5 Things That Make Old School Superman Comics Absolutely Insane

Superman is the oldest superhero of them all. Action Comics #1 came out in 1938 and every hero that has come after him has in some way been influenced by him. Over the years, Superman has been both the most popular superhero and one of the least popular. One of my favorite things about the history of the Man of Steel is how much he’s changed over the years. The Supes of 1938 isn’t the one of 1957 and that one is different form the one in 1987, et cetera. It’s so much fun to go back and read those older stories, showing not only how much he’s changed, but how comics have changed.

Old school Superman comics will give you some of the most interesting stories you could read, comics that take the idea of the Kryptonian hero and bring it to all kinds of interesting places. However, reading books from the Golden, Silver, Bronze, and beyond (for the purposes of his list “old school” is going to end with the dawn of the new millennial; 26 years seems like a good measure for “old school”) can reveal that his books were also some of the most insane you could read. These five parts of old school Superman comics show just how unhinged they can be, showing the madness that is the true history of the character.

5) The Villains in the Silver and Bronze Ages Leave a Lot To Be Desired

Superman faces the most dangerous threats out there. When you think of Superman villains, you think of legends like Lex Luthor, Brainiac, General Zod, Doomsday, Cyborg Superman, and various other powerhouses. However, comics are a monthly business and you can’t just have the A-list villains in every single issue and story. This has led to loads of villains being created for the character, especially in the Silver and Bronze Ages. Supervillains were quite different back then, with bad guys like Prankster, Toyman, Terra-Man, and numerous others showing up, gimmick villains that were more like those of Batman’s. A lot of Superman villains are honestly pretty weak and even their gimmicks don’t really allow them to challenge the Man of Steel. Even the most powerful villains, like Lex and Brainiac, did silly, sort of stupid things back in the day. While you’re going to see some bizarre situations that are quite entertaining, these comics were written for a younger audience and the villains don’t really stand up to how they are today.

4) The ’90s Were the Age of Gimmicks

The ’90s were a time of both massive success and huge failures for the comic industry. Books sold millions of copies, but going back and reading those stories can be pretty rough. For the Man of Steel, the ’90s were both quite fruitful and also something of a mess for the same reason – gimmicks. “Death of Superman” was the beginning of this, when the Superman writers decided to tell the story of a world without Superman. The books sold like hotcakes and this led the publisher to believe that it wasn’t because of the good stories (I will go to my grave screaming about how great the whole “Death of Superman” saga was), but instead the stories’ gimmicks. So, we got the powers change, the new costume(s, since there was more than one), the Superman Red/Superman Blue story, the return of regular Superman, and the wedding of Lois and Clark. In fact, those are just the ones I remember off the top of my head (because I’m old); there were more of them. It’s just gimmick after gimmick for most of the decade, so many tonal changes that it will leave your head-spinning.

3) The Lois/Lana/Supes Love Triangle Was Bad in Every Sense of the Word

Superman and Lois Lane are the greatest couple in the history of superhero comics, the perfect couple that birthed all the rest that came after them. Back in the day, DC was never going to marry the two off; these were books for younger readers who were more into the drama than the two getting a happy ending. After the debut of Clark as Superboy, Lana Lang was introduced as his teenage love interest, which would eventually lead to her joining the present day cast of the Superman books. Suddenly, we got the Lois/Lana/Supes love triangle and it was honestly terrible. There are some entertaining moments, but the whole thing is so misogynistic that it’s hard to read nowadays. It’s just two women treating each other like dirt, except this time with sci-fi comic tech, over a man; we didn’t really need it back then and it’s so very hard to read right now.

2) Making Superman Contemporary Is Weird

There’s something timeless about Superman that makes the character work so well. He’s basically just the best person you can imagine, doing his best to deal with the harsh realities of the world. While the character has often been changed to fit better into the “modern” day, it can be taken way too far. This started back in early days of the Golden Age, after the outbreak of World War II. Up until this point, Supes had been a New Deal warrior, battling corruption as much as he did supervillains. However, the war changed all of that and he suddenly became the guardian of the status quo. A more modern example of this came from John Byrne’s post-Crisis Superman reboot. Byrne basically made Superman into an ’80s yuppie conservative and it never really felt right. It’s fine to change the character in small ways, but making him completely contemporary isn’t a good idea. It robs the character of the timelessness that has allowed him to become so popular.

1) Silver Age Superman Is a Terrible Person and It’s Awesome

Silver Age Superman comics are known for how wild they got. His books could quickly become the kind of weird hallucinogenic sci-fi that typified the era, but that wasn’t the only major kind of Superman story of the day. There were also what we currently refer to as “jerk Superman” stories. This version of the Man of Steel lived on the covers of the issues, where he would be doing something terrible to his friends and fellow heroes in order to get people to buy the book and see what it was all about. It’s such a strange version of the character; he’s basically the opposite of everything that you think Supes should be. These stories are a lot of fun, honestly, but show you just how weird comics could be back then. While Marvel was making heroes who were more human, DC was making Superman into a superpowered jerk to sell comics. It got more fun when he would end up being jerk Superman while dealing with Lana and Lois. Silver Age comics were wild and jerk Superman is the best example of this.

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