Superman Through the Ages! Forum

Recently, I got ahold of Edmond Hamilton's BATTLE FOR THE STARS (in a Tor Double-Novel with the always amazing Leigh Brackett's NEMESIS FROM TERRA). Like nearly all of Hamilton's adventure space opera (which I try to get in pulp form whenever possible) I was blown away by this story of a commander sent to prevent a rival empire from conquering the backwater earth, and in the process falls in love with the planet, especially upstate New York and a fussy farmhouse cat. Hamilton's prose has to be read to be believed with descriptions like "the hot gas cloud surrounding stars the color of a peacock's breast."

There is one possible aspect of the Superman mythos that came originally from Hamilton's science fiction: a "flamebird" is spoken of as being one of the life forms of Lyra, home planet of our hero's golden alien wife.

BATTLE FOR THE STARS was originally published in 1961.

The first appearance of Flamebird was in 1963 and written by...(you guessed it) EDMOND HAMILTON!

Thus, the "Flamebird" name is an obscure reference to Hamilton's own novel, BATTLE FOR THE STARS. Either that, or the flamebird name was percolating in Hamilton's subconscious and popped up in two forms. Either way, it is something very interesting for a Superman historian to take note of.

Julian, if you start reading a lot of Hamilton you'll seelots of pre Superman mythos here and there.  I had just read "Battle for the Stars" myself a few months back and a collection of EH "The Best of EH" and you'll see glimmers of the LSH and more.

In fact, while reading BFTS I kept imagining it as illustrated by John Forte
in his LSH period.  In the short stories is a great percursor to his "Man Who quit the Human Race" Batman story among others.

Highly recommended is Leigh Brackett's "The Big Jump" a noirish titled grand SF thriller.

I just started getting around to reading "The Best of Edmond Hamilton".

It's notable that in one of his later short stories, "Requiem", he has an annoying female reporter named Lorri Lee.  I have to believe that's a nod to his overall disdain for writing Lois Lane (who in that era, was about as far apart from the dynamic woman he married as could be).

Apparently, in his pulp-writing days Edmond Hamilton was known by his peers as "World-destroyer Hamilton"!

In my opinion he wrote a very high proportion of the best Superman tales of the 1950s and 1960s - two of the very best that come immediately to mind are: "Superman Under the Red Sun!" from Action Comics #300 (May 1963); and "The Showdown Between Luthor and Superman!" from Superman #164 (October 1963).

It is a mystery to me that the former story has never been reprinted outside of a tiny digest.

Bu it IS here:  http://superman.nu/tales2/redsun/ (http://superman.nu/tales2/redsun/)


Note to Rao: the credit for the online story is in error stating Curt Swan is the artist.  Al Plastino is the Action delineator here.

This reminds me of a great Michael Moorcock story:

At a convention in the 1970s, Moorcock was approached by Ed Hamilton and Leigh Brackett, who told him how much they loved THE SUNDERED WORLDS, which to the best of my knowledge is one of the few if only times Moorcock wrote science fiction.

"Wow, Mike. They called me the World-Destroyer, but you...you destroyed whole galaxies!" Ed Hamilton said.

Reading his short stories, he mostly talks about the world as already being destroyed or nearly so -- the "dying Earth" genre.  In "Thundering Worlds", a 1934 short where he saves the nine planets of our solar system, he focuses a lot on the colors of the suns he takes the planets to.  "He That Hath Wings" could've been a great X-Men story about Angel and mutant angst, but it was written in 1938. 

I could've swore that story was reprinted in one of the Showcase phonebooks or Superman: From the 30's to the 70's.

Man, I'd forgotten that was written by Ed Hamilton, but now that you mention it, it basically IS the Angel. In fact, I wonder if that story was somehow an inspiration. It probably is - of all the Marvel comics, the one that shows the most pulp science fiction influence was X-Men. You could see elements of SLAN and Jack Williamson.

I read that a while back in Asimov's YOUNG MUTANTS collection (at the time, I was crazy for X-Men and would read anything with mutants in the title), and I was surprised at how it was a deeply sensitive love story and not a tale of superheroic action.