A group member’s 14-year-old daughter observed that a drawing of wolverine kind of looked like Jack Kirby. Never mind how cool it is that somebody’s 14-year-old daughter knows who Jack Kirby is. Never mind that in the included photo, the similarities are apparent. A bunch of old men rushed into the thread to shut down all observation. “Kirby was the inspiration for Ben Grimm!” many said, as though it would not be possible for Jack Kirby, the man who created the Marvel Universe, to be the inspiration for anyone else ever again.

Channel the creativity and youthful energy of Kyle Rayner. Tee's relaxed fit and vintage-inspired look is a compliment to the artist who unexpectedly became the last Green Lantern and later, a brillia...

Today marks the 30th consecutive day that I’ve been sharing my favorite Superman moments and memories on Facebook. Today also marks the 10,347th* consecutive day that I’ve been thinking about my favorite Superman moments and memories in my head. I haven’t been writing them down in any kind of ranked order, and I don’t know that I could go back now to all of them and rank them after the fact.

In the first comic book to ever feature Superman, “Action Comics” #1, written by Jerry Siegel and drawn by Joe Shuster, Superman breaks into a governor’s mansion to demand that the governor stop a state execution of a person wrongfully convicted of murder, he beats a wife-beater, he saves Lois Lane from gangsters who had kidnapped her and smashes their car to pieces, and he grabs the foot of a corrupt U.S.

The first season of “Superman: The Animated Series” was a truly great show. Watch just about any of those first 13 episodes. If not for vibrant colors and the scenes in bright daylight, we’d have the sense that we were watching something that wasn’t QUITE film noir, but was awfully close sometimes. The later seasons are good for what they are — God knows I love that Green Lantern episode with every fiber of my being — but they become more of a superhero show than that first season was.

When the first teaser for “Superman Returns” premiered, in 2005, I was a student teacher, right on the cusp of beginning my life as an actual adult. I did not have any romantic prospects then, and I felt at times terribly lonely, but okay, all of that would come maybe once I had a real job and my own place.

Superman goes to Warworld to free slaves, but he can’t. Warworld is powered by red suns. Superman’s weak. He is aging. He can’t really fly the way he used to. And even if he were at full strength, the slaves of Warworld are all but brainwashed. They’ve come to love their chains. They don’t want to be freed. Superman is beaten within an inch of his life as crowds cheer for his execution, and he’s thrown in a cell.

In our real world, Superman is a fictional character. We read comics about Superman, we watch shows, we see movies, we collect action figures. That’s true for the main character in “Superman: Secret Identity” too. Except his name IS Clark Kent. He’s not Superman. He’s just a kid whose parents, David and Laura Kent, thought it was kind of cool and funny to name their son Clark.

In 1997, when I was 13 years old, DC announced that in “Superman” (Vol. 2) #123, Superman would get new energy-based super powers and a new costume. And whether because I was only just getting into Superman and wanted to feel like this new version of Superman was “my” version or simply because I was 13 years old — who can say?

“Superman: The Man of Steel” #80 came out in 1998, but the story is set in the 1940s and drawn more to look that way. There’s a whole in-story reason that would explain why that is, but you know what? Let’s forget it. Just go with it.

In issue #6 of “Superman Birthright,” Superman tracks down the guy who sold kids guns they used in a school shooting. Superman shows up, tells the guy, “One minute ago, I saw a little girl screaming because she was staring down the barrel of a gun. And she will remember it for the rest of her life.” He picks up a gun and FIRES IT at the guy.

James Robinson’s series “Starman” — which he created with the artist Tony Harris and completed with the artist Peter Snejbjerg — is an unparalleled masterpiece at DC Comics. To be fair, it would be hard for most series to achieve what “Starman” achieves. Robinson and company were working with an original character, Jack Knight, a character not obligated to appear in multiple monthly comics series and not likely to appear on kids’ lunchboxes and pajamas.

DC Comics told us — there in early 2011 as they were rolling out their “New 52” publishing initiative hype machine — that younger readers weren’t reading DC Comics because the characters weren’t young enough. Superman and Batman and everyone else, at perpetually 30-something years old in the comics, were simply too old to be appealing to young readers who wanted their characters younger, hipper, edgier, and angstier.

