Maximortal & The Sordid History Of Superman
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- čas přidán 17. 05. 2021
- A look at The Maximortal, a seven issue miniseries, entirely written and illustrated by Rick Veitch. Published by Tundra Publishing in 1992. It’s the first book in what’s intended to be a five book series titled King Hell Heroica.
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KING HELL HEROICA TIMELINE:
Brat Pack Maximortal Super Special #1 (1996).
Book One: The Maximortal (1992).
Brat Pack Maximortal Super Special Number #2 (1997).
Book Two: Boy Maximortal (currently in production).
Brat Pack Maximortal Super Special Number #3 (forthcoming).
Book Three: True-Man, The Maximortal (forthcoming).
Brat Pack Maximortal Super Special Number #4 (forthcoming).
Book Four: Brat Pack (1990).
Book Five is currently untitled, but will include all of the Super Specials and a final battle between Maximortal and El Guano (forthcoming).
#modernage #maximortal #superman #rickveitch #bratpack #comicbooks #comics #modernagecomics #tundra #waltdisney #dccomics #dc #tunguska #jerrysiegel #joeschuster
#comicscode - Zábava
Trueman's symbol makes me think of "trademark" as well. Methinks that was intentional.
"...a veiled critique of comic book history..." This thing is veiled the same way the Emperor's new clothes are too concealing.
You just seem to dig out all the greatest comics series that I would like but haven't yet discovered. Thanks for this.
You are quite welcome. Thank you for watching!
Great video. Veitch’s entire career is full of gold, especially the Big One. Wonder if you will ever do the Sandman Mystery Theatre.
His limited series "The One" was one I really enjoyed back in the day. Veitch always seemed better when not constrained by editorial strictures.
I can definitely see why Veitch would bring the mistreatment of Siegal and Shooter considering that Veitch himself was slighted by the Comic Book industry mainly DC.
I've had a certain demented fondness for Brat Pack since I first read it. Maximortal has been in my Amazon shopping card. I just couldn't get a clear picture of the premise. As usual, you bring enlightenment. Thanks Overlord!
An underrated series - thanks for raising its profile
Wow Thanks for doing a video on Veitch and Maximortal. I hadn't heard of his work before and I'm shocked. It looks fantastic.
You're welcome! Although, all thanks should go to Mr. Veitch for creating this work. I simply talked about it.
In case you were not aware, Rick Veitch has gotten back to the King Hell Heroica cycle in the last few years, and has self-published the first two volumes of Boy Maximortal via Amazon CreateSpace.
Also Siegel's belief in character was *REALLY* strong, he pitched it to various syndicates from 1934 to 1938 until success. Countless revisions and pages destroyed.
And then Superman was made, and every other superhero literally as an "answer" or reflection on Superman. Even character like Iron Man wouldn't exist without Metalo and original Metallo.
Thank you for this one. Veitch is in my top 5 creators & The Maximortal was the first of his solo stuff I ever read. Great, no-holds-barred comics.
Definitely my favorite video by you, don't know why I keep returning to this one in particular, it just interests me a lot, but there's something I feel has been on my mind recently as I thought about this video again.
I'm thinking there's probably some parallels between The Maximortal and Miracleman based off my limited experience with the ladder, that and the fact he did do art for issues 9 and 10. I think the thing that made me think of these to paralleling eachother is that same idea you kept bringing up about how The Maximortal is a representation of Superman, and how it's such an idea far more powerful than involved in it's creation could ever have imagined it being, and that it was something they didn't know they needed until they had it. That former thought reminds me of Miracleman in the sense that his creators tried to destroy him and his family because they realized that in trying to create a weapon to compete against nuclear arms, they accidentally created deities, which is what that second thought reminds me of. "It's an idea we didn't know we needed until we had it," reminding me of something I commented before on the topic of quote from Voltaire: "If god didn't exist, it would be necessary to create him."
always great to wake up to one of your videos. (still looking forward to an Elfquest episode)
0:57 I wonder if David Lynch readed this book, becouse there is an origin story very similar in season 3 of Twin Peaks.
Your channel is so important! Please never stop.
This might be your best episode yet, and now I need to locate some Maximortal books.
Thank you, sir. Good luck in your search. All things considered, it might not be that difficult to locate.
