Look Up! That’s right, at DC SpecialCast, we have no problem hitching a ride on the Superman movie hype train! Join Brett Young and Paul Kien as they discuss a comic that came out before the FIRST Superman movie: 1977’s DC Special Series #5 – The Superman Spectacular!
This month’s instocktrades.com selections:
https://www.instocktrades.com/products/jan217102/superman-up-in-the-sky-tp
https://www.instocktrades.com/products/jan237114/absolute-superman-for-all-seasons-hc
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“Cloud Dancer ” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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MAN THAT’s a cover! Look how carzy Luthor looks!
I’VE never read byrne’s Lori lomis story but he did’nt invent her being in a wheelchair, i think the most people in wheelchairs comic artists would know were Polio survivors and the treatment for Polio when curt Swan was kid was “keep their legs warms. Wearing a blanket is great way to hide you fin. Now Why Magneto never says “CHARLES you DONT have POILO. Take off the blanket! THAT i cant explain!
I recall this cover pretty well from house ads, but like many, I never found it out in the wild. So I quite enjoyed the conversation and the rundown of this story and I enjoyed the artist bio segment about Curt Swan in particular.
By the way, since the question came up, DC digests had 100 pages, although the front and back covers were also included in that tally, so there were 96 actual story pages in any given book. The digest you mentioned in the show, Best of DC #59 – which was released in that period when I had pretty much completely stopped buying new comics – thus includes not only this story from DC Special #5, but also a short, 10 page story from Superman #150 and the complete story from Superman #338. That latter one I had as a single issue and remember quite well – it’s the one in which Supes and Supergirl take Kandor to a planet in a red sun system and deshrink it.
And finally, to Brett: don’t feel too bad about cutting up your old comics as a kid. I did the same thing…
Thanks for covering this comic. Like everyone else my age, I saw the ad for this book a million times and the cover is just so good, it always made me wonder what I was missing.
The answer? Not much. I don’t mean that as a knock on the comic, which from your coverage look and sounds just fine. But it looks like a pretty standard Superman comic from the late 1970s, with (IMO) stories were so insanely fantastical that they just never did much for me. So if I had plunked down a buck at the time, I’m sure I would have enjoyed it, but probably would have felt it didn’t really deliver on the menace implied on the cover.
All the stuff from the Curt Swan book was fascinating, though! I love the idea of him and the Hi and Lois guy going on a month long “booze and comics” retreat. That’s a movie all on its own.
Brett is always an A+ guest.
Another wonderful and entertaining episode. This was another book I deprived myself as a child because I passed over most Superman books because I considered the character to be boring. On the plus side, I’m now enjoying all these books today. They’re “new to me”, as I dig through the back issue bins at my local comic shop. Fun stuff.
Like many, I saw this cover in ads as a kid and knew I needed to read it. When I got it at a con many years ago, I thought I had been duped. That cover has more energy than the entirety of the rest of the book. Insanity.
The Byrne Lemaris book is an almost beat-for-beat retelling of the original, down to dialogue and panel construction. I am more of a Lana guy at baseline so would def choose her over Lori. But if you know anything of the Lori stories, it is that her husband is just this jealous, angry man who can’t deal with her past love of Superman and feels invisible next to the man of steel. So hearing you call him ‘Lori’s husband’ and not Ronal (his name) just added to that narrative.
Curt Swan was my Superman artist growing up so nothing bad to say. Interesting to hear all of the different creators talk about him. But one correction! He drew that Hyperion page for OHOTMU, their version of Superman. Always interesting to see DC veterans lured to OHOTMU. JLGL’s one Marvel work is the Wonder Man page!
Great show and discussion!
Ooops …. I mean Gladiator, not Hyperion!
The story was absolutely nothing like I expected.
Here is how it the story could have gone:
Lex Luthor and Brainiac look to be in the same swamp as the Legion of Doom from the Challenge of the Super Friends.
Luthor and Brainiac would lure Superman to the swamp and trick him by dressing up as each other and using those lifelike masks that everyone seemed to have back then. Superman would be confused long enough for them to get the upper hand.
Also, somehow, it would tie in with part three of the “Who Killed Batman” storyline from Batman #293 around the same time. The cover shows Lex Luthor punching Batman with brass knuckles made from green kryptonite with a ghostlike Superman in a perfect reverse pose of Batman also being punched. In that story Batman and Superman *also* do the “dress up as each other to trick the villains” thing. They defeat the villains the same way the villains tried to defeat Superman.
Then the story epilogue shows Luthor and Brainiac in prison arguing and wondering how they could have lost. Killer Moth and the Cavalier are in the next cell arguing about how Batman’s secret identity is Jason Bard and Robin is a bird alien from the planet Nibor.
Great discussion gents! Just for the record, I have sadly never owned the Mego Wayne Foundation, and I too had to resort to cutting out figures from the back of some Mego packaging to replace figures I couldn’t find like the Human Torch and Green Arrow!
I read this story in the DC Digest you mentioned, and yes, it’s pretty bonkers in parts. Despite enjoying many of his stories, I often felt like Bates over-plotted a lot of his work, and the extra pages here just gave him an excuse to indulge himself. Thank you for the praise and segment on Curt Swan. I feel like sometimes I’m his only defender here on the network, so its nice to have some backup. Eddy Zeno’s book is an excellent read, and I appreciated the reading of the excerpts. This comic shows that Swan could and did give us dynamic layouts and varied camera angles in his work. And yes, even Colletta’s inks aren’t bad here. Paul’s right, he was a talented artist…when he chose to be.
Paul, do you think that perhaps this story was at one time intended as an all-new treasury? The large panels and numerous splash pages remind me of what Swan did with what eventually became Action #500, and that was DEFINITELY intended to be a treasury.
