These Silver Age stories can be pretty dark.>Alien spaceship ray hits baby Superman's ship on the way to Earth creating a duplicate of it.>Other Kal-El is found by a pair of crooks and raised to be evil.>Spends his youth hating Superboy and occasionally trying to secretly sabotage him.>Grows up to become Supermenace, his parents finally give him the green light to kill Superman.>Is able to beat Superman because it turns out he's a "force manifestation" and Kryptonite doesn't affect him.>Finds out his criminal parents consider him a freak and never loved him, on top of which he's not even "real" just a manifestation. He envies Superman.>Lets Superman live and goes back to his parents. Turns himself back into pure energy killing them in the process.
>>150245705The silver age imaginary tales often propose better elseworlds ideas than alot of the titles that succeeded them. At this point I dont know if I should lament the relative obscurity of those issues or celebrate the fact modern readers cant ruin them.
>>150246101>lament the relative obscurity of those issuesI read this in the Superman: The Silver Age Omnibus Vol 1., so assuming they keep publishing these they probably won't be that obscure. This wasn't even an Imaginary Story, this duplicate was just around for Superman's whole life he just never met him and then he dies.
I always appreciated how the writers would come up with a comically high stakes premise that jeopardized Superman's reputation only to come up with a genuinely great excuse for his behavior at the last minute, vindicating him completely. Issue 312 does this the best. Clark is severed from Superman, only for Superman to go onto become a menace to the globe! Eventually Clark decides it's his responsibility to destroy Superman even if he doesnt have powers anymore. Luckily his last scrap with big blue led to him getting a kryptonite powered pace maker, so all he has to do is radiatr Superman up close! Once he does however Superman reveals to the world the only reason he'd acted so maliciously was to scare off an alien threat. Great stuff.
Another one is when Hyper-man (a Superman lookalike from another planet) asks Superman to help him protect his secret identity, robot doubles not working on Hyper-man's world because of trace elements in the atmosphere. However Superman contrives to fail and allow Hyper-man's identity to be discovered, as well as allow an accident to occur that seemingly causes Hyper-man to lose his powers. You find out later that Superman saw in Hyper-man's fortress a meteor that had given him a fatal dose of radiation, as a result he would lose his powers and then die a year later. Superman plan was to force Hyper-man to retire, allowing him to marry the woman he loves and have a year of happiness without knowing of his impending death. Observing Hyper-man's deathbead through a scope in his fortress Superman sees Hyper-Man realize the truth, and thank Superman for giving him a year as a normal man.
>>150246170Well I hope new readers get exposed to this stuff and like it in anycase.>This wasn't even an Imaginary Story, this duplicate was just around for Superman's whole life he just never met him and then he dies.Right, alot of the standard stories can bleed into my memories of the 80 paged specials/imaginary tales. They actual do the surprise Super-relative gimmick a few times over the duration of the 60's. There were plenty of Super-sons that were either fake outs, AUs, or otheriwise. If you're looking for a real trip try reading the Lois Lane title. It starts out as cheeky cheesecake and fetish fuel before just becoming a bounding board for the more experimental stories the writers could cook up. There's one where Lois marries Luthor after Superman cures him of his evilness, only for their son to inherit all of Luthor's villainy and kill them both down the road.
>>150246418(F) Pouring one out for Hyperman rn. God Silver Age Superman really is peak.
>>150246442>There were plenty of Super-sons that were either fake outs, AUs, or otheriwise.In the omnibus they do a test run of Supergirl before her actual debut where Jimmy finds a magic totem and wishes for Superman to have a partner creating a "Supergirl." She ends up stepping on Superman's toes more than helping him before dying saving him from Kryptonite.>If you're looking for a real trip try reading the Lois Lane title.I read a lot of those in the DC Finest Giant Turtle Man collection, there's a multi-issue Imaginary Story arc of her and Superman getting married. It takes a pretty bleak view of the compromises inherent in marriage.
There's also a two issue Bizarro World storie where Superman finds that Bizarro and Bizarro-Lois have peopled a planet with duplicates of themselves. Superman looks in dismay on the ramshackle nature of the buildings there and fixes them, violating the Bizarro Code: "Us do opposite of all Earthly things! Us hate beauty! Us love ugliness! Is big crime to make anything perfect on Bizarro World!" He's convicted and sentenced to be turned into a Bizarro. He ends up beating the case by proving there is at least one thing perfect about Bizarro World: it's a sphere just like Earth. He's freed as a results and makes a giant shovel to reshape Bizarro World into a cube to the delight of the Bizarros.
>>150246676Reminiscing over it all now really makes me wish we'd gotten a full animated adaption of this era ala BATB (which in fairness gave us a taste, but damn I want more). Like you noted already alot of the stories can get surprisingly serious in unexpected ways. You wouldnt end up with stories as significant as the original Red/Blue Superman tale otherwise. That's not to say there arent goofy moments, but there's definitely alot of tonal flexibility most likely wouldnt expect.
