“Come back, little man! Krogg kill you!”
So I was given this 1978 Superman puzzle the other day:
This “Superman O-So-Long 3 Foot Jigsaw Puzzle” features a portion of a story by Gerry Conway, Curt Swan and Jack Abel that was originally presented in Superman Family #187 (Jan/Feb 1978). I didn’t have access to this particular issue, either at the shop or in the Vast Mikester Comic Archives, but I did have part one of the story in #186, which featured the Earth-2 Superman. That it seemed to be the Earth-2 version featured in the puzzle surprised me just a little, although, aside from the altered “S” shield you can see in the excerpt below, there are no parallel-Earth shenanigans readily evident:
…And as it turns out, it wasn’t strictly speaking the Earth-2 Superman as such. According to this brief synopsis, this Krogg dude is too much for any one Superman to handle, so using a “transmatter machine” the two Supermen are merged into one “Super-Superman.” At which point, Super-Superman straight-up kills Krogg and calls it a day. Basically, Super-Superman notices some kind of energy build-up in Krogg, and helps it along by adding to the energy with his heat vision, until, well, you saw what happened up there.
Anyway, my only real exposure to this story is via this hip new jigsaw puzzle format in which all the kids are reading their comics nowadays, so I don’t know if there’s a reference to Krogg being some kind of “artificial lifeform” or “android” or something in the full version. Otherwise…yeah, Superman’s plan was to raise Krogg’s critical mass until he went kablooie. No indication he was about to kablooie on his own, like “hmmm, he’s about to explode, so my heat vision will speed the process!” It’s totally “hey, he’s got too much energy inside him, I’ll just add to it ’til he pops!” …Maybe they changed it for the puzzle, but reading that synopsis, it doesn’t seem like it.
I wonder if there’s a database somewhere of all the times Superman just kills people. That seems like something appropriately obsessive for a comics fan to do.
…Why are you all looking at me?
In other news:
- Thanks for your responses to my Comics Code Authority post from the other day…they’ve made for some interesting reading. I don’t know that I have any kind of follow-up or meta-analysis or anything, but I liked hearing from you folks anyway. By the way, check out this article, which claims the CCA has essentially been out of business for a while now.
- Swamp Thing and Man-Thing: best pals! (Thanks to Reader Rob for the link!)
- Calling the New Guardians “Nobody’s Favorites” would seem almost redundant…but I kind of have a soft spot for them anyway. I have a fondness for Englehart’s ’80s DC work, including Green Lantern, Millennium and, yes, New Guardians. So damned silly and earnest, but still evoke that nostalgic twinge.
Doesn’t miliseconds have two “l”s?
“You know, we aren’t about to start stuffing bodies into refrigerators or anything. We have to answer to Archie fans.”
So … no rematch between the Punisher and Archie?
Do we at least get to see Jughead and Reggie consummate their forbidden love?
Isn’t this random Superman comic kind of a strange choice for reproducing in the form of a giant puzzle? I mean, presumably this puzzle might be the first exposure to Superman for a lot of kids, so shouldn’t DC have chosen a story that was a bit more, mmm, iconic?
Off the topic, but I feel compelled to note that 40% of this year’s Academy Award nominees for acting have played or soon will play comic book characters. The concentration is greatest in the supporting actor category, which pits Batman (Christian Bale) against Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), and Casanova Frankenstein (Geoffrey Rush). In the leading categories you have Ironmonger (Jeff Bridges), Harry Osborn (James Franco), Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence), and V’s girlfriend Evey/Thor’s girlfriend Jane Foster (Natalie Portman). I think that one could fairly add Annette Bening to that list, as she was cast as Catwoman in BATMAN RETURNS, but dropped out when she became pregnant. And I suppose that Nicole Kidman deserves a footnote, because of BATMAN FOREVER.
Which proves something or other about the way comics have permeated Hollywood, I suppose.
You do realize that the “best buds” opens the door to Swamp-Thing on Man-Thing slash fan fiction, don’t you?
Swamp-Thing/Man-Thing fanfic would probably qualify as “slash-and-burn,” in a couple of ways.
I think Superman should straight-up kill more people. But that may be because I don’t like him much.
Before demanding a homicidal Superman, just remember two words.
Manchester. Black.
I always thought Harbinger had one of the coolest costumes.
In the 1966 animated “New Adventures of Superman”, Supes -pretty shockingly – does basically the same thing to their version of The Parasite, grabbing onto him and letting him leech off his superness until the unlucky villain figures out what’s going on and cries out, “No! No! Let me go!” He breaks free and runs away, too late; he begins to glow, then explodes.
In the 60s, we knew how to handle supervillains, by cracky! Blow ’em up! Blow ’em ALL up!