Glad you made this video. This is by far one of my favorite superhero deconstructions.
What a great book, this one and The Brat Pack are a great combo. keep the great work sir.
I just read Bratpack last night and came on YT to learn more about Maximortal and your video was right on time. Yay!
Wow. Talk about good timing. :)
@@StrangeBrainParts right?? So perfect! And your video was EXACTLY what I was looking to find out. You do great work, thank you for sharing it with everyone!
@Donyae Coles : Thank you for watching! I'm glad I could provide something worthwhile or informative.
Great to know of these series. I don't know if it would ever be finished but of the current parts, they make a complete story. I think the best form of superhero deconstruction is when it's a critique of the publishing side and how fans play into that role of exploitation
I didn't realize that Veitch had his own Hypersigil: Brat Pack, Maximortal, and the Super Specials.
It's a sigil still being processed! There's Boy Maximortal in production and two more books forthcoming.
Fantastic video, as usual! It's been a while since I've Read Maximortal. The series has so many layers to it and you even pointed out a few I had missed. Each page seems to be dripping with both wonder and pure anger. At some point I have to get hard copies of the KH heroica.
The suggestion of Superman being a concept waiting to be discovered by someone, somewhere, has been seen in other historic milestones. It was also applied to the development of machine-powered flight, as a "flying machine" was successfully tested in at least two other areas of the world before the Wright brothers became famous with their aeroplane at Kitty Hawk. Several of the aspects of this story have been seen in Alan Moore comics, and Rick Veitch had worked closely with Alan Moore on several works (before Moore turned his back on Veitch and refused to speak to him), including the time travel aspect of the superman going back in time and giving birth to himself. The "collective consciousness" is one of Moore's more famous (or infamous) ideas, his notion of the "Ideaverse." I'm not criticizing Moore here nor am I suggesting these ideas were somehow stolen from him; and as you're an avid fan of Moore's works, you're probably well aware of this yourself.
I don't suppose the Maximortal series included a dig at Shazam-Captain Marvel, perhaps with a second Maximortal being born when a bolt of lightning strikes a sewage filtering plant?
Good points you make there and Moore's vision of Eternalism kind of plays into this as expressed in Jerusalem but I wasn't aware that Moore and Veitch had a falling out - do you know what happened?
@@billstorie5161 See the video on this same channel about Alan Moore's 1963 series.
Now we wait for this and brat pack to get their own show
Wallace was also made after Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson , founder of National Publications that is now known as DC Comics, who was also in military before that.
Great video! Any thoughts on doing an episode on Chaos Comics or the crazy Bad Girl comics craze?
As I always say, all topics related to comics are a possibility. Do I have an immediate plans? No. But that doesn't mean I won't cover the topics in the future.
Since the [black] Superman reboot announcement everyone has been flexing knowledge on obscure or alternatives supermen and going on with icon, supreme, but...well...well played! you one up'd everyone and educated on the details both upfront and background.
9:02 An interpretation that seems to become increasingly more like a fact.
Fantastic video. 🧶
Didn't Veitch do a series for Marvel's late imprint Epic, called "The One" , back in the mid-ish 80s?
In it there was, imao, an insane an insanely funny back up comic strip called "Pun Fuzzles" (fun puzzles?) that my friend and I couldn't get enough of. We could never figure what was supposed to be going on in it, tho. Still, very funny!
Interesting stuff.
Nice vid
d a m n this looks like a master piece, holly shit i didnt know it.
Rick veitch is the man
4:08 That's a distinct possibility. Pulp fiction magazines and early comics were replete with superhero-like characters before Superman came along. A superman-like character could easily have come into existence even if Superman as we know him never did, as a world without Superman would not be a world without the characters that inspired Superman (Hugo Danner from the novel Gladiator, and the pulp hero Doc Savage).
