Blast from the Past: Up, Up and Away! It's Superman!

Man of Steel--the latest live-action version of Superman has been out for about a month and made over about $620 million worldwide. Oddly, some movie geeks think that's a lackluster performance. It also got some mediocre professional reviews, but has been generally loved by the public, so go figure. One thing it did is cast a huge shadow over every previous version of Supes, and there have been a lot of them. The Metropolis of Man of Steel for example, is so enormous that even though there is more destruction than has ever happened outside of an atomic bomb blast, 95% of it was left standing! It sort of made Superman II's destruction scenes look puny by comparison.

But as a long-time comics fan, particularly DC Comics and Superman, I'm notoriously easy to please, and like just about any version, cheesy or not. Here is a sampling of each edition I was able to find.

1. Superman (1948) - Movie serial starring Kirk Alyn and Noel Neill
2. Adventures of Superman (1952-1958) - Syndicated TV series, starring George Reeves

3. Superman: The Movie (1978) - Movie starring Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder
4. Superman II (1980) - Movie starring Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder



5. Superman III (1983) - Mostly bad movie starring Christopher Reeve and Richard Pryor
6. Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987) - Horrible, cheap movie starring Christopher Reeve



7. Adventures of Superboy (1988-1992) - Syndicated TV Series where Clark is Superboy for (somehow) several years), starring Gerard Christopher, who replaced John Haymes Newton
8. Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (1993-1997) - ABC TV series, starring Dean Cain and Terri Hatcher



9. Smallville (2001-2011) - WB/CW TV series, where Superboy stays a teenaged boy for way, way too long
10. Superman Returns (2006) - Quasi-sequel to Superman II, ignoring III and IV (wisely), and pleasing nobody except me, who kinda liked it




And that brings us up to the present, with Man of Steel, but since it's a month old, I can still put it on Blast from the Past, I guess. Any excuse to feature the incredible Henry Cavill. Sigh. . .



And yes, I'm aware that all of this would have made more sense a month ago. But it's been a weird couple of weeks folks! Hope you liked it, and hope you have a great week. Happy Monday!

Blast from the Past: Live Action Superheros!

All right, I've had kind of a full weekend, so I'm resorting to a rerun from a year and a half ago. Chances are, you haven't seen it, so it's new to you. . .right? And it's kind of apropos since we're in a political season again. Thanks!

ORIGINAL POST (from October 18, 2010):

This week, I almost did a "classic political ads" theme for Blast from the Past. But, geeze, I'm a little tired of political ads, aren't you? I mean here in Nevada, we're being absolutely bombarded with them.  I already early voted, enough!  We know, Harry Reid is evil according to Sharron Angle, and vice-versa. Anyway, I was stuck for a theme.  Last week, I did Saturday morning cartoons. So this time, how about live-action superheroes? They were always a favorite of mine, but you may have forgotten a couple of these. . .








1. Automan - How's this one for obscure? Obviously inspired by Tron, this one didn't last too long, probably because the pretty girl didn't have much to do. But with Desi Arnaz, Jr. and Chuck Wagner, I didn't even notice there was a girl. Ahem.
2. The Amazing Spider-Man - This 70s version of Spider-Man was low-budget, and you just can't do much with Spidey on a low-budget. The leotard just looked ridiculous. The webs were worse.
3. Wonder Woman - The classic Lynda Carter show's first season had a very comic-book flavored intro, obviously inspired by Batman. They kept tweaking it, and disco-fying it when they moved the series into the 70s from the 40s. This is my favorite version.
4. Batman - No live-action TV superhero retrospective would be complete without this one.
5. The Incredible Hulk - This show ran for most of its existence sandwiched between Wonder Woman and The Dukes of Hazzard. It was better than either, though maybe not as fun.
6. The Greatest American Hero - This theme worked for describing the hapless hero's cluelessness, and also as a love song for a guy who doesn't feel worthy. Loved the show too.
7. The Flash - I really liked this show. Too bad it only got a season. There's a movie in the works, though!
8. Shazam! - They couldn't call the show Captain Marvel due to legal reasons, and they changed Cap's back-story too much, but I never missed an episode! It was basically a ham-fisted "lesson of the week" after school special kind of show, with a superhero. If they ever do a Shazam! movie--and do it right--it will be awesome.

Happy Monday everybody!