SUPERBMAN

SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE (1978)
dir: Richard Donner

Yesterday, MAD's versions, now, the rest...

Crazy #50, May 1979
w: Murad Gumen
a: Kent Gamble

On the planet Krypton, Jor-El (Marlon Brando) warns everyone that Krypton will be destroyed by their sun and they ignore him.

Before Krypton is destroyed, Jor-El and Lara (Susannah York) send their only son to Earth. He lands in Smallville where he's discovered by Jonathan (Glenn Ford) and Martha Kent (Phyllis Thaxter). The baby lifts the truck and saves Jonathan from being crushed from it while changing it.

Marlon Brando only appears at the beginning for fifteen minutes and gets top billing, and was paid three million dollars, more than any actor was ever paid up to that point.

They decide to keep him and call him Clark. He hides his superhuman strength from the others in his school. One day after his father has died, Clark discovers a green crystal from the ship he landed in, leading him to the arctic where he created a Fortress of Solitude sees an image of his father telling him he is there to do good. Clark (Christopher Reeve) moves to Metropolis (which is an exact duplicate of New York City with a World Trade Center and Statue of Liberty) and gets a job at the Daily Planet, a newspaper run by Perry White (Jackie Cooper) and forms a friendship with Lois Lane (Margot Kidder), and meets Jimmy Olsen (Marc McClure).

Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman as Woodward and Bernstein are in the background.

Clark performs a number of good deeds. At the Daily Planet, Perry White demands one of the reporters gets an inside scoop on this Superman. Lois has a mystery date with someone who turns out to be Superman, who she interviews. Meanwhile, Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman), at his home underneath Grand Central Station, has plotted a scheme with his girlfriend Eve Teschmacher (Valerie Perrine).

Movie critic Rex Reed makes a cameo in the movie.

After Lois' interview with Superman, he flies her around Metropolis. Lex's plan has been bungled by his assistant Otis (Ned Beatty) and Eve needs to fix it. He has bought up all the vacant land in California east of the San Andreas fault and has reprogrammed a test missile so that it will cause earthquakes in Western California and make his land the new coastline, and therefore prime real estate. There is another missile which has been reprogrammed to destroy New Jersey. Lex Luthor has lured Superman into his lair by broadcasting a warning to Superman at a frequency only he can hear, and Clark hears it while in a meeting with his boss. Once Superman gets there, Lex shows he has found the last remaining piece of Kryptonite which will weaken and kill him. Eve has a change of heart since her mother is in New Jersey, and saves Superman.

Superman flies west where he stops the missile from destroying the California coastline and averts disasters that cause major damages there. All is saved except for Lois, who was on assignment and swallowed up by the fault line and killed. Superman is upset that he couldn't have stopped it. The voice of Jor-El reminds him that he can't use his powers to alter history, but the voice of his adopted father tells him to use his powers to do the right thing. He flies backwards around the earth to go back in time, saving Lois and stopping the missiles from being misdirected in the first place. Then he brings Lex and Otis to prison.

Crazy also ran this in the same issue, written by Paul Laikin under his daughter-in-law's name, and illustrated by Walter Brogan.

This was probably meant as a cover of that issue as well, but used for a later one.

SUPED-UP MAN: THE SATIRE
Cracked #160, July 1979
a: John Severin

This was only very loosely based on the movie.

From If Gary Coleman Played Other Parts in the next issue, also by John Severin, when they were parodying many of the same TV shows and movies over and over again.

Lou Grant had his own TV show at that point.

The Brazilian and German editions of Cracked also reprinted the Superman parody.

SHLEPPERMAN: THE MOVIE
Sick #128, August 1979
w: Arnold Drake
a: Jack Sparling

Rona Barrett was the main figure for Hollywood gossip and entertainment at that time.

There was a plot point at the beginning where Jor-El (Marlon Brando) has sentenced Zod (Terence Stamp), Ursa (Sarah Douglas), and Non (Jack O'halloran) to the Phantom Zone. It had nothing to do with anything until the sequel, maybe because both were filmed at the same time and they thought that might be in this.

Lois Lane is on assignment and goes into a helicopter which goes out of control and leaves her on the edge of a building, rescued by Superman.

Yeah, I crossed out a slur only because it might set off a trigger for some people, but you can tell what it is by the context of the joke. Underneath the desk is Herve Villechaise, famous for being a little person.