#elliot s! maggin

[supermanshield]

That's my best friend on earth!

Superman Annual #9

[luthwhore]

elliot s maggin (one of the main pre-crisis superman writers, and if you’re not familiar with him i beg you to track down some of his work) has a quora account where he answers questions about his opinions on comics and superheroes and god, i love hearing him talk about lex luthor.

a few highlights:

the idea that “no one is truly irredeemable, even the worst of villains” is frankly incredibly radical even by current day standards — grown adults couldn’t handle that shit in steven universe, a literal show for children — but it should be a core tenet of the superman mythos and that is a hill i will die on.

[ufonaut]

You know I've always hated you, Superman, but that guy's a real pain!

Superman (1939) Annual #9, with a cover date of 1983. Written by Elliot S! Maggin with art by legendary cartoonist Alex Toth.

[chernobog13]

From Superman (vol1.) #297 (March, 1976). Written by Car Bates and Elliot S! Maggin; art by Curt Swan and Bob Oskner.

Wherein it is STRONGLY implied that Lois spent the night at Clark's apartment. How that got past the Comic Code Authority, or the powers that be at DC editorial, I'll never know.

According to many staffers at DC at the time, this was more than an implication - Clark and Lois did have sex. "Beef bourguignon" became more than just Clark's favorite meal; whenever he or Lois would mention it to each other it was their version of "Netflix and chill."

Unfortunately, at the time, the Clark and Lois relationship never really progressed. By 1983, when Lois had been replaced as the love interest in the film Superman lll, DC editorial decided to follow suit and have Lana Lang take her place as Clark's love interest in the comics.

[brevoorthistoryofcomics]

GH: SUPERMAN #382

By 1983, SUPERMAN was feeling a bit like a product of a different age. While some effort was being made to modernize the Man of Steel, including having Gil Kane provide covers as he does here, the actual contents of the magazine were still very much of a piece with the kinds of stories that were being run ten years previous when I had first read an issue. On a certain level, this did represent a…

[deacblues]

As dusk gathered that day, on the hill overlooking Smallville there was a sight no one had ever seen before. There beside the Totten Pond Road stood a black-haired boy in a costume of primary colors.

a scene from miracle monday

[creepingmonsterism]

I'm so glad people have rediscovered Goncharov because now I can talk about that absolutely wild 1974 Jimmy Olsen story Cary Bates and Elliot S! Maggin wrote after seeing it, about this shape-shifting, gender-changing alien crime boss who joins the Superman Revenge Squad and tries to kill Superman, and the Guardians of the Universe have Jimmy Olsen go underground as this femme fatale space thief to spy on them, and he's kind of like Sofia, and he falls in love with their wife/husband who's kind of like Katya, and Superman and the alien crime boss has a conversation with Superman at the end that's just like Goncharov and Andrey. No one talks about this story but I swear to god I think about it every day.

[balu8]

Detective Comics #450' (1975) - "The Cape and Cowl Deathtrap"

by Elliot S. Maggin; Walt Simonson and Ben Oda

DC

[cantsayidont]

January to April 2004. Fans of MY ADVENTURES WITH SUPERMAN would likely enjoy this poignant 2004 miniseries by Kurt Busiek and Stuart Immonen, about a young man named Clark Kent in a world very much like ours, where Superman is a familiar — and fictional — pop culture icon. Clark grows up the butt of many jokes, but when he's in high school, he discovers that he really does have powers like Superman's, something that has no precedent in his world outside of comic books.

If this premise sounds familiar, it's because it's a lot like the origin of the Earth-Prime Superboy, before he became a way for Geoff Johns to mock comics fans (and for DC to play out its institutional hostility toward Siegel and Shuster). In the pre-Crisis era, Earth-Prime, one of editor Julius Schwartz's little jokes, was supposed to be our world, where comics artists, writers, and editors transcribed the adventures of the real heroes of the other Earths. In the afterword to the trade paperback compilation of SECRET IDENTITY, Busiek admits that the similarities were wholly intentional, and that while he didn't mention it in his proposal (and DC didn't advertise it as such), this was essentially his extrapolation of that 1985 concept by Elliot S! Maggin, Curt Swan, and Al Williamson.

After moving to New York City in his '20s, this Clark becomes a reporter — though not for the Daily Planet — and meets a young woman named Lois Chaudhari. To my knowledge, this was the first time a counterpart of Lois Lane was presented as an Asian woman (although of course she's not precisely Lois Lane).

Throughout most of the story, Clark uses his powers only in secret, but he does make himself a Superman costume. Eventually, he feels compelled to come clean with Lois:

Like Busiek's ASTRO CITY, SECRET IDENTITY is a very introspective story, less interested in action (of which there's relatively little) than in emotion and small observations of life with superhuman abilities. If you're expecting bigger dramatic stakes, you may find the series underwhelming — there are no supervillains or alien invasions, just Clark's reflections on his life and family, from childhood to old age — and the fact that the story never reveals why Clark has powers may frustrate. However, its autumnal wistfulness is appealing if you're in the right frame of mind for it. Immonen's art is gorgeous, and I can't think of a better artist for this story, which straddles the line between a real-world environment and the "heroic realism" of the modern superhero genre.

Fourteen years later, Busiek tried to do a similar story with Batman, BATMAN: CREATURE OF THE NIGHT, with John Paul Leon, which doesn't work nearly as well, wallowing in some uncomfortable attitudes about mental illness and an inappropriate though deliberately ambiguous supernatural element. Leon's art is interesting, but the story leaves a sour taste, and it does not succeed (at all) in doing for Batman what SECRET IDENTITY does for Superman, which is disappointing.

