Dear Watchers: an omniversal comic book podcast

Welcome to Dear Watchers, a comic book Omniverse podcast where we do a deep dive into the multiverse.

We are traveling through the storylines before and after that inspired or took inspiration from this week's amazing alternate universe. And your watchers on this journey are me Guido and me Rob.

But Guido, I have a secret to tell you. Let me just take these glasses off. And who are you?

Uh, I've never seen you before.

Yes, it's me, Super Rob. And my name is an alliteration. So I fit right into the comic book. But Gito, what's, uh, new? What's going on in our Omniverse?

Um, the fabric of society is being torn usunder, but other than that, in our local and immediate universe of deer Watchers, which is hard to do and ignore the world. But, uh, comics provide a good escape, which is a good context for today, is what we dive into today. But what's new with your Watchers is our Pride episode was out last week. If you haven't listened to it, we had a series of amazing guests. Thank you, everyone. So go listen to it. We're getting ready for our one year anniversary is coming up in a few weeks with the show, and we're going to have a special episode shortly after that to celebrate.

Is that our paper anniversary? Is that what they call one year? Which would be very appropriate for a comic book podcast.

That's true. That's true. Every day is a celebration of paper in our world.

That is very true. See the mail coming, the ebay orders.

So I think that's all that's new, and we just continue trying to get the word out and grow the great community that we've already met online, um, as listeners. So please spread the word.

Yes, I think people can probably stay tuned to some new art from some of the amazing amalgams that we had during our Pride episode, which were everyone really outdid themselves. So I can't wait to see Mr. Sinister, Frankenfurter and some of the other amazing creations that some of our friends in Podcasting World came up with. Well, if you're joining us for the first time, after a quick summary of our alternate Earth, we are visiting. We have origins of the story, discovering what inspired this other reality, exploring multiversity, diving deeper into our alternate universe, and finally pondering possibilities, examining the impact and what's followed or coming in the future.

But before we get into that, this is our first foray into DC's imaginary stories or imaginary tales. So I wanted to give a little background on these because they are different from elsewheres. So while we have covered the multiverse in nonmarvel DC books, while we have covered what ifs and while we have covered else worlds, we have not yet gone into imaginary tales from DC. The imaginary tale is something that DC was doing from the 40s onward. There are cases starting in actually one history had that look magazine in 1940 might have been the first imaginary DC story, which is a two page fantasy by Superman's creators, where he snatches up Hitler and Stalin to bring them to the League of nations. So it's an out of continuity story, might be the first example. But then a number of titles in the DC started doing these imaginary tales. Mort Weissinger, really famous editor in the 1950s, started to try to unify continuity a little bit and create a bit of a grander world. And in doing that, he also realized that there was a lot of opportunity and no reason not to break away from these conventions to tell these standalone imaginary stories. So you start to get more and more of them. And the first example, it seems, and there's lots of misinformation, uh, on the internet, believe it or not, about this, but I tried to do a deep, uh, dive primarily through Back Issue magazine. But the 1960 Superman's girlfriend, Lois Lane, number 19, is probably the first example of a, uh, cover which says this is an imaginary tale. It actually numbers it. It says this is number one of a new imaginary series. So that could be that first example.

We almost covered it today. I'm sure we'll definitely cover today and some other lowest lanes in the near future, definitely.

And then throughout the 60s, you end up with more and more and more of these imaginary tales, including the one we go into today, which has a little bit of an odd history also that I'll talk about when we get to it. But the imaginary tales continue. The 70s, they start to slow down a bit. Uh, there's a shift toward continuity making more sense. And there's a struggle now with fitting in these imaginary tales, but they still show up. They actually get a bit darker, as is common with a lot of the stuff going on there into the Bronze Age, you consider you continue getting some darker, edgier DC imaginary stories. Obviously, the Allen More Whatever Happened to the man of Tomorrow telling the last story of Superman is a really famous example of an imaginary story. And then they pretty much die out by the late 80s. So, post crisis, there's just an example of a Sergeant Rock imaginary tale. And then of course, it's rebranded and rebooted as elseworlds, trying to more formalize it, which we talk about in our episode, the first time we go into an else worlds, which is on JLA created Equal. So you can look for that episode. So imaginary tales are a much looser thing, but they are pretty cool. And there was a little bit of history in an issue of Amazing Heroes that actually image Comics editor and co founder Jim Valentino wrote, and I just want to share some of these quotes because he tries to sort of classify what an imaginary story at DC was. And he starts with an imaginary story, as any story which alters or in any way repudiates any preexisting continuity or go creating a completely selfenclosed continuity in the process. In no way do the events in an imaginary tale affect or alter existence storylines. They are, in essence, purely speculative, or, if you will, fictitious. And he classifies four different types of imaginary tales that happened. So the first one is an actual imaginary tale stories which proclaim usually on the cover, on the splash page, that their imaginary tales and comply with that definition. An inferred imaginary tale which does not claim to be one, yet correlates to that definition. A recited imaginary tale in which a narrative device tells the story, such as Superman's Supercomputer or Batman's Butler. And then of course, the last one is a false imaginary tale, which is a story that claims to be one, but does not actually create its own continuity or depart from pre established continuity. And that's the most rare type. So it's fun that he tries to create a taxonomy of these imaginary tales, since it is a looser, broader definition. Some of the tales were given Earth numbers, especially in some of the supplemental material for Crisis on Infinite Earth, where they started assigning Earth to DC multiverses. But not all of them have certainly because there are just too many examples, which is great because it also gives us a ton, uh, of stories that we can dive into.