It's interesting that Kal in Jewish language means something that is lightweight in nature, Kal-El (name that was, btw, wasn't given to Superman by Siegel, it was Kal mostly, in some cases Kal-L but only because Jor-L and Jor-L was simply an anagram from his name JeROme (at That time) siegeL, Kal-El, Jor-El, Lara and in general powerless Kryptonians on Krypton was invention of Don Cameron who wrote first ever Superboy story for More Fun Comics 101, Superboy was Siegel's concept yes, but it was more like like about young Clark being immature and using his gifts to pull pranks and be rather mischevious kid, before maturing into a man and using them to punish or even kill evil doers, but Don Cameron and other writers turned it into "Superman but with babyface and in school years" ) if "we" translate it will mean Light-God. Cool? Yeah, I think so and very fitting to the Superman all and all. Though I think maybe Kal WAS meant by Siegel, because original Kryptonians (who originally were supposed to be Earth people in the far future, also they are named "race of supermen" making "Superman" something of a national name, even if on accident because it was never established if at the time of Action Comics 1 he Does or Does Not know about Krypton) were ALREADY super fast, strong (Jor-L jumped on their scrycraper balcony) and invincible (Lora , that was original real mother's name not Lara, and baby Kal survived building falling on them with no damage) AND Earth is said to have lower gravity so he really is VERY "light" and "godly" .
What interesting is that Kal in Russian (both Siegel and Shuster were children of jewish immigrants from Russian Empire , from current Lithuania and Ukraine territories respectively, I bet Superman was also inspired by bogatyrs besides everything else) means "shit".
I wonder if Veitch knew about this or El Guano and all this was simply "capeshit" reference.
Maximortal it trully one of THE greatest things ever created. Even though I don't particularly love decontructions from people that DISlike conventional superheroes, but it is what it is.Then again I don't love gatekeeping from status-quo enjoyers either, especially when it is absolutely hypocritical in nature, when they forget or dare to ommit ORIGINAL tenants of particular character that they claim they "love" so much. Not on my watch anyways.
I think comics have only just begun to recover from the comics code authority.
I recently tried to read Chaykin's "Hey, Kids! Comics!" but I had to concede defeat - I recognized some characters as thinly veiled versions of real people, but I just don't know enough about comics to read it. Maybe you would be interested in giving it a try?
Oh! Good suggestion. I will take a look at it and see if I can spot the analogs.
It's been mentioned on other sites that the up coming collection of the first series will have additional material to better explain Howard's characters and who they represent.
The evils of the comic book the industry of the evils of every industry just to different degrees of harm. But if you read the original Superman one where he's the villain the story that is told in that book definitely shows that Schuster and Spiegel well aware of evil of the corporate system surrounding them. They were not naive, they were hopeful, but more than anything they were desperate. It was the time of poverty that none of us today can imagine
Are they still making that brat pack movie?
What?!
@@greysky1252 I saw this article saying that the brat pack comic adaptation had a director. However the article was written in 2010 and now it is 2021 so was wondering.
Also in real life they weren't really "pushed aside". They sued company over a deal they made, because some lawyer said to them it was a brilliant idea.
As scammy and petty as DC/National could be and are, they were also the company that did all the marketing. Though, it goes without saying that literally nobody believed in Superman's success. There is a reason why Action Comics #2-5 have non-Superman covers.
Still though, they made a deal and sold rights.
Also ironically most Superman gatekeepers these days are in love with character's interpretation by someone else and stiffled through very tight 41-early 70s editorial censorship. They dislike the original Superman by Siegel and Shuster.
maximortal vs meximortal
Hey Max I’m back from reality, nope fuck gravity
El Guano....... HAAAAAAH!!!!
Again, much like with Brat Pak while I think the origin behind the comic is interesting, that doesn't make a story good let alone close to a good deconstruction. If you want an actually good satire or deconstruction of superheroes (Which is far and in-between) read Squadron Surpeme, Watchmen, My Hero, hell fucking Venture Bros does a much better job than Brat Pak at showing what would happen to a child sidekick.
It’s not a deconstruction of Superman but rather his creation
first
11:21 I will rоb a bank and personally give you $14.880.228 if you bring me ANY Superman (I will give a $18.000 tip for each purely Shuster drawn one) or Batman comics with *This* "standard" stiff panel arrangement throuough AT LEAST 4 pages in a row. Go on, don't miss your chance to become really rich .
Side note : if as a "proof" you will bring any comics where they fill in text in a painted frame to make it square I am rоbbing you.
Wow, this is a very disturbing series. You never cease to amaze me with your insights. I'd love to hear your take on The One. I'm not sure, but I think it's also by Veitch, published by Marvel's Epic line , unless I'm mistaken (which, considering how long ago it was, is very possible ). Great video, can't wait for the next one.