[dcbinges]

The Joker #9 (1976) by Ernie Chan, Irv Novick & Elliot Maggin

[comicarthistory]

Pages from Superman Annual #9. 1983. Art by Alex Toth and Terry Austin.

[supermanshield]

Superman Annual #9

[luthwhore]

I loved Maggins Quora answers and how wholesome it was that redemption is always posible and that everybody in the canon of Superman had different religions and kinda got along despite it (plus I loved Superman being Jewish as Maggins and the original authors). But now Im kinda confused about Lex religion. In the current continuity is he supposed to be jewish or atheist or something else? I have not read any DC comic book since Forever Evil (tho I want to catch up with the lasts days of luthor) and I'm not too much into American supes to know how DC cannon realy works, asides the fact that there are like several authors and retcons, so I wanna really know what its the deal with lex religion. Sorry for sounding like if I have three braincells or I'm trying to offend Jewish or atheist people (I respect all faiths), I'm just very intrigued/confused. Also sorry for my ugly English I'm still trying to learn it ;_;

you’re good! the last time i can remember lex mentioning anything about religion was back in paul cornell’s action comics run, where lex self-identifies as an atheist. imo i don’t think anything from the last few decades has ever coded him as jewish.

pre-crisis on infinite earths, back in the silver/bronze age, lex’s character was fairly different than the lex in the comics now, though the lex in mark waid’s “the last days of lex luthor” is about as close to the bronze age lex luthor you’ll find in any modern comic book. originally he was a scientist, first and foremost. this is how elliot maggin wrote him, and is generally the era when you’ll see jewish coding applied to the character.

in 1987, after the crisis on infinite earths event, john byrne and marv wolfman rebooted superman and made a lot of changes to lex in particular, which was when he was reworked from a mad scientist to a corrupt billionaire ceo. john byrne’s luthor is a lot more overtly evil, and is primarily motivated by greed, compared to the silver/bronze age luthor, who more fueled by envy and insecurity.

i’m not sure if anyone in canon other than paul cornell ever referred to lex as an atheist in so many words post-crisis, but i would agree that is generally the vibe that most modern versions of lex give off. (paul cornell’s action comics specifically says that he is an atheist but still believes in hell, which to me very much implies he was raised christian.)

with the way that the character has evolved over the last few decades, i think making him textually jewish would probably read as playing into a lot of anti-semitic stereotypes, so it’s probably for the best it didn’t carry over into current continuity, but i do imagine it’s probably frustrating for maggin, given that, from what he’s said about him, he clearly put a lot of himself into his version of lex.

tl;dr: silver/bronze age lex was implied to be jewish, but in the modern comics he self-identifies as an atheist and was likely raised christian.

[ewzzy]

There's a tiny Fire and Ice story in Showcase '93 that's great but ends on a weirdly horny page even for these two.

[chernobog13]

Superman battles Captain Thunder in Superman (vol. 1) #276 (June, 1974).  Written by Elliot S! Maggin, art by Curt Swan and Bob Oskner.

DC licensed the original Fawcett comics’ Capitan Marvel, and related characters, in 1972.  The first issue of a new Captain Marvel comic book, Shazam!, appeared at the end of that year, although cover dated February, 1973,

Almost as soon as Shazam! #1 hit the stands the long-simmering debate over which hero - Superman or Captain Marvel was better/could win a fight - flared up again in the letter columns of both heroes’ books.

It took the editorial staff at DC a long time before they seemed ready to have the two heroes actually meet (which didn’t occur until Justice League of America (vol. 1) #137, December, 1976).  This was pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths; Superman was on Earth-One and Captain Marvel was on Earth-S.

In the meantime, Julis Schwartz, editor of both Superman and Shazam!, had his creative team float the idea of the Man of Steel and the Big Red Cheese duke it out without actually doing so,  And thus, Captain Thunder was born!

The good Captain, was really a young boy named Willie Fawcett, who worked as a reporter at WHAM-TV.  He met a kindly Native American medicine man named Merokee who gave Willie a belt that, when he spoke the word thunder and rubbed the belt buckle, turned Willie into the super-powered Captain Thunder.  Captain Thunder’s costume was identical to Captain Marvel’s, save for the chest emblem.

As happens so often in comic books, there was a misunderstanding between Superman and Captain Thunder that led to them battling.  Both were equally matched so neither hero got the upper hand, until Superman realized Captain Thunder was under the influence of some bad guys.  Supes executed a plan that changed Cap back into Willie, and the fight was over. 

The two parted as friends, with Captain Thunder making his way through the multiverse to return to his home, Earth-276.

Captain Thunder was the original name for Captain Marvel when Bill Parker co-created the character with C.C. Beck for Fawcett Comics in 1939.  However, Fawcett could not trademark Captain Thunder because the name was already in use at the time.  The character then was renamed Captain Marvel.

There have been hints that when the new Shazam! series by Mark Waid and Dan Mora launches in a couple of months, they may revive the Captain Thunder moniker.  I’m all for that, especially because

1.  For various reasons, which I won’t get into here, DC has abandoned use of the name Captain Marvel for the character; and

2.  Naming a character after the magic word (Shazam) which transforms him is problematic at best, because he can never identify himself by name (which is why Captain Marvel Jr. referred to himself as “CM3″); and

3.  Someone is already named Shazam - the old wizard.

[brevoorthistoryofcomics]

BHOC: INCREDIBLE HULK #230

This next issue of INCREDIBLE HULK was eminently forgettable, and so I forgot about it almost entirely until we reprinted it in a MARVEL MASTERWORKS volume a year or so back. It was a fill-in job, a break in the ongoing storylines and continuity, and so it didn’t have all that much to offer to me as a reader. It was a nice enough diversion, but little more. And it seems to have been an inventory…