SUPERDUPERMAN

SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE (1978)
dir: Richard Donner

MAD #208, July 1979
w: Larry Siegel
a: Mort Drucker

On the planet Krypton, Jor-El (Marlon Brando) has sentenced Zod (Terence Stamp), Ursa (Sarah Douglas), and Non (Jack O'Halloran) to the Phantom Zone, in a plot point that has 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. He also warns everyone that Krypton will be destroyed by their sun and they ignore him.

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.

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 Ford pick-up has a license plate that says “Glenn”. You get it?

The baby lifts the truck and saves Jonathan from being crushed from it while changing it. 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 sees an image of his father telling him he is there to do good.

The “invest in plastics” line may be a quote from The Graduate, or maybe just a joke about something a relative might say.

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). As they are leaving his first day of work, they are mugged and he tries to conceal his identity even after he's shot and bullets bounce off him. Lois is later on an assignment that night and flies off in a helicopter that gets caught in a wire and throws her out onto the edge of a skyscraper.

Clark now turns into Superman and saves Lois, then stops a number of crimes and performs good deeds. Lois has a mystery date with someone who turns out to be Superman, who she interviews and he then takes her on a tour of Manhattan Metropolis.

Meanwhile, Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman), at his home underneath Grand Central Station, has plotted a scheme with his girlfriend Eve Teschmacher (Valerie Perrine) and assistant Otis (Ned Beatty). 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, and Lex 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.

Screenwriter Mario Puzo, director Richard Donner, and producers Alexander and Ilya Salkind are caricatured in the last panel

Don Martin's take was in that issue as well, and he did the back cover.

SUPERDUPERMAN !
MAD #4, April/May 1953
w: Harvey Kurtzman
a: Wallace Wood

This was MAD's first comic book parody, which apparently caused confusion among audiences who didn't realize it was supposed to be a parody.

DC sued Fawcett for trademark infringement over Captain Marvel and won, essentially putting them out of business. Captain Marvel wasn't really that similar, it was just Superman's biggest competition. DC might not have won today since the court of public opinion wasn't always a thing then.

SCENES THAT NEVER MADE IT INTO THE SUPERMAN MOVIE
Bananas #29, c. 1979
w & a: Murad Gumen

There actually was more than one comic where Baby Superman was too strong to be spanked.

Saturday Night Live did their parody of the movie when Margot Kidder hosted. Who knew back then that the Ant-Man movie would be more popular than the Superman remake.

Even though Pizzazz was published by DC's main competition, they still had to cover it.

Tomorrow, the Cracked, Crazy, and Sick parodies.