Ever wonder why most Americans consider comic books to be suited mostly for children under 10, mental patients, and impotent little brother characters on TV like Radar O’Reilly? Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you “The Secret Lives of Superman,” a collection of stories from the Golden and Silver Age of comics for reprint in DC’s beloved Blue Ribbon Digest series of the ’70s & ’80s.
Now don’t get me wrong—I love these lil’ books, and treasure their contents like some folks treasure their first dog-eared copy of “Playgirl,” but most of the stories in this gem are so full of holes you could mistake them for the back room at Blowbuddies.
Oh, I know… where’s the sport in poking fun at stories like these? Well, hey—it’s been a busy spring, what with camping out waiting for the last issue of JLA/Avengers, the opening of the new Apple store here in downtown San Francisco, and me having to finally fulfill my spousal duties having been officially married at City Hall… sue me! I need a little cake walk, OK? Sheesh!
“The Secret Lives of Superman” is really an ingenious title for this collection, and since Supes has been forced so many times to adopt any number of wacky get-ups in his career, I’m sure it was hard to pare down the lot. Presumably here, we got the best of the bunch. Hoo boy. And before you ask… no, one of Superman’s secret lives is not as a low-rent hustler on the Vegas Strip. That was strictly Robin’s turf.
The lead-off story in this book is pretty much my favorite. “The Five Other Identities of Superman” (originally titled “The Day Superman Became The Flash”) has Superman in the roles of The Atom, Aquaman, Green Arrow, Batman and Flash. The story hinges on an all-too frequent visitor to Superman stories, his dad Jor-El. For a guy who was supposedly blown to smithereens along with Krypton, this guy shows up a hell of a lot.
Appearing here in what is described as a “tape-machine” that projects a “video-recorded picture” in the air! What wonders Krypton must have held! Perhaps they had “automatic dishwashers” and “atomic-powered rocket-propelled school busses” too! Anyway, Jor-El explains that he chose to send baby Kal to Earth since a friend of his lent him use of his “computer-forecaster” machine to predict what the little tyke’s life would be like on several worlds. And wouldn’t you know it—Kal’s alternate lives closely mirror those of his other JLAers.
This was very fun reading for the twelve-year-old me who loved “what if” type stories, and it’s still enjoyable as an adult, but I can’t help but notice a couple of really hilarious bits. For instance, in the first scene, Jor-El looks in on what Kal’s life would be like if he was sent to a world of giants. The bitsy baby is known thru his life as a “pygmy” by the populace at large, and thanks to the planet’s yellow sun, he has terrific powers, which he keeps secret, even though most of his gigantic pals treat him like Carrie White in the pre-Prom days. When a hostage crisis forces him to don an Atom costume (with added Superman cape) and save the day, the schleps he rescues don’t recognize him as the famous pygmy Kal since this guy has super powers! Looks like the oxygen’s a little thin up there, eh big guy?
I think un-credited writer Edmond Hamilton probably had a really fun concept in place for Superman as a couple members of the JLA, but then had to flesh things out with the some others to make a better story. Superman-as-Aquaman, for instance, only rates 6 panels of story, and seeing Superman on a yellow-sun world covered completely in water which has for some unfathomable reason (get it?) evolved human-looking underwater dwellers is almost enough to win this sequence the Ralph Dibny Award for Thinnest Stretching of a Concept.
Again, Baby Kal-El is adopted by the locals and eventually becomes a hero, doing things they never thought of doing to improve life in their submerged cities, like sitting glowing jellyfish-like creatures atop the buildings to provide light to the people. One wonders why no one ever tried this before, considering they can all swim right up to the building tops themselves.
Hmmm… I see a pattern forming here. Maybe Jor-El’s borrowed “computer forecaster” only looked in on planets populated by retards? Or maybe it was Kal’s super-brain which made him think of the great new ideas to begin with.
Or not… because the end of that sequence shows Kal piling up undersea rocks to build himself a tiny island above the water’s surface, and lamenting the fact that he can never leave his watery home. I suppose flying off into space as Superman regularly did in stories of that era just never occurred to him. But I have a better theory—he and the others just ate too much tuna growing up. Remember kids and pregnant ladies: no more than one serving per week! Heavy metals am no good for your think-maker.
Next Jor-El looks in on a planet where Kal won’t have super-powers, but he remarks that it is “a backward world, whose civilization has made little progress.” Yep… only Planets of Retards, I’m telling you.
Superman-as-Green-Arrow isn’t content on this agrarian world to use just the plain arrows they have laying around to do silly things like kill animals for food. He invents a number of “trick arrows” (sorry, no Boxing Glove) for useful purposes, only to see them corrupted by his village’s Donald Rumsfeld and Karl Rove to use as weapons to depose the neighboring village’s despotic ruler and uncover their hidden cache of Billy Goats of Mass Destruction. Despondent, Kal uses his Alarm Arrow to warn the unsuspecting villagers of the attack, and goes into seclusion so his incredible inventions will never harm another person.
Another great bit shows up when Jor-El looks on a world that is in state of perpetual night thanks to a “satellite” that blocks out all light from the sun. In an apparent editorial oversight, the artist actually draws a huge man-made satellite. Now, I’m no expert, but don’t you think Hamilton had a moon in mind? I mean, why would these people deliberately plunge themselves into eternal darkness? Oh, right. Retards. I forgot.
I guess the pace of these stories doesn’t allow for much back-story… the whole Superman-as-Batman sequence takes all of 6 panels, and he was one of the popular ones! The sequence is so unremarkable, we don’t even really see Kal-as-Batman very well at all, and all Jor-El has to say is that it sure would suck to live in eternal darkness. Guys, I’ve got this idea… move that frickin’ satellite. Sure you’ll need to start using SPF 45 again, but I guarantee it’ll be worth it.
The final locale is another red-sun world (Sorry, Kal. No heat vision.), but here the baby is adopted by a wacky scientist who years later, in a move sure to get his adopted child sent to a foster home by Child Protective Services, casts an experimental energizing ray on the young man, imbuing him with super-speed. And just when you think this might be a world of smart folks, not only does Kal don the most hideous of all the costumes in this story—a tragic amalgam of the red-and-blue and version Flash’s mask, gloves and boots—he quickly proves he can be as retarded as the rest of them by running so fast he runs right off the planet and suffocates for lack of oxygen.
No wonder Jor-El decided to send the baby to Earth! At least there he’d only have to contend with Kryptonite, costumed super-criminals and the occasional natural disaster. Under the care of this sadist-cum-scientist, he would have to asphyxiate, gasping in the stratosphere with yellow boots, a red cape and lightning bolts apropos of nothing around his wrists. It’s the original outfit you wouldn’t want to be caught dead in!
Despite what you may think after reading this review, I really do love this story. Even more now as an adult, really. I guess we can seek comfort in the fact that, were this story published today, it would be a 5th-week event and each chapter would be it’s own separate prestige-format issue with story by Dan Jurgens and covers by George Perez.
Next time: More of the same petty insults and obvious jabs you’ve come to expect from me in Part II of this review. 
