HAPPY 75TH BIRTHDAY SUPERMAN!!!

On April 18th, 1938 The very first issue of Action Comics came out. In it was a strange person in a red and blue uniform with a cape crashing a car. This strange beings name was Superman and no one had ever seen anything like it before. Created by Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel Superman began a new wave of superheroes and a new art form called comic books. Soon other characters started to appear like the mysterious Batman and the lovely Wonder Woman. Now 75 years later they are all still around and still very popular.

I know it says June on the cover but for some reasons comics to this day have a two month window but this comic did first come out on April 18th 1938.  To me Superman has never really been one of my favorite characters. It's not that I am against his Truth, Justice, and the American Way, I just never really found him interesting. Until 1986. Around that time I was starting to get into DC Comics. After years of being a Marvel Zombie, 1986 was when DC revamped their universe and I got my first real tastes of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman comics. I also started reading the Flash, and Justice League. And that in turn made me branch out into more DC books. In 1986 John Byrne was one of my most favorite writer Artists, and he was taking over Superman and revamping him and updating him to the future (1986). And it was amazing. After the initial Man of Steel mini-series. I started collecting Superman, Adventures of Superman, and Action Comics. Devoured them and loved them. Read them for a few years, then new creative teams came on and I was beginning to feel as if maybe I should stop, but their stories were just as good. Soon a fourth book Superman Man of Steel appeared and all four Superman comics, with different creative teams, soon started becoming one. After you read Superman you had to read Adventures of Superman because the story continued there, then you had to go to Man of Steel, then Action then back to Superman. It sounds annoying, but to have have four different creative teams so in-synch that you had to collect all 4 of them, more power to them. They were telling good stories and I was fine with buying them all. But soon I got to college and my money started drying up a little bit and I had to make cuts, so I soon stopped reading comics. I kept an eye on them, but I missed a lot of stories. Then when I got back into comics I started reading them again. But soon I started to drift away from Superman as I had to scale back, and for some reason I was not as excited about it as before.

I've always liked Superman in the movies. 2 really good movies in Superman and Superman 2, 1 ok film in Superman Returns, and 2 crappy films in Superman 3 and Superman 4. The cartoon was excellent. Done by the same creators as the successful Batman animated Series, they brought a great series in the Superman animated series. I also enjoyed Lois and Clark when it was on TV with Dean Cain and Teri Hatcher, though it was more romantic comedy then comic book show. Never got into Smallville though heard some good things about that. Something else I like is that Superman is one of the only heroes out there that has an iconic movie theme, created by the great John Williams.

The new 52 Superman though is really not doing it for me. I read the first issues and did not like where they were going. Making him more alien then human, and also kind of more like a douchebag. Dating Wonder Woman, his parents are dead. This is not my Superman, the one I read for so long. So I no longer have any interest in reading Superman. However being the comic guy I am, I did not want his 75th birthday to go by without my acknowledging it. He was really good to read for a long time. And the new Man of Steel movie may have some promise. For now I will wait and see. There is a new Superman title coming out in advance of the film called Superman Unchained and it has a great creative team in Scott Snyder who is tearing it up in Batman, and classic comic artist Jim Lee. So I may pick that one up just to see what Snyder will do with him. I also have a ton of Superman Action figures, but for some reason he really is not one of more favorite characters. But Superman is still an icon and I do have some good memories of reading some Superman stories, but there is just something about him...Oh well doesn't matter. Happy Birthday Superman! You started this all, and for that I salute you.