Supermobile hilarity

[d.j.]

Hi gang,

There's a new update of the footnote (http://www.thefootnote.com) for your reading pleasure.

I'm really happy with the material in this one, no B.S. Adam P. Knave, in particular, offers up a hilarious retrospective on Superman's best-forgotten Supermobile (http://www.thefootnote.com/v3q4/0426hooray.html), while Bethany Shady starts a new column called On The Lam (http://www.thefootnote.com/v3q4/0426lam.html), we chat up Tim Burton's Ed Wood (http://www.thefootnote.com/v3q4/0426spoiler.html), I review the novel It's Superman! (http://www.thefootnote.com/v3q4/0426book.html), and more!

Good times.

[JulianPerez]

Heh heh. Pretty funny stuff. The issues where Superman uses the Supermobile is one of my all-time favorites. You say you have Schwartz-era Superman fighting Amazo? Baby, I'm there! And it's written by Cary Bates? Hell yeah!

And the Supermobile was pretty cool, as you mention. I always love it when Superman gets into a gadgeteer frame of mind (remember the giant tools he had in his workshop that were so huge only he could use them?). Plus, the extendable fists were awesome in a profoundly crazy way.

One thing, though: this was hardly the first or the last appearance of Supermanium. Supermanium dates back to the 1950s, when it was discovered by the Supermen of America and named the metal after their hero. It was what the door to Superman's Fortress of Solitude was named after. Superman, in the 1960s, constructed a space prison for Brainiac out of Supermanium.

You left out a few things from your article, though:

The Visor on the Supermobile. It had a dial visor that had grooves for "Heat Vision," "X-Ray Vision," "Telescopic Vision," and "Normal Vision." My car has Normal Vision too - it's called looking out a window.

It should be noted that the Supermobile was put in the comics to sell the toys. This makes one sequence, IN THIS ACTUAL STORY ARC ITSELF, all the funnier, because it has Perry White saying "Superman is ABOVE any such ridiculous merchandizing!" It was about something else, but we get the picture. It's like Cary Bates KNOWS he's pimping a toy with this particular arc, and put in that line of dialogue to be passive-aggressive about it.

Though if you want to see Cary Bates be a total sell-out, read ACTION COMICS #509 (1980), which is a story called "The Computer that Saved Metropolis" starring the TRS-80 Radio Shack Computer Whiz Kids! Superman's boasting of its INCREDIBLE POWER is kind of hilarious now in the year 2005. I'm not a computer type, but I'm betting I probably have more computing power in my electric toothbrush than this thing had all over their colossal mass. The full-page advertisement that precedes the story it is pretty awesome in its own right: it makes an amazing point about its "astonishing 12" video display," and makes a point that "You can also buy ready-made programs (called 'software')" (!)

The highest point of that entire story has to be when Superman says: "When you're sitting behind a TRS-80, each of you has the potential to think and solve problems as fast as a Superman!"

Right. You can out-think Superman with a Stone Age computer that EVEN WHEN IT CAME OUT was considered crappy.

The most astonishing thing by far is that to the best of my knowledge, this story is indeed Superman canon. The Radio Shack Whiz Kids later appear in SUPERMAN #358, in a story that directly relates to "The Computer that Saved Metropolis!" Further, the teacher seen in this story, Ms. Margaret, was shown to have lived in Smallville according to the map in NEW ADVENTURES OF SUPERBOY #22.

[MartinPasko]

It's like Cary Bates KNOWS he's pimping a toy with this particular arc, and put in that line of dialogue to be passive-aggressive

Nothing "passive-aggressive" about it. If memory serves, we ALL hated that damned thing -- Cary, Julie Schwartz, me, Curt Swan, everybody who got stuck with it -- and resented like hell having to shelve the storylines we were working on, or restructure them, to accommodate new stuff built around the toy, cobbled together at the last minute. I seem to recall that DC's president at the time, Sol Harrison, had a son or nephew or some other parasite who worked for the spectacularly cheesey Mego Toys (best remembered for having gone bankrupt in 1982, thanks to passing up a shot at the master toy license for STAR WARS), and therein lay the origin of the "orders from headquarters" to shoehorn this thing into the books. I remember pitching to Julie a scene in which the vehicle got blown up and Superman celebrated, but Julie just scowled and changed the subject while Cary's familiar, cackling laughter echoed from the bullpen...

[Damo]

I'm ashamed to admit this, but I actually own that crappy Wonder Woman car. Not sure where I put it anymore, I think I my have repressed the memory.

[tymac]

I wonder if my old supermobile is still in my parents' attic?

[JulianPerez]

Nothing "passive-aggressive" about it. If memory serves, we ALL hated that damned thing -- Cary, Julie Schwartz, me, Curt Swan, everybody who got stuck with it -- and resented like hell having to shelve the storylines we were working on, or restructure them, to accommodate new stuff built around the toy, cobbled together at the last minute. I seem to recall that DC's president at the time, Sol Harrison, had a son or nephew or some other parasite who worked for the spectacularly cheesey Mego Toys (best remembered for having gone bankrupt in 1982, thanks to passing up a shot at the master toy license for STAR WARS), and therein lay the origin of the "orders from headquarters" to shoehorn this thing into the books. I remember pitching to Julie a scene in which the vehicle got blown up and Superman celebrated, but Julie just scowled and changed the subject while Cary's familiar, cackling laughter echoed from the bullpen...

Oh, that is one hilarious story! See, I had a feeling it had to have been something like that.

Welcome to the newsgroups, Mr. Pasko! I'm a big admirer of your work. A big, big one. Along with Cary Bates and Elliot S! Maggin, you were one of the best of the Schwartz guys. I still read SUPERMAN 310, "The Man With the Kryptonite Heart," and that story where Wonder Woman does twelve great labors to get back into the JLA, which featured Doctor Cyber.

Not to derail the thread at all, but you wrote the script for WONDER WOMAN #231-232 based on a story by Alan Brennert. What was yours and what was Alan's? I'm a big fan of Alan Brennert's.

Also, is there any truth to the rumor that Elliot Maggin in the 1980s really wanted to get rid of Lois Lane and have Superman carry on with alien princesses?

And getting back to topic, what was the deal with Amazo being used so often during the Schwartz years? I mean, here he was with the Supermobile, there was him during the Xviar story "the Nine Deadly Enemies of Superman," and he was in Nelson Bridwell's SUPERMAN SPECIAL...

[NotSuper]

And getting back to topic, what was the deal with Amazo being used so often during the Schwartz years? I mean, here he was with the Supermobile, there was him during the Xviar story "the Nine Deadly Enemies of Superman," and he was in Nelson Bridwell's SUPERMAN SPECIAL...
There's just something intrinsicly cool about an android that possesses all of the JLA's powers. Maybe he was used so often due to his very sci-fi nature?

[spideyrules99]

I remeber having a Superman plane as a kid. I got it and it was cool to play with. But when I got older I started to think why the hell does Superman need a plane. That I thought. What if he has to carry more people that he can carry. Would have made sense if the plane sat more than one person.