Looking more closely at it, the cover doesn't give away the game. From 1970,
Superman #231, "The Wheel of Super-Fortune!" Written by Cary Bates, pencils by Curt Swan, inks by Dan Adkins.
This was a relatively later-period "
imaginary novel," the out-of-continuity
What If?-style numbers DC used to do. At a glance, this would be the last one for the title until
Superman #300, but they appeared sporadically until Alan Moore's "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" After that, these stories would be
Elseworlds or...ugh...
Tales from the Dark Multiverse. (I'm harshing a bit on the latter, because you kinda know from the title how things are gonna go.)
Here, we've got Lex Luthor, Superman; trying to convince his crush Lois Lane why she should stay away from the recently-awoken-from-a-coma Clark Kent: he's a criminal! The Kents had been bank robbers, oh, and Jor-El destroyed Krypton to avenge his wife's death, then came to earth with toddler Lex; as we see in flashback from a mystic swami who gives tips to crooks, after he's paid off by Clark, who then kills him...look, maybe it'd be easier to tell you what crazy nonsense
doesn't happen in this comic?
Also this ish: a reprint of "Superman's Fatal Costume" from 1957's
Superman #112: after running a "spectroscopic analysis," from a distance, of Superman's costume, Lex figures out how to irradite it to cause weird effects, like generating intense heat or changing metal to wood? Lex makes one slip-up, though: he accidentally changes the lead in his armored hideout truck to something else, and Supes spots him. It'd still be years before anyone pointed out a big lead truck would kind of stick out to him, anyway.
Honestly? This imaginary world seems pretty cool, not to mention the sheer amount of story ideas & arcs you can squeeze out of this world's settings & revised history. If Jor El destroyed Krypton then is Supergirl sent to bring him to justice? What about Brainiac & The Krypton Man?
ReplyDeleteI'd love to see the Batman/Bruce Wayne of this world as well with maybe Bruce essentially becoming Owlman & directly causing the creation of the Joker as retaliation for whatever horrible thing he did to Joker.
SO much potential here definitely.
Also, I know it's probably just me, but it the art style for Superman#112 looks like a majorly sanitized version of Basil Wolverton's art style.
I seem to remember them doing an alternate Earth almost exactly like that in a couple of World's Finest stories. Clark was still Superman and I think it was pre-Supergirl but everything else fits the concept.
ReplyDeleteI know that they'd do 'imaginary' back-up stories with decent frequency in the late 70's/early 80's but as a full issue thing, it was mostly a Silver Age thing so 1970 is about right for the end of that period.