I got a package in the mail yesterday, but I wasn’t here to receive it, so it got delivered to my local post office instead. But it took the rest of the day before it got there so I wasn’t able to pick it up until this morning. I thought the package would contain one of the two new comics I had just ordered off Amazon, but it turns out I was wrong…it was both of them.
Yup, with some Christmas money, I sprung for Superman: The Triangle Years Omnibus volume 1 and The Flash by William Messner-Loebs and Greg LaRoque Omnibus volume 1. These collections both contain comics I’ve wanted to put on my bookshelf for a long time.
The Superman book is really from the era of the Man of Steel that made me the fan that I am today. After Crisis on Infinite Earths, Superman was rebooted in John Byrne’s Man of Steel miniseries, which generally included changes that I was pretty happy with. Byrne continued on the title for a while, along with Marv Wolfman, Jerry Ordway and others. Before that I was more or less indifferent to Superman (unless Christopher Reeve was playing him) but now the book felt like something genuinely interesting that made me want to read it regularly.
I didn’t read it regularly though, or at least not consistently, until I got to college and picked up some post-Byrne issues, which were previously collected in another omnibus book which I’ve already got, Superman: Exile.
As the series moved on, Superman eventually started featuring in four monthly books–Superman, Adventures of Superman, Action Comics and Superman: The Man of Steel. The creative teams were different but the continuity of the internal storytelling was pretty tight. To help fans keep track of what order to read things in, little triangles with a number-system that was unique to the year of publication were added to the covers, and thus the phrase “The Triangle Years” to refer to these books was born.
This era of Superman was written largely by Ordway, Dan Jurgens, Roger Stern, and Louise Simonson, with Karl Kesel, David Michelinie and others coming on later. Artists included Ordway, Jurgens, Tom Grummett, Jon Bogdanove and a lot more. And like I said, it was in this post-Byrne era that I found the Superman that I still love the most. This was the period in which Clark and Lois got engaged, in which Lois found out Superman’s secret identity, in which Luthor apparently died only to be replaced by his “son”, in which Superman himself died in the 90s most famous Superman story, and in which Clark and Lois were eventually married (a development that still endures in spite of all the retcons and reboots since).
My one disappointment about the book is that it doesn’t start until Superman #49 (chapter 1 of the Krisis of the Krimson Kryptonite story, one of my favorrites) which means there is a roughly year-long gap between this book and the The Exile book I mentioned before. With three monthly comics at that point (Superman: The Man of Steel hadn’t debuted yet) that’s a lot of comics that are not included.
The other negative point is just the shear size of the book–it’s definitely not something one could comfortably read while lying down in bed, for instance. But if that’s the cost of having the books collected at all, then I’ll happily pay it.
The same is true for the Flash comic. These comics are from a the late 80s after Barry Allen had died (in Crisis on Infinite Earths) and Wally West had taken over as the Flash full time (mostly depicted in the line-wide crossover to follow Crisis, entitled Legends). Even though the book is named for William Messner-Loebs, he didn’t start writing it until after the first year or so (Mike Baron was the initial writer), and he continued on the book long-enough that we will hopefully get a second volume which contains the rest of the stories.
Messner-Loebs was followed on the book by Mark Waid, who really made a lasting mark on the character of Wally West. He penned classics like The Return of Barry Allen and Terminal Velocity, and made Wally essentially my favorite DC character (or a serious contender for that distinction, anyway).
But a lot of what Waid did was built on the foundation of Messner-Loebs’ work. I have only read sporadic stories from this run, so I’m excited to dig into it.
What else did I get for Christmas? Various fun and random things! I got some new clothes, which is always convenient because I don’t like to buy clothes.
There is also this fry pan, which since Christmas I have cleaned more than I have used (thanks to living in a household with other functioning adults!)
These coffee-themed socks which I haven’t worn yet, since it’s the Australian summer and why on earth would I wear socks if they aren’t necessary?
I got this Bluey-themed Trouble game at the randomised gift exchange at my missions community on Christmas Day.
It’s not a gift I’d have chosen for myself, but I like games and I have a generally positive impression of Bluey, so I guess it could have been worse.
And I also got some other games for Christmas, including Bezzerwizzer, which is a trivia game that sounds fun but I think might be hard to find the exact right group of people to play with.
And 221B Baker Street which I played once so far and was a lot of fun. It’s like Clue (or Cluedo, as it’s known in much of the world) except that instead of collecting clues from other players, you get them from a booklet according to a particular scenario you are playing.
The game comes with 75 different scenarios–so far I’ve only played one and it took an hour or more, so there should be some decent playtime available in this thing.
And I also got money that I could use for some TV shows that I wanted to get on Apple TV.
Specifically, I bought…
Superman & Lois season 4 (and last…sad)
My Adventures with Superman season 2
Superman and Atom Man vs. Superman, the two Superman movie serials from 1948 and 1950, respectively.
Sensing a theme here?
To give some variety to things, I also bought season 1 of The Bionic Woman–something I’ve been curious to watch (again).
Hmm, so in addition to Superman, I got the Flash and the Bionic Woman. So I guess the theme is Superman, and people who can run fast?
Finally my family and I were given movie vouchers (or money for movies) from at least three different sources. We do like movies, so this is all good. And it keeps with my main theme, since the movie that is coming out in 2025 that I most want to see is of course…
Superman
Because maybe, maybe this will be the one I’ve been waiting for. I felt this way after seeing The Man of Steel trailer, and of course was disappointed. The new Superman teaser is peculiar to say the say the least, but it makes me want to watch the movie more and not less, so I guess it’s done its job.
And to keep in line with the broader theme (Superman & fast runners), I guess I could also use some of this movie money to see Sonic 3.
That doesn’t interest me at all, really, but you know, you gotta stick with a theme.
Anyway, Merry belated Christmas. I hope your Christmas stuff was also enjoyable, and I hope they were dwarfed by the more important and lasting blessings of Christmas and life in general.
