And so begins a series of backup stories first appearing in Superman #354, released 40 years ago.

It's easy to look at this series by Superman stalwarts Julie Schwartz and Curt Swan and see what the old-timers got wrong about the far flung future forty years forthcoming. (Sorry. You can't talk about Silver Age comics without a lot of alliteration.) Flying cars, domed cities, and passenger flights around the moon are still more dream than reality.

What is considerably more impressive is what they got right about contemporary life, and I don't mean the giant flat-screen TVs.

Superman-III's main antagonists aren't mad scientist or sentient computers. No, in the "future," Superman still has his hands full with intolerant Nazis. Their rhetoric would sound crazy if it wasn't something we heard every day on Twitter and Facebook and White House press releases.

Or saw at Navy football games.

Despite the predictions of many over the years (myself included), comic books still exist in 2020. And it's a good thing, too. We need the Man of Tomorrow as much as ever to lead us in the never-ending battle for Truth, Justice, and the American way.

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The difference between Superman and Santa Claus...

Superman's Christmas Adventure #1, 1940

...is that Superman doesn't need you to leave out cookies and milk.

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Want to know why I love Superman? Read this:

Action Comics #322, March 1965

Unless you are steeped in Superman mythology, this panel probably doesn't make any sense to you. Don't worry, that makes you a perfectly normal human being.

Comic-book knowledge is a special kind of knowledge gained only after hours / months / years of immersion in stories about a self-contained universe with its own, unique set of rules. These rules are rarely logical though they are generally consistent. There's no connection between flying fast and traveling back in time, but it works for Superman every time.

Better yet, this knowledge is a badge shared only between the initiated. Once you understand how Superman hides his "Clark Kent clothes" while wearing his primary-colored union suit*, you enter a club of other enthusiasts. Understanding Superman is its own secret handshake!

*He super compresses them with his super strength and hides them in a special pocket in his cape. Congratulations, now you're a member, too!

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Horrible person that I am, I was in 15-items-or-less line at the grocery store yesterday thinking disparaging things about the food choices of the people in front of me. My primary antagonists were an elderly couple who still had a hankering for soda and sweets and an inability to count past 15.

That's when it occurred to me that I was in no position to throw scones. My cart was filled with 5 cans of pork and beans, 5 jars of mayonnaise, and 4 six-packs of Coke. Party time!

You know who probably doesn't judge people on the contents of their cart? Clark Kent. That's a good example to follow.

From now on when standing in a check-out line, before casting aspersions on the sugar junkie in front of me, I'll ask myself "What Would Superman Do?"

He'd probably study the cover of the National Enquirer as he calmly waited his turn. Even Superman wants to know why George Clooney is taking the twins away from Amal.

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WorkWise software has taken the unusual step of blogging about Google searches for ice cream flavor by U.S. state to drive traffic to their website. It's a great idea because it works. I was just there looking at their breakdown of flavors to see if any states preferred my personal favorite flavor, mint chocolate chip. (Answer: only New Jersey.) It turns out that exactly one state loves Superman.

That's right. According to Google Trends data, the flavor that citizens of Michigan search for most is Superman. Technically, this doesn't mean that anyone in Michigan is nuts about tri-colored blue/red/yellow dairy treats, just that a whole lot of people were curious enough about it to type it into Google. My guess is they were actually asking "what flavor is Superman ice cream?"

I've seen Superman ice cream in the wild, though I'm not remotely adventurous enough to have tried it. I'm pretty sure that "blue" isn't a flavor, and whatever it tastes like, I can't imagine that it goes well with lemon and cherry.

Interestingly, Edy's/Dreyer's makes a DC Comics-themed line of ice cream flavors which naturally includes a Superman variety. You might think it would be Superman flavored. It's not.

Personally, I'd stay away from Krypton™ Cookie Dough ice cream. Everyone knows Krypton explodes.

While "cookie dough light ice cream" might seem like a missed opportunity for a Superman-branded flavor, the most popular Google Trends search was far and away cookies and cream (the favorite in 13 states, including Georgia). If cookies are the American way, then I guess it makes sense that's what Superman should be selling.

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Not everyone loves Superman month, especially not that fickle Lois Lane.

(By the way, in case you were unaware, Tom Peyer is the writer and editor-in-chief of Ahoy Comics, and has been making some great comics lately. I whole-heartedly recommend The Wrong Earth to anyone who enjoyed Adam West's Batman.)

