Now I am swinging around to catching up on another set of reviews: those of my ongoing read-through of DC's post-Golden Age JSA-centric comic books. That begins with this, a story which somehow belongs in the DC universe despite predating it...
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| Originally published: 1930 Read: March 2021 |
In The Young All-Stars, Roy and Dann Thomas created the character of Arn "Iron Munro" Munro, who was eventually revealed to be the son of Hugo Danner. Danner is the protagonist of Philip Wylie's 1930 sf novel Gladiator, seen by some as forerunner of Superman. We don't know that Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster read Gladiator or anything, but there are some resonances between their novel and the earlier conceptions of Superman. The Thomases literalized this possible debt in-universe by making the character of Hugo Danner a forerunner and progenitor of the superheroes of the 1930s and '40s. Gladiator is in the public domain and thus on Project Gutenberg, so I figured I would read it upon finishing Young All-Stars.
I'll be honest, though, I was curious but did not have high expectations. The Hugo Danner stuff was some of my least favorite material in Young All-Stars, and the only thing I knew Philip Wylie from was that he co-wrote the novel When Worlds Collide, which I haven't read... but I have seen the absolutely awful 1951 film.
But it was really good! Wylie charts the life of Hugo Danner in exhaustive detail, from outsider childhood to college football star to war hero and beyond. Wylie gets how to write good science fiction, which is that he simultaneously shows you something new and cool and it's a metaphor for something old. This is a pretty grounded and realistic take on what it would be like to be a "superman," I think; it almost reads like a riff on superheroes except it came before them! It reminds me of some of those 1990s/2000s comics about what it "really" be like to have superpowers, except not needlessly brutal as those sometimes were.
Yet it's also something we can all empathize with: not fitting in. Hugo struggles to find his place in the world from boyhood on, and constantly realizes that the connections he does have turn out to be more superficial than he thought. The story of his time at college, especially his summer vacation, was one of my favorite parts, and the description of his involvement in the futility of World War I is probably the book's best part. There's a lot of quiet and thoughtful characterization here in what was a quick and energetic read.
Indeed, I ended the whole experience thinking that Roy Thomas had really done Hugo Danner dirty in The Young All-Stars. The adaptation of this story in Young All-Stars #10-11 communicates none of its power. Danner deserved better than becoming a mediocre villain in a mediocre storyline.
(Thomas had actually previously adapted Gladiator in a different comic back in 1976, which I'll circle back to read now that I've finally written up Gladiator. I am curious to see what I think of that take.)
- All Star Comics: Only Legends Live Forever (1976-79)
- The Huntress: Origins (1977-82)
- All-Star Squadron (1981-87)
- Infinity, Inc.: The Generations Saga, Volume One (1983-84)
- Infinity, Inc.: The Generations Saga, Volume Two (1984-85)
- Showcase Presents... Power Girl (1978)
- America vs. the Justice Society (1985)
- Jonni Thunder, a.k.a. Thunderbolt (1985)
- Crisis on Multiple Earths, Volume 7 (1983-85)
- Infinity, Inc. #11-53 (1985-88) [reading order]
- Last Days of the Justice Society of America (1986-88)
- All-Star Comics 80-Page Giant (1999)
- Steel, the Indestructible Man (1978)
- Superman vs. Wonder Woman: An Untold Epic of World War Two (1977)
- Wonder Woman: Earth-Two (1977-78)
- Secret Origins of the Golden Age (1986-89)
- The Young All-Stars (1987-89)
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