It’s the eve of the 40th anniversary of John Byrne’s Man of Steel, and a 13th Dimension reader has thoughts…
By AARON HAMMONDS
Superman hit movie screens again in a big way last summer, and director James Gunn’s blockbuster did something none of the other films starring the Man of Steel have done in the past 20 years: It reignited my passion for comics in general and the Big Blue Boy Scout in particular.
In the last few months, I’ve begun rebuilding my comics collection with a special emphasis on a certain strange visitor from another planet, and it’s gotten me thinking: Where did all this begin?
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MY FIRST GLIMPSE OF THE LEGEND
I was 5 years old in 1978 when my mom took my brother (he was 12) and me to see Superman: The Movie. I thought it was fun, but I also thought it was just a movie; my brother later showed me his comic-book collection and I learned that Superman had a history going back years before. Shortly after that — not sure how I had never seen it — I discovered the Super Friends show on ABC Saturday mornings.
Over the next couple of years, as I learned to read, I perused my brother’s Famous First Edition treasury of Superman #1, featuring a Man of Steel with whom I was decidedly unfamiliar. This guy beat people up! My brother explained to me the concept of the Multiverse, Earth-One, Earth-Two, etc., and I then understood why this early Superman was so much rougher.
Through a trivia book of his, I also learned some of the rich tapestry of lore that had been woven around the character, primarily since the 1950s: the bottle city of Kandor, his college girlfriend Lori Lemaris (who just happened to be a mermaid), his time with the Legion of Super-Heroes in the 30th century, the vast history of Krypton and the Phantom Zone, etc.
I expanded my palette by reading his Famous First Editions of Flash Comics #1 and All-Star Comics #3, introducing me to most of the rest of DC’s Golden Age lineup. Next, I found his issues of DC Comics Presents, the Superman team-up title launched in the spring of 1978. (I remember the exact issues he had: 1-6, 9 and 14, because I read them ad infinitum).
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GETTING HOOKED — BUT NOT ON SUPERMAN
A few years later, Superman II came out and we finally got to see Christopher Reeve fight super-powered villains! As time went on, I bought (or, rather, would beg my parents to buy) a Flash here, an Action Comics there, but nothing consistently. I enjoyed comics, but I wasn’t hooked yet…
In the spring of 1984, with the purchase of Green Lantern #178 off the spinner rack at my local grocery store, my comics collecting career officially began. Two months later, Detective Comics #541, written by the great Doug Moench in the middle of his classic run on both Batman and Detective Comics, forever turned me into a fan of the Caped Crusader, a true addiction for the next several years.
And then, in June, Superman #400 came out and I was drawn to that beautiful “Anniversary” banner DC put on all their landmark issues at the time. I bought it and was blown away by all the talent. This was a fascinating concept: an anthology issue centered around one character, and how his fictional world perceived him over the centuries. This was what made me decide to try adding Superman to my monthly comics haul…
…but that didn’t last very long. I quickly discovered that Superman, on a monthly basis, was dull. Gone were the exciting tales I had read from the late ’70s, with Superman teaming up with the Flash, Green Lantern, and the Metal Men; now, virtually every issue was a one-and-done story based on the flimsiest of premises.
Sure, there were some diamonds, but you had to sift through a lotta coal to get to them. For every “For the Man Who Has Everything” (Superman Annual #11) there was a story about a pan flute that made Clark grow horns.
It was like the Superman titles decided to spend what turned out to be the last couple of years of the Bronze Age vacationing in the Silver Age, embracing the sillier parts thereof. I quickly decided to buy Superman sparingly; my heart was with the Dark Knight and the Emerald Warrior (both Hal Jordan and his replacement, John Stewart). Then, just months after I began collecting and reading about the DC Universe on a regular basis, DC did the unthinkable: They destroyed it.
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THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT
In December 1984, DC released Crisis on Infinite Earths, promising that worlds would live, worlds would die, and that the DC Universe would never be the same. My 12-year-old mind was blown over the course of 1985, as I watched the Crime Syndicate of America, Supergirl, the Flash, Alexei Luthor, Earth-Two’s Robin and Huntress, Dove, and so many other characters bite the four-color dust. I realized that I had gotten into DC just in time to see everything about DC… change.
That being said, when the new, post-Crisis era began as 1985 turned to 1986, things didn’t really seem all that different. To a young, adolescent kid, post-Crisis Earth basically just seemed like Earth-One with some new characters added. Things appeared to have settled… until I saw an ad for a miniseries starring a certain Man of Steel (hint, hint).
But that’s for tomorrow.
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MORE
— Thank You SIEGEL and SHUSTER for SUPERMAN — A Hero We Can All Look Up To. Click here.
— PAUL KUPPERBERG: My 13 Favorite Things About WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE MAN OF TOMORROW? Click here.
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AARON HAMMONDS fell in love with comics and superheroes over 40 years ago; his passion was reignited in 2025 by James Gunn’s Superman. He resides in Pensacola, Florida, with his beautiful wife.