Superman’s dog Krypto will star in “Superman,” coming to theaters on my birthday, July 11. He won’t just star in it. He’ll steal the show. At least, that’s what Krypto does every time he appears on the page in comics. Krypto steals the show even when he’s a phantom. During “The New 52” era — those five years that DC had attempted to start every single comic over with a new #1 issue and to jettison decades of their own history — one of the bright spots was the “Action Comics” title.

Art Baltazar and Franco, two of the best guys in comics, wrote and drew “Tiny Titans” for 50 issues and then wrote and drew “Superman Family Adventures” for 12 issues after that. Art & Franco’s DC work isn’t for “young readers.” It’s for ALL readers. Like a good cartoon, young fans can enjoy it all on one level, and the older fans can enjoy it on another.

In “Superman” (Vol. 2) #75, the mysterious, rampaging monster Doomsday killed Superman. Really killed him. No tricks. After a bruising fight that ran through all four of the ongoing Superman titles, Superman killed Doomsday, but Doomsday also killed Superman. I don’t like that issue. I don’t like the issues leading right up to it. Almost nothing else happens but fighting.

People like to dunk on the Clark Kent “disguise”: “Oh, like a pair of glasses would fool anyone?” Well it’s not just the glasses. Watch Christoper Reeve TRANSFORM himself in this scene from “Superman: The Movie.” I’m sorry for the lame countdown. This was the most complete version of the scene I could find. And read a few pages from “Superman: Birthright” #3 by Mark Waid, Leinil Yu, and Gerry Alanguilan.

“All-Star Superman” #9 is not the best issue fo the series by any means, but it does offer one of my favorite moments. While Superman has been stuck on the Bizarro World, Bar-El and Lilo, Krypton’s first astronauts find their way to Earth after many years lost. They impose their will on people, and people kind of go with it. They occupy Superman’s Fortress of Solitude and destroy the statues of his Kryptonian parents.

In “All-Star Superman,” a dying Superman wants to see what the world will be like without him. The only way he can do that is to create a world in which he doesn’t exist. So, in “All-Star Superman” #10, he does: Superman creates the universe of Qwewq and “Earth-Q” in it. It is a world without Superman. But if Superman never existed, they’d have to create him.

In “All-Star Superman” by Grant Morrison, Frank Quitely, and Jamie Grant, Lex Luthor sabotages a flight in the sun, forcing Superman to save the crew, exposing him to levels of solar radiation so high that even he can’t take it. In the first issue, he’s told that he’s dying. By the tenth issue, the best of the whole series, Superman’s close to the end.And yet, there he is, on the first page of the tenth issue, spending his final days visiting children at the hospital.

On “Digging for Kryptonite” this week, Anthony and I discuss our collected edition collecting habits, commiserate over our gripes with DC’s collections habits, and share our wishlists for what DC might do next. I took a ton of notes over the course of the month leading up to that episode’s recording. I’m going to share those notes right out of my Apple Notes app here, even though I'll be exposing myself as someone who basically doesn't know how to take…

Superman Superfan Mark Waid spoke to Anthony Desiato of “Digging for Kryptonite” about Clark-as-Superboy being restored to Superman continuity. And I did my Mark Waid impression for one of the only audiences anywhere who can appreciate how good my Mark Waid impression is.

Rather than recount how moved I was reading this single page from “All-Star Superman” #10, a page some regard as the greatest single page of Superman of all time, I'm going to send you over to The Beat, where, during the early days of the pandemic, Gregory Paul Silber wrote that the page saved his life. “Superman” opens in theaters on my birthday, July 11. Tickets are available now.

“All-Star Superman,” by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely with Jamie Grant, is widely regarded as one of the greatest Superman stories ever written. It is. In this panel from “All-Star Superman” #6, Clark and Krypto sit on the moon. Clark, as any man able to sit on the moon would, stares at Earth. And Krypto, as any dog able to sit on the moon would, stares at his best friend. Is any comic panel anywhere as perfect as this one?

“The Adventures of Superman” #12, a digital-first comic by Rob Williams and Chris Weston that debuted on Comixology in 2013 and was later collected in print in “The Adventures of Superman #4, is too short to quite be a “story.” It’s a character study, maybe. It’s a “vignette” at worst. “The Adventures of Superman” was also an oasis in a desert of Superman stories.

Even people who don’t know much about Superman know about Superman’s Fortress of Solitude. It’s Superman’s place in the North Pole, which he set up so he can be alone. It’s not really too lonely. He has an army of Superman robots helping with the upkeep. He has an intergalactic zoo. He has statues of all of his friends. He has an entire Kryptonian city preserved in a bottle.