And certainly I associate imaginary tales with Superman, the character we're going to discuss today. And maybe he lends himself so well to an imaginary tale because he is kind of all powerful and you have to come up with something fun once in a while that kind of shakes that up. And you can, uh, kind of put him in all these different scenarios. So I feel like he lends himself really well to an imaginary tale.

I think that's true. There are a good number of Batman ones. We probably just haven't heard of them as much. And they're not as iconic. In, uh, terms of the covers, I think Superman, because of Superman's girlfriend, Lois Lane, we really get a good sense of all the imaginary tales. Wonder Woman also had a pretty good number in the Silver Age era of imaginary tales. What's neat is seeing too, in the lengthy history that I took in Back Issue magazine, is that some of them use a what if set up. So some of, uh, them are really interested in a question or in something sort of just twisting around. And then others of them are just totally wacky and just reimagine everything. And there's no question they're just really plopping it into some other story.

And some of the Superman ones too. I think there's a fine line between the actual, I think, Silverade story sometimes and the imaginary tales they were saying. It's like Superman suddenly becomes a baby or something like that. That could be either a classic Silver Age one or you can make an imaginary, uh, story out of that.

Yeah, that's why I like Jim Valentino's definition, because he defines that what makes an imaginary story an imaginary story is that it ignores anything that's come before and creates its own continuity and does not affect anything in the future. So you're right. There are plenty of wacky. There are plenty of dream stories. There are a lot of things that aren't imaginary tales but were happening in Silver Age books. So I like that particular definition because it helps us narrow a little bit to what is going on.

Well, since we all, I think, want to be living in an imaginary tale these days in our real life, let's use this opportunity to jump into one. So with that dear Watchers, welcome to episode 51, and let's check out what's happening in the multiverse with today's alternate universe. And today I pose the what if question. What if there was a cartoon of Superman and Lois wanted to see it?

Yeah, and actually, the issue opens with a question. What might have happened if Clark, Kenneth, and Lois Lane had gone to see Superman cartoon hero? That is our question. Brief summary this Earth has no designation. We'll get into more detail very briefly. Lois and Clark go to see the fleischer Superman cartoon in a theater where they actually stay till after the feature so they can see the short at the end. And while they're seeing it, Clark realizes it might expose him as Superman. So he tries a few different ways to get Lois distracted or even out of the theater at times when it reveals that fact about him so that she doesn't end up finding out, uh, through this cartoon that he is Superman and in the end, he is successful and keeps the secret from her. So we'll get into a lot more detail about how that works and about the origin of that story because there's more to it. But that's the summary.

So Superman is a character that is only come up once, really, before in detail on this podcast when we did the elsewhere worlds with the JLA. Uh, but he's obviously one of the most famous fictional characters of all time. So, Gito, what is your background with Superman and also with the Superman cartoons as well?

So I think that I, as a comic fan, have always appreciated Superman. I've never outright dismissed Superman of DC's books. When I was not a big DC reader in the superman was the one book I would read, and definitely from Death and beyond. I think, like most people my age, I was reading Superman. I love the triangle era of Superman when you could follow across every title through the numbering in the triangles. So I know a good amount about Superman, but I'm not a huge fan in terms of the canon of comics. He's not stand out for me. So I never went back and read Silver Age stuff or any of this classic, even golden Age stuff. I never even went back and read Bronze Age stuff. I've seen every Superman movie. I've seen the Superman, um, cartoon from the went back and watched the Fleischer at times, the George Reeves cereal. I'm into Superman, but I do not have a vast, deep knowledge of Superman. Certainly premodern era. How about you?

Yeah, I definitely don't know Superman super well. I'm being a little younger and more sprightly than you. I didn't actually read The Death of Superman. I read the Superman resurrection story. I had that. But he was not a character I picked up much in actual comics. I definitely knew him especially from the first two Christopher Reeves movies. But the thing I probably knew Superman the most from was Lois and Clark the New Adventures of Superman, the live action show. I have very fond memories of watching that with my mother every week. I have never gone back to revisit it because I suspect it is not as good as it was in my memory.

I love a terrible human.

That's true. Yes. And Terri Hatcher, I'm sure she's fun. But I would like to maybe go back and watch it one day because I watched that a lot. I watched the cartoons, the 90s cartoons. I watched some of the George Reeves show, which is very boring. Especially when you first watch the Adam West Batman and you think, oh, it's going to be like that. It's like, no, it is not at all. His appearance on Lucy is probably the best of, uh, that show ever got. And then the Fleischer, I think, re watching them today. I definitely have seen them. But I never really sat, um, and studied them. I certainly haven't seen all of them. So today was really probably my first exposure to them in earnest. But let's go back to the world's first exposure to Superman as a character. So we're going to jump into our origins of the story right now on this very show. You're going to get the answer to all your questions. Our amazing story begins a few years ago. So this isn't just the origin of Superman. This is the origin of DC Comics, of superheroes in general. And this is, of course, Action Comics number one from June 1938. And I never knew this. It's called Superman Champion of the Oppressed.

