"Your heat vision really helped with that execution, Superman!"

If Batman was British he would vote UKIP.

Captain America kinda sorta ran for President -- he never announced his candidacy, I don't think, but a committee to elect him started their campaign up etc., which led to a really bad What If? where he like solved the energy crisis with rockets or something.

What were Jefferson Pierce's politics when he joined President Lex's cabinet?

Creative Team: Elliot S! Maggin, writer; Dick Dillin and Joe Giella, artists; Julie Schwartz, editor

Synopsis: Walking down the street on his way to a meeting with Star City's mayor, Green Arrow sees a kid dressed as Superman falling from a high-rise. He saves the little nipper with
an airbag arrow. Ollie changes clothes and heads over to city hall, where WGBS-TV reporter Clark Kent has set up a remote, talking about how Star City Mayor Jack Major has announced
his retirement, leaving his party with no candidate for the upcoming election. Clark pulls an ambush on Ollie, asking about his potential candidacy. Ollie brushes him off, and in thought
balloons, Clark poo-poos the idea of a hero running for office, since he and Ollie know each others' secret identities in this pre-crisis tale. The flashback scene references the (then) recent
"What Can One Man Do?" story from Green Lantern/Green Arrow no. 87. Ollie comes out of his meeting, hooks up with Clark, and they argue about media ethics and tactics. Suddenly,
the world begins to ripple like somehting out of a Count Vertigo nightmare. They're sucked through to a fantasy realm (in costume) called Veliathan by Effron -- Sorcer Supreme. He'd been
in search of a champion, and claims to have found one in Green Arrow, dismissing superman as a muscle-bound bore. Magic is the energy of this world, and people are born without faces,
and live that way until they can establish themselves as individuals. Once a year the king may be challenged by a champion, and the winner gets to rule for the following year. Effron
expects Green Arrow, with his learned archery skills, to win the challenge, thereby becoming a king which Effron can control. Superman's "super-vision" reveals that they've been
transported 15,000 years into Earth's past, but when he tries to flee with Green Arrow, Effron makes him vanish. Green Arrow is transported to an arena where he must compete against
King Dextro. Superman finds himself battling against the "Demon of Disease," which he eventually defeats by dunking in water. Green Arrow engages the King in a contest of shooting
flying stone birds with imaginary bows and arrows. Meanwhile, another supernatural creature fogs Superman's mind with ignorance, but Superman escapes this trap, too. Then, the Demon of
Poverty robs Superman of his super powers. Green Arrow battles the King in gladiatorial combat. Ollie downs the king, but as the crowd chants "Kill! Kill!" Ollie tries to give a "Rise up
against your oppressors" speech, only to get konked by the revived king. Powerless, Superman realizes that since magic is the driving force of this realm, anyone can access it. So he
super-absorbs all the magic, becoming the most powerful magic being in the realm, and banishes the demons. Then he takes down Effron and the King with ease. The people rise up --
Effron had kept them in a faceless trance so he could rule over them -- and demand the right to control their own lives, and to punish Effron as is just. After Superman flies them back
through the space-time barrier, Ollie confronts Clark about the recent adventure, accusing Clark of making it all up to dissuade Ollie from running for office (faceless masses, callow rulers,
etc.). Ollie thinks it's all phony-baloney, and vows to run for mayor. He smarts off a lot to Supes as well, but gets the Smallville native to buy him dinner. The end.

Yeah, But Is It Good? It's an entertaining, read, and a fun story, but it could've been so much more. I find that very frustrating. Maggin was brilliant with "What Can One Man Do?" but
this followup backslides considerably from that story, resorting to goofy fantasy conflicts, silly magic, shallow villians and cheap swordplay to carry the story. He tries to use the faceless masses as a metaphore to parallel
modern social conditions and the folly of power-hungry rulers, but the flash-bang of Superman fighting demons or Green Arrow shooting imaginary arrows doesn't cut it. In the end, it's the brute force of Superman's powers that
save the day, not Ollie's idealism or skills or the crowd's desire for life, liberty or the pursuit of happieness. They're all sheep, waiting to be rescued, which pretty much flies in the face of Green Arrow themes. And really, the
setup is pretty contrived -- why would a Metropolis reporter from the East Coast travel to Star City on the West Coast (or even the midwest, as Star City as sometimes been placed) to do a simple stand-up on a mayoral race
that hasn't even begun yet? Be that as it may, I like this story, but as a direct sequal to "What Can One Man Do?" it falls flat.

Significata: Cost: 25¢ for "52 Big Pages! Don't Take Less!" The "hip" modern Clark Kent doesn't work for the Daily Planet (newspapers are so square, man). Ollie and Clark know each other's secret identities. Remember that
magazine Grit? They've got an ad for kids to sell subscriptions in here, so they can win neat prizes. Has anyone ever actually seen a copy of this magazine/newspaper? The backup features here include a "Bureau of Missing
Heroes" feature on Black Pirate (first appearance Action Comics no. 23, April 1940; last appearance All-American no. 102, October 1948) starring in "The Sword of Hate." The other "Bureau of Missing Heroes" backup
features The King (first appearance Flash Comics no. 3, March 1940; last appearance All-Flash no. 13, winter 1944).

The back-up story in GREEN LANTERN # 100 guest-starred Roy Harper and Mayor Jack Major in a tale that picked up the sub-plot from Elliot S! Maggin's debut story, "What Can One Man Do?," in which Oliver Queen decided to run for mayor of Star City. The unresolved plot was strung along into the direct sequel in the Maggin penned tale, "Nothing But A Man." in WORLD'S FINEST #255 (February, 1979). Oliver Queen ran for mayor to replace exiting Mayor Jack Major where he received endorsements from Justice League heroes, until he was taken aside by mobster Thaddeus Cable who revealed he had bought the politician over 20 years. Rather than make a similar deal with the criminal, Green Arrow brought the villain in and Ollie Queen withdrew from the race until Jack Major died of a heart attack despite the Emerald Archer's efforts to resuscitate him.
Oliver Queen lost the election (due unknowingly to massive voting fraud where he would have actually won). Only Dinah Lance and Clark Kent figured out this fact in a recount, but kept the secret from Oliver in this controversial tale because they thought it was best to help the exhausted hero.

Pierce was Sec Ed, yeah, but was he still the fightin-mad liberal he was back in the day, or has he become more conservative with age? (I can't tell from his Outsiders appearance.) I never read any of the President Lex stuff.

Get a good writer on there who knows what he's doing -- my first thought is Greg Rucka, but I'd want him to resist the temptation to bring in crime plots too often -- and you'd be in the top ten every month. You could sell that to people who don't even read DC comics, and what superhero fan hasn't been curious about how superheroes are talked about in Congress, or what bills might be at least proposed -- if not passed -- related to their various issues, not to mention the federal response to the certain knowledge of alien life, the inevitable Senate Committee On Mystical And Supernatural Affairs, the President's Hereditary Powers Watchdog Task Force, etc.? The few times we see things like that, they're just superfolks with contracts.

What the hell were we trading with them? Furs and jailbait in exchange for Kirby dots and brightly colored metals? Who's the Marco Polo on that Silk Road?

Also, that storyline involved a visit from a Kingdom Come like future-Superman, who fought present-Superman in the Batcave, and a composite Superman/Batman giant rocket, which Captain Atom flew into a Kryptonite asteroid headed for Earth.

Or "Mark Millar."

(x-post, ha)

are most people with superman-logo t shirts aware of the existence of underoos?

Kevin Smith, with his note-for-note recreation of legendary comics writer and artist Frank Miller's classic Daredevil stories of the early 1980s.

So I'm not crazy!