posted September 26, 2002 07:08 PM    

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Continental Op:
(Plus, Luthor is there as nothing more than Brainiac's arms and legs. That's unforgivable! He's LUTHOR, for crying out loud!)

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posted October 16, 2002 03:21 PM    

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Originally posted by Sankoni:
I agree with Shiuper

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I beg your pardon?

posted January 02, 2003 04:41 PM    

I have no doubt that 544 is a great comic--certainly an artistic treat--but it definitely sits badly with me.

By the time that issue came out I was a great fan of the Lexor stories (written by Ed Hamilton) and long desired a return to Lexor. So I was quite excited that we finally got Luthor back on Lexor, but for Bates to just use the planet as a set-up for Luthor's revenge rampage was about as bad as killing off Iris Allen to give Barry some angst.

If this story had to be written it's too bad that Edmond Hamilton didn't get to write it.

The way that Hamilton just suddenly disappeared from the Superman books has always left me with this unfullfilled feeling. Hamilton began so much--and then after him a lot of that was disregarded. It would have been better if Ed had had the chance in the late sixties to finish off a lot of what he had begun. If he had written the finish of Lexor it might not have been so confused. He's the one writer who truly understood Luthor.

posted March 08, 2003 04:01 PM    

The first quote is from the "Superman in the 70s" thread, page 20, while the other posts come from "Keith Giffen Superman Story in an 80's German Comic" on the OTHER SUPERMAN TOPICS forum...

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Originally posted by Continental Op:
There was indeed a lot of Superman material (and presumably other DC material) produced exclusively for foreign markets, much like Disney has published tons of stuff distributed only outside of North America, and Marvel had their Captain Britain stories and such for the U.K. Some of the foreign DC material was eventually reprinted in the American books, but much of it wasn't.

Here's the full scoop from Bob Rozakis' online Answer man column as it appeared about a year ago, which can be found regularly at http://www.silverbulletcomicbooks.com/ (I hope the cut and pasting works correctly here, and that Bob wouldn't mind the unauthorized reproduction):

< Here's the story on the lost Parasite story mentioned in last week’s column:
The story that recounted the Parasite’s marriage to a lawyer named Lorna and the birth of their kids, Trini and Troy, was actually published, albeit only in Germany. In 1981, DC began creating original Superman stories for its insatiable German audience at the request of their West German publisher, Ehapa, as related in a comprehensive article by Dave Peterson in THE COMICS BUYER'S GUIDE # 519. The episodes ranged from forty-six page "novels" intended for a quarterly graphic album to thirty-pagers for SUPERMAN HEFT. Unlike Disney, who permitted additional adventures of Donald Duck and company to be produced by foreign publishers, DC generated the additional Superman adventures themselves. Writers included Bob Rozakis, Paul Kupperberg, Cary Bates, E. Nelson Bridwell and Elliot Maggin while artists ranged from Curt Swan and Alex Saviuk to Gil Kane and Alex Toth.
DC published several of the stories in English over the next few years but they never had a chance to publish "The Parasite Curse," which is credited to Cary Bates, Alex Saviuk and Dave Hunt. The installation of the post-Crisis John Byrne-continuity pretty much killed any chances of the story ever seeing print and the hints offered in 1986’s WHO’S WHO # 17 are as close as any American readers are likely to get to seeing that story.
-- John Wells (johnwells99@yahoo.com)

Thanks, guys. A few of the stories that were done for Ehapa actually did see print in issues of ACTION COMICS and SUPERMAN, but the Parasite tale was not among them.>

Personally, I would LOVE to see these lost stories of the "Lame Duck Superman" (as India Ink has termed the era). I mean, DC is sitting on essentially NEW Curt Swan-illustrated Superman stories? But sadly, there would be virtually no audience left for these in the States. The chances of seeing these reprinted in the U.S. are about as low as the chances of throwing a rock in Canada without hitting a guy named Gordon.

