Twelve Days of Christmas Special Review Series, Part Ten, By Johnathan

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DC Comics Presents No. 67! Superman and Santa Claus vs. the Toyman!


The story is nothing extraordinary (read: I couldn't find anything especially worth making fun of) - basically, Toyman starts hypnotizing children to steal from street corner Santas and the like and the real Santa Claus ends up getting in on the act. The part that got me (because I'm a sentimental fool, see?) is when Superman gets home, thinking that it was all just a dream or possibly an imaginary story, and ends up finding his beloved childhood toy in his cape pocket.


I'm tearing up!

I do like that it wasn't a toy wooden thought-beast or anything. No, Kryptonian children wouldn't play with anything so primitive. They get thought-powered illusion machines which sounds fun until you remember some of the things that you imagined as a child. man, I was fairly convinced that there were horrible creatures (wizened, gnomish creatures) literally around every corner for a while. I probably would have had a tiny heart attack if I'd have been able to see them.

Still, JOHN APPROVED. Nice one, Santa.

"three Luornus,"

Twelve Days of Christmas Special Review Series, Part Eight, By Johnathan

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This one's from 1997's DC Universe Holiday Bash, back when there were still New Gods:


Now I know that I've already declared the title of Best Santa Ever, but I think that Highfather definitely comes in at a strong number two. Also, "moth-eaten hippie Abe Lincoln."

The story: a mall manager or owner or something sees Highfather and Orion wandering around and thinks that they're his Santa crew, based on ambient beard-magnificence, I guess. Highfather being, like, eight feet tall doesn't seem to be a problem for the guy until the costume doesn't fit.


Don't worry, though - Christmas isn't ruined. Tallpop uses his amazing power to make everything portentous and:


... ends up looking pretty cool! Not to be outdone, Orion puts his mind/Mother Box to things and becomes...


Actually, he becomes a pretty terrifying elf.

The rest of the story plays out kind of like that scene in Hogfather (by Terry Pratchett, natch) where Death is doing the mall Santa thing, though just the heartwarming stuff - no pig urine jokes. Check this out:



Adorable!

Dude, Highsanta is huge.

Such a great Christmas story. Right up there with the Justice League where Plastic Man claims that Santa has heat vision (that one's for next year, I'm afraid).

JOHN APPROVED

"FIVE LEGION RINGS!"

Twelve Days of Christmas Special Review Series, Part One, By Johnathan

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Hallo hallo! It's me, Johnathan, back from the far-away land of Offline and fat with turkey and buttered vegetables. As promised, I'm going to rock the twelve days of Christmas with twelve reviews highlighting various modes of holiday celebration in the comical booklets that I so love. And since we're already on Day 3 (French hens!) I'm going to be playing catchup.

What are we going to look at for Partridge/Pear Tree Day? Who else but the Legion! From Adventure Comics No. 289, as recently looked at over at Super Future Friends, we have this:


Supergirl has a plot to get a little action for her cousin, so she hauls him into the 30th Century to hang with the adult Legion for Christmas. More on the action-getting plot later - today we're looking at the Legion's decorations.

Not too sure why there isn't ever any snow around the Legion Clubhouse, as it's located just outside of either Smallville or Metropolis and I'm pretty sure that at this point those estimable towns are both located in Kansas. Isn't Kansas snowy? Maybe the poles flipped in 2567 or something like that. No matter. I'm sure it's Brainiac 5's doing.

I sure do like the Santa dummy in the space ship. Some of my favourite things about the Legion's future are its intersections with our past - rather than playing some crazy game where you simulate nuclear fusion with electronic beans they play holographic Dungeons and Dragons or Spaceopoly (which I hope is all about capturing the Boardwalk Nebula early in the game). Likewise, rather than having a robot out front with a special time portal that loops images of history's greatest Nativity scenes, including the original, they have a crappy Santa dummy that someone thought would look cute in their rocket car. My Dad's neighbours would do that!

JOHN APPROVED


As for their tree: fantastic! This is the solution for my irrational aversion to even the most convincing fake Christmas tree - make 'em weird abstract treeoid forms. I haven't had a tree in my own place for upwards of ten years but I sure would set up that cone-stack. Especially if I could arrange to have planets revolving around it. Or possibly something else, I don't know. Towns I've lived in? Snack foods I have known and loved (oh, Punkys. I miss ye). The important thing is the revolution.

JOHN APPROVED

"Twelve beasts of lightning,"