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Anyone reading this is likely familiar with the fact that although the character his creators called Superman has been published continually for 81 years, it hasn't always been the same Superman. The vigilante social justice warrior of the 1930s bears little resemblance to the omnipotent policeman seen in comics today.

In reality, those changes over time have often been dictated by publishing trends and a series of lawsuits by Superman's creators, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, about just what rights they had given DC Comics to profit from their intellectual property. But in comics, those eras have always had hard boundaries, each contained in its own dimension, or "alternate Earth." Until now.

Last month, DC published a story explaining that all of those alternate realities are really the same one, each the natural universe's response to a god-like creature, Doctor Manhattan, changing some of the seemingly random, fundamental forces that drove the creation of each environment. In other words, all those Supermen are aspects of the same being, all of them owned by DC Comics, who finally prevailed against Siegel and Shuster's heirs earlier this decade.

The irony in this situation is that Doctor Manhattan's behind-the-scenes history is just as complicated as Superman's. Manhattan was created in the 1980s by Alan Moore under a contract stipulating he would gain ownership rights of his characters should Manhattan's original appearance ever go out of print for a single year, a condition DC has studiously avoided for three decades and counting.

So Superman's contentious publishing history is being justified through the use of a character with an equally contentious history by a publisher with a contentious history. Forget truth and justice; bald-faced greed is the American Way.

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Today marks the start of the 13th annual Wriphe.com Superman Month!

Is this the year I finally make it to the Superman Celebration in Metropolis, Illinois? Probably not. It's next weekend, and I already have other plans.

Their guests of honor will include original Supergirl, Helen Slater, and Erica Durance, Smallville's Lois Lane. Their lists of guest artists, however, leaves something to be desired compared to past years. I guess they do have to save something for next year.

Out of curiosity, I took a look at the Greater Metropolis Convention & Visitors Bureau website to see what else there might be to do in town between autograph sessions underneath the Superman Statue. Metropolis isn't a big town, and the Visitors Bureau only lists 15 total "sights and attractions." Of course the big draw is the Harrah's Casino (which I haven't visited) and the Super Museum & Gift Shop (which I have and highly recommend). They also have a bowling alley, gym, state park, and microbrewery. I guess the town isn't big enough to support a full sized brewery.

Their most unusual non-Superman offering might be the Mermet Springs "full service dive site" inside an abandoned stone quarry that includes "the jet airplane from the movie U.S. Marshals." That short sells what they offer, as the Mermet Springs website lists 2 additional planes and 10 other man made objects to swim around. Not counting Jimmy Olsen.

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Here at the year's end, I took a look back at the five days that got the most hits over the past year.

5. June 18: Superman underwear
In which I make fun of briefs of steel.

4. December 4: Portable poo
Another in my series of not-award winning posts about the shit emoji (which celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2018, by the way).

3. August 1: Marriage is for the birds
Hawkman reveals the truth about what women think about marriage.

2. April 12: Jimmy Walker, dynamite golfer
An archive of how helpful Google was following Patrick Reed's win at the 2018 Masters.

1. September 17: Just another list of movies watched in August
Uh, a list of movie reviews. (Seriously, I don't have any idea what part of that list attracted the attention. My review of Moonlight, perhaps? No idea.)

And while we're on the subject, I should mention that the 5 most triggered keywords are:

5. movies
Everyone needs my opinion.

4. action comics
I have 155 "superman" posts, but only one "action comics". Go figure.

3. spandex
A perennial favorite!

2. georgia
It's always on my mind, too.

1. poodle strip
What can I say? My readers have good taste.

Anyway, we now wipe our hands of 2018 and look forward to 2019, the year of the future!

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"One of Superman's powers," read the crossword puzzle clue.

"That's too vague," I said. "Superman has, like, every power. That's why they call him Superman." Looking up from the paper, I asked my mother, "What power do you think of when I say 'Superman'?"

She thought about this for a minute then answered, "X-ray vision."

I was surprised. "That's the first power that comes to mind? He's stronger than a locomotive, faster than a bullet, and he can leap tall buildings in a single bound. He can fly. In addition to telescopic and microscopic vision, he also has super senses of hearing, touch, and smell. He has heat vision and cold breath. His brain processes information faster than a computer. He can throw his voice with super-ventriloquism. He has such incredible control of his muscles, he can change his physical appearance at will. He can vibrate through solid objects and travel through time. He can kiss you so hard, you forget stuff. And he is never, ever wrong. Despite all that, the first power that comes to your mind when you think of Superman is his ability to see through stuff?"

Mom nodded. "Yep."

I'll be damned if that wasn't the right answer for the crossword puzzle.

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