In recent years, we've seen many attempts to deconstruct Superman, ranging from murderous manchildren to actual murderous children... but this idea isn't entirely new. In fact, the earliest Super-Man we were warned about came from Siegel and Shuster, years before they created the boy-scout of the same name.

In the short story The Reing of the Super-Man, we meet Bill Dunn, just your average person working on the bread line in this marvellous metropolitan city until, one day, Professor Smalley asks him to come to his house for dinner. Unfortunately for him, this polite gesture is actually a rouse to inject him with a serum that gives him powers - mainly mind control and astral projection. Not very Superman, I admit, but I don't want to discard the opening paragraph.

One criticism of many Superman deconstructions is that they're often done without a purpose other than shock value. Indeed, the easiest thing to do is to take someone with Superman's powers and imagine him acting out our worst impulses with no deeper commentary beyond "Wouldn't that be messed up?" - The Reign of the Super-Man (while not technically being a deconstruction due to predating Superman by 5 years) avoids this by using this idea to very unsubtly deconstruct capitalist ideology.

Professor Smalley holds the belief that all the poor people in the world could simply just stop being poor if they "had the slightest ambition at all..." - again, it's not very subtle, and neither is it subtle that he's blatantly in the wrong. Interestingly though, Bill Dunn (despite also living the life of a poor person trying to make ends meet) basically converts to the same thought once he starts using his mind control powers to become rich:

As [Bill Dunn] walked, it spoke to itself. "Fool! Why did you sleep on the ground when there were thousands of unoccupied beds in the world! Money, obviously, was the reason. You lacked money. How hilarious! Money is the easiest thing that can be secured upon this planet! And you have spent a full year in idle wastefulness when you could have been living the life of a Prince, an existence incomparable in its ease."

He is of course neglecting to mention the fact that he is only rich now due to the unnatural advantage of having mind control powers that he literally didn't have the day before. Or, to keep it entirely within the realm of things that apply to our day-to-day lives, he is ignoring the advantages he has received in life that make his status possible for him and only him.

Of course, like all things, this comes to an end. After causing a series of robberies and one geopolitical crisis, Bill ends up fighting with Professor Smalley, and he does end up killing the Professor, but he never learned how to create the serum. As his powers run out, he realises that, without these advantages, he will be back on the Bread Line the next day. This also makes it a bit tricky if you want to use the character in your own work, but eh, most sequels completely squash the themes of the original movie anyway for the sake of generating more plot, you'll be fine.

[Also I had no room to put this anywhere, but at one point Bill says "NOW, I will proceed to collect a large sum of money." and I don't know why, but that phrase has stuck with me ever since. I think I just find the vagueness of "large sum of money" funny. It's to the point where it's entered my lexicon.]

So, this week there's been a lot of talk about various characters from fables (+ a couple of books from the late 1800s to early 1900s that sort of get lumped in even though they probably shouldn't count - but hey, it's not like Lewis Carrol is going to do anything) being public domain - specifically interpretations of these characters from a certain comic book series (cough FABLES cough)... now the validity of this is a bit questionable, but hey, it gives me an excuse to go outside my usual wheelhouse, so I'll take it.

Jack was just your average farmboy - well, maybe not average. He wasn't the best at economics. He did sell a cow for some beans, which is a bad deal in most circumstances, but, in his defence, the shady man selling them did say they were *magic. And Magic they were, for these beans grew into a mighty beanstalk which rose up into the clouds where the giants lived and- okay, I assume you know the story of Jack and the Beanstalk, so I'll stop now.

But Jack didn't only appear in this story - or at least, that's how the theory goes. You may have noticed that there are quite a few characters called Jack - Jack Frost, (of the "being nimble" variety), Jack Horner, Jack (of "& Jill" fame), Jack O'lantern, Jack the Giant Killer (not to be confused with Beanstalk Jack, who killed a giant) - why, there are Jacks in all trades, it seems. Well, what if they were all the same person? I mean, surely there aren't two different Giant-killing Jacks... same goes for two Jacks vaguely associated with fire. Jack Frost? Well, one interpretation of Jack and Jill is that they were monarchs who died, hence leading to an undead corpse - and leading from the King thing, Jack the Giant Killer was a knight of the Round Table! He marries the daughter of a Duke! And this Jack could be very lucky - after all, he did jump over a lit candle without extinguishing it - so maybe kinghood is in his fortunes!

And we don't have to stop there - why, thanks to a quirk in American copyright law, there are a bunch of recent-ish Jacks to be used! For instance, Jack of Spades, the magic Superman-esque hero appeared from a pack of playing cards when someone was murdered at a poker table. Maybe this gave Jack life - maybe "Jack" is more than just a playing card pun. Going back a few years earlier, there's also "Black Jack", a similarly-themed superhero with a similar costume to boot, except this hero is of a more natural origin, being a Police Detective named Jack Jones... or at least that's what he wants us to think. These jacks could be the same. And Diamond Jack! Oh, I bet he thought he was safe since we were all talking about spades, but no! He's a Jack, he could be counted. Where did he get that magic ring? An "old magician"? Well, you'd know quite a bit about trading with magicians wouldn't you, Mr. "Three beans seems reasonable enough for one cow"!

If this all sounds barely coherent, that's because it is.

So, I’ve been thinking about the Sun a lot for some reason.

Mr. Solarman was just your average Saturnite until, one day, his scientists friend noticed that Earth had quite a bit of crime on it. Their solution was to beam Solarman to the planet and sort it out with with his powers (strength and stuff) which are seemingly unrelated to the sun.

While most heroes covered here have pitiful runs, Solarman has the rare honour of only having one comic ever made before disappearing forever… there must not have been much crime going on after all.

It might be difficult to tell, but often I've had a go at being a funny person... nobody's laughed, but I also haven't had any tomatoes pelted at me yet, so I assume I'm not doing anything too bad yet... I assume Funnyman felt the same way when his 6 issue run ended,

Larry Davis (no relation to Larry David) was a comedian who wanted to do this cool publicity stunt where he dressed up like a clown and stopped an actor playing a criminal with all his funny props - basically making himself a superhero version of Carrot Top... except, when the day came, he ended up actually stopping a real criminal! This worked out well enough that Larry decided to keep up the crime-fighting, much to the dismay of Sgt. Harrigan as well as two other clown-themed heroes, Comicman and Laffman.

As I mentioned earlier, this character had a 6 issue run as well as a comic strip before fading into obscurity, along with its creators... Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster? The Supermen guys?

Yep, the Supermen guys. Funnyman (along with the publisher "Magazine Enterprises"... really creative, guys) came about when Siegel and Shuster left DC Comics (at the time National Comics) due to not being paid well. They also tried to sue them so they could get back the rights to Superman but, that didn't go over too well. They needed a new hero, one to grip the nation like Superman did. Their solution? Funnyman.

Yeah, don't make clown-themed superheroes, it doesn't go well usually.

In a slightly ironic twist of fate, Larry Davis eventually made his way back to DC as a cameo in Super Friends #5.