>>150245705Is it really?
Did they, you know?
>>150245705Oh, so NOW you all love evil superman
>>150246309>the writers would come up with a comically high stakes premise that jeopardized Superman's reputation only to come up with a genuinely great excuse for his behavior at the last minute, vindicating him completelyAllegedly this is because they would come up with an attention-grabbing cover first, and then had to write a story that not only explained the cover but also made sense as a Superman story. It's also why these stories had so many fakeouts like dream sequences, robot duplicates, etc. just so they could explain why a cover showed Superman fighting Clark Kent, or killing Lois Lane, or other stuff like that.Which isn't to say there wasn't any unhinged stuff in the comics themselves, but a lot of it was just making up ridiculous cover images to grab the attention of the readers.
>>150250587>I CAN FIX HER
>>150250771NEED Kurt Schaffenberger Lois.
Love how casual SA Superlore is about pretty dark stuff>so after Krypton exploded I was born in a chunk of it that survived the cataclysm, at least until kryptonite radiation started killing everyone, and my agonizing parents sent me in a spaceship to save me. Can stay with you?>uh, no. I’ll send you to an orphanage because you’re an orphan
>>150250907It's weird how for the first few years Superman didn't let Supergirl be known to the public so she could be his "secret weapon."
>>150250907to be honest, at the time the average person had seen 1 world war and an economical collapse, sensitivity to death and overall tragedy were a bit lower.
>>150250907It was handled a bit better in STAS because the Kents were still alive. IIRC they were dead in the SIlver age.
>>150250907That’s a supercute Supergirl.
>>150246981Bizarro world was great. Bizarro eventually turns into Superman’s weirdo friend from outer space and it turns out Bizarro’s are born as normal kryptonians before degenerating into Bizarros around the age of one. Since there are so many Bizarro supermen they routinely crash planes and such just for fun. They even clone the Joker, but Bizarro Joker is sane but miserable because he’s the only normal person on this planet of freaks. On your birthday in Bizarro world they serve you a cake with a bomb in it and women give men chocolate on News year day. Coal is used as money just because it’s stupid.
>>150246981>there is at least one thing perfect about Bizarro World: it's a sphere just like EarthThe Earth isn't a perfect sphere, it's an oblate spheroid.
>>150245705There's a surprising amount of "well, he just died." with one-shot villains, often in some ironic way. There's a legion villain, Jungle King aka Monster Master who wanted revenge on the legion for rejecting him and ended up getting killed by a monster he'd rejected. Speaking of the legion, Element lad's origin involves his entire race except him being killed by space pirates. They permanently killed off 1 and 1/3rd legionnaires and briefly killed Lightning lad before resurrecting him by killing off the first proty. Dude also got his arm bitten off by a space whale.
>>150250851Schaffenberger is one of the most unsung talents in all of comicdom. No other artist so effortlessly blends realism and cartooning as he did, aside from maybe Romita Sr. All of Schaffenberger's girls are pure eyecandy.
>>150252400Bizarro is another one of DC's many victims as they chased the purple dragon of edge, grit, and realism. The fact we havent gotten a proper doofy Bizarro in any media outside of say Super Friends and the Lego films is a tragedy. At the very least STAS gave us a great Mytzlplx.
>>150246309>Yes, King Superman!God I love this era
>>150250587>Allegedly this is because they would come up with an attention-grabbing cover first, and then had to write a story that not only explained the cover but also made sense as a Superman story.It's funny that the entire comic use of multiverses comes from Carmine Infantino trying to prank Gardner Fox by making a cover that would be impossible to explain(drawing both the Barry Allen Flash, and the Golden Age Flash) only for Fox to use the multiverse concept to explain how it'd work
>>150250851>>150253775I'm retarded and for the longest time thought Curt Swan and Kurt Schaffenberger were the same person and Swan was just Schaffenberger using a more Americanized name.
>>150253366The Bierbaums and Giffen later had it retconned that Lightning Lad didn't really come back to life, at least not as himself. That it was Proty puppeting Garth's body all along and just keeping up appearances. LegionWorld fans decided that made Imra a huge skank even though she didn't know.
>>150252400This isn't Silver Age at all, but the end of Pre-crisis, in DC Comics presents 97 since anything could go with the reboot happening, Bizarro world gets destroyed..and Bizarro launches his son to the center of Bizarro World so he can die first. Mxy then tosses the exploded Bizarro's head onto Clark's desk at work after it drifts in space
>>150254358
>>150254128I see that. Seems they re-retconned that out of existence. I can see where they'd assume she had to know because muh telepathy.
The Silver Age or the Golden Age is where Superman become the weirdo?
>>150254358>DC Comics presentsI'm over halfway through this series, Bronze Age Superman is cool in that his powers are still really crazy and he's very much a Kryptonian unlike post-Crisis but he does have some grittiness and realism.
>>150255605Silver Age.
