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Author Topic: Super-Menace  (Read 13932 times)
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TELLE
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« on: November 06, 2006, 10:17:14 AM »

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
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« Reply #1 on: November 06, 2006, 06:09:13 PM »

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
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« Reply #2 on: November 06, 2006, 07:28:24 PM »

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!"  Wink
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« Reply #3 on: November 07, 2006, 01:32:51 AM »

I loved the story and I like the fact that he found redemption at the end as violent as it may have been.
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JulianPerez
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« Reply #4 on: November 07, 2006, 02:12:52 PM »

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


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.
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« Reply #5 on: November 07, 2006, 02:39:53 PM »

Quote from: TELLE
(did he ever have a detailed origin story?)

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.
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« Reply #6 on: November 08, 2006, 01:26:12 AM »

Quote from: TELLE
(did he ever have a detailed origin story?)
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
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« Reply #7 on: November 08, 2006, 07:39:49 AM »

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.  Tongue
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