Flashback Friday: Kal-El's (and Kal-L's) Name

Each Friday, I take one of the entries from my old Super Posts and expand it into its own featured article.

This week: Kal-El's name (and Kal-L's)!

Everyone knows Superman debuted in Action Comics #1 (April 1938), and that's where his origin was told for the first time. What many people don't realize is how bare-bones the origin was at the time. A scientist on a dying planet sent his infant son into space, where he landed on Earth, grew up as Clark Kent, and used his superpowers as Superman.

All of that is still accurate today, but it's missing a lot of detail. Luckily, Superman became very popular very quickly, so in January 1939, a Superman comic strip started - which, incidentally, was Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster's preferred format for Superman in the first place (the first Superman story was simply the first 38 strips they had produced when they were shopping the character around). This new strip allowed them a do-over, so it started with a more detailed origin, where we learn the baby's name is Kal-L in the first strip ("Superman Comes to Earth").

Superman's origin was re-told again when he got his own series (Superman #1, April 1939), but it didn't include the baby's Kryptonian name.

Soon after, Superman got a radio adaptation and one of the radio show's writers, George Lowther, wrote a book called The Adventures of Superman (1942). In this re-telling of his origin, his name is spelled "Kal-el" for the first time. I couldn't find proof of that, but here is an image from the book of "Jor-el" being spelled the same way.

Surprisingly, the spelling "Kal-El" (with or without a capital) wouldn't appear in comics until Superman #113 (March 1957).

Over time, it was established that one of the differences between Earth-One and Earth-Two is Kryptonian naming conventions, with Earth-One using "-El" and Earth-Two using "-L". The name "Kal-L" would appear as the birthname of the Superman of Earth-Two in Action Comics #484 (April 1978).

In the New 52, the primary Earth's Superman is still called Kal-El, but Earth-2's Superman is also called Kal-El. However, the Pre-Crisis Earth-Two's Superman is still known as Kal-L when he appears (such as in Convergence: Action Comics #1, April 2015).

Flashback Friday: Krypton's Name

Each Friday, I take one of the entries from my old Super Posts and expand it into its own featured article.

This week: Krypton's Name!

Krypton first appeared as a nameless "distant planet" in Action Comics #1 (April 1938)...

...but was given a name in the first Superman daily strip, "The Superman is Born" (part 1 of Episode 1:"Superman Comes to Earth", January 1939).

It later appeared in the retelling of Superman's origin in Superman #1 (April 1939).

And, of course, it's been a part of Superman's origin ever since...with one exception that I know of. Superman: Red Son (spoiler alert) has Superman hail from a far future Earth. Of course, it also makes Kal-L a distant, distant descendant of Lex Luthor, so it's kind of just doing it's own thing. Every other version of his origin, from comics retellings to adaptations, has him come from Krypton.

Flashback Friday: Sgt. Casey

Each Friday, I take one of the entries from my old Super Posts and expand it into its own featured article.

This week: Sgt. Casey!

Sergeant Casey is a Metropolis police that doesn't trust Superman and is constantly trying to catch him doing something illegal.  He first appeared in the Superman newspaper strip (Episode 14: "The Unknown Strikes", May 1940). Ironically, Lois calls him their "old friend" in his first appearance.

He quickly made the jump to comics in Superman #6 (July 1940) and became a mainstay of Earth-2 Superman stories. Over time he got promoted to lieutenant, and he made his final appearance in Superman Family #219 (April 1982).

A police officer named Casey was mentioned in Action Comics #1 (September 2011), but unfortunately hasn't been seen since.

Spider-Man's Marriage

This is one of those tricky ones where an idea was created for an adaptation, then they decided to introduce the idea in the comics as well, before the idea appeared in the adaptation. What makes this trickier is that they tried to have the two storylines coincide.

Since 1977, Stan Lee has written a daily newspaper strip called The Amazing Spider-Man. At some point he decided Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson should get married in it, and he approached Marvel Comics about them doing the storyline in the comics as well, ideally having them take place the same week.

They didn't happen in the same week, but they did happen close together. In the comic strip, the marriage took place on June 21, 1987:

In the comics, they got married in Amazing Spider-Man Annual #21 (August 1987):

Of course, they're no longer married, which is unfortunate. But it still counts!

Spider-Verse: Mini-Marvels Spider-Man (And A Bonus)

Spider-Verse is a currently running event in the Spider-Man comics that will involve every* Spider-Man we've ever met, including several Spider-Women and Spider-Girls (not to mention Scarlet Spiders and Spider-Hams and whatnot), and several brand-new versions. The premise is simple: there's a group of people trying to wipe out every Spider character across the multiverse, so all the Spider characters will team up to stop them. This is, of course, a massive event - multimedia even, since it will also feature in the Spider-Man Unlimited video game and the animated series Ultimate Spider-Man - and given the premise, it's only natural that it will add a few entries to this catalog.

*I say "every" because Marvel says "every", but there are a few that won't be showing up, such as Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield.

Today's entry is Mini-Marvels Spider-Man.

From 1999 to 2001, Marvel published a comic strip called Bullpen Bits in "Bullpen Bulletins", a page set aside in comics each month to deliver news and answer fans' questions. The comic strip was drawn and written by Chris Giarrusso, and it presented the majority of Marvel heroes as children who always wear their costumes (even in their everyday lives) and sometimes fight crime but mostly just hang out.

Since Bullpen Bits ended, they've been collected in numerous trade paperbacks and one-shots, usually along with new material by Chris Giarrusso or others, under the name Mini-Marvels.

In Amazing Spider-Man #12 (January 2015), this Spider-Man can be seen as a member of the "Spider-Man Recruitment Drive" that started last month with Ultimate Spider-Man and 1967 Spider-Man:

Note the diminutive stature, cartoony hands and feet, and - arguably the most notable feature - the black part of the costume instead of blue.



Also worth mentioning is that in the bottom panel of the page this Spidey appears on, Ultimate Spider-Man calls this team the "Web Warriors", which Other Ultimate Spider-Man (Miles Morales) objects to.

This, of course, is a reference to the current season of Ultimate Spider-Man, Ultimate Spider-Man: Web Warriors, which features a four-part Spider-Verse crossover event.

Spider-Verse: Newspaper Spider-Man

Last week I mentioned that Spider-Verse #1 (November 2014) featured six stories about alternate Spider-Men, and I showed you one of them. Turns out there was a second one I didn't know about:

Yes, this world is the one that belongs to still ongoing Amazing Spider-Man strip that is credited to Stan Lee and Larry Lieber (I don't know if they actually still make it or not). There are some neat things going on here, with the panels broken up into individual strips and Morlun commenting on how long it takes for anything to happen. It's been suggested that Master Weaver saves this Spider-Man because his story is still ongoing; I'm not sure if that's true, but it's an interesting story either way.