Thursday, February 13, 2014

At 13th Dimension: "Thirteen Days a Week: A Beatles Comics Countdown" IV!

All this week on 13th Dimension, it's Beatles Week! I am starting to get jealous of my prolific person pal John who has written about some of the greatest Beatles appearances in comic books—thirteen in all! Tonight, installment number four, counting down from 4 to 2 and starring Starfire and Raven, Gold and Mercury*, and the world's only canonically correct Batman!

Just to prove I can also find comic book appearances of the Fab Four in my collection, I clipped out this one and handed it to John, but he didn't use it. I am going to start charging him for access to my comics vault. I keep makin' suggestions, but John never include the Beatles moments in comic books that I suggest. Moments like that time Clark Kent and Lana Lang went to a Beatles concert. 


from "Challenge of the Green K-tastrophe!" in Superman Family #198 (DC, November 1979), script by Cary Bates, pencils by Kurt Schaffenberger, inks by Joe Giella, colors by Gene D'Angelo, letters by Ben Oda

I'm always amused by the dragged-along-like-a-trailer continuity of Superboy which remains constantly 15 years behind whatever era the contemporary Superman stories are taking place. In Action Comics #317 (October 1964), Supes is contemporary with the Beatles, so his Superboy would have been listening to, collecting the 45s, and taking Lana Lang to the Smallville sock hop dance to the music of Patti Page's "The Tennessee Waltz," Nat King Cole's "Mona Lisa," Gordon Jenkins and The Weavers' "Goodnight Irene," and this, quite possibly the greatest song of all time:


Which means that today's modern, collared New 52 Superman, as a teenager in Nu-Smallville, listened to and prevented teen Lex Luthor from illegally downloading, "Smooth" by Santana and Rob Thomas, "Big Pimpin'" by Jay-Z, "Say My Name" by Destiny's Child, and this, quite possibly the greatest song about Y2K of all time:


John sez I'm not allowed to watch that video more than ten times in a row anymore.

To get back (hey!) on the subject of The Beatles: once again, that's Beatles Week at 13th Dimension! John's #1 Beatles moment in comic books will be posted tomorrow! And as The Beatles sang, "Tomorrow never knows!" Or was that a James Bond song?


I'm not allowed to watch that video more than once.

*The only metal that is liquid at room temperature.

1 comment:

Wriphe said...

"*The only metal that is liquid at room temperature."

I laughed and laughed. It's impossible to mention Mercury without that footnote. It should be required to appear on all periodic tables.