Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Superman: The High-Flying History of America's Most Enduring Hero (2012)

By Larry Tye

The first day we were back in our offices after the summer, during what's called “On-Call Week” (I keep telling them, “I'm not that kind of doctor!”), one of my senior colleagues – a US historian – came to my office and said he had something to show me. In his office he presented me with this book, which he said he had received a few weeks ago, and during his reading he kept telling his wife, “Kent would really like this book!” He was right about that. He loaned it to me, and I finished it last night. It is perhaps the best single book I've ever read on the greatest hero of 20th-century American pop culture, and a great introduction to a genre of story-telling that I have loved since childhood and will continue to love until the day I die. The author neatly places each within the changing contexts from the era of their conception, the 1930s, all the way until the present, when although the comic-book medium itself is but a shadow of its former self, at least in terms of sales, the granddaddy of all superheroes himself remains a cultural icon recognized and loved not just in the US but all around the world.

For the rest of my thoughts on this wonderful book, go here.

Cheers!

Friday, August 17, 2012

Superboy #171 (Jan 1971)

As I've said before and will again – and often, no doubt – Aquaman was my first favorite super-hero. As corny as his concept may have seemed to some nay-sayers even then, I was swept up in the adventures of the King of the Seven Seas from the first time I remember seeing him on the Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure. So when Aquaboy made his first – and to my knowledge only significant – appearance, in the pages of Superboy, "The Adventures of Superman When He Was a Boy," I was tickled pink. I don't remember if I knew it was coming from some DC Comics house ad, or if I was suddenly made aware of it by seeing it on the stands, but I do remember reading and rereading this comic. I most associate it with the back sun-room of my paternal grandmother's house, which faced across a big field toward my childhood home. When I conceived the idea for this blog devoted to significant comics I remember from my childhood, this issue was among the first to spring into mind. Like the vast majority of my childhood comics, it was lost or sold off – or possibly just fell apart from wear – long ago, so I had to buy it back from my on-line back-issue vendor. In my memory, however, I did not dream that it was significant for more than just the appearance of Aquaboy.