Superman Through the Ages! Forum

is it just me or are DC re releasing all of their stock on Earth-2? i mean first there was the crisis on multiple earth tpbs (and thankfully continuing) and then the power girl tpb and now we have the justice society and Huntress coming out in shiny paperback cover form! ive been enjoying these so far... although in the justice society tpb i felt the JSA  where a bit misrepresented... i mean you have all these superhero vets who have been doing the job for decades yet in this book they can hardly seem to keep it together, arguing more like they are the x men than old golden age heroes of yore, at one point hawkman says somehting like "we cant even call ourselves men!" heavy with the self loathing... but apart from that iz good (i like powergirl, she has issues)

also the Huntress. has anyone read it? is it any good?

Glad to hear I'm not the only one who had issues with the way those JSA stories were written.  They really could act like a bunch of angst-ridden teenagers, and it absolutely did not jibe with the "seasoned vet" personas that drew me to them in the first place.

I really didn't enjoy the subplot where Alan Scott goes from mogul to bum, or especially the one where Bruce Wayne turns against his old pals.  All this Marvelized sturm und drang never rang true when applied to members of "The Greatest Generation". The result, for me, was to make the JSA the equivalent of those afternoon soaps where 50-something divas and retired male models carry on like pubescent dimwits on Dawson's Creek.

Can't beat that Wally Wood take on Superman, though.

I'm enjoying the glut of E-2 material right now, with a real highlight being the "Crisis on Multiple Earths: The Team Ups" book.  Looking forward to volume two this spring!

IIRC, the 1970s All-Star Comics began as part of "Conway's Corner" (along with the Freedom Fighters, the Secret Society of Super-Villains, and a few others). All these books had a definite "Marvel-flavor" that Gerry Conway transplanted to DC. I had a love/hate attitude towards ASC back in the day. I loved seeing the JSA, but I hated that they weren't the JSA I expected. As I've ranted elsewhere, Conway -- and later Paul Levitz -- ignored much of the prior JSA history. For example, when Hourman showed up in ASC, everyone commented on his retirement. But he had been active in 3 of the last 4 JLA/JSA team-ups.

As I've gotten older, I can enjoy these more. Kind of like how I enjoy some of the old Marvel Essentials. At least the JSA got a better shake than they did in their later series. Well, except for Batman.

YAY! I'm eager for that one, too. I don't think the Atom/Atom team-ups have ever been reprinted.

"Conway's Corner".  Thanks for that.  New to me.  I wonder who coined it?

I think they should go back to calling the JSA "The Super Squad" --a  clunky new name given to the All-Star Squadron so as not to confuse readers of the JLA.

Conway himself used the phrase to refer to his editorial domain at DC. After getting the boxes down from the closet shelf, I found it mentioned on the LoC page in Man-Bat #2 (another, deservedly short-lived, Conway-edited title). I know the phrase was used elsewhere. Conway left DC after just a few months, so the Corner only had a brief existence.

Google turned up these references to "Conway's Corner":
http://superman.nu/dcmb/seventies/?part=30 (http://superman.nu/dcmb/seventies/?part=30)
http://www.geocities.com/cheeksilver/ssosv.htm (http://www.geocities.com/cheeksilver/ssosv.htm)
http://www.supermanartists.comics.org/dchistory/DCHISTORY-5.htm (http://www.supermanartists.comics.org/dchistory/DCHISTORY-5.htm)
http://dcboards.warnerbros.com/web/thread.jspa?threadID=2000100774&messageID=2003306511 (http://dcboards.warnerbros.com/web/thread.jspa?threadID=2000100774&messageID=2003306511)

Now all we need is the wikipedia article!
 :)

Reminds me of my search for the origins of "Cap's Kooky Quartet".

"crisis on multiple earths: the team ups" was pretty good , however im looking forward to the Superboy/ Teenage Kal-L team up that happend late seventies/ early 80s... its a story that is mentioned suprisingly little since you would think it would be a key turning point for the Earth-2 superman... or is it considered a mopee?

anybody read this one?

I read it because I wanted to add it to the site.  But right now I don't know where my copy of it is; nor do I even remember what I thought of the story!

I wonder if there's enough material to publish a collection of "Superboy/Superboy" team-up tales.  I only know of 3 or 4 stories that would qualify:  There's this story where Superboy and the teenage Earth-2 Kal-L team up; there were at least a couple of issues where the Pocket Universe Superboy and Kon-El joined forces; and there's the final issue of the "Adventures of Superboy" television comic-book, where Superboy collects a team of Superboys from a bunch of different parallel worlds.

I didn't know they were doing cross dimensional teams ups early in Supes career. Hey, it's DC so anything's possible!

It was actually in the early 1980's... I think in the Superboy comic as a back up for a few issues...

Wasn't the art by John Calnan?  I recall it was Plastino-ish in a way...

It was actually in the early 1980's... I think in the Superboy comic as a back up for a few issues...

Wasn't the art by John Calnan?  I recall it was Plastino-ish in a way...
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I think you misunderstood what I meant. Not when the comic came out but rather the early past of Superman. Anyways I found this link & it looks like they were still trying to keep Earth-ONE Superman as the first Superman and not Earth-TWO Supes. Superboy trains Kal L how to use his powers but he doesn't become Superman until later in life. In a roundabout way that's saying that Kal-EL was first & not Kal-L.


http://www.fosterclub.com/funstuff/fam_fosterKids/superMan.cfm

Isn't that the one where Superboy from Earth one come back in time and shows Earth two Clark Kent how to use his powers? Lame-o.

i still wanna read it,

Earth-2 reminds me of the universe in Wild Cards, in that there was a big super-originating event in the WWII era and everything progressively got a little stranger relative to the reader's Earth (mostly, but not exclusively, because of the fallout of the big event).

By contrast, Earth-1 of necessity is strongly tied to the reader's Earth.   You couldn't have, say, the Quebecois in Canada fork off their own country on Earth-1 or lots of little changes because then it would be hard for many would-be readers to relate to it.

It'd be interesting to see just how divergent a 21st century Earth-2 could get as a result of the emergence of supers in the 1940s, kinda like what Byrne did with Generations but focusing as much on the real-world aspects.

If I can dig it up in my miscellaneous comic books I will send it to you.  I remember it was a book that I grabbed and it got abused as a kid but I am sure I have it somewhere. I used the comic book to cut out a Superman chest symbol for my mego doll that lost his.  So on some panel in that book, there is a picture of Superboy with his chest logo cut out.    ;D
Hey, this was before the internet and I had to think of something.   ;)
Its not worth nothing but if you want to read it that is about what the book is worth.  Give me a few days to shift through some old comic boxes. I will PM you.