Podcast - Episode 37: Batman LOVES Superman!

With Batman vs Superman: The Dawn of Justice looming, Dave and I decided to cheer ourselves up by talking about some of our favourite comics that feature both Superman and Batman.

But first! Here is that comment Sebastian Stan left on Instagram that explained the contents of Bucky's backpack/destroyed us all:

Ohhhh godddddddd. This movie!!!!! Who will remove my corpse from the theatre?!

If you want to find out if Sebastian Stan is your soulmate, you can take the BuzzFeed quiz but there is no point because he is MY soulmate.

MINE!

Oof. Those biceps. Anyway.

Here are some links to some old (so very old, holy smokes) blog posts I wrote about some of the comics we talk about in this episode.

World's Finest #302 back-up by David Anthony Kraft and David Mazzucchelli. I have the entire five-page comic posted here, with commentary. It's seriously one of my favourite things ever published.

World's Finest Annual #9 (final two pages) by Elliot S. Maggin and Alex Toth. I posted the entire hot dog vendor prank part of this comic at the end of the blog post here, which was mostly about Action Comics #241, which is one of my favourite Superman/Batman stories ever.

Brave & The Bold #150 by Bob Haney and Jim Aparo. Remember when you are looking at these panels, the goon who is beating the life out of Bruce Wayne is actually Superman.

I've done a couple of posts about the Super Sons, which you can see here and here.

World's Finest #71 by Alvin Schwartz and Curt Swan. You just have to read this comic to believe it. It's so crazy. Here's that panel of the slumped, silent Superman-in-a-Batman-suit, after being knocked out by Kryptonite:

That will never not crack me up.

World's Finest by Dave Gibbons and Steve Rude. I have the little Christmas gift scene posted in its entirety here.

Lois Lane #89 by Leo Dorfman and Curt Swan. Lois marries Bruce Wayne without knowing he's Batman! She's marrying him for HIM! Just an ordinary billionaire hunk!

World’s Finest #189 by Cary Bates and Ross Andru. Superman dies and leaves Batman the gift of unnecessary surgery.

And here is the bonus issue of World's Finest I mention where Batman and Superman get sick of Earth and decide to start a new life in space. Oh, Bob Haney. I love you.

Alright, we are off to watch Superman kill Batman or whatever tonight. We'll let you know what we think next week! Thanks for listening!

Possibly Superman's Most Obscure Power

Superman is investigating a strange rash of disappearing objects and discovers that they were all made from steel produced in a certain factory. Sensibly, he goes there to check things out.

The next logical step, of course, is for Superman to examine the molecular structure of the steel to see if anything hinky is going on. Now, I have to assume that someone on the creative team either just plain had a neat idea or felt sorry leaving the rumpled old factory owner out of the action, because instead of just showing us what Superman sees in a POV panel, they had him make this startling revelation:

AND THEN IT WORKS!

Oh how I wish that this was something that ever came up again (not that I've read every Superman comic extant, but I have to assume I would have heard of it by now otherwise). I can only imagine panel after panel of Lois Lane or Jimmy Olsen staring at Superman's eyes through magnifying glasses, or Lois trying to take pictures of Clark's eyeballs to see if he was using vision-based powers while pretending to cower in fear. Ah, well. A man can dream.

From World's Finest Comics No. 48.

World's Finest Wingmen

You may or may not know the story of World's Finest Comics, so here it is: Originally an anthology book in the fine tradition of Action or Adventure or Detective, World's Finest featured the solo adventures of both Superman and Batman. Accordingly, every cover featured the two, plus Robin, engaged in some kind of wholesome activity, like sledding or playing baseball or shooting Nazis.

See? The scamps are such big fans of one another it just warms your heart. The three appeared on covers together for literally dozens of issues before they ever met up in the course of the story, after which such team-ups became the main thrust of the book. That, however, is unimportant when compared to just how many odd situations were represented in those covers. Case in point:

I just can't stop looking at this cover, my friends. I mean, I know that it's no unusual thing for any of these characters to help out a citizen in a time of trouble, but... these dudes are pretty clearly hitting on the above ladies, right? And Superman in particular... I don't want to sully the Man of Steel's image, but I reckon he might be angling to break in his new Fortress of No Strings Attached.

In any case: one of the greatest covers of all time.

The Unfunnies: The Rise of Shorty

Shorty is an odd character. Below you'll see his earliest incarnation (or at least the earliest that I've run into), a pocket-sized office boy. Later on he showed up as a sailor, a small-town teen and a salvage diver - basically he was around for as long as DC Comics was running allegedly-humorous strips in their magazines. No matter what happened, Shorty adapted to the times - it's possible, in fact, that I just figured out the secret origin of Oberon.

The weird thing about Shorty, at least in these early cartoons, is that he's funny, yet not funny. Here, read this:

See? Shorty is funny: he looks funny, he talks in an amusing manner ("Un-ungh! A century note!!"), he has a boos who is basically always acting in a slightly surreal way, he shoots little puffs of smoke out behind him while he walks... But when we get to the end, poof. No punchline, because of course Shorty is happy to have gotten a bunch of candy for free. I would, and I'm not a bizarre man/child/homunculus.

This one's from World's Finest Comics No. 25