Tales from the 50 Cent Bin! - Superman: The Secret Years

Next up for the month is a trip to the 80’s… sort of. We’re still in the Bronze Age, but this story came out right as Crisis on Infinite Earths was ramping up. I guess one could consider this a farewell to a certain pre-Crisis feature of the Superman mythos: Superboy. Superman’s early adventures were still a thing even in the 80’s. Either he was getting into trouble in Smallville or hanging out with the Legion of Superheroes. I don’t know if there were any that talked about his college exploits. I know that there’s was a back up in Superman called “Superman: The In-Between Years.” Then, there’s this four issue story.

Superman: The Secret Years ran from February 1985 to May 1985. Bob Rozakis, the writer of the other college Superman backups, wrote this story. On pencils, we got Curt Swan, the face of Superman throughout the Bronze Age. On inks, we got Kurt Schaffenberger. Schaffenberger used to do inks for Superboy stories. Then, we got the covers drawn by Frank Miller… yeah, that Frank Miller! So, what happened during Clark Kent’s last years in college? Ohyeah, here’s a little mood music… 

Trade Tales! - Superman: Kryptonite Nevermore

Well, it’s another September… so that means I get to gush on the Man of Steel himself. This month, I’m pretty much going back to basics this time. There’s no certain theme this time around. I think I’ve played those out anyway. The plan is to look at a story from each decade and some non-comic material as well. So, I might as well start off with the first (?) time DC tried to revamp Superman in a modern age!

In early 1970’s, comics were changing and trying to be more modern. That era became what’s known as “The Bronze Age.” Marvel was doing more thing with their characters.  DC was also trying to revamp their heroes a bit. Batman got thrown back into his dark, pulpy roots. Green Arrow and Hal Jordan were doing their “Hard-Travelin’ Heroes” gig. I think Wonder Woman had something going on too, but I’m not sure. Then, we get to Superman, who at this point, is pretty much “God in a Cape.”

The Superman books got new editors and they decided to get rid of a lot of the Silver Age goofiness that was around in the 60’s. Julius Schwartz, the editor of Superman, got Dennis O’Neil to come in and write Superman for this new era. Basically, the idea was to bring those god-like powers down a bit and revamp him. He didn’t stay long on the book, though, and his issues of Superman (#233-238, #240-242) became known as “The Sandman Saga.” The issues were then put into a collection called Kryptonite Nevermore. Assisting O’Neil was Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson on the art. Artist Neal Adams did the covers to these issues.