>>150250179I believe that they broke up in canon before Superman learned she was a mermaid. (she disguised herself as being wheelchair-bound) So they probably never fucked.Since he only reconnects with her after she's already married.Funnily enough the strict pro-marriage regulations of the comics code actually helped make Superman and Lori's relationship way more interesting and mature than it would have been otherwise. In her few post-crisis appearances in Superman stories, she acts as a slutty romantic thorn in Lois Lane's side, to delay the wedding of Superman and Lois Lane until after the TV Lois and Clark did it. And she's been irrelevant ever since. (Now she's more of an Aquaman supporting character)But back in the silver age she was one of Clark's closest friends. She was one of the very few people who knew his secret identity, and they had a very mature relationship. Clark even got along with her husband more or less.
>>150253775Oh yeah Schaffenberger, frankly, is one of the all time greats. His way of drawing such expressive faces with such minimal detail and so small on the page is, as far as I've seen, unmatched.Just the tiny minutia of how he drew Lois Lane was phenomenal.He is probably my favorite comic book artist.
>>150256752I've studied hos style so extensively, and of all the styles that have given me trouble his still ranks high on the list. I dont know what it is, but it's impossible to get his girls right. I always end up frustrated trying to perfect the look and never come close. He's one of the greats for a reason.
>>150256717>Since he only reconnects with her after she's already married.In her second story with Superman he tries to get back together with her but she gets attacked and paralyzed by an angry fisherman, Superman searches the cosmos for a surgeon who can heal her, finding a space merman doctor who fixes her. She ends up deciding to marry the surgeon instead of Superman.
>>150245705Silver age rules.
It's funny in the new Silver Age Superman omnibus there's two different stories called The Two Faces of Superman. The other one is about Lois uglying herself up to get out of a blind date she agreed to so she can see Superman later that night, Clark sees her doing this and thinks it's shitty so he pranks her as Superman by pretending that his face is actually a mask and that he really looks like the Mad Magazine mascot.
>>150245705They should have brought super menace backSay his energy is reformed but now he’s a combination of the energy being /his dad/his mother and evil hermphadite that wants to take over America
>>150260394Reprint with said story.
>>150260863>the ugly superman>he just becomes polish
>>150262413The Ugly Superman isn't him, it's a pro wrestler that Lois pretends to be into to make him jealous.
>>150245705It can't be that dark?
>>150254374I can't decide if this or Alan Moore’s ending for him are sadder. Bizarro just wanted to see superman one last time before he died.
>>150264810Well that's what happens in the story.
>>150260863Damn, the lion of steel is fucking hot
>>150266578If they remade this story today Lois would just hookup with Lion Supes.
>>150245705I'm surprised this never got adapted in an animated series, this feels like prime material for that.
>>150260863>THE FUTURE SUPERMAN
>>150256717Superman having (what he believed to be) a crippled friend/love interest does sound really fascinating. That sort of thing is almost unheard of even NOW, I'm sure that was revolutionary back then.
>>150267417Yes I recognized that from all star superman too lol. When Lois sees into the future at the fortress of solitude in the first part of the book.
>>150267417In the story it's actually Superman playing a trick on some assassins, "Future Superman" attempts to stop some (fake) disasters and fails, publicly lamenting that you can't change history, and that an assassination is due to happen that day. The assassins move to kill the president assured they're destined to succeed, however it was all a ruse by Superman to get them to show their hand so he can catch them.
>>150254358>>150254374God, that's fucked. I don't know whether to laugh or be pissed.
>>150267850>Now, yes. I could just watch and wait and foil their plan when they decide to carry it out.>But this is funnier.
>>150257969>She ends up deciding to marry the surgeon instead of Superman.Lmao.
>>150270269To be fair to Superman she refuses him because she thinks he pities her rather than really loves her, presumably an accurate assessment considering she's a telepath.
>>150245705We can't have more two Superman?
Superman and most DC heroes in my headcanon were marketed to the midwest-south of the United States (I'm not even American), and so the stories were more childish than the competition. They also self-censored. With the exception of Kirby's groundbreaking New Gods and the late 70's Ali vs. Superman. There are hardly any non-white characters in Superman stories; it's by far the whitest Chicago in the industry. Superman stories were also frontloaded. You bought them for the wacky cover, not for the actual content inside the pages. Overall, Superman had the worst series of the Big 3. Even WW was more progressive than Superman. And she's supposed to be a white goddess. If I recommend Superman, I recommend reading Kirby's New Gods, then go straight to Byrne. You can even start with the Triangle era.
>>150271314Try harder next time, here’s a
>>150271356Try harder what? I don't live in a fantasy world. Superman was notoriously a “whites only” world, and the stories were more childish than even some books published by DC at the same time. Superman was the least affected by Sgt. Rock and Neal Adams' revolution. It's as if DC didn't want to lose the Midwestern-Southern bucks. Superman being progressive is one of the biggest marketing bullshit stories of recent years. It reminds me of Marvel trying to make them look progressive in Marvels or even worse revisionism in Kingdom Come.
