The most I can ever relate to Superman is during a cloudy day when a lack of sun makes me feel tired and weak.

I hear people are angry about Superman being an immigrant, so I think it’s time to read “Superman Smashes the Klan” again (and maybe even listen to the 1940s radio serial it’s based on).

This is one of the most interesting riffs on Superman and Batman I’ve ever read (though, of course, their serial numbers are carefully filed off). It’s a fascinating exploration of race, prejudice, technology, and police excess. I can’t remember if I’ve read this any time except the first, but it’s one I need to read again and again.

Really want to make a joke involving Holy Saturday and the 1990s comic arc “Reign of the Supermen,” but those ingredients are all I can come up with.

This is a fun concept—a teenager named Clark Kent who’s tired of the jokes about being named after the fictional Superman suddenly develops Superman’s powers and has to figure out how to live with them. Busiek strikes me as the perfect person to write a story about how a world familiar with superhero tropes would deal with their becoming real, but as much as I love little bits of this story, I just don’t know that it will ever stand out as a favorite of mine.

I’ve read this a couple times before, so I knew it wouldn’t be great, but it was on sale for a dollar at a used book store, and I have a soft spot for it (including its sequels), so I picked it up and gave it another go. I think this retelling makes big mistakes about Superman (believing that destructive fights and interstellar intrigue are what makes the character interesting) and about origin story retellings (gesturing to the reader and including shocking plot twists), but it also asks the important questions about power and responsibility that make Superman stories good. Likewise, while a young and somewhat edgy Clark Kent gets on my nerves, it is an interesting way of exploring the character as he might be as a twenty-something beginner.

When I was in college, I ran into a friend on my way to a professor’s office hours. He saw that I had a copy of Superman for All Seasons with me and gave me a hard time about it—he was much more of a Marvel fan than a DC fan (these were the days when this was primarily a reference to comics, not sprawling cinematic universes) and just didn’t get the appeal of Superman—how could you do anything interesting with a character that powerful? Fortunately, the reason that I like Superman for All Seasons is my best answer to that question: What makes the Superman character interesting is not the magnitude of his power but the ways that he chooses to exercise it. I don’t find at all interesting any comics that take the format of “Superman must prove himself stronger than increasingly stronger adversaries,” but I find absolutely fascinating the many Superman comics—and other comics clearly playing with homages to the character—the ones that ask themselves why such a powerful character would use that power for good.

I never would have picked this comic up on my own, but I discovered it through TVTropes, read it over two days, and really enjoyed i!

Fraction’s take on writing it is similar to Ryan North’s take on Squirrel Girl, with a lot of humor, very little taking oneself seriously, and plenty of story to keep the whole thing together.

The comic leans into the silliness of Olsen as a character and embraces a lot of the Silver Age approach to comics. It homages that era in a way that acknowledges its silliness, and that self-aware approach is —surprisingly!—better than any attempt to reimagine or grittify the character.

Listening to the 1940s anti-KKK Superman radio serial while cleaning up lunch dishes.

Just reread “Superman Smashes the Klan” after a day that involved checking up on Gab for research purposes, and I believe more than ever that this is one of the best and most important comics of our time. 📚

Currently reading Superman Smashes the Klan, and it is the epitome of what a Superman comic should be. Can’t recommend enough.