Superman Through the Ages! Forum

This week's feature a Supermanica is Super-Menace, the Superman doppelganger who was raised by gangsters.  I love this story and imagine it as a great origin story for the evil Ultraman of Earth-3.  (did he ever have a detailed origin story?)

Envisioning E-3 Smallville tales with a heroic young Lex Luthor and Lana Lang investigating the mysterious sightings of an evil young super-boy....

http://superman.nu/wiki/index.php/Super-Menace

One of those classic and great '60's 3 parters that a lot more could have been done with.  Super-Menace could have been a recurring character for a few years and then met his end the same way.  The self-contained nature of the story in one issue makes it feel more like an imaginary story than a "real" one

That was the beauty of the Silver Age - an unusual character and storyline and never hear or seen of again (except on a map detailing the Super-Family's trip to Earth).

I have the issue someplace or Showcase repub but do his 'parents' refer to him as anything but Brat, Bully and Menace? Like Junior, maybe?

"Nah - that's my brat, Super-Bully!"  ;)

I loved the story and I like the fact that he found redemption at the end as violent as it may have been.

Ahhh, yes, Super-Menace. Oh, boy, what a turkey this was.

At first, this tale seems like a "Mopee." The idea that Superman could have something as significant an evil twin that shadowed him his whole life (yet Superman never knew of him somehow) completely recontextualizes the Superman story and is conveniently never mentioned again. In its own way, the existence of Super-Menace is just as ridiculous and terrible as the idea of Black Zero destroying Krypton or Superman's parents surviving: this reminds me of those "Sweeps Week" episodes of FAMILY MATTERS where it turns out Steve Urkel has a long-lost twin in France. Yet alas, there is some evidence that the Super-Menace story in fact, did happen:

Have a look at the pin-up map of "How the Super-Family Came to Earth from Krypton," which was first printed in SUPERMAN #100 (1962), and was reprinted in the Superman Giant Annual and the Superman Sourcebook: it clearly shows the place where the rocket struck the machines that created Super-Menace. So maybe this story happened after all.

Strangely enough, this is not the first time Superman has been explained as having an evil twin that is never mentioned again - nor is it even, really, the worst. That honor would go to the story written by (of course) Bob Haney in WORLD'S FINEST #246-247, which had Superman's evil hunchbacked brother take over the earth and set up a totalitarian regime, with Batman on the run from Superman's brother's evil secret police. Bob Haney, the guy that "outed" Hawkman and Hawkgirl as aliens back in HAWKMAN #22, but suffered the monstrous indignity of having that entire story quietly forgotten.

By the way, when Alicia Masters first appeared, it was explained that she was physically identical to Susan Storm, to the point where if Alicia was given a blonde wig she could pass for Susan Storm. This makes Alicia Sue's "evil twin," and like Super-Menace and Super-Hunchback, their similarities were never mentioned again.

Not detailed, no, but we do learn from Roy Thomas that Earth-3 Ultraman was, like our Kal-El, rocketed from the planet Krypton. The weirdest part is this: his Krypton did not explode. Where Kryptonite on Earth-3 comes from is thus anyone's guess.

don't try either unless you want a headache

When the Earth-1 Krypton blew up, the incredible force of the explosion caused a dimensional tear into the Earth-3 universe.  During the explosion, a smattering of Kryptonite chunks from the Earth-1 Krypton were violently forced through the tear.

This dimensional tear was similiar to the one that Ultraman's father, Jur-Ll, used to escape from the Phantom Zone to the Earth-1 Kandor.

Which leads to the question:  Do all the various universes in the multiverse share one Phantom Zone?

Ow, now me head hurt.  :P

Good theory. This MAY mean that there is Gold Kryptonite on Earth-3 (since Gold Kryptonite came from the Gold Volcano on Krypton) but not Red Kryptonite which was created by being altered through a weird space cloud; if the portal was at Ground Zero at Krypton's explosion, no Red Kryptonite could exist in Earth-3's dimension (and heaven knows what it would do to Ultraman).

The only possible problem I see with this is that all of Earth-3 Ultraman's encounters with Kryptonite were on Earth. Remember, he had no powers when he emerged from his rocketship and gained them through exposure to Kryptonite (presumably, he can only gain one power per Kryptonite sample). The reason there is so much Kryptonite on Earth is because Kal-El's rocket kept a space-warp open between Earth and the remains of Krypton, which is why the stuff is found in abundance.

You'd have to have a similar explanation for why Kryptonite is present on Earth (3). Clearly there isn't as much as on Earth-1, because Ultraman doesn't have a ridiculous number of powers.

Incidentally, this may be an explanation for why Superman in early JLA stories under Fox and Sekowsky had very strange powers: maybe for a time, it was Ultraman in disguise, using Superman's reputation and their physical similarity to perform crimes (and as a part of his disguise was shoehorned into League stories). Ultraman might have gained his Other-Earth Vision power some time before revealing it to the other members of the Crime Syndicate. Remember, one of the powers Superman demonstrates in the League stories is the ability to see into other dimensions.

Coming up with a Mopee of your own, Julian?

