For reasons of which I am still not entirely aware, in the days leading up to the election I had a strange compulsion to look into the 1986 reboot of Superman comics. Maybe it was from going through the comic collections I've finally retrieved from my parents' basement - while I still haven't been able to find them, I had a few post-reboot issues that confused me as a kid and would, over time, learn the circumstances that led the publisher to push for a clean slate and undertake what's possibly the most successful "hard" reboot of a major media franchise to date. For the (blissfully) uninitiated, a devil -may-care attitude stemming from writing decades of crossovers , twist endings , and IP acquisitions with an expectation that the audience won't care enough to be confused (or, more likely, simply grow out of caring) had left the "DC Universe" an incomprehensible mess by the early 80s. But as we've discussed before , readers by that point ha...

Greetings, citizens of Metropolis, (Metropolians? Metro-ites? Metrons? Is there even a specific term?) and happy salutations to all for another annual Superman Day . While it may have originated as yet another spurious corporate holiday, for some it can still be an opportunity to celebrate a long-beloved superhero. Though I may tend to be more of a Marvel fan myself, DC Universe stalwarts like Superman and Batman have always been part of my media consumption. This may be an unavoidable force, as evidenced by both my children becoming fans of DC superheroes before they even consumed any related media. A while back, Bugsy broached the topic of nature of Superman as a character and property for a previous Superman Day. With such a long-running and widespread character, it's worth thinking about what our own personal experiences with Superman have been. How have they shaped our unique view of the character, and how will that change our interactions with future Superman media? For thi...

What was your first Superman story? It should be a simple question. I can tell you my first Batman story - the 1966 Adam West series, of course, which remains one of my favorite comic adaptations. Or my first Spider-Man story, via a tape of the 1967 animated series episodes. But for Superman, it’s not as clear. Every time I think about it, an earlier memory pops up. Superman II (taped off HBO)? The Fleisher cartoons (copied from a rented collection)? A couple comic issues from a yard sale? The Atari 2600 game? General vague awareness aside (all of these were preceded by Sesame Street’s Super Grover, after all), that first piece of actual Superman media remains shrouded in some half-discovered, half-imagined past - not unlike the man’s own experience with the world of Krypton. While I was born into the tail end of 70s-80s Supermania (and, thankfully, a family with a relaxed attitude toward copyright law), I doubt my experience is unique. Superman has been a towering presence in popular...