Maybe they could show up in the Archives, but by the time the Superman Archives roll around to the mid-Eighties, I'll be lucky to be alive even as a disembodied brain in a jar.

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Originally posted by exredleg:
Help!

Back in the 1986-1989 timeframe, I was stationed in Germany while serving in the Army. One day while shopping in downtown Nurnberg, I stumbled upon some German reprints of DC Comics. I was still collecting comics "long distance" thanks to monthly shipments from my "home shop" back in Chicago, so I was still fairly current on what was going on in the Super-books.

One of the stories in the German editions caught my eye. It was drawn by Keith Giffen! If my memory serves me correctly, it may have been inked by Larry Mahlstedt. The art looked as if it were from the "pre-Toth tribute era" of Giffen's run on the Legion.

I didn't read German ... but a few things I remember from the story:

An appearance by the skeletal Braniac

Superman seemed to be trapped in a device that allowed Brainiac to review Supeman's memories (my memory could be faulty here!)

One of Superman's memories dealt with "Superbaby" ... looked to be a humorous moment!

All-in-all it looked like a neat story ... a story I never saw in print in a U.S. Superman comic!

Does anyone know if this story was ever printed in the U.S. ?? If not, how about a reprint in a future Superman comic !!

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Originally posted by Mikishawm:
DC prepared more than two dozen Superman stories specifically for the German market between 1981 and 1985 but only a handful were reprinted in the U.S. And, unfortunately, the story you recall is one that never appeared here.

My friend Norbert Elbers, who lives in Germany, has been helping me compile a list of those stories and drew my attention to this request. I believe he's identified the story that you're looking for.

It's "The Wall of Infinity," a 46-pager plotted and written by Robert Loren Fleming & Keith Giffen, pencilled by Giffen and inked by Romeo Tanghal. And, yep, the skeletal Brainiac is the villain of the piece. It appeared in SUPERMAN TASCHENBUCH # 72.

It'd be really great if DC would reprint this and some of the other stories in English but, in the meantime, you might want to check eBay and see if anyone's selling that edition.

Hope this answered your question.

John Wells

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Originally posted by n-man:

"...My friend Norbert Elbers, who lives in Germany, has been helping me compile a list of those stories and drew my attention to this request."

yeah - that's me.

But the credit appertains not only to me. It's teamwork. A friend of mine - Georg - and I tried to attach the German issues to the original US comic books.

In the past (until ca. 1987) the German publisher didn't say what the US issue was from the comics they bring out. And so it was a huge work to detect the US original.
And on the search we find some stories which has never been published in USA. It's surprising but true.

Because we don't have all US comics from DC (but all German issues) it was very difficult to say this German book is this US book. When we are at a loss we described the story and miki knew the answer....

Another example is a Parasite story. In an old WHO'S WHO in Amerika you can read, that he has two children. But also this story is unknown in USA, but published in Germany.

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Originally posted by Continental Op:
I would really, really, really, really, really, really, really like to see these stories finally published in English!

Too bad DC must be sure there is no longer a market for this kind of Superman. But I envision something like a series of "Elseworlds 100 Page Super-Spectaculars" that I think would sell fairly well even today.

DC has loosened up considerably in recent years when it comes to allowing REPRINTS of Weisinger-era and Schwartz-era Superman material; why not allow previously UNSEEN material as well?

The Brainiac and Parasite stories sound fascinating, and in particular I think it's downright criminal that DC should have unpublished Superman art by Curt Swan that they won't print.

Oh well.

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Originally posted by exredleg:
Mikishawn & n-man,

Thanks for all your detective work! I will try to track down that book on eBay. I probably remember enough German to make some sense of the story.

Meanwhile ... let's see these stories reprinted in English!

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posted May 16, 2003 11:12 PM       

"Was mid to late 80's the best DC ever?" http://dcboards.warnerbros.com/files/Forum94/HTML/009215.html

I don't think I've ever posted so much to a single topic.