and Jeremy
John about Justice League guest or guests? Your host, your
host of that my qualities? What are you doing to
get History Lesson? Where's Ashley Victoria Robins?

Speaker 6 (02:24:11):
You never you never took back to your key to
the teacher's lounge? Still have access?

Speaker 2 (02:24:15):
You've got it?

Speaker 4 (02:24:16):
Well, I've been doing my laundry here too.

Speaker 2 (02:24:17):
What you've been leaving text alone though, right, you've been
leaving Textwillerman alone.

Speaker 4 (02:24:23):
Text Willerman needs to leave me alone.

Speaker 2 (02:24:26):
That's fair, That's very fair. Well, you know, Jeremy, while
you're here, we should I think we should just do
a podcast, right, let's do it? Okay, Well, listeners, this
is a fun little bonus episode we thought about doing
because we got a piece of listener mail to our
other podcast that I co host with the awesome Jeremy
Skinner here, which of course is Jason and Jeremy John

(02:24:48):
about Justice League where we review every episode of Justice League,
the animated series, and you can find that over at
patreon dot com slash job when you get two episodes
a month. Well for that podcast, Jeremy, we get mailed,
don't we.

Speaker 4 (02:25:00):
We do.

Speaker 6 (02:25:01):
We get mail at Jason and Jeremy at Jason and
Jeremy pod at gmail dot com.

Speaker 4 (02:25:06):
So feel free to send us mail.

Speaker 2 (02:25:08):
Yeah, and sometimes we read.

Speaker 4 (02:25:09):
Them most of the time, I notice sometimes.

Speaker 2 (02:25:13):
And you know, we got this amazing We got this
really really amazing letter that I thought was such an
interesting discussion that I thought it actually kind of became
a history lesson. It's sort of Jeremy by no means
am I saying that our podcast is lower than geek
history lesson, But I'm just saying that I thought the

(02:25:34):
discussion was so interesting that we needed to use it
at the Myne University for education for sure and brainwashing,
you know what. Okay, So here is the letter. Hi,
Jeremy and Jason. This is from rust Walker. He said,
thank you for answering my question on the last episode.
He's talking about the Jason and Jeremy justin including the

(02:25:55):
bonus episode and he's talking about the you know, you know, yeah,
I was walking the dog the other day. Oh, good
for you. Good for walking and listening to the JHL
episode about the Superman chronology that was with the Amazing
and Cameron Cuff, and I realized I had a question
about Superman that I hadn't considered before. I thought you
all might have some insight or opinions on it. Well, well,
you definitely have that the actual episode that it relates

(02:26:17):
to is far in the future. I think it's injusticely unlimited.
But just as Superman fans in general, do you agree
with the idea that the life on Krypton shown to
Clark Kent by the Black Mercy and the Man who
Has Everything story is actually his preferred slash perfect life.
So much of Superman often seems to be about embracing

(02:26:39):
humanity and his love of his family, and here it
struck me as odd that his perfect dream world would
be a society he has never known. Anyways, I know
you all are busy. I hope your week is going
well and then all of your products are headed in
a positive direction. Thanks again for the fantastic podcast. Cheers,
Russ Walker, Russ, thank you so much for that letter,

(02:27:00):
and that's part one of the reasons why we loved
We're also recording the Jason and Jeremy john about Justleegue
podcast is because of awesome letters. But Jeremy, this is
a fascinating discussion. This happens all over the Superman Methos
that he gets clanked on the head, punched by Mongol,
falls down the stairs, you know, the Kryptonized stairs, and

(02:27:20):
then he has a dream of him living a life
on planet Krypton with a little Jore and a little Laura,
And why are his dreams so cryptocentric? I would love
to hear your thoughts on this. So I actually got
a long setup.

Speaker 6 (02:27:38):
Sorry, I actually I really loved this question too, and
I went ahead and sent my thoughts to us in
an email. So Russ for you, you already know all of this,
but I think it's very very telling that the version
of Krypton in his fantasy, and I'm specifically speaking about
the episode for the man who has everything.

Speaker 2 (02:27:57):
The Just League Unlimited episodes. Yes, yes, and Ellen.

Speaker 4 (02:28:00):
Moore story very very similar to Krypton.

Speaker 6 (02:28:04):
Likes he has a farm on Krypton, you know what
I mean, Like he's growing wheat in this version of Krypton.

Speaker 2 (02:28:11):
Do you think Krypton doesn't have wheat?

