Obviously, I have a lot of daydreams about writing Superman. But what kind of Superman book would I want to write? The way I figure, there are two options:
One would be a book that begins with Clark in University, early in his career as Superman, and which follows his life for 200 issues or so and we end thirty years later or whatever. The main benefit here would be that that amount of continuity under a single writer would make things matter. If Superman brings a criminal to justice, that criminal would be in prison. They wouldn’t inexplicably turn up again and negate the accomplishment of catching them. If a supporting cast member is killed off, they’d be gone for good, and not alive again with the next reboot. For this time, in this standalone book, the stories would have lasting consequences in a way which I don’t believe has ever happened for Superman before.
The other book I’d like to write would be almost the exact opposite. An “all-ages” book where every issue is a standalone thing. Not that there wouldn’t be ongoing details, but I’d want to make sure that every issue has a full story that someone could pick up and read and get a complete experience. The Old Timey Superman idea I brought up before would be fine for this, but it could literally work with any version (and it could work for a Superboy series starring Jon Kent as well). Once you’ve got a status quo that works, stop breaking it and just tell stories there. Furthermore, I’d make sure that every issue included at least one educational element, be it some sort of lesson about science or how clocks work (because Clark Collect Clocks) or whatever. I’d try to make the lessons subtle, but I’d want kids to get something of value out of their time, hopefully without even realizing it.
Those would be my ideals. I’d also enjoy doing a daily comic strip. If Spider-Man can still have an ongoing comic strip, surely Superman should.
But, of course, I’d obviously be willing to write anything in the Superman franchise. I’m not holding out for only these things. I’m nobody DC has ever heard of. I have no clout. But those are what I dream of when I fantasize about this stuff.
Obese Mobster In A Suit makes for a good comicbook villain. The reigning Obese Mobster In A Suit in comics these days is obviously the Kingpin of Crime in the Marvel Universe. I admit, he does the job well. But Superman had two such characters in the 40s making the Kingpin a latecomer. Today I am proposing that one of those two characters (but combining elements of both) should be brought back to the Superman franchise.
I’m not looking to fat-shame anybody or anything, being overweight can be a result of many things after all, but if a villain is openly greedy and self-serving, obesity can work as a signifier of that. It’s a fine line to run, but I’m saying that the villain(s) I am offering up today is not a bad person because he’s fat, but is fat because he’s a bad person. It isn’t true of all fat people, but it is true in this case. I think that, if we make that message clear in the stories, we could do this right.
Firstly, there is the Tycoon of Crime (also known as Mr. Blob). With only two appearances in mediocre stories about four decades apart, I can’t claim that he’s ever been important. I admit, if he was the only Obese Mobster In A Suit to work with, I’d not consider this worth the effort. But the other Obese Mobster In A Suit I want to bring back is from the radio, so I don’t have any actual images of him, and thus the existence of Mr. Blob is useful for my purposes. The villain I want to bring back is the Laugher.
The Laugher appeared in multiple stories in the 40s, including being one of the villains to try to buy kryptonite from the Scarlet Widow. In those episodes he was described as being even fatter than the Tycoon of Crime is shown (the Laugher has “three chins and a belly large enough for six men”) and wears fancy suits and covers himself in jewelry. He is called “the Laugher” not because he cackles maniacally like the Joker, but because of his habit of chuckling whenever he finds something amusing. Think Dr. Hibbert, except he’s amused by crime. Given the chance, I’d cast the Laugher in the role of a capo working for the Widow and I’d say he financed the early criminal careers of criminals who amused him, such as the Toyman and the Prankster. Thus he’d be tied to the other parts of the franchise and I could have Lois and Clark bring down the Laugher as a bit of a victory step on their way to bringing down the Widow. And I’d definitely keep the Tycoon’s whole deal as a corrupt businessman. It just fits.
The Scarlet Widow is an elderly woman who runs a crime syndicate. She’s ruthless and innovative and was rightly called the most dangerous woman in the world. I like her and think she should be brought back.
