Superman Through the Ages! Forum

I feel very much like I'm asking a newbie-like question, but I've tried performing cursory searches of these forums and I just can't find the information I'm looking for.

In interviews about his upcoming All-Star Superman work, Grant Morrison has expressed his love of a story in which Superman developed the power to project a miniature Superman from his hand. According to Morrison, the miniature Superman eventually makes the real Superman feel inadequate.

Does anyone know where this story was printed? Has it ever been reprinted in a collection I actually afford to buy?

Thanks for you help.

The story is called "Superman's Mystery Power!"

I don't know the issue number or whether it's been reprinted - maybe someone else here can help out with that.

There's also been an audio dramatization of the story on CD:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00005QDI7/theamalgamatronA/

I've got this around somewhere in MP3 format.  Now you've got me looking for it...

:s:

Superman No. 125, Nov 1958 "Superman's New Power!"

It was included in the  Superman: Man of Tommorrow Archives Vol. 1

I belive it was also included in the cheap Showcase Superman collection.

Yup, on page 169.

Yes, but be informed - that reprint is black & white.

:s:

More madness of the old days.  :)

Plus a little man coming out of his hand? Methinks the writers were smoking some metaphor metamphetamines. :P

Playing "Guess the Hallucinogenic" is one of the more interesting games to play with oddity and gimmick centered stories. This explains the end of the Silver Age - The Man finally raided the DC stash!

I'm jazzed by the fact Grant Morrison is bringing up that old story with the imp Superman, because it shows his heart is in the right place - although he may have left his talent in the other pants. Grant talks a good game about being weird and strange a guy, but he uses the most cookie-cutter plots ever; few of his plots aren't recycled from various saturday morning cartoons. Sometimes that works for him, he can turn his derivativeness into a strength (e.g. with his absolutely wonderful, cheesy, fantastic first four issues on JLA, which were so evocative of all sorts of b-movies and pop culture cheesiness) but sometimes it doesn't. Remember those issues of JLA he wrote where Darkseid takes over the earth and they have to face an alternate future where this evil guy rules, complete with old versions of themselves? I mean, dang, wasn't this an episode of SWAT CATS?

Off the top of my head, I can remember episodes of CAPTAIN PLANET AND THE PLANETEERS and GI JOE that had this identical story concept - and at least the CAPTAIN PLANET episode had creepy scenes involving "the last dolphin in the world."

The writers at DC must have had too little sleep or too much caffenie.

The min-Superman, Egg-fu,  Dr. Yes, Super-Gorillia,  Ten-Eyed Man, The Listener, B'wana Beast, and so on.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the story where Superman had a third eye in the back of his head, and had to go around wearing hats in order to cover it up and keep people from seeing it.  Now that one was weird!

:s:

Man, I *liked* the Ten-Eyed Man! Okay, granted, his power was, at best, "unsexy" (if he handles a hot pop tart, he's effectively blinded) but they found neat things for him to do, like use the eyes on his hands to become a great lockpick and escape artist.

If somebody can think of a way to bring back the Ten-Eyed Man, maybe they can have each of his eyes have a special power, like for instance, one eye casts an antimagic field, another turns people to stone, and another fires a Slow beam...

...oh wait, this idea is already taken. :D

Though I'm not crazy about Egg-Fu and Dr. Yes - having a giant egg that talks with a Super Mario moustache IS a pretty awesome idea, they were disturbingly racist in overtones.

JulianPerez, the last we saw of the Ten-Eyed Man was in "Crisis on Infinite Earths #12" -- he was trapped in the collapsed building debris that also partially covered the unconscious Huntress.  Kole's dome apparently covered him too, so his actual fate is unknown (we never really SAW the Shadow Demons kill Kole, Huntress and Robin in that dome).

So if somehow Kole, Huntress and Robin should return during "Infinite Crisis", there should be no reason why the Ten-Eyed Man couldn't either.  (Or perhaps they fed HIM to the Shadow Demons?)   :shock:    :wink:

Hi,

Superman is known for his greatest glory in the sa - amongst serious collectors.  Great period of experimenting and inventing what makes and made Superman great - great fortress, Kandor, robots, ect...  
Yet, when some tpb or other forms of books such as "Superman Greatest..." , ect, come out, we see only (or more) of the fine stuff.  Truth be known, some writers in these days must've been using some weird chemical products...  Some of the stories, such as the power to send a mini-Superman is clearly one that wasn't written sober.  If this was written in the Superman spirit of...the 70s - it would've been good - Clark could stay Clark and "mini-me" Superman could handle things...  What I find so weird about this story is the ever asked question of "why"?  What would be the motivation of such a story.  Well, *spoiler* ahead - ahem - right now...   Superman indulges in self-pity - he's not the man - er - Superman he used to be.  People don't care about him - they only want "mini-me" Superman...  I mean, at the end of the story - b-r-o-t-h-e-r would I have left Metropolis!!!  
Is Superman only loved for his powers?  Shame on Metropolis in that story!  Good for me as Brainiac...!

Hey, "Rock of Ages" had some darn cool moments..   I can live with a cliched story if it's written well.

Just about every concept has been used at one time or another.

For example, time travel is very much used SF plot device.

But every writer at least tries to come up with a new way to present that same old concept.  As Larry Niven put it, no field is ever completely mined out.

That Morrison has reused some ideas but put his own stamp and tweaks on it is little different than Superman himself being a revisit of classic mythological concepts and stories.  Siegel borrowed so heavily on Wylie's "Gladiator" the early stories were a shade away from outright plagiarism.  But Siegel did 'tweak' them so the theme was more about the triumphant positive effect a superman would have on the world instead of Wylie's dismal celebration of mediocrity and the superman would be at a disadvantage.  Morrison may not be liked by all, but he's not this arch-villain in writer's clothing.

Ah, "Superman's New Power."

That's one of my favorites. If Superman stories were that weird today, I would still buy them. It's kind of like an old episode of Outer Limits...mini-Superman does better job than Superman, Superman becomes jealous and thinks about murdering him, and then mini-Superman sacrifices his life to save his master's.

Puff the Magic Dragon, lived by the sea....

Morrison brought back Prince Ra-Man (another Crisis victim) at least in a sense, in his recent SEVEN SOLDIERS miniseries, stating that (presumably) he ascended to be a cosmic being, King Ra-Man.



Some of it was pretty neat, though the hardlight hologram evil-JLA battle was pretty boring, and he got almost no use out of the Injustice Gang concept; they were barely used, almost window dressing to prop up the grandeur of the story instead of being real antagonists.

I did love the giant future earth space monsters Aquaman summoned, and the fact they had some wonderful use of Argent, one of the unjustly forgotten Teen Titans, who was shown operating at her full awesome capacity. This has created the potential for a future story where we see our Argent become the Argent seen in that possible future. I’m surprised (considering how everything Morrison did received a sequel somewhere) that nobody has ever followed up the potential that this story offered with that character, showing signs in the present of Argent’s future development.

I don't know is a Spanish/Castilian printing of it yet. You would have a better chance of finding out, ask a bookstore around there or look at some Spanish websites to see if an edition has been printed.

Thanks to RedK! That was first reprinted in the Signet anthology