Episode #87 (Superman & Superboy)
Russell’s Comic Brag
Showcase Presents: Challengers Of The Unknown, Volume 1
SORRY ONCE AGAIN FOR THE DELAY!!
I am once again in the podcasting chair..at least for this episode. Today, we will be going through DC Comics Presents #87. The episode begins with some Listener Feedback, followed by a consecutive-episode edition of Russell’s Comic Brag. Next, a Spotlight on Superman‘s Guest, the Superboy from Earth-Prime. After that, and for the first time in a long time, we have two stories to go through in our issue; DC Comics Presents #87. The show closes with a trip to the Comic Spinner Rack.
The DC Comics Presents Show 
Another fun episode. I remember this story (Since they’re so closely linked, I consider both “Year of the Comet” and “The Origin of Superboy-Prime” to be two parts of the same story.) pretty well, although from your coverage, I found something I hadn’t noticed when I first read it back in 1985. Writer Elliot S! Maggin stole from himself in writing it! When you read the dialogue between Superman and Superboy, as Superman was forming the tidal wave into a waterspout to pull it up into the sky, so he and Superboy could both use their heat vision on it, Superman says something about spinning out “like a ski racer missing a gate”. Maggin used exactly those same words in his 1981 novel, Miracle Monday (“Then, suddenly, like a ski racer missing a gate, he spun out into the open sky.”), as Superman pulled a tidal wave into a water spout up into the sky so he could evaporate the water high in the sky. Almost the same situation; almost identical words. I thought this was interesting.
I must say, although I love your coverage of this time in DC history, it saddens me a bit to think back to these “Crisis on Infinite Earths” tie-ins, because I now know what would come, and I didn’t like it then, and I still don’t like it much, even now. As I’ve mentioned before, I think the whole “Crisis” was a solution to a non-existent problem, and, by now, much of it has been undone through various reboots and retcons, so it’s even more pointless. I’m an old-guy, Silver/early Bronze Age fan (Someone once called me a “fan-pa”, a play on “fanboy” and “grandpa”, I think.), and I don’t think the Powers-That-Be at DC/Warner care about my opinions or desires, but I sometimes wish that old pre-Crisis continuity could have just, you know, … continued. *Sigh* It ain’t gonna happen, but it’s nice to imagine.
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