Then the Kryptonite on Earth-3 must have gotten there because it was caught up in the wake of baby Ultraman's rocket ship when it was launched from the Earth-3 Krypton.  Either that, or there was a similar space-warp phenomenon as happened with Kal-El's rocket.  Not too far-fetched considering all the other odd parallels between the 2 universes.

Huh?  I don't remember this!  Reference, please?

On this forum we had a conversation about this:

http://superman.nu/smf/index.php?topic=2559.0 (http://superman.nu/smf/index.php?topic=2559.0)


Klar points out some interesting stuff as well in that thread: JLA in the early years was a Julie Schwartz book, when Weisenger ruled Superman with an iron fist, and so he and Gardner Fox were inexperienced with the character - which is why Superman's powers seemed to work so strangely.

Besides being the grossest thing I've ever read on this forum, the idea if used in an actual story would never be questioned.  There's all sorts of dimensional rifts and stray holes all over the DC multiverse.

Is a parallel universe the same as a dimension?  These are questions I wish some of our more quantum-ly oriented members would answer in Supermanica.  Could the Flash vibrate into the Phantom Zone?

I like both the idea of Superman doppelgangers existing in secret for decades and the idea of a Superman secret police chasing down Batman (kind of like what I've read about that Alex Ross series where Batman and Lex Luthor are the anti-metahuman militia or Kurt Busiek's Morgan Lafey world where Hawkeye and Captain America work to free the other Avengers).

How can you not like this story? I knew I'd brought it up before, and I found this that I wrote on the first page of the DCMB "Superman in the Sixties" thread:


I also wrote:


I suppose you have to have read this comic as a kid to appreciate it. Maybe it's a bit like the Composite Superman concept -- just a neat idea to make an exciting Superman story. I still find this one just as entertaining as ever.

I still see Flash as a physical super-character, using his power to go from one physical realm to another. Maybe Earth 2 is much closer to us than the Phantom Zone... I suppose they are all "dimensions". I have never expected a lofty scientific explanation for what a dimension is (as used in DC Comics); a "dimension" is a way of referring to a "parallel universe", but one is not the definition of the other. I take "dimension" to mean an aspect, another angle on the "universe", because for me the universe is everything, Earth 1, Earth 2, Time, the 5th Dimension, and the Phantom Zone. Earth 2 is another dimension of the universe; I don't see it as another universe. (When people say "multiverse" I still think "universe" because I just make the umbrella bigger to suit.)

Back to Flash being physical: I would think he could in theory get into the Phantom Zone by himself, but he wouldn't be able to get out. He is the master of physical vibration, but none of that is possible (or even exists) from within the Zone, at least as I remember it.

Of course it happen! The 1st clue was that it was written by Jerry Siegel! If Siegel isn't considered canon then nothing is.

http://superman.nu/wiki/index.php/Super-Menace

That's right. The story isn't Imaginary, if that's the suggestion.

I actually like the story and of course it happened.  And if once you accept that Superbaby had adventures on his journey, its pretty clever.

Also see:

http://superman.nu/wiki/index.php/Dr._Reese_Kearns

Ah, there are so many great Superman stories we could discuss. The Dr. Kearns one is a very good comic. I like the atmospheric scene where Superman, at Dr. Kearns' insistence, begins to cast his mind back, digging into the recesses of his memory to find something that may have happened to him en route to Earth from Krypton. This is also one of the best examples I know of those "feel-good" stories the writers of the time did so well -- in this case Edmond Hamilton I believe (?).

And it isn't possible for Jerry Siegel to have a bad idea in his career, right?

Generally I judge works by a very simple standard: never trust any story you've already seen on an episode of THE BIONIC WOMAN.

Okay, okay, I can see why people would like this story: my heart nearly CRACKED when Super-Menace heard Wolf Derek call him a "freak" and revealed that S-M wasn't really loved at all by his folks. Jerry Siegel was capable of incredible character-centered stories with tragedy and powerful emotions: "Return to Krypton," more than any other story, brought home the tragedy of Krypton's destruction, and it was astonishing to see a cowering Superman bargaining for his life pitifully to Luthor, Brainiac, and the Legion of Super-Villains.

(Strangely, the one Siegel strip one would imagine would have very powerful emotions, Robotman, about a human whose brain is placed inside an inhuman robot, is actually the most upbeat and energetic of all Siegel's creations. For the Love of God, he even had a robot dog sidekick! And who could forget Robotman vs. Rubberman!)

I also dig the idea Super-Menace was in fact an energy duplicate instead of a true clone, which is a rather intriguing idea, though it was woefully unexplored: the only sign he's noncorporeal is that he's immune to Kryptonite, when really he ought to have weirder powers, a la Cary Bates's ERG-1.

Intriguingly, bringing Super-Menace back may actually be the easiest thing in the world if a writer forgets to take their medication that day and decides to do it: Super-Menace at the end disincorporated his energy body. Now, energy can neither be created nor destroyed. This was how they brought back ERG-1 (as Wildfire) and how, in the pages of IRON MAN, they resurrected the original Sunturion. Drake Burroughs reformed himself gradually, whereas Roxxon Oil went to the middle of the Pacific Ocean and re-energized Sunturion.

