Uncollected Editions: Superman Adventures #36-66 (DC Comics)

[A crossover between our “Uncollected Editions” series — where we look at single issues that might’ve made a collection, but never came to be — and guest reviewer Zach King look at DC’s animated tie-in comics collections. Zach writes about movies at The Cinema King and about comics on Instagram at Dr. King’s Comics.]

With thanks to our gracious host, I have spent the better part of 2023 thinking about the DC Animated Universe — as though I wouldn’t otherwise have been thinking about the cartoons of my childhood, which I still find myself queuing up on Max and my (autographed) Blu-Rays. I’ve been looking at the success of the tie-in comics, the occasional creative missteps, and the frequently mind-boggling collection strategies that have struggled to republish everything to a completionist’s satisfaction.

I took some time this past June to consider the ways that DC Comics might approach a more comprehensive collection of this material, sparked in large part by the fact that the reprints of Superman Adventures had stalled halfway through the run — and, it seemed, just when the book was getting really good. Mark Millar was just hitting his stride, while recurring artists Aluir Amancio and Neil Vokes were leaning heavily on the DCAU style sheet and starting to find their own distinctive approaches. Better yet, by the time we made it to issue #35, the book was splitting time between Superman and Clark Kent, between his colorful adversaries and the world they inhabited. It seemed timeless and iconic, in the way these animated books do best.

But then, curtains. Superman: The Animated Series hasn’t been as persistently embraced as its Gotham counterpart, and DC left three volumes worth of content on the collected editions table. Having binge-read my old floppies in the course of three days - approximating, I think, the structure of what those imaginary trades might have been, roughly ten issues a pop — I think I can venture a guess as to why the reprints stalled.

[See the latest DC trade solicitations.]

Reader, these issues aren’t very good. There are some gems in here, and I’ll certainly do my best to draw them out in this column, but by and large Superman Adventures started to unravel with the departure of Mark Millar at issue #38. And we may as well begin there — all told, there are five issues of Millar’s Superman that were uncollected in Superman Adventures.¹ As before, Millar’s issues are among the best; in one slice-of-life, Superman saves the world and still finds time to reunite a little boy and his lost dog, while the next issue revisits the assassin Multi-Face. Then, in what feels like a surprising anticipation of the following year’s Emperor Joker, the Parasite drains Mister Mxyzptlk of his fifth-dimensional powers, proceeding to wreak havoc on Superman’s world. These are, plain and simple, good Superman fun, at least worth a scour through your friendly neighborhood back issue bin.

Somewhat harder to find, at least for a reasonable price, is #41, “22 Stories in a Single Bound.” In what is ostensibly his swan song on Superman Adventures, Millar pens 22 single-page stories about Superman and his supporting cast. Amancio and Vokes participate, but other pages belong to Cameron Stewart, Craig Rousseau, Joe Staton, and Rick Burchett; Philip Bond does a page on Jimmy Olsen, and no less than Darwyn Cooke pops in for a Toyman tale (complete with prison guards who look suspiciously like Paul Dini and Bruce Timm). This issue is the sort of evergreen tale that one might happily find in any anniversary anthology collection, and the creative forces assembled here are frankly staggering. 

Indeed, consider the names DC could plaster on the cover of subsequent collections. We have a few issues from Dan Slott, Dean Motter (of “Mister X” fame), and an Alex Ross cover on #58. Jordan B. Gorfinkel and David Michelinie return, as does Mark Evanier for two Mister Miracle issues that feel like they were written especially for me. Yet so many of the issues, regardless of the creative team, feel indistinct and unmemorable. I lost count of how many times Superman was menaced by a magical artifact or a nondescript alien marooned on earth. And apparently, I wasn’t alone; the letter columns were full of complaints, including this one from PhantomZone in issue #56: “Let’s face it, folks. This title is in dire need of a regular creative team. Since Mark Millar left, the quality of the book has slid … this series needs to get back on track, and the only way that can happen is with a good, regular creative team.”

Without a stable creative team, I do need to revise one of my earlier complaints. I had said that Aluir Amancio and Neil Vokes were often indistinguishable, but in these 30 issues — 16 by Amancio and 10 by Vokes — one can observe these artists coming into themselves. Amancio’s pencils hew less to the style sheet and end up scratchier, almost like an unpainted Francis Manapul (though his Lois Lane is almost always cheesecake in a way that might make even Clay Mann blush). Vokes, meanwhile, runs in the other direction and exaggerates the already cartoony proportions, such that Superman ends up with a chin to rival Jay Leno. One regrets, however, that Darwyn Cooke wasn’t lured into doing more than a single page; having set the tone for Batman Beyond, Cooke would have been a natural fit for the DCAU at large.