June 18 is Clark Kent’s birthday. I don’t know when that was first established, but it’s there on the 1976 DC Comics calendar. Clark Kent is the part of Superman that I like best. And in these two pages from the short-story “Glasses,” the writer Jeff Loveness has Lois Lane articulate why Clark is so important a character. In this story, Lois Lane has been reflecting on her relationship with Clark Kent.

“Superman for All Seasons,” by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale and Bjarne Hansen, was the first Superman story that I read as it came out that made me feel like I was reading a story that I would be rereading and thinking about for the rest of my life as a Superman fan. At the time, I knew that I liked Superman, and I thought that he was my favorite character, but I still regarded him as a character.

Jonathan Kent feels a little overwhelmed in the beginning of the 8-page story “Generations” by Daniel Warren Johnson, which appeared in #5 of the magnificent 6-issue miniseries “Superman: Red & Blue.” You could forgive him for feeling that way. A baby boy has fallen out of the sky in a rocket, and Jonthan has to help raise him. Jonathan, unexpectedly, suddenly, finds himself having to be a dad.

I thought I’d throw in a bonus Superman moment today, apropos of nothing here on June 14, 2025. In “Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes,” by Geoff Johns and Gary Frank, Superman returns to the future for the first time in years, anti-alien sentiment has been festering. The xenophobes claim that Superman is on their side. At this point in the story, he’s only just regained his powers, but he still frees a group aliens from being rounded up and carted away, a move that angers a masked officer, who says, “That’s not Superman.

Superman returns to movie theaters on my birthday, July 11. Each day until then, I’ll share my favorite Superman moments. It’s Father’s Day weekend, and Superman stories are full of fathers-and-sons moments. This one, which appeared at the end of “Superman: Secret Identity” #1 by Geoff Johns and Gary Frank, was one of the best. I won’t bore all you normies with my many, many years of problems with Geoff Johns.

Superman returns to movie theaters on my birthday, July 11. Each day until then, I’ll share my favorite Superman moments. In 1998, a year and a half into my time as a Superman comics reader, DC published “DC One Million” led mostly by Grant Morrison and Val Semeiks and featuring with a whole host of other writers and artists. Gosh, I can’t really figure out how to back up far enough to explain this moment to most of you.

Superman returns to movie theaters on my birthday, July 11. Each day until then, I’ll share my favorite Superman moments. In “Superman: Peace on Earth” by Paul Dini and Alex Ross, Superman reflects back to something his father told him. Superman thinks, “Pa said it would take a special individual with no personal agenda to make everyone realize what the world has to offer.

Superman returns to movie theaters on my birthday, July 11. Each day until then, I’ll share my favorite Superman moments. This scene from "Superman Returns," the first Superman movie I ever got to see in the theaters, remains one of the best few minutes of Superman ever put to film. All you need to know is that Superman has been gone for five years exploring the ruins of Krypton, and he returns to Earth and to his life in Metropolis as Lois is on an experimental plane.

Here's how Merriam Webster defines "politics": So a comic book starring a woman is not "political," even if the woman is filling a role that was once held by a man a comic book starring a Black or brown person is not "political," even if the Black or brown person is filling a role that was once held by a white person…

What makes some words and phrases take off but not others? Why has, for example, "cool" lasted so long across several generations, but "groovy" effectively died out years ago? I wish I could tell you. And I wish I could tell you what has made the question "How'd I do?" as trendy as it is among a large enough segment of our group.

Superman is my guy. I've linked you to the Goodreads entry for each book, but don't blindly follow the links there to buy the book on Amazon. Instead, try your comic shop, InStockTrades, or eBay. For those who've never read any Superman before — or for those who have tried Superman but "don't get it" Superman for All Seasons. The tagline that ran on the comic shop promo poster for the series says it best: “The most powerful man alive is still just a man.” I started reading comics in 1997 with the mainstream ongoing Superman titles.

I don't have many good qualities that other people don't have in greater supply. I'm nice enough. Others are nicer. I'm smart enough. Others are smarter. I'm funny enough. Others are funnier. But I know something about myself that other people don't know. I know something that makes my experience in comic book Facebook groups much more enjoyable than some other people's experiences, something that — if people could admit about thesmelves — would make them happier, too.