The sixty-fourth comic: #88 Superman

Looking through the list of comics left to do, it seemed to make sense to tackle another superhero. Superman was the obvious choice - the first major one that still resonates today and the first the list explicitly defines as a superhero comic rather than an action comic. Even so, with Captain America it was hard to narrow down what to read. Here, however, the list helped by calling out three additional arcs that were spread around different times the comic was around.

So we started at the beginning, with Superman as an action hero. Not having the patriotic background of Captain America means the stories were more interesting from the start, with a set cast, even if Lois Lane doesn't come across as strong. Still, it was interesting if not as engaging long term.

The sixty-fifth comic: #211 Death of Superman

So we jumped to the sixties, with what feels like the first event story line. All throughout these, each comic book contained multiple stories - three to four, depending on book length - which is even the case in the issues surrounding this. But here, the entire book is devoted to a what-if scenario: What if Superman died? How would people react? There are plenty of cameos and continuity references and it's a neat story.

There's a second arc by the same name, published in the nineties, where Superman actually dies. It's a fifty-part story (or so), spread out across multiple lines. Everything is more updated - Lois Lane is the better reporter, Jimmy Olsen is more interesting and on the whole the world feels richer, with characters that are flawed and have trouble. It's quite good, with the three decades showing story telling came on with leaps and bounds.

The sixty-sixth comic: #725 Superman For All Seasons

Superman For All Seasons is a bit later, and is the first standalone arc - set in a similar world, but telling its own story. The way it's set up, following seasons (both in the world and metaphorically) makes sense and gets predictive - spring being Superman's blossoming, summer his growth to be a hero, autumn being his fall (nicely foreshadowed) and leading to a winter of accepting the fall and moving on. Rather than filling it with action, it's contemplative, with a lot of conversations and a deliberation of what you can do. It's really well executed and emotional, and it feels, again, like it's pushed the story telling even further.

The sixty-seventh comic: #871 All Star Superman

The relatively recent standalone series draws on a lot of past Superman characters - it feels like it contains a lot of callbacks to older series. The twelve books become twelve stories with a larger arc in the background that starts playing. Again, the relationships Superman has get examined more than the action sequences, even if this has some good ones, and how he interacts with Lois Lane is the most important. It's interesting how she's developed and how this defines the times - from a damsel in distress who tries to do well but is always beaten by Clark Kent, to always beating him out. His cowardice in the early issues becomes clusiness later, all of which make him into a more interesting character that fits in with a more modern definition of the character. But mainly, he's a lot more complex, dealing with the consequences of his actions in these last two stories, and how he inspires everyone else. All Star Superman especially doesn't shirk from showing consequences, and it makes for an amazing read.