Wednesday, May 9, 2007

Best of DC Blue Ribbon Digest #8 - Dec. 1980

Yes, more Superman!

They just don't make comics like this anymore, where you have your hero dressed as an Indian Chief, a genie, a weird Flash/Superman hybrid...basically looking like a total goof. Hmm, maybe not everything from the Silver Age of Comics was great.

Ah, enough negativity! Let's get on with the super-riffic content:

• "The Five Other Identities of Superman" (oddly, it was originally published as "The Day Superman Became the Flash"...I wonder why the tacked-on title change?) by Edmond Hamilton and Al Plastino 
"The 1,000 Lives of Superman" by ? and Wayne Boring 
"From Riches to Rags!" by Leo Dorfman and Plastino 
"The Super-Genie of Metropolis" by Robert Bernstein and Plastino 
"Blind Clark Kent!" by Jerry Siegel, Curt Swan, and George Klein 
"Clark The 'K'" by Siegel, Swan, and Klein (a pretty obscure reference, if you think about it) 
"The Super-Cop of Metropolis" by Siegel, Swan, and Klein 
"The Shocking Secret of Super-X!" by Bates, Swan, and Anderson 
"Who Stole My Superpowers?" by Jim Shooter, Swan, and George Roussos 
• ...and the text-feature "Does Superman Need Clark Kent?" by ENB. (I bet the answer is yes!)

The most interesting tale is the first I think, where Superman gets to see what its like to be Batman, The Flash, The Atom, Aquaman, and Green Arrow! I guess the Comics Code would've prevented him from being Wonder Woman for a day...



1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I do believe this was the first digest I ever bought (or was bought for me by my Mom). What kid could resist the Superman/JLA hybrids? And the Indian-Chief, and the guy with...a monocle? Some weird, WEIRD tales here, but the art work is burned into my brain, so it made quite the impression.

I kind of dug the Super-Atom. Essentially Atom with a Superman cape. A nice costume variation!

As an odd aside, the hard hat guy on the cover has a 3-ribbed hard hat, a copyrighted, distinctive feature of the hard hats made by Bullard, the safety product company I work for today! So see, this digest REALLY Influenced me!!!

Chris