Yeah, I suspect that's a Reckon title. Of course.

It's like Star Wars A New Hope, kind of, basically.

But anyway, so this is written by Jerry Seagull, penciled by Joe Shouster, who does the inks, edited by Vincent Sullivan. No other credits are known. They weren't even credited at the time, of course, in this. Well, they're credited, uh, just because they wrote their name into the first image. Jerome Siegel and Joe Shuster, I should say. It's credited as. And we read this because it is the first appearance of Superman. So you had never read this, I think, before.

You did.

Yeah. What do you think?

Well, I think when you read anything, I mean, this might be the furthest back of a comic that I've ever read, certainly on this podcast. So it got that kind of, uh, stilted quality of things from that time, certainly. But, uh, I enjoyed kind of visiting his life for the first time and seeing that, oh, a lot of the fundamentals are there, even though so much has changed since then.

Yeah, I think a lot of it more of it has changed than not. I'd say almost, uh, from the costume to exactly what the powers are to his origin. So it's fun to see those roots of it. I actually think, though, I mean, as our regular listeners know, I've developed, just in the last few years, much more of a fondness for golden age stuff than I ever had before. So I never liked reading this. It's why I never went back and read old Superman. But reading it now, I actually appreciate more of, I think, the humor and the sensibility. It is funnier than you would think it would be. And some of that, I think, is just 1930s pulpy stuff. But there's definitely some tongue in cheek funny moments in it. And I liked that a lot because.

Do you think it is intended to be funny at times? Because I think that it's the interesting thing when you think about the Stan Lee writing, where you know he's putting in jokes and you can hear that Stanley Sensibility I think it's a little trickier sometimes when you read these pre Stan issues, sometimes even, uh, earlier writing, whether is it supposed to be funny or is it not.

Yeah, I think it definitely is. And I think the silliness of the action, even, is just pulpy goodness. I don't think it's a cornyness. I mean, the whole opening sequence where he carries, like, I don't even know who this man who lives with the governor is kind of funny.

Well, he's a butler. It said, quote, unquote. I don't know about that.

So I just like that he carries this house boy. And then the house boy is like, that's steel. He tried getting through that and he's like, okay, it was your idea. And he just rips it apart. He's snarky in that pulp noir hero way.

Yeah, he definitely has that.

I see that here because I don't think that shows up a lot in our modern media representations of Superman, for good reasons. But it's just funny to see it here.

Well, then he drops off this woman whose gas and tied up in some of the first, uh, panels there. And I thought, Oh, this is a woman he has recently saved. And he's saying he's putting her there. And then he says to her, make yourself comfortable. Uh, I haven't time to attend to it, and then runs off. But we find out that, no, she is not someone he saved, she's actually a murderous that he has grabbed. But all of that has happened off panel. Yeah, and it's so funny then because most of the action in the first half of the story really concerns him trying to get to the governor to save another woman's life. You would think almost the story would be about capturing this murderous, but really it's about trying to get to the.

Governor, well, an innocent woman who's on death row, which is a fun story also that's where it's a little bit Nuari, dark in a way that we don't often think of. 1938 comic is going to be, but is and then I love there is a lot of action off panel. It moves very briskly. It's on the shorter side, of course. So I just think it was a lot of fun to revisit. I would actually go back and read some golden age Superman now that I'm seeing it with this lens. So a fun foundation, very little Lois, no origin with Superman that we're familiar with, but there is the Clark stuff in here which is important to the imaginary tale we get into today.

Yeah, like I said to you, actually she's just called Lois. Her last name is not mentioned, although then I looked ahead and the very next issue she is called Lois Lane. So I don't know if they were adding that later. They just didn't mention it here. And as you kind of pointed out, there's a lot his origin is not really mentioned here, but it's hinted at and a lot of that has subsequently been changed. He ends up not crashing into the Ken's house, basically, but he ends up crashing to Earth, but then ends up in an orphanage. And as a baby he's lifting something over his head and it's not the Kent, it's the doctor and the nurse. So you would think right then and there the doctor and the nurse would put this little kid on some kind of list or something and not just give him off to another family. Yeah, I guess that's what they did.

What they did with that information.

And I love also mhm maybe this is for 1930s audience that seagull and Shooster also explain Clark Kent's amazing strength through the analogy of insects.

Well, there's a good amount of science in here, and again, not being a Superman expert and not a seagull and Shoester expert, I don't know if they had a background or if that was an interest in them or if it was a way of selling comics to kids because, yeah, they give this story of ants and then grasshoppers and how they can jump, grasshoppers can jump, ants have strength. But then later when he's kidnapped the person and he's running with him and the person's like, well, we're going to get electrocuted if you carry me over telephone wires. And Superman explains like, no birds sit on a wire, actually. You won't get electrocuted unless we hit the pole and we're grounded. So he jumps over the pole, and that's when the guy gets scared. But it's just a weird lesson in how electricity works at that time.

