Today marks the second anniversary of the first review on the site.
What started out as a way to mentally survive the first 2020 lockdowns evolved into a much larger scope; to celebrate the anniversary, I thought it would be interesting to share what I’ve learned with those reviews.
Mind you, these are not in any particular order!
1) There is no limit to how Silver Age a story can be.
You might think there is, then Krypto turns into a female and gives birth. Or Jor-El enslaves Earth by inventing capes. Or there is a Birthday Cake For A Cannibal Robot.
2) Silver Age Superman is Just. The. Worst.
I already knew that, taken out of context, many of Superman’s examples of Superdickery are hilarious. What I completely underestimated was just how truly awful he could be!!!
3) Supergirl could have been DC’s Spider-Man. Easily.
Think about it. She graduates a year before Spider-Man, she has an often conflictual relationship with the adult heroes, AND her best friend is personally related to one of the worst criminals she knows, AND she has multiple romantic interests to juggle, AND she’s had to keep her identity a secret from her adoptive parents!
The Supergirl stories of Action Comics blow most of the DC competition out of the way, continually impressing me.
It’s really a shame that once she leaves high school DC doesn’t seem to have any idea what to do with her.
4) Surprising results of recurring counts.
Some counts are set up knowing the number will rise rapidly… the Legion members, the number of heroes Doom has fought… but some just surprised me.
Like the number of Legion rejects stopping for entire eras, or the number of times Mercury boasts about being liquid at room temperature turning out to be far less frequent than I recalled, or the Cancer Count from the Strange Tales retrospective being relatively tame.
5) Kandor having a suprising number of body doubles and being a city of stalkers
At some point I considered adding a counter for how many doubles show up. I gave up because I could not remember how many I had already seen without re-reading everything. That’s no joke.
6) The Jack Kirby run of Jimmy Olsen sucks.
I’m beating a dead horse on this point, I know, but I remembered these issues being mostly good… until I read them carefully.
Don’t get me wrong, most of them are still MILES better than the previous stories, but I stand by my opinion: Jack Kirby’s writing sucks.
7) Doctor Doom absolutely cannot sit down like a normal person
8) Cosmic Boy not doing anything to stand out (other than his costume)
Saturn Girl is clearly the MVP of the founders, but at least Lighting Lad has the Super Moby Dick Of Space. Cosmic Boy, on the other hand… doesn’t do ANYTHING of value until the 80s.
9) Robert Kanigher was a national treasure.
Professor Potter bless this weird, weird man.
10) I love overused memes way too much for my own good.
What about you? Did you learn anything unexpected or funny in these two years (or however long you’ve been following me) ?