Favorite Superman Pastiches/Homages?

[Dispenser Of Truth]

As it says on the tin. From movies, comics, novels, anything. Just say who and why.

For myself (I'm not including Captain Marvel or his derivatives such as Miracleman, or guys like Tom Strong who I think are more Doc Savage than anything else, but feel free to include them yourself):

Honorable Mentions

Hyperion (from Hickman's Avengers): An interesting take on Superman-as-alien that's been enormously lucky enough to be shepherded by Hickman and Ewing, but needs more material to be really fleshed out. He's been featured in the All-New, All-Different Marvel promotions, so hopefully he'll get it.

Supreme: I love Moore and Ellis' Supreme as comics, but the dude's a cypher.

Sun God: It kills me to put this guy outside of the favorites, because his something like 20 pages total speaking screentime is some of the best Superman stuff of the decade by leaps and bounds. But he's nothing but a straight Superman rip, who only works in the context of crossovers with other Marvel characters, same as Morrison's Retaliators don't bring anything to the table but being Avengers-type heroes for DC heroes to run into. Though I'd be fine if the Great Society was brought back by the end of Secret Wars (there were some questions left unresolved with them) to serve just that purpose in the future.

Superior: Same as Supreme, simple character but I loved the story he was in.

Samaritan: He largely boils down to one gimmick - how overworked IS Superman? - but it's a solid one, and one Kurt Busiek sells the hell out of, because Kurt Buisek.

Astonishman: What little of him there was in End League was an interesting take on Superman's morality contrasting with his attempts at understanding humanity.

Sentry: Cool in the first story and apparently in Age of the Sentry, but I don't think I have to explain why he makes the cut.

Omniman: He's a great character, but his status as a Superman-analogue plays the least part in that.

David Brinkley: He couldn't really fit in any story but Superfolks, but he worked great in there.

Apollo: Not much to him, but he's nice. I like him, and he's sweet with Midnighter.

Favorites

Blue Marvel: He started a great idea (What if Marvel had a Superman-type during the 60s to fill the place in the sliding timeline where their heroes originally went...but he was black, and the public couldn't take it?) and became a great character under Al Ewing (Silver Age Superman coming out of retirement, only not joining and likely leading the Avengers because A. He's a Man Of The People and isn't comfortable with the "we know best, let the little things slide" moral indiscretions we as readers often overlook in the big-name characters, and B. Because the stuff he routinely deals with is TOO BIG for them, and that's why we as readers see comparatively little of him, because he has much bigger things to worry about than just New York). He's easily Marvel's best Superman-analogue: he embodies the most basic ideas of Superman in a way bent just enough to fit this other universe, and then goes off far enough to become his own, great character. That he's Marvel's one Thor/Hulk/Sentry tier black character doesn't hurt his cause either.

The Crusader: From the webcomic "Love and Capes", he's just a fun, likeable guy in a fun, likeable comic.

The High: Warren Ellis doing Golden Age Superman ready to change the world, and the center of the best "superheroes try and fix everything but it goes wrong" story I've read, particularly in that it doesn't pander and short-change the point by having the revolutionary heroes turn out to all be murderous despots or simply delusional. Sold by the fact that Ellis does clearly actually like Superman.

Atomicus: One of my favorite Astro City stories, basically 20-odd pages of calling out Silver Age Superman and Lois Lane as the emotionally damaged children that they were.

Plutonian: The best Evil Superman, absolutely bar none.

Doc Thunder: A Golden Age Superman/Tom Strong mashup with a sprinkling of the best bits from other eras of Superman in the larger steampunk/pulp/alternate history Pax Britannia series of novels by Jonathan Greene (though Doc's appearances, of which I've only read one of the two, are by Al Ewing), he achieves the same feat as Blue Marvel of standing for all the things we think of Superman as fundamentally having to, while still working perfectly as a character in his own right. He's got a lot of twists to differentiate him (such as being in a polyamorous relationship with the immortal jungle goddess Maya, Queen of the Leopard Man, and the deformed but super-strong genius Monk), but any questions about his living up to his namesake can probably be put to rest by this excerpt (it's long, but the whole thing is perfect):

