FSC: DC COMICS PRESENTS ANNUAL #1

By the year 1982, there wasn’t any writer’s work that I was enjoying more consistently than that of Marv Wolfman. I’d liked him at Marvel, where he wrote FANTASTIC FOUR and AMAZING SPIDER-MAN as well as an assortment of other things such as NOVA (though I didn’t follow TOMB OF DRACULA, his most respected work from this period–i wasn’t a monster guy.) But since migrating to rival DC, his batting ration had skyrocketed, propelled by his work innovating the NEW TEEN TITANS and NIGHT FORCE as well as on GREEN LANTERN and Superman in ACTION COMICS. Marv was able to hit a perfect balance between the sensibilities of the established DC line, mixing in the elements that I liked from the Marvel approach of the period. This DC COMICS PRESENTS ANNUAL that he did was a good example of this.

I was already a sucker for the original Earth-2 Superman, as well as all of the members of the Justice Society. Any time they would turn up, I’d be there. So a story that promised to team up the contemporary Man of Steel with his older counterpart was exactly my meat. What’s more, as became apparent directly on this splash page, the story wasn’t simply going to feature two Men of Steel, but rather three. I had read “Crisis on Earth-3”, the second JLA/JSA team-up story, when it was reprinted in the 1970s and was enamored of the concept of the Crime Syndicate of America, who came from an evil parallel Earth-3. This was the STAR TREK mirror universe concept before that episode had ever been done.

BHOC: JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #114

The characters had lain dormant ever since, with the exception of a two-part SECRET SOCIETY OF SUPER-VILLAINS appearance a few years earlier. And even there, only three of the Syndicate members made an appearance–the Superman-like Ultraman was nowhere to be seen.

BHOC: SECRET SOCIETY OF SUPER-VILLAINS #13

BHOC: SECRET SOCIETY OF SUPER-VILLAINS #14

Today, of course, they’ve been brought back on multiple occasions, and reinvented a time or two. But when this Annual first saw print, such an appearance was still a rarity, albeit one that I welcomed with open arms.

The story was illustrated by Rich Buckler, who had become something of a style chameleon by this point. Most often, however, he would channel the flavor of Neal Adams into his work for DC (whereas he’d as often evoke Jack Kirby on his Marvel titles). Buckler was a good artist in and of himself, but he stunted his own development in attempting to give editors and fans what they said they wanted–which was artwork approximating the styles of others rather than what Buckler did naturally. His work on this issue, inked by Dave Hunt, is perfectly fine, but there’s just a hint of artifice to it, a reflection of the fact that Buckler wasn’t doing what came naturally to him so much as playing as a cover band. He also has a tendency to swipe from Adams and other artists, a trait that is in evidence throughout this issue. Every few pages you’ll spot some recognizable pose or composition from some other earlier comic. Buckler took some grief for this in the fan press of the time, but not to the degree that he ever completely gave up the practice.

The structure of this issue closely resembles that of the first SUPERMAN VS THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN Treasury Edition, in that the story is broken up into multiple chapters. In the first, we see Superman foil the latest schemes of Lex Luthor, capturing and imprisoning the renegade scientist. In the second, we segue to Earth-2, where the older Golden Age Superman battles his own foe, the red-haired madman Alexi Luthor. As in the opening, the Man of Steel is triumphant and Luthor is imprisoned. Back on Earth-1, however, lex has an escape scheme; he uses secreted technology to switch places with his Earth-2 counterpart–the result of which is that both men are released as being falsely imprisoned on the worlds in which they now find themselves. Luthor reasons that he’ll have no problem dealing with the Earth-2 Superman whereas Alexi will be an unknown factor to the Earth-1 Superman.

The next chapter, the longest so far, showcases the switched villains unleashing new deadly schemes against their respective Men of Steel. In both cases, the Luthors initially have the upper hand, but the Supermen inevitably win out through a combination of fortitude, cleverness and grit. Once the two Luthors are once again captured, the two Supermen make contact across the dimensional void–they’ve encountered one another in the past during JLA/JSA stories. They arrange to swap their Luthors back to their own worlds–but once again, Lex has an ace up his sleeve. As he and Alexi are transitioned, Lex is able to propel them sideways, into the parallel continuum of Earth-3, home of the evil Crime Syndicate of America. There, they’re immediately noticed by the corrupt Ultraman and convince him that they should all form an alliance to conquer Earth-3.

But it turns out that the two Luthors aren’t exactly alike after all–now that he’s got a perfectly good world in Earth-3 to subjugate, Alexi decides to have Ultraman construct a device that will destroy both Earths 1 & 2, despite his counterpart Lex’s objections. But his scheme is stumbled upon by an unlikely savior; the Alex Luthor of Earth-3. On the reverse world, this Luthor is a noble, bearded scientist, and at the urging of the Earth-3 Lois Lane, he contacts the two Supermen and brings them to Earth-3 to save all three worlds. Prior to this, the older Superman has a nice conversation with his younger Earth-1 counterpart about how he really ought to settle down and marry his Lois Lane just as the older Superman has done. Prompted by his own world’s version of Lois, Alex Luthor suits up in an armored costume of his own devising to become Earth-3’s first super hero.

From this point, the rest of the story is little more than a big dust-up, with Alex Luthor taking on Ultraman single-handedly, defeating him in a way that the otherworldly Luthors have never been able to with their own Men of Steel. Again mirroring the structure of SUPERMAN VS THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, the Earth-2 Superman is left to contend with the two Luthors while the Earth-1 version races into the sky with a device created by Alex Luthor that will allow Earth-1 and Earth-2 to pass harmlessly through one another, averting the catastrophe. And that’s about it! Alex Luthor indicates that he’s going to continue on as his world’s first super hero–and indeed, Marv will come back to him in CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS in a few years. Meanwhile, the original Superman heads home to his wife Lois, while the Earth-1 Superman is still conflicted about his relationship with his own lady love.