The Super-Menace story had the deck stacked so thoroughly against it that I can hardly see why anyone ever thought it was ever a good idea at any point, even Siegel himself.

1) "Evil twin" stories are the absolute nadir of the entire Silver Age - the most lazy, overused technique ever. Lex Luthor had his evil twin (Dru-Zod), Supergirl had several (including Lesla Lar, whose best story was as an insane, disembodied energy being in SUPERMAN FAMILY), and Jimmy Olsen had a lookalike double that was a Phantom Zoner, Ak-Var. Going beyond Superman, we have Barry Allen, who has the record of not one but THREE evil lookalikes: a crime lord in a 1970s story, the Reverse Flash, and the whole Mark Waid "Cobalt Blue" business. Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu, has a twin brother, and there were two Hank Pyms running around after Busiek/Pacheco's AVENGERS FOREVER.

2) It isn't just that Super-Menace was an evil twin; it's the idea that Super-Menace "always had been" present from "Day One." The idea of a criminal/evil version of a being as powerful as Superman existing in secret for decades and decades, thoroughly tries suspension of disbelief...especially the idea S-M was unknown to Superman, from whom it is not really possible to keep from any secrets.

Elliot Maggin devoted so much effort in his Superman novels to show what a colossal, unprecidented impact on global pop culture Superman had, how thousands of people went into service jobs because of Superman's inspiration, and so on.

Siegel just didn't explore the terrifying and staggering implications of what it would be like to have a Superman dedicated to crime on the loose for years and years - and one that is immune to Kryptonite, no less! This is why I enjoyed SUPERMAN II and the Gerber PHANTOM ZONE miniseries: they didn't pull punches and explored what malignant beings with Superman's powers rampaging over earth would be LIKE, and didn't wuss out of the implications.

In a nutshell: at this late point in the game, asking us to accept something as important as a Superman duplicate that has existed since Superman arrived on earth, yet has remained unknown...is really insulting the intelligence of the reader.

And the "Lone Ranger" mask looked pretty lousy, too. Give me Mummy bandages anyday - at least then there'd be a PRISONER-esque "reveal" moment.


I always found the idea of the Kryptonian Memory Chair intriguing, both as a gadget itself and as a frame story for telling Superbaby and World of Krypton tales. Besides the obvious jokes about Superman remembering breastfeeding (which would warp anybody) the Chair has potential use in present-day stories: Superman reconstructs memories of something that happens, but the details are incomplete...creating a mystery story where he has to piece together the facts.

Many of the Bronze Age writers - including Martin Pasko - did not like the Memory Chair because they felt that it would be more tragic to have Superman not remember Krypton all that well: he felt the tragedy all the more because he can barely remember his mother and father, and so on.


What I meant was, there's a specific category of Superman stories that put such a profound, deep twist on the straightforward origin of Superman, that everyone decides to have collective amnesia and never mention the story again. This is what is done with stories like (for instance) Black Zero destroying Krypton or that story that had Jor-El and Lara survive. A nickname for this kind of story is a "Mopee," and you know it when you see it: for instance, a magical elf gave the Flash his superspeed.

Is the Super-Menace story a "Mopee?" I suspect it is, because it fits two the two major qualifications for Mopee-hood: a shocking origin-recontextualizing revelation about something that was there "all along," and which was quietly dropped and never mentioned afterward (though not entirely, as the map indicates).

JulianPerez:

The "weird" powers an energy being might have is not at all what the writer is exploring. He is exploring something else entirely. If you want to read about ERG-1 or Sunturion, then surely you would read those particular comics? It is important that the energy duplicate of Superman in this story has Superman's powers and not ERG-1's or anyone else's.


On the contrary, this is not a "lazy" script and the writer has used the idea of a "twin" to present a series of ideas about Superman and his upbringing. You have concentrated on the tools so much, you may have missed what has been built.


You mean a flying man who is invulnerable doesn't try suspension of disbelief? This is a children's comic about a person who couldn't ever possibly exist in the first place. And again, you're missing what Siegel is saying because you want to pick to pieces the way he is saying it.


If you want those themes explored, and you are telling us they have been explored, then read those particular stories! Siegel has not "failed" and he did not "wuss out". You have set him a purpose for this story, judged him by it, then declared he has failed (accusing him of cowardice in the process). He did not go down the road you are talking about because he never intended to, and you are completely missing what he is exploring.


When I read this comic as a 10-year-old, I assure you I was not insulted. And, reading it again now, I am still not insulted. It is a good story, and a thoughtful story. I suggest a relaxed and light-hearted re-reading to let the themes of this neat little tale emerge for you.

This isn't a comic about a neat new super-villain who "ought" to have all sorts of cool new powers and do this and that... It's actually telling us something about Superman. It's not wholly about Super-Menace at all; not even close.

In that regard, it's not a Mopee (yes, I understand your term). Rather, it's an intriguing story about the nature of Superman and his formative relationships, by his co-creator.

Super-Menace was --Is -- an unforgettable character in a great 3-part novel. One of my all time faves.

Wotta creep.