Well, his powers are so much more grounded here. He can't fly, he can leap. And definitely that makes sense why Superman can fly. And I was looking into some of his evolution, um, as a character. And the x ray vision came way before heat vision. And that almost makes sense to me because X ray vision is almost like his eyesight is so good, he can look into stuff. But why can he also shoot, like, laser beams from his eyes? Also? That doesn't seem to make any sense. So his powers then gradually got bigger and bigger, while here, they're definitely a bullet can hit him and he doesn't get hurt, but it's still a lot more earthbound. And for our next iteration of the man of Steel, we are going to be talking about the 1940s Fleischer Superman cartoons. And we watched the first two. I should say there's a series of them, started with the Fleischer brothers and then went to another studio. That first one is Superman, aka. The Mad Scientist from September 1941. And the second is The Mechanical Monsters from November 1941.

And these were both directed by Dave Fleischer and written by Seymour NITEL and Isidor Sparber. And these were both part of the shorts that were released by Paramount in 1941 at the end of movies. And so they're about ten minutes long in the public domain. So very easy to find. And we watched them because they're watching a version of this in the imaginary tale that we're about, uh, to get into. So we both mentioned having mhm seen these before. How did you enjoy rewatching them today?

Yeah, I mean, I feel like this was my first proper time really re watching them as an adult. And I think, of course, the art is just great. We were looking a little, uh, into some of Max Fleischer's techniques or the Fleischer brothers techniques. And Max Fleischer really invented Rotoscoping, which I think I really got to know through some of those Richard Link litter movies, like Waking Life, but really how they would put that animation over a live action film. And they didn't use it, uh, as much with Superman, because, of course, if he's flying and doing all these things, you can't do it. But they did do you some of that technique. And I think it's just such an interesting look, especially when you compare it to, say, the Disney cartoons that were coming out at the same time. It got that very Art Deco appearance that we kind of associate with Superman ever since.

Yeah, and it's simplicity, but bright colors. It reminded me of we've been rewatching Eon Flux. And it actually reminds me a little of Eon Flux without quite as much as the grotesquery. But it's still really, I think, effective and bright and flashes. And I think some of it is in that hyper realistic style almost, that probably came from the rotoscoping technique. So they were fun to watch. Real simple and slightly corny, but fun. I like the humor in the first one, there's the evil parrot that the mad scientist has. And I like the sort of vulture tunes aspect of it as it walks around. And there's two locks on the door, one of the top, one of the bottom, and the mad scientist unlocks the top, while the vulture on the floor unlocks the bottom. So it was fun. I would continue to watch more of these at times. They're fun to put on, and they are really pretty.

And the character that really stood out for me was Lois Lane. She actually gets a lot to do in the first one with the Mad Scientist, she goes to the Mad Scientist headquarters, I guess, to investigate the story, but then she gets caught up in there. But it's the bravery, I think, of going there. And then in the second store, even more so, there's these giant robots that are stealing these jewels. And there's a robot that is stealing these jewels. And the robot doesn't capture, uh, her. She actually crawls into the robot to go back to the other mad scientists, the Robot Creators Headquarters. But I thought it was really interesting in progressive that they're not capturing this damsel and distress. She's actually doing this to actually go there and investigate.

Yes, agreed. So they were fun to watch. And they'll play an important role in, um, our imaginary tale.

Well, we are going to leap over this next segue in a single bound and head into Exploring Multiversity.

I am your guide through these vast new realities. Follow me and ponder the question, what if?

And today, on Exploring Multiversity, we are going to talk about the very first imaginary story that DC ever created. That is Superman number 19 from December 1942. That is Superman matinee idol, but we actually read it. Reprinted in Superman number 183, Superman Cartoon Hero. That came out in January 1996. And on the very first page, it proclaims our uh, very first imaginary story, what might have happened if Clark Kent and Lois Lane had gone to see Superman Cartoon Hero.

So these were written by Jerry Seagull, penciled by Joshua Stir, who also had penciling credits. There was an additional pencil credit in the, uh, reprinted Debraca Inked by John sequela and edited by Whitney Ellsworth, though the later one was edited by Mort Weissinger. So this is an odd one because as I mentioned in the history of Imaginary Tales, the first official imaginary stories, this is a 1966 reprint that, as you just mentioned, is branded, uh, though their first imaginary story. Since it's taking this 1942 story, which is not necessarily the first, as we also talked about in history, but that's what their claim is here.

We should say, too, right on the cover of this comic, it says they're reprinting some of these earlier ones. You also get Mr. Mixel Plex's first appearances in this, and they're reprinting it because in some cases, only 100 copies of these were made. And collectors readers can pay up to $30 to get the original comics for a perfect copy. $30 to read some of these classic stories on the 19th.

Well, considering the single issue is mean, that is quite expensive. But anyway, one important thing before we dive more into the imaginary tale as we read it, which is the 1966 version, Superman cartoon hero, is that the changes in the reprint are first, they change the intro text. They add the branding of our very first imaginary story, and then they change the whole intro paragraph text to set up this question and add this what if in there. The other odd change is that they actually remove from the movie screen in the original, it has credits to Siegel and Chester, and that's removed in the reprint. But then the other really odd, big change is that in the, uh, original, there's actually a whole sequence where Superman has to leave the theater because there's a crime happening outside, and they removed that from there.

I wonder if that was just for page length, because this was part of a bigger collection of other stories, because that almost feels like it should definitely be included, because that seems like a classic Superman scenario. Oh, something's happening. I have to go solve this crime, not let Lois know, come back worried about her movie.