To make Metropolis a seedy-enough place to house the corruption our intrepid reporters fight against, you’re gonna need a crime syndicate or two. Sure, there’s been a few criminal organizations in Superman’s history, some worth using (I’ll probably write about Intergang someday), but the Scarlet Widow is my favourite and since I am always right, that means we have to bring back the Scarlet Widow.
The Scarlet Widow appeared in multiple episodes of the 40s Superman radio show. As I said, she was an elderly woman there, and I liked that. She was Ma Gnucci and Mr. Burns combined with a dash of spider motif. When the movie serials adapted her story for a visual medium, I guess they decided that you can’t let old people be seen, so they cast an attractive younger woman as seen in the picture accompanying this post (and also they called her “The Spider Lady” just to dumb things down, I guess). The internet also tells me that a version of the Superman stage musical also brought the Scarlet Widow back decades later, but I have found limited information on that. In any case, younger Scarlet Widows don’t do it for me. Give me an elderly evil mob boss behind the scenes making Metropolis more dangerous for Superman and his friends. With a criminal career as long as hers, she’d definitely have a history of striking against Daily Planet reporters like Perry White, and she could be behind the creation of a few of the lesser super-criminals who have cropped up since Superman’s arrival.
The Prankster is one of Superman’s longest-appearing regular supervillains. I don’t think he gets a lot of respect from fans, but he’s also “made it” into the pantheon of Superman characters. He’s not one who I feel I need to fight for his inclusion. He’ll continue to show up because he’s tradition.
One of the more recent takes on this character, one I like, is that he’s the guy that other criminals will hire to annoy Superman as a distraction while they do other crimes. That’s a good way to go, because it gives him a lot of freedom to do wacky things. He’s also good for just doing his own crimes, in nice standalone stories with a little twist at the end. And he also gets to team up with the Toyman a lot, which is also fun.
But if I were writing a Superman story right now and wanted the Prankster in there, I’d probably have him go up against the “Truth” aspect of what makes Superman tick. The Prankster could have a vendetta against the Daily Planet and try to harm their credibility with some elaborately staged Fake News pranks and they’d have to step up and prove the worth of journalism. I think that, in this age of the erosion of truth, the Prankster has a relevant role he could play.
I’m gonna spend this week’s Superman Thought on proposing a book I’d like to be reading (and would love to be writing). Over the past decade, DC has had some success making a book based on the Batman ’66 series. I’ve said before how the Superman show from the 50s failed to become as iconic for its star’s cast as the Adam West shows did for Batman’s villains, so a show continuing that series wouldn’t be as much fun if it stayed true to only that source.
But what if we didn’t limit ourselves to just that show? What if we also drew from the Fleischer cartoons of the 40s, and the serials that predated the Reeves show? Heck, let’s even draw from the radio show. Suddenly we have source materials with much more character and vibrancy. I propose that the show could be called Old-Timey Superman*.
Like the Batman ’66 show, Old-Timey Superman could tell simple stories done in an issue or two and free from the continuity of other books in the franchise. With those sources, the stories would be noir-tinged giving the book a style unlike most of the other Superman stuff around these days. For our visuals, I think it would be best to use the cartoons as inspiration as much as possible, but for characters who didn’t show up there we can take what we need from the other sources. Luthor never appeared in the cartoons, but he was in the serials. Bill Henderson and Candy Meyers from the radio have no visuals but the Reeves show provided them. Using all the sources together, we’ve got ourselves a little world as rich as Batman ’66 but different enough to be its own thing.
While there are a handful of villains from the radio show I think deserve a comeback, this would be a fine place to start it, it would also be fun to take characters who have only appeared since those days and create Old-Timey versions of them. Can we imagine what General Zod or Doomsday would be like if they’d debuted in the 40s cartoons? I’d sure like to.
If someone starts a petition demanding that I get to write this, I’m on board.
*That title is not a serious suggestion, but everything else here is.
