Superman Through the Ages! Forum

Great idea, count me in.

I'm a little confused by the seemingly established fact that The Great Superman Book only covers  stories from Superman, Action, and World's Finest, and that Fleisher left out the ones from Jimmy Olsen, Lois Lane, Superboy, and Adventure.

Page xv of the book lists the following titles in its abbreviations section:

Action Comics
Adventure Comics
All Star Comics
Batman
Detective Comics
Limited Colectors' Edition
Superman's Girl Friend Lois Lane
New York World's Fair Comics
Superman
Superman Annual
The Superman Family
World's Best Comics
World's Finest Comics

Maybe someone just came up with all the abbreviations for Fleisher, but he didn't use them all?

I think including things like Batman and Detective is a bit much for a book about Superman.  I propose the following list:

Action Comics
Jimmy Olsen
Lois Lane
Superboy(s)
Supergirl(s)
Superman
World's Best/Finest

and the limited series like World of Krypton, Krypton Chronicles, Secret Years, and perhaps the two novels LSOK and Miracle Monday.

And then maybe a just few post 1986 extensions where appropriate:  The recent Supergirl story in Solo, Bob Haney's last Super Sons story, and Luther's Gift all come to mind.

Adventure Comics and DCCP I'm not sure about - they are integral, but they also really over extend the amount of information we'd have to deal with.

Anything I missed?

As far as extended DC concepts - like Crisis and other characters (Batman, etc) I think it makes sense to approach it as Fleisher did.  Limit all information to that which was mentioned in the titles we choose.  So for Crisis, we don't include all of it, just the parts that showed up in Superman and Action.

Here is the list (http://superman.nu/wiki/index.php/Canonical_sources) I've come up with.  Comments/suggestions welcome.

:s:

I think Fleisher included entries from those books when they involved the first appearance of a major character or a major evolution in the mythology of Superman and family.

I would vote against any post-86 stories.

Greetings, Great Rao!

Looking at the "Canonical Sources" list, I was a little surprised that Superman's adventures with fellow heroes were missing.  Certainly any comprehensive look at Superboy/Superman's career should include his appearances in "The Legion of Super-Heroes" (LOSH), "Justice League of America" (JLA), "Crisis on Infinite Earths (COIE) and "DC Comics Presents" (DCCP).  DCCP is particularly relevant, since its final issue was one of the last "pre-reboot" Superman stories.  It's noteworthy that in DCCP #97 the Phantom Zone prisoners, Bizarro and Mr. Mxyzptlk meet far different ends than in "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?", plus Argo City crashes into Metropolis!  One supposes the writers knew that everything was going to be retconned away immediately, and so indulged in one final flight of fancy.

There's also Superman's participation in "Super Friends" (SF), but perhaps we can ignore this since it's based on an out-of-continuity television cartoon.  ;-)

Then there's the reference issues such as "Secret Origins" (SO) and "Who's Who" (WW).  Ironically, "Who's Who" has entries on "Crisis-erased" Kal-L and Supergirl, but NOT the Earth-1 Superman!  (It was deemed "too confusing" to have references on both the new Man of Steel AND the Silver Age Superman.   :roll:   I'd like to see this community endeavor as a long-awaited rectification of this editorial gaffe.  ;-)

I, for one, would love to see entries on the both the Earth-2 Superman and Power Girl, since they're both integral parts of the Pre-Crisis Superman mythos. (plus, I'd dearly love to render the Ultra-Humanite in his albino ape form). Additionally, and this is just my opinion, but since the Legion of Super-Heroes and the Justice League of America were such intricate parts of Superman's teenaged and adult years, it would probably be a good idea to include at least material from these books where Superman was directly involved. Regarding the Legion, characters like Saturn Girl, Lightning Lad, Cosmic Boy, Mon-El, Ultra Boy and Dev-Em were major figures in his life as Superboy. Some material from the JLA (Superman is one of the seven founding members, after all) should be included, too, because of such characters as Ultraa of Earth-Prime and the Crime Syndicate of America's Ultraman (who are both connected to Superman in at least some fashion). Add to this the fact that the Batman was the Pre-Crisis Superman's closest friend during his adult years.

Definitey the LSH from their adventure run..and I guess after they took over Superboy's book but I never considered that to be Silver Age IMHO.