Speaking of Batman Beyond, count me among those who would not have expected a guest appearance from Terry McGinnis! Yet in #64, Jordan B. Gorfinkel and Aluir Amancio give us the unlikely team-up between our Superman and the Batman of the future. Gorfinkel wisely spends almost no time (no pun intended) on the temporal shenanigans that made this partnership possible, instead darting headlong into the action and — contrary to what the cover promises — a battle with Brainiac. It’s a fun side excursion, especially given that the animated Batman Beyond comics haven’t truly ever been collected.²

The series then concludes with the two-parter “Power Play.” With the knowledge that the series is ending, returning writers Evan Dorkin and Sarah Dyer (late of Superman Adventures Vol. 3’s “Last Daughter of Argo”) pack in as many villains as the plot can hold, as Lex Luthor conspires with Kanto to trade Livewire to Darkseid in exchange for Apokoliptian weaponry. In another story that feels like it was written for me, Amancio gets to draw nearly every denizen of Apokolips in a tale that forces Luthor to ally with Superman to save the universe. Knowing these characters and especially these incarnations, one can probably guess what might happen if Luthor and Darkseid were to meet, with Luthor discovering that there is ultimately one devil with whom he can’t cut a bargain. It’s such a good final note on which to leave this Luthor that DC’s fits-and-starts digest collections included these two issues in Lex Luthor: Man of Metropolis (2021). (Also in that volume? A two-part DCAU adaptation of “Kryptonite Nevermore” by Dean Motter and Aluir Amancio.) 

But as a send-off for this series, it’s surprisingly powerful to have Livewire take center stage. Throughout the course of Superman Adventures, Livewire has been depowered, knocked out, and rendered comatose, even while making a few good points and quite literally saving the world from Brainiac. Livewire was, lest we forget, an original creation of Superman: The Animated Series, and so Dorkin and Dyer grant her the final word, not the Man of Steel — whose life she saves, once again, cleverly restarting his heart by expending all her powers in a mighty act of defibrillation. “So long, Metropolis!” Livewire exclaims in a triumphant final page splash, “And later for you, Apokolips! Don’t worry, I’ll be in touch! In the meantime, see ya in the funny-papers! Ha ha ha ha ha!”

Of course, Livewire would return. Gail Simone and John Byrne brought her into the main continuity in 2006 (just before Infinite Crisis), while the fab and flashy “Batgirl of Burnside” era saw Livewire introduced to the New 52 as a snarky vlogger. She’s not Harley Quinn, but she’s close. Superman and Darkseid, meanwhile, would carry over into Justice League and Justice League Unlimited, while Clancy Brown is still cashing checks as the definitive voice of Lex Luthor.

Yet in 30 issues, there is more bad than good, fewer indelible classics than in the 35 that preceded them; in the case of many of these issues, the only strong argument for collecting them is simply to have them collected for completionists like you and me. But for a dozen or so issues, the uncollected half of Superman Adventures proves why we remember the DCAU after all these years, why we still cling to these interpretations of the characters — not only because of how elegantly they encapsulate these characters, but more because they remind us how it felt to be a kid again.

It’s been fun to go back to these comics, which were so important to me as a child. As I looked at them with fresh, slightly jaded, and better-informed eyes, I felt I understood them better, appreciated them beyond just a surface-level enjoyment. In this time of superhero fatigue, when my superhero movies just don’t seem to be as good as they used to be, when my weekly pull list is starting to feel more like homework than a genuine joy, these DCAU comics have reminded me that comics can be good and should be good, that there is an art to creating something indelible amid this disposable medium. Even now, when #ItsAllConnected, it doesn’t always need to be; there is just as much power in a meditative final splash page as in a year-long crossover saga, as much joy in one page of Darwyn Cooke as you’d find in a whole omnibus from someone else.

As my comics collection swells beyond the capabilities of any one moving van, I’ve been weeding out floppies and trades alike, catching duplicates and bidding farewell to books I never plan to read again. Yet, despite owning tattered floppies, trade collections, and very probably the forthcoming (at the time) Batman Adventures Omnibus, there’s a reason that I have never been able to part with these animated tie-in comics. These are my holy grails. These were the comics that got me into comics. And, when my tank is running low, these are the comics that keep me in comics. Even if my triplicate copies were to vanish, I don’t think these comics would ever leave me. For as much as I love Batman and Grant Morrison, Dan Jurgens and the Triangle Era, my Batman and Superman will always look like their DCAU counterparts: square-jawed diamond absolutes, pristine and perfect.

Thanks again to Collected Editions for indulging what started life as two reviews about The Adventures Continue and ballooned into sixteen. Thanks to all of you, for reading along and sharing how much these comics mean to you. And thank you, one more time, to Kevin Conroy, the voice and soul of this entire project. In a Cameo video shared online shortly after his passing, Kevin summed it up best: “You don’t have to have superpowers to want to give to the people in your life, to want to leave the world a better place. All you have to do is care enough to try.”

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1. Two of them, #36 and #52, surfaced in 2018’s Superman by Mark Millar. Issue #52 also saw print in the digest-sized Supergirl Adventures in 2021.  ↩︎

2. The first six issues of Batman Beyond were, of course, originally collected in 2000, but despite a long-running tradition of comics in the main continuity (more or less), the animated tie-ins have languished in uncollected limbo — not counting, however, the “100-Page Spectacular” from 2010 that repackaged four issues from the middle of the 30-issue run.  ↩︎