Speaker 6 (02:28:13):
I think that Superman doesn't really have any idea what
Krypton is like, Like he's seen hollow videos or whatever
in the Fortress, but he doesn't really know. It's an
empty hole in his life. For him, it's this. It
represents unfulfilled potential, all the things that he could have had.
So whenever he imagines, you know, a fantasy reality, he

(02:28:34):
of course is going to long for this thing that
he's never had, that's always been denied from him. You know,
that could have been so amazing for all he knows,
But since he doesn't, what just happened?

Speaker 2 (02:28:44):
Jeremy, I have to stop you. There is your thesis.
You're saying that every other time we've seen Krypton and
any Superman story it is complete crap, because that is
just Superman's weird memories of it. No, not the actual
times we go to Crypton, but every time we see
as Superman.

Speaker 4 (02:29:01):
Not not necessarily every time.

Speaker 6 (02:29:03):
But but what I what I think is going on
here basically is since you know, in his perfect life,
he wouldn't have been he wouldn't have lost this massive thing.
It serves as a background for his fantasy. But what
does he populate his fantasy with Earth things? Who does
his wife look like Lana Lang?

Speaker 4 (02:29:21):
What does he do?

Speaker 6 (02:29:22):
He grows wheat, you know, like he has he has,
he has the Kansas Farm. He has the Kansas Farm
on Krypton. It's slight Jurassic Park, right. He's using frog
DNA to fill in the gaps of what he doesn't
know about Krypton.

Speaker 4 (02:29:35):
That's what he's doing. He's taking He's taking.

Speaker 6 (02:29:37):
Earth stuff that he loves and truly makes him happy,
and he's plugging that into this Crypton fantasy, which you know,
like I said, is basically just a bad drop for
all the lost potential it represents for him.

Speaker 2 (02:29:50):
I love how to me Jeremy took the stucco wall
of DC Continuity and he has smoothed it all over.
He's made it real smooth. It's perfect for painting. Now
it's going to be lovely.

Speaker 4 (02:30:04):
I love solving problem.

Speaker 2 (02:30:06):
That was pretty good. Well, Jeremy, let me ask you this.
Do you think in the future of you know, Superman
storytelling and Superman media, that his dreams should be more earthlike?
Should it be a fifty to fifty.

Speaker 6 (02:30:21):
I mean, I think this works at about this level,
you know, where it is fifty to fifty because he is,
you know.

Speaker 2 (02:30:27):
I think you might see a couple more tractors.

Speaker 4 (02:30:28):
It'll, yeah, it'll, It'll be unresolved for him forever.

Speaker 2 (02:30:31):
It might be some inappropriate billboards about you know, religions.

Speaker 4 (02:30:35):
On Krypton, yeah, or on Earth.

Speaker 2 (02:30:36):
I'm just saying, if you're gonna make it a little
bit more earth centric, that's not necessarily I'm giving you
like I'm giving pitches for. You know, there's got to
be a Chevrolet in there somewhere. Oh, absolutely, you know,
a coffee can has to roll down the road somewhere.
There has to be roadkill, Cryptonian roadkill.

Speaker 4 (02:30:51):
There needs to be laundry drying on a line.

Speaker 2 (02:30:53):
That's right. Yeah, there has to be a Casey's General
Store somewhere.

Speaker 4 (02:30:59):
There has to be a.

Speaker 2 (02:31:02):
All these Midwest jokes everywhere. That would yeah, the Crypton
General Store. Wow, that would be a hell of a thing.
If you love Casey's General Store, please send us an
eat No, I don't care.

Speaker 4 (02:31:18):
Yeah, go ahead, send me an email. I don't care.
I'll read it.

Speaker 2 (02:31:21):
Jeremy, let me ask you this as well. Do you
have a favorite dream version of Krypton. You know, obviously
this is a great episode, and this is a great
even in the comics and in the justly animated series episode.
This is a great version of Krypton. But do you
have another version of Rypton that you really dig? Like,
what's your favorite version of Krypton?

Speaker 6 (02:31:42):
I mean, I don't, I don't, honestly. I really kind
of like the Man of Steel version of Krypton.

Speaker 2 (02:31:48):
That's sort of like biommetic kind of though.

Speaker 6 (02:31:50):
Yeah, yeah, which is so not my style, but I
really like the genetic engineering aspect of that version of Krypton,
so I would probably wind up going with that one.
In terms of like a Krypton fantasy, this is my
favorite one. I mean, for the man who has everything
is heartbreaking. The end of it whenever he has to

(02:32:12):
say goodbye to his fake son and then beat the
absolute crap out of Mongol is sad and satisfying.

