The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 623: The Brave and The Bold #192, November 1982

A lovely little tale of Batman's mentoring of Superman, a pre-Crisis tale in which young Clark and Bruce know each other, and so Bruce has no qualms, no hesitation in removing his cowl and revealing himself to a time-displaced Superboy.

I miss this version of Batman, prior to the Millerian reinvention, a man who, though grim, though darker than his fellows, still betrays some optimism, some trust, who is not the paranoid figure that Batman becomes in the decades following this story.

It's a weird morning, this morning. I went downstairs to pick out a comic, and I knew I needed to read something with Superman in it. There's this wrestling I do when I'm feeling betrayed by the world, when I'm shocked by the events that transpire, by the triumph of hatred. I'm a queer man, yes, but I'm also a middle-aged white man, and that puts me, unfairly, in a privileged position. And whenever I rail about unfairness in the world, it comes from that position of privilege. I have to be aware of that whenever I express the kind of shock and disgust I feel this morning, looking south. That there are people for whom this kind of shock and disgust is a fact of daily life. That there are people who live in fear of their lives every day in a way that I will likely never understand. So I wrestle with my place in the conversation. The best I can do is to be not just an ally, but a comrade. To echo the words of Superman in All-Star, that you are stronger than you think, all of you. And, together, I still firmly believe that we can make the world better for everyone.

Today, more than usual, onward. Ever onward.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 327: Superboy, 1994 series, #8, September 1994

I have no idea why what happens in this comic happens, but that doesn't hurt my enjoyment of the story. Original Superboy versus clone Superboy was a match-up that was always going to happen, so I'm glad to have read it. It's weird, the old version versus new version trope of superheroics, whether it's something timey-wimey like this, or a younger generation versus an older. There's a passage of the torch, usually through punches, reconciliations, and understanding. The older versions of characters have to make sure that the younger versions are upholding the intrinsic qualities that makes them them, and then they can fade away to wherever old versions of heroes go.

Which is precisely what happens in this issue, and I didn't even need to know what the heck was going on in "Zero Hour" to understand.

This Superboy has never really been my favourite, and especially not this early version of him. The Connor Kent shaved head version seemed a bit more believable as a superhero. But then, it was the 90s.

So, onward.

The 40 Years fo Comics Project - Day 263: Adventure Comics #492, October 1982

Not quite a random selection. Last night I was continuing to make my way through DC One Million, and I came across the Legionnaires tie-in, and realized that I haven't spent much time at all in my 30 years of comics fandom on the Legion of Super-Heroes. So I pulled out one of the old Adventure digests and got some Legion action. Oh, and Black Canary, Shazam, Aquaman, Spectre, Superboy, Sandman, and Supergirl.

It turns out that the project of this digest-sized version of Adventure was to reprint all of the Legion stories in the order they appeared, so this issue has their third and fourth appearances, one featuring Supergirl and one featuring Superboy. They were so-so superhero stories, very much indicative of the gentle, somewhat neutered story-telling of the early sixties. The Legion are still back-up characters in these tales, but later issues feature them on their own. I must admit that part of the draw of the One Million issue was the fact that Tom Peyer wrote it. He's one of those comics writers that I find mysterious. I've read other comics writers singing his praises, but I know next to nothing about the man himself. Though his run on Hourman was absolutely wonderful.

I may perhaps read a bit more Adventure tomorrow. They're 100 pages each, so it's a bit of a time commitment, but you get a lot of stories for such a little package. The ones in this collection featured such luminaries as Alex Toth, Jim Aparo, Jim Mooney, Gardner Fox, amongst others, which is also kind of a nice draw. I will say, however, that the Spectre story in this issue was completely flat. Did not enjoy it at all. But that's the nice thing about an anthology. There's always something else to read. See you tomorrow.