Superman: The High-Flying History of America's Most Enduring Hero (2012)

By Larry Tye

The first day we were back in our offices after the summer, during what's called “On-Call Week” (I keep telling them, “I'm not that kind of doctor!”), one of my senior colleagues – a US historian – came to my office and said he had something to show me. In his office he presented me with this book, which he said he had received a few weeks ago, and during his reading he kept telling his wife, “Kent would really like this book!” He was right about that. He loaned it to me, and I finished it last night. It is perhaps the best single book I've ever read on the greatest hero of 20th-century American pop culture, and a great introduction to a genre of story-telling that I have loved since childhood and will continue to love until the day I die. The author neatly places each within the changing contexts from the era of their conception, the 1930s, all the way until the present, when although the comic-book medium itself is but a shadow of its former self, at least in terms of sales, the granddaddy of all superheroes himself remains a cultural icon recognized and loved not just in the US but all around the world.

For the rest of my thoughts on this wonderful book, go here.

Cheers!

Superboy #171 (Jan 1971)

As I've said before and will again – and often, no doubt – Aquaman was my first favorite super-hero. As corny as his concept may have seemed to some nay-sayers even then, I was swept up in the adventures of the King of the Seven Seas from the first time I remember seeing him on the Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure. So when Aquaboy made his first – and to my knowledge only significant – appearance, in the pages of Superboy, "The Adventures of Superman When He Was a Boy," I was tickled pink. I don't remember if I knew it was coming from some DC Comics house ad, or if I was suddenly made aware of it by seeing it on the stands, but I do remember reading and rereading this comic. I most associate it with the back sun-room of my paternal grandmother's house, which faced across a big field toward my childhood home. When I conceived the idea for this blog devoted to significant comics I remember from my childhood, this issue was among the first to spring into mind. Like the vast majority of my childhood comics, it was lost or sold off – or possibly just fell apart from wear – long ago, so I had to buy it back from my on-line back-issue vendor. In my memory, however, I did not dream that it was significant for more than just the appearance of Aquaboy.