Speaker 2 (02:32:20):
I see. I will always have love for the green suit,
the silver age and the red cape silver Age Krypton,
like just because of like everybody wears capes and it's
kind of like the Jetsons, and there's something like very
cute and upbeat about that, so that I always have
a lot of passion for that. But weirdly, you know,

(02:32:40):
it's interesting. I'll tell you one crypton that I love
for the look is that there was that weird Michael
Turner story about ten years ago and I do not
remember the name of it, where he like gave Superman
was like a super cop and he had like white
scratchy armor over his suit and like that was the
and everybody wore rode motorcycles that flew like battles are
going back to a nineteen eighty nine, nineteen eighty and

(02:33:01):
you know, and it was very anime Krypton, and I
kind of always I've liked I've always kind of liked that.

Speaker 4 (02:33:08):
I literally have no idea what you're talking about.

Speaker 2 (02:33:10):
Oh man, I gotta google this. It was it was
right before Brian az Arello wrote Superman. They did it
like they gave it to Aspen Studios and they let
them just do whatever they want. And I think it
was like a skip month or they needed. It's called Godfall.
I just found it.

Speaker 4 (02:33:28):
Oh, I remember that he's got the black and red armor.

Speaker 2 (02:33:31):
Yeah, but like yeah, yeah, like it's it's weird.

Speaker 4 (02:33:34):
Just I never read it, but I remember, like you, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:33:36):
If you see hers, it happened in twenty eleven Superman Godfall. Yeah,
it's basically like it's like an alternate timeline of Krypton.
And again, Krypton is super anime, but it's I always
liked that look because it felt like they took Krypton
and they jazzed it up with a lot of cola

(02:33:56):
and soda drinks and just sent it down to the
store and let it go nuts. Take all the candy
you want from the Casey's General Store. Just don't talk
to me, Billy, you know, you know all this stuff.
But yeah, that there's something to there's something to be
said about unbridled creativity and Russ. That's why we were

(02:34:17):
so happy to answer your letter. Man, what a what
a great, great letter. Thank you so much for that, Russ,
and also Russ, I know Russ is an excellent Patreon
of ours over at patreon dot com slash job on
the jaw ii in where you get all kinds of
extra podcasts like Jason and Jeremy John about Justice League,
which is the podcast happens twice a month. Jeremy, what

(02:34:39):
would you say to the listeners, if they've never listened
to that podcast, they've never come with a Patreon, what
would you say, like, what would you how would you
describe the Jason and Jeremy john about JUSTE podcasts?

Speaker 6 (02:34:48):
I would say that we are a show with two
best friends who have a lot of fun with each
other and are actually currently in need of one more
segment because we don't have enough segments.

Speaker 2 (02:34:59):
We don't have enough segments, and we only have one
sound effect. We only have one sound off, the biggest
lie that was ever told to humanity. Jeremy, thank you
so much for joining us here on geekschrelsent But anyways,
everybody go check that out.

Speaker 6 (02:35:13):
I mean, like I said, I was here anyway doing laundry.
I'm here a lot more often than you think.

Speaker 4 (02:35:18):
I am.

Speaker 2 (02:35:18):
Zowy wit so are you saying that in Geekischer lesson continuity?
Every time you enter the teacher's lounge you're there.

Speaker 6 (02:35:25):
Not every time, but I'm probably nearby, maybe just around
the corner.

Speaker 4 (02:35:30):
I'm kind of unemployed at the moment.

Speaker 2 (02:35:33):
It's kind of creepy.

Speaker 4 (02:35:34):
Okay, it's kind of creepy. You guys have free coffee,
that's true.

Speaker 2 (02:35:40):
We do we do? And yeah, you know there's a lot.
There's a lot of weird stuff in here. Jeremy, tell
everybody where they can find you on social media in
case they want to check you out. Buddy.

Speaker 4 (02:35:48):
You can find me on Twitter at jl awesome.

Speaker 2 (02:35:52):
Jl awesome. That's correct. That may be a username I
just recently inserted into a comic book I was writing.
So everybody, thank you so much for listening. We'll be
back next week with a full episode, but we thought
this would be a really fun episode to kind of
clear the gap. You can find me on Twitter and
Instagram at jaman that's a at jawii in And don't

(02:36:13):
forget to subscribe and listen to Geek History Lesson everywhere
you can find podcasts, even in the General Store, even
in the caseyes general story, you might be able to
find podcasts. Go support us right there. Thank you so
much for listening to Geek History Lesson, and Jeremy will
please dismiss the class.

Speaker 4 (02:36:27):
Class is dismissed.

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The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show

All Episodes

Superman's Most Iconic Stories MEGA EPISODE (Superman Blue, Death of Superman, Superman's Ideal Version of Krypton)

24/7 News: The Latest