What I want to talk about is obviously now the tale, because I wonder if the removal that had something to do with the positioning of this as an imaginary tail. So obviously, in 1942, when this was presented, I guess you could have read it as imaginary. But the tale, it doesn't have to be. There's nothing about it that for following Jim Valentino's. I actually question if this is possibly a false imaginary tale, because the only thing in it that I guess is imaginary is that the Fleischer cartoons exist in the DC universe. Right? That's the only thing.

Well, that almost makes sense to me if it was just about Superman's adventures, where it gets into the imaginary world for me is that Lois and Clark are characters in the flesh or cartoons. And at first, they see the Daily Planet, and they go, oh, it's the Daily Planet. And then Lois pops up on screen and Clark wait, quote unquote.

Hold on. What she says is the most important thing when she puts herself on screen, she says, that's my exclamation. I just find it so weird if you see yourself on screen. I don't know, maybe that's proper grammar and that's me has just colloquially become what we all say. I just thought it was so odd that when she sees herself on screen, she says, well, that's odd, she says. So it is.

Later, she starts shouting and standing up out of her seat while she's watching the movie, and Clark says, uh, to her, sit down, Lois. You're a grown woman. And besides, it seems unseemly to cheer for yourself. So that's like, the imaginary part, uh.

For me, is that he knows his secret somehow.

This film knows his secret. How would they know that? It would be one thing even if it was, like, a lowest character. Okay. Like, we know lowest.

Well, and what he tells her is that they know the movies. Writers must subscribe to the Daily Planet and are acquainted with your exploits. So he offers her an explanation.

She's a public, and that makes complete sense to me.

Yeah.

The fact that they know her know him.

Yeah, I guess it makes sense then, why it's imaginary? Because it would mean everyone else watching this movie would know Clark's secret. So he's really just keeping Lois from.

Those he's just really keeping it from Lois. Yeah. When I first heard the set up for this, I thought it was going to be like, oh, okay, but Lois watching this is going to start putting the picture together because maybe sometimes seeing it in a different context is going to give her what the clues are. But that was definitely me, like, much overthinking it. It's really just like, oh, no, it's literally going to show me Clark Kent in this cartoon getting dressed as Superman. So it's much more literal than what I was, uh, kind of making it out to be.

Yeah. Well, you get the sense that they are watching exactly an episode of the cartoon. I mean, it doesn't, uh, match perfectly, and I doubt there was a rights issue. They actually even have a little screen that has the Paramount logo in the movie theater that they're in. But I think he actually says how good a job Paramount did or something at one point. Yes. So I doubt there was a rights issue, but they made their own story up, sort of adapting. I think it's almost a, uh, sequel, because at the beginning, it says, the mad scientist has escaped. And in the first episode of the Fleischer, the mad scientist is imprisoned. In the second episode of the Flexier, there is a robot he fights. It's a little different from this robot, but then you get the sense that it's like the mad scientists and the robot team up almost.

Yeah, almost like that. I mean, what's really cool and feels like something that you still don't even see too much today is that the mad scientist is drawn exactly the same as he's drawn in the fleischer. So it's interesting that if you had not seen the fleischer cartoons, you would not at all get that reference that this is the exact same drawn character, but it is. So it really is, I think, supposed to be a sequel to that first Flexer cartoon while still incorporating some elements of the second one with that robot.

Yeah. So the page breakdowns I want to comment on, I think are really cool. So it's still seagull and Shooster, and maybe this happens more into the Superman, but there's just, uh, neat uses of some circle panels placed in the middle of a row of panels. The sequences that are in the film we're seeing are all bound by a black film strip border so that you can tell that's the movie versus the reality. But they don't keep to a film strip like they break a nine panel page. Some panels are wider and thicker, and it sort of messes up the flow of the whole page in a cool way. So I think it's visually really interesting. A lot more interesting, certainly, than Action Comics. Just if we're again, going off, the 1942 publication date of this, just four years earlier, is a much more traditional comic strip, and this is much more original and unique.

There's one panel within the cartoon where the bullet is just about to hit lowest in the face and Superman puts his hand in and deflects it. And it feels like much more of a modern panel than in the Think. To your point, there's a lot of experimentation going on in how they're framing these.

Yeah.

And what there's not a lot mhm of experimentation in is Clark's techniques to get Lois to stop watching, uh, the movie. I know at one point he needs a glass of water and he brings her outside with him for some reason. Then he has to drink some water and then he kicks her purse away.

But he doesn't find her way. Like, uh, he knocks it down so she has to look for it. And then while she's looking for it, he kicks it away.

Yes, he kicks it again. And then, of course, at the end, they have to leave because it's just way too much excitement for Clark. He's so weak of heart that he has to, uh, leave before this got him so excited. And I do love I think it's something I'd love to get when we move into our possibilities. I love that these explore that Clark Kent of the sea so nerdy that, uh, Lois then says, I'm never going to go to a movie with you again.

Never go to a movie with you again.

And I definitely miss that because it is so fun to kind of play with.

Yeah, I agree. And the last thing I have to say about it is the final, uh, panel. I appreciate having just rewatched the fleischer because it has Superman on screen winking, which happens at the end of the first episode. He winks to the audience, and in this case, he's on screen winking. And Clark says, well, pal, our secret is still a secret from Lois and is winking back at him. So that's a really fun moment where they use, um, the actual way Superman closed those episodes with like, a wink nod to the audience. And in this case, Clark is the audience and has kept their secret in this imaginary tale.