First of all, I am so sorry, I listened to the feedback on Earth-Shattering Disasters and it turns out I forgot to share my Thoughts For the Ages. I owe Brett feedback for Fantastic Pour… oh, I am such a bad listener.
Anyway, here you are and with a Superman DC Special to boot!
A little like Rob, this was always a Holy Grail for me, being non-distributed in the UK. I finally bought it from eBay a couple of years ago and even as a massive Bronze Age kid, it was somewhat disappointing. A massive Superman special should contain something special, not a triple-length average story. Listening to your recap, I remembered bugger all bar the Superman symposium.
So the spectacular was printed as a digest – that must’ve been tough to read. I guess if Digestcast ever comes back Rob and Shagg might put their glasses on and read it.
I loved the Curt Swan appreciation, I also recommend the Eddy Zeno book. If memory serves there’s the odd reproduction of Curt’s paintings, what a talented man.
Talking of artists, in my memory the Superman Spectacular bears a Neal Adams cover, what a dope I am!
I was another kid who didn’t exactly keep all of my early comics in intact condition.
I still have my copy of this issue. It’s memorable in that l was 10 when it came out, but looking back I don’t know if the story is that spectacular. Maybe a different art team would help? Nothing against Curt Swan, but having the story drawn by someone who isn’t the regular artist of the Superman titles might have made it even more special.
Were there many stories before this one where Superman was viewed as a religious icon or inspired the religion of a population? I know there’s the Moses allegory in his origin and the Jesus-like allusions in Superman Returns, but people worshipping Superman as their savior is different. And if this was the first such story, then it’s definitely commendable.
If was still doing the “Bat-DJ” duties, two songs would be in my head — “Personal Jesus” by Depeche Mode, and “Losing My Religion” by REM.
What great episode. I’m looking forward to the next episode featuring enemy ace hopefully his arc enemy ballon buster will make an appearance as well .
Here’s a secret question let’s say dc put five new comics under the dc special and said alright make us a series you free access you can choose the theme and do four reprint stories and hire artists and writers for one new story, each issue featuring either an established superhero or a forgotten superhero from the golden age.
If you don’t want answer this feel free to save maybe you can have the host who’s editing on for dc special episode special event .
Also here’s my five tittles
I’ve could bring dc special back
1. Dc special: martian manhunter & Miss Martian
Mars finest .
2. Dc special : here comes Johnny thunder and peachy too
3. D.C special : Creature commandoes greatest tales never told .
4. Dc special G.I robot and mechanical heroes of Dc comics .
5. The atomic knights dc special and kamandi together at last .
Terrific show, Paul and me! I believe this episode is up for three Peabody awards and a Emmy for some reason. The special wasn’t quite as special as I hoped it would be, but it was still a lot of fun talking Superman. Always a pleasure podcasting with you, Paul. You’re a pro’s pro.
Hi Fellas,
A long-overdue comment or two I’ve been wanting to share. I bought this new off the stands back in 1977, and I liked it all right, but I felt it was a bit non-spectacular. I’m not going to jump on the anti-Coletta wagon, but I always though, even back them when I was 13 years old, that his inks softened everything too much, reducing the depth and weight human figures and their surroundings. There was indeed a tremendous amount of backstory and setting up that had to be done to get this story rolling, however here are some things that I really like. First off, this was the first time I had seen Luthor and Brainiac in a contemporary story together. I had seen images of covers from the 1960s, and I knew who Brainiac was, but this was kind of a big deal at the time. (This was when the “major” villains were used sparingly. Can you imagine that?) I appreciate that the story Cary Bates is telling is the back story of the Quorxans and not the story of where Luthor and Brainiac are chatting or even why Brainiac is hanging around anywhere near Earth. There’s already enough to show. Sometimes I think we comic reader/fans take Superman for granted. We expect him to take care of business and don’t appreciate how he does it. In this Bates/Schwartz/Swan era there was almost some super-feat that was accomplished that had little or nothing to do with the main story. The opening splash is pretty good, but chapter 2 gives us 10 solid pages of Superman battling natural forces (the water spout etc.) and a sea monster! In the midst of which is a page where he escapes form a gigantic squid-like creature! I love this page! Thanks for including it in the gallery. Superman’s thought balloons indicate what he is doing to handle the other menaces and there are no wards about how he escapes the squid, not even a caption box! In this sequence we not only see Superman using his powers with skill and thought, but Curt Swan’s power to convey the action so clearly that no words are needed! This is an entire chapter of action, yet because the action is not against an antagonist, it may not be given its full due.
Speaking of the antagonists, I had already read stories with Luthor, but Brainiac was new to me. I have since read other stories with Brainiac and over the last 45 years have heard and read fans’ comments about Brainiac and I think that his depiction here is as good as he gets. Both villains motivations are clear. Luthor wants to destroy Superman. Brainiac wants to capture entire cities and bottle them. He goes along with Luthor only to get Superman out of the way so he can shrink a city or two. That’s all Brainiac wants to do! That’s what he’s programmed to do! He’s kind of a one-note villain, but that’s all right. I think that’s why he was hardly used in the 1970s, and I for one, and I may be the only one I don’t care, think his “update” in the 1980s was pointless. Pink shirt, electrodes on head, cities in bottles, that’s plenty.
Finally, I was amused that you released this podcast, reviewing a story in which Superman is worshiped, in the same month that the guys over on he Earth-2 podcast released their episodes about an issue of Kamandi, and a follow-up issue of Superman, in which Superman’s costume is worshiped!
I’ll be chatting with Brett soon, and I hope to chat with Paul eventually! Until then, keep it Special!