"Doc was still wearing the shirt. It peeked out from the open lab coat - a light blue t-shirt with a yellow lighting bolt pointing down and to the left. The symbol of the Resistance against McCarthy, in '54. It still meant something, even now. A lot of people flew it from office buildings instead of the old flag, although the stars and stripes still got wheeled out on state occasions.
"John had been right. Doc's job wasn't exploring lost continents or fighting insane scientists. It was just standing up and doing the right thing, and being seen doing it. Because there were a lot of folks who didn't, and the more of those there were, the more the average Joe might start thinking that he didn't have a chance, that the only way to play the game and win was to play it with no rules at all, golden or otherwise. Screw the little guy, stamp him down. Hate the different ones. Why not? They're Them and you're Us and spitting on them might make you more Us, might win you some power. Tell any lie that'll serve your purpose, print them and distribute them to the people while swearing you only speak truth. Believe what you're told without question, or shrug, because what can you do? What can anybody do? The bastards run the world, we just have to live in it. What can you do?
"Keep thinking that way and soon you're looking in the paper at an article that says they're building a camp on the edge of town for all the people who are bad for the country, or bad for the company, there's no real difference anyway, and just keep looking the other way a little longer, friends, just keep nodding along, just keep shrugging, whatever, you're not in danger, you're one of Us and nobody's ever going to come for you, pal. Promise.
"It couldn't happen here, is what we're saying.
"Would we lie to you?
"Doc knew where that road ended. He had seen it with his own eyes.
"So he wore his beliefs on his chest, and he always tried to do the right thing, and when he needed to stand up, he stood up. And because he was who he was, everybody saw it. And maybe somebody took a look at him and realized they could question what they heard, or they could step in when they saw something bad happening, or they could just try and treat people just a little better. Maybe just one person looked at him that day and thought: I should start trying.
"That was Doc Thunder's job."

[manduck37]

As a longtime reader of Astro City, I love Samaritan. Using him as the kick off for the series, where he imagines actually being able to fly and enjoy it rather than going to an emergency, really showed me that AC was a different and special book. I always enjoy seeing him in an AC comic. I also enjoyed the play on the Batman/Superman dynamic they did recently with Confessor and Samaritan.

I'll throw in a mention for Supreme too. When Moore was really rolling with Supreme it was a lot of fun. I especially liked the stylistic decision to have all the flashbacks look like Silver Age comics. So much good stuff in there.

I always liked Apollo too. It's a shame he's not around much anymore and that he's not with Midnighter. Though I did enjoy hearing how Midnighter talked about him in Midnighter #1.

[Hopeful Hero]

For me that award goes to Supreme Alan Moore's run. The moment I read the first trade I immediately fell in love with it especially with all the homages it played to the Superman mythos. From Darius Dax (Luthor), Supremium (krytonite), Diana Dane (Lois Lane) all of it was just funny and heartfelt which makes me wish Alan Moore still had a working relationship with DC so he could make more Superman stories.

[UltraWoman]

I'll ditto the Crusader from "Love and Capes."

[STC]

Im a fan of Majestic!

[Jon Clark]

Victor from the 1980's Hero Alliance book sticks with me. The guy came off most of the time as a generic Superman- most powerful hero, ultra-moralistic, etc; But the twist was that his powers were not physical and even the character was unaware of that fact. His abilities were actually tied to wishing and belief. The character believed he had certain powers and therefore those powers manifested. The one example was that he had been given a secret base with a verbal passcode- he had been told the wrong passcode but it worked anyway ... even after the mechanics of the door had broken down over the decades. They never clearly explained it but the basic concept fit well. If he got KOed in one situation but not a similar one it could be explained that his mindset was different in each situation. Maybe he was doubting himself. Maybe he expected to shrug off a lightning strike but assumed the same level of power from a certain weapon should effect him.

Another member of his team had a power of being super-alluring and it was strongly hinted that although neither knew it they were siblings. He took in the desires of others to do things like fly or be superstrong then manifested them while she tapped into sexual desire and embodied that. The series ended before we got either of them suspecting the connection or more than vague hints of either's origin.

[Johnny Thunders!]