Well, I think it's time mhm. To step into the storage closet, change into our next segment, tiptoe to the window, open the window, and fly into pondering possibilities. Will the future you describe be averted? So we've talked about pre world war II comics and comics around world war II that we're going to jump way into the future relatively. And Guido, how did you come up with today's two issues?

Well, this earth has never been revisited before. Shocking, I know it's not a very well developed earth. And, uh, so I tried to look at what I thought the core point of it was. And the point of it is, of course, him concealing his identity from Lois. So I chose two of the iconic moments of Superman disclosing his identity. One being the first time in a non imaginary story that he does so, and the other being a very recent time when he does so, which, um, completely shifted the status quo of his secret identity. So that's what I chose. There are other examples. In the new 52, for example, there is a sequence when Lois realizes who Superman is. But I didn't choose that because I thought these were better than that and did the job for us. So let's start with our first issue.

Yes. So that is action comics volume one, issue number 662 from February 1991. And it's entitled secrets in the night.

This is written by Roger Stearn, penciled by Bob McCloud, who also did the inks, colored by Glenn Whitmore, lettered by Bill Oakley, edited by Mark Carlin and Dan Thor's land. So we read this issue because it is the very famous cover, very famous issue when Lois is pulling off Clark's glasses and in the reflection, you see the superman and loco on his chest. Very cool cover. And it is, again, in universe. They're engaged Clark and Lois, and he decides that he needs to tell her. And in the final page of this issue, he does just that. So you had never read this, right?

No, I had never read this. And I wasn't really even sure where in comics chronology that superman comes out or in pride month comes out to Lois and reveals his identity. So, yeah, I wasn't sure, but, yeah, it's a very enjoyable issue. I didn't enjoy it as much as the one that we're going to talk about next, but I think it is very fun.

Well, most, uh, of the issue is his fight with silver banshee and.

Mhm.

It's the next issue has, like, the fallout of him telling her, but I think the art is so great. It's Bob McLeod cocreator of the new mutants. And I think that it's noirish enough, like it's raining for the whole first sequences. And then when he's telling her in the end, it's almost like and I hate to invoke him because he himself just stole art from a lot of people, but it's almost very Liechtenstein esque in that you can see the graphic dots in the printing. And Lois is very expressive face as she's reacting to him wanting to tell her the secret. And then she's acting surprised. So I think the art is just so good. I love it. And what do you think about his motivation to tell her? Does this make sense in the Superman Lois story, that this is when he needed to tell her?

Yes. So he's about to get they're engaged but not yet married. So he really feels that he can't get married while having this secret, which makes a lot of sense. I don't think, like, you would want to be married to the love of your life and keep any kind of massive secret. Uh, and this is a great example. And then also practical reasons, I guess they're already living together. But I'm also just thinking, like, it becomes probably harder and harder to keep a secret like this.

You might be out a lot.

Yes. Aside from the moral angles of which there's many, I do think. Yeah, there's certainly the practicality of it.

Uh, also well, I like the moral side. When he's getting ready to tell her, he's trying to tell her at the beginning, and then it gets interrupted. But when he's finally telling her at the end and he talks about what it's like to have a secret so long that if you finally told someone, you're terrified of what they'd say. And she can identify with that based on her being a rebellious child, which we know is part of the lowest character. And he says, I'm not going to ask you to tell me those things, but there's something I want to tell you. So I think it's a well constructed moment that makes a lot of sense.

And there are lots of similarities, I think. And I'm sure many people have said this before, but there are many similarities to a coming out story. Hopefully not with the person you're engaged to, because that would be a big shock. But definitely to your parents or a friend where he's first starting to tell them, tell Lois, but then he can't quite get it out. And then of course, like Silver Banshee attacks. And even Silver Banshee doesn't know that Clark is Superman, even though she can sense that they are there. But that kind of trepidation. And uh, as you're saying from that quote, that fear of like, this is a secret he's held for so long. And the longer you hold a secret like that, the harder it is then to come out. So I definitely saw lots of similarities.

Well, and just to complicate something you said, it does work to map it on with queer identity, because he could be coming out as bisexual to her, right?

Oh, yeah.

It doesn't mean that he's revealing he's only attracted to men and therefore wouldn't be getting married to her. So I do think that the whole sequence can work with coming out of your identity because he could still love, uh, her and be getting married to her, regardless of him holding the secret about who he is that he's going to share with her. So I think it does work. And the cat that she has is adorable.

Yes. And I love the cat in the final panel. The cat's looking up like, I don't care. The cat is there. It's like the cat's known for years. We need a cat in Superman and Louis. That's what I'm thinking.

I know. It's probably just too expensive to film animals that they don't yes, that's true.

It would have to be CGI these days. I don't think they're allowed to have an animal like that on the set.

So, as I said, there's a few other moments of significance related to his coming out and disclosing of his identity. But I chose, uh, the one that's in the current iteration of the universe of DC Comics, and in this one, Lois has already known for some time. But it's Bendis having Superman come out to everyone. So do you want to introduce the issue we're talking about?

Yes. So that's Superman, volume five, issue number 18, from February 2020. And the story is simply titled Truth.