The most obvious one is Billy Batson Captain Marvel, DC thought it was too much of a homage. After that, Hyperion from Marvel. Anytime the Avengers wanted to have Thor humiliate Superman, Hyperion was called in to be the punching bag. Squadron Supreme by Mark Gruenwald is must read because it not only features a Superman pastiche, but it also anticipates Kingdom Come and Marvel's Civil War. It came out around the time of Watchmen and I think it shares many of the same themes.


Speaking of the Avengers, Jim Shooter's Count Nefaria unleashed a Superman type on the Avengers and it really spoke to how powerful Bronze Age Superman was by comparison to other comic book powerhouses. DC's heroes in the Silver Age were Looney Tunes in terms of how far they could go with their use of power, comic book power.

[LifeIsILL]

Sentry is my favorite, even though his origin is GODAWFUL.

Galactus should be up there too....his origin is a rip-off of Superman's.

[t hedge coke]

The High really works for me. That line about farmers being political, as the son of sharecroppers, that strikes a resonant chord with me. And, I love that he took all that time out to think things through and then what he's undone by is essentially trust and naivete, anyway. Looking for the essential goodness in essentially not good people.

And, Jakita Wagner in Planetary being a Superman riff (sent out from a dying world of supermen to be raised by farmers to become a super-strong do-gooder) was nicely done. Who doesn't love Jakita? (Planetary had three or four Superman riffs and they were all great for different reasons.)

Sentry is my favorite, even though his origin is GODAWFUL.

I love the Sentry and his ever-convoluting origin. At least, under Jenkins. I like that the Void makes up the Sentry because he disturbs himself.

[Prime]

Goku

Lol no really Goku. Besides him I'm not really sure.

[dumbduck]

Goku

Lol no really Goku. Besides him I'm not really sure.

Yeah. Toriyama even copied the time pocket training room!


http://www.superherostuff.com/blog/c...-muhammad-ali/

DC. See this? Give Superman back his due. His intellect, his cosmicness, his 'magic'. Either eliminate K and Red Sun. Or bring back his cosmicness. K + Red Sun minus the good parts of the silver age makes absolutely no sense.

Galactus should be up there too....his origin is a rip-off of Superman's.

Galactus, really? I had no idea. I'll have to google it. How the heck did he become a giant forkhead?

[Tony]

Victor from the 1980's Hero Alliance book sticks with me. The guy came off most of the time as a generic Superman- most powerful hero, ultra-moralistic, etc; But the twist was that his powers were not physical and even the character was unaware of that fact. His abilities were actually tied to wishing and belief. The character believed he had certain powers and therefore those powers manifested. The one example was that he had been given a secret base with a verbal passcode- he had been told the wrong passcode but it worked anyway ... even after the mechanics of the door had broken down over the decades. They never clearly explained it but the basic concept fit well. If he got KOed in one situation but not a similar one it could be explained that his mindset was different in each situation. Maybe he was doubting himself. Maybe he expected to shrug off a lightning strike but assumed the same level of power from a certain weapon should effect him.

Another member of his team had a power of being super-alluring and it was strongly hinted that although neither knew it they were siblings. He took in the desires of others to do things like fly or be superstrong then manifested them while she tapped into sexual desire and embodied that. The series ended before we got either of them suspecting the connection or more than vague hints of either's origin.

I really loved that series as a kid. Still have the whole thing packed away. you've made me want to dig it out and reread it. Art was so great on that book. Looking forward to seeing more in the writing now that I'm not 13.

[Johnny Thunders!]

The Galactus origin reminds me of Superman as well.

[Lorendiac]

Not counting outright parodies/alternate-universe versions (such as "Super-Squirrel of the Just'a Lotta Animals (JLA)," who once teamed up with the Zoo Crew), I think my two top favorites are Victor of Hero Alliance and the Alan Moore version of Supreme. I might add Kurt Busiek's Samaritan to the list if I'd seen him be the central character of more stories. I bought his first appearance (first issue of the original "Astro City" series) when it came out, and was powerfully impressed by it. (In part because it addressed some of my own long-running pet peeves about the way Superman was usually written in his DC titles.)

[Last Son of Krypton]

Supreme Power/Squadron Supreme's Mark Milton/Hyperion is my favorite. JMS should've continued with that character instead of coming to write Superman for DC.