So this is written by Brian Michael Bendis, pencils by Ivan Rayis, inked by Joe Prado, colored by Alex and Clara, lettered by Dave Sharp. Editors are Brian Cunningham, Mike Colton, and Jessica Chen. And so this has reset the status quo, I think probably forever. Certainly for decades, but I think probably forever. And we could talk about why. I think that in a moment. But he ends up telling the entire world that he is Clark Kent. And the issue is an exploration of why he had a secret identity in the first place. And he does that a little bit by talking through it with Adam Strange, who doesn't fully understand. And so he gets to explain it, and then he slowly starts to tell Perry, and he goes to try to tell Jimmy, who already knows, and then he ends up telling the whole world, and the whole world is watching. Um, so you said you liked this issue. Why?

Yeah. Well, main reason is the humor. There's lots of that Bendy tone, which I now think of as being a very MCU or maybe Marvel tone in general. There's that kind of sarcasm running through a lot of characters, especially his interactions with Adam, um, strange, when he says.

You know, I have a secret identity on Earth. And Adam Strange says, Is it Batman? Are you also Batman?

Yes. And I love this long. And then when Clark, superman also says that he has a desk job and Adam Strange is like, wait, you have a desk? Of course I have a desk. I was joking. I have a job. And he says, blank. You sorry. Yeah, I love that kind of but that kind of sense of humor. And then when his interaction with Jimmy and a few pages later as well.

Yeah, so Jimmy is lying to him. Lois had called Jimmy and told him already. And so Jimmy's lying and playing kind of dumb and is saying like, no, you just look like Superman with glasses on. And, um, what do you mean? You're Clark.

Yeah, you're doing an impression of Clark Kent. But then he knows. And it was like, I don't know the character Jimmy well enough, especially in whatever current iteration he is in now, to know whether he was telling the truth or not. So it was a lot of fun there to see, but also to kind of counteract and this is maybe also a Brian Michael Bendis trope, is that to counteract that kind of sarcastic humor little like, oh, we don't care too much. There's also these big kind of grandeur scenes. It's very coolly constructed with Superman, uh, giving this public address at the beginning. But then we go back to it, we also see basically all the other DC heroes reacting in various ways. So it's given this emotional heft and grandeur in that way, which nicely offsets the more free comic elements of it.

Or the quietness of the moment. With Perry White, there's no words. It's six horizontal panels on one page. And it's him telling him, obviously. And that's a really moving page, I'd say. So. I think it's really good. And the reason I think it's the forever status quo is because Bendis does such a good job, not surprisingly, of creating this sense that, of course, Superman shouldn't have the secret identity anymore. Like, you read this issue and you're like, of course. That was the thing of the past. And he does a good job of honoring it. And the way that he does it in text is just Superman talking about and Adam Strange pointing out to him that it sounds like he was a different Superman back then and now he's someone else. And who he is now as a father and a husband and a reporter seeking truth, he needs to integrate who he is and bring all of that with him all the time. And that's so much more, I think, what we look for in our heroes and the stories of our heroes. And so I can't imagine them undoing this at any point because I just think it makes sense. And even I'm really touched by what he says about that. About how when he goes to save someone, he wants to bring that part of who he is with him.

Yeah, he was really talking about how he mhm had to be a normal guy at first to really understand humanity, in a way. And now he understands humanity. He doesn't need that guys anymore. But at the same time, he's also become that normal guy. Yeah. He wants to still be a journalist. Like he likes his job. This thing that probably at one point was a necessity has become something that he actually has a passion for.

Yeah.

And I think this comic and the last one that we read, I think it's both affected by the sliding timescale in a way, too, because, um, in the reality of this world, I don't know how much time has supposed to have passed, but so much. Yeah, I mean, all those things. But we are still reading at both of these issues with the heft of decades and generations having this character having lived amongst humans or been in this relationship with Lois. So we're not reading it as like, oh, they've been together for ten years or less. We're reading it, oh, they've been together for 70 years.

Yeah, that's true. So I like it a lot. So thinking about the linkage to our imaginary tale, do you see any links here? Right. So in the tail, he's trying everything he can to conceal his identity from Lowest, even though we have this imaginary meta thing of him watching out play out his identity. Then in the early 90s, he finally tells her, and then today he tells everyone. I don't think there's any direct line or correlation, but do you see any sort of connections?

Well, I think what's interesting is that he goes through in our imaginary story such great lengths, or maybe not such great lengths. He just kicks her purse.

That's kind of a jerky thing to do.

That's true. He really desperately wants to hide his secret identity, and we don't even fully know why. And I think a lot of Superman stories, including Superman Louis on TV right now, kind of says, oh, he needs to protect his family. If people know who he is, they're going to be targets. But we don't really know that. And here we see him coming to this decision of, oh, I'm going to let this all go. That secret identity doesn't matter anymore. I am Clark and Caleb and Superman all at once. So it's interesting just to see how diametrically opposed those two versions of the same character are.

Yeah. Although I think down Superman and Loris, I actually think we're building to this bendest moment.

Yeah, I agree.

I wouldn't be surprised if it's the season finale or at the start of next season. And that's no spoilers at all. That's just my I suspect that could be where it's going.

And I think it's also what makes him the fundamentally different, opposite version of Batman and Bruce. Because with Clark, uh, and Superman, he is becoming like this aspirational like, I am everybody. That's what his message is about. I'm a father. I'm a journalist. I'm an alien. I'm a superhero. And with Bruce, he gets his power from that mystery. You don't know who Batman is. Like, is he even a human? And if batman was to come out as Bruce Wayne, would he still be scary? He would just be a rich, billionaire guy that dresses up. So I'm seeing those kind of differences between those two characters. What do you think about that?

Yeah, I think it could make more sense. We also talked about before we started recording, like, it makes sense even from a suspension of disbelief point because Batman is wearing a mask. So as a consumer of these stories, it makes sense to us that batman can have a secret identity. It's always been the butt of a, uh, joke that car ken is Superman's secret identity. So I think even from a practical standpoint, it makes sense that Batman can have a secret identity. I mean, it's interesting, too, because marvel is very different in terms of secret identities. But spiderman is the character who continues to have a secret identity. And now there was one time in civil war, he came out as Peter Parker. It's not nearly as well done as it is here with Superman, I'd say. But they then actually wreck on it a few years later. So they then have the whole world brainwashed. Basically, what they saw in no way home.

I was going, um, to say spoiler alert for no way home for the two people in the universe that didn't see it that might be listening to this, but they were basically thinking, okay, we're going to do one movie where everyone knows spiderman, and that's it. Now we're going back to the secret identity as opposed to every other marvel character, where people like, now we know from ms. Marvel, like, Scott lang has a podcast. Like, everyone knows Carol Danvers is captain Marvel.

Yeah, in the modern era of marvel, there aren't I mean, there were secret identities even through, like, x men. Xavier was a secret until Grant Morrison's run. But definitely, in the last 20 years, there are almost no characters who have secret identities. And so it's interesting, mhm, because if I'm right, if this shift in superman is forever, then it seems that superhero stories over the last 100 years, for at least the last 20 years, have started to shift away from secret identities. Though, as you've named batman is a big exception. Spiderman is a smaller exception, I'd say. But Batman is a big exception.

Well, my question for you is, do you, uh, agree with that? With superman in other comics or in other mediums, I should say, because really, in all recent, uh, should superman not have really a secret identity? Uh, because in a lot of the recent things of superman and Lois, his whole family learns pretty much right away he's a secret from other people. But Lois knows in the jack Snyder movies. It's never really a secret to Lois. Also, again, so in some ways, I kind of missed that because I think that's the most fun aspect of the Christopher Reeves movies is his portrayal of Clark and how he contrasts with Superman. But is that something you missed, or is that something would you like to go back in movies and films?

I don't think I want to go back, but I don't mind. I mean, I agree with you. I think the CRISPR reef fumbling Clark is so great. But if we think about, like, Tyler Hutchins portrayal or even what's his name portrayal.

Henry Cavill.

Yeah, Henry Cavill. Um, now, whether this is a decision being made by the creators in advance or it's a decision being made by the actors or it's some other force like we're talking about, they never portray a Clark who's different from Superman.

Very true.

The two characters are very similar. So therefore, it makes sense to me such as in Superman and Lois, it makes sense to me that at the very least, the whole family needs to know from day one because it would make no sense for them not to. And then slowly, you need the rest of the universe to know because it doesn't make a lot of sense. He's not a different person. So if anything, he's just concealing his identity. It's not that he has the dual identity.

Yes, that's true. He really does become a different person. In the Christopher Reeve and the Brandon Ruth movie, he is putting on a persona rather than, as you're saying, like, Clark is who he also is, uh, as a journalist, as a father. So there is a pretty big difference there.

Yeah. And then, like, Spiderman is interesting because he's so completely concealed that I wouldn't even call that a double identity. I mean, it is technically a double identity, but again, it feels like more of a concealing of his identity. And I think Batman has been played both ways. I think Batman has sometimes been played as the Spiderman model, where it is, uh, just a mask. And so there is the Batman and the Bruce Wayne, but they're the same person, just one in a mask who fights crime and one not. But then there are the things, like, even in the Robert Pattinson movie, there's the way that he does play Bruce a little differently. Bruce is messy and Bruce is chaotic. So I think there are some decisions.

To have Bruce show up not as much as, like, the Christian Bale, where he plays it even more. And all this goes back to the Scarlet Pimpernel and where you really had a character who had to pretend he was a FOP and a Dandy, but was actually this superhero. The first superhero, many people say. So it has such long history that, as you're saying, might be starting to go away in 2022.

Yeah. Interesting to imagine what the next imaginary tales will hold. But it was fun to visit this imaginary and meta tale. Really.

Yes. Very true. Yeah. That could be a whole nother subs series of this podcast are meta stories. And this was really putting the superheroes into other mediums well before the Fantastic Four are reading comic books about themselves 20 years after this.

True, I wonder. Yeah, this could be one of the earliest certainly examples of that. Yeah. So anyway, I have been Keto and.

I have been Rob. And that's a wrap. Dear Watchers, thank you so much for listening.

The reading list is in the show notes and you can follow us on Twitter at dear watchers.

And please leave a review wherever you listen to podcast. We will be back soon with another trip through the multiverse first.

And in the meantime, in the words of Alan Moore in his imaginary story, this is an imaginary story. Aren't they all?