Oh the Pre-Crisis era.
For those of you who don’t know, the Pre-Crisis era refers to any event
that happened before “Crisis on Infinite Earths”, the first and arguably best
revamping of the DC comic book universe.
It was an unprecedented event whose sole purpose was to cut the wheat
from the chaff, as it were, and clean up the history of the shared universe
that had characters doing all matter of crazy things, sometimes in two places
at once. Basically, continuity was Swiss
cheese at the time and nearly impossible to follow.
During the pre-crisis era, Superman had a wealth of wonky
powers, some of which made absolutely no sense whatsoever. One element however sticks out in my mind
from way back in the ancient days of 1984.
Growing up in Portland, Texas, a sleepy little town on the
Gulf Coast, just north of Corpus Christi, comics were not in great supply. I was five, and if I wanted comics, I had to
hitch a ride with my parents whenever they happened to go to Feudos, a neat
little market in one of the quiet shopping centers in town. Feudos had them all…at least to a five year
old’s perspective. Spider-Man and
Superman are the ones that stick out in my head. One specific comic stands out in my memory of
this time, and if you haven’t heard of it, don’t feel bad. It became part of the chaff that was Crisis
on Infinite Earths. It is, of course,
the Sword of Superman, ala “Superman Annual 10”.
Now during the pre-crisis era, you would get several
explanations for one single event, and the most famously confused event ever
was “Why the ‘S’ shield logo?”
Well NOW we all know that it was the family crest for the
House of El on Krypton, but back then it apparently had a more significant
meaning.
According to the issue, during the Big Bang some
primordial matter and energy came together and formed itself into something
like an English broadsword. Because
reasons. 
This sword, bearing the “S” shield just existed in history
since the dawn of time and when Ma Kent was making Superboy’s first costume,
the sword reached out to him telepathically to place the “S” emblem on his
suit, apparently because the sword knew he would be important one day.
Later Superman would come into contact with the sword and it
would turn him, basically into a god. I
mean more so than he already was. He
became an all knowing, all seeing protector of good, truth, and
righteousness. Think the Infinity
Gauntlet, but for good guys.
But there was a price that came with all this power. The populace he was sworn to protect feared
him. Granted he’s wielding a sword,
something that’s generally identified with cutting and stabbing, not something
you want to associate with the defender of life. That’d be like giving Superman a gun…
Yep, that happened too, but that's for a different blog.
So Superman rejected the sword in a sequence of panels that
was so weird it may have permanently scarred my young psyche. Not enough to make me stop reading the comic.
I read it till it fell apart, not unlike what happens to the sword!
Spoiler alert, don’t let a pre-teen handle comics without
educating him on how to properly care for them in the even they are worth money
one day.
So Superman rejected the sword’s power, and it seemed pretty
cool with it. It wasn’t mad at all as it
left back into the cosmos and, a year later, was seemingly wiped from history.
But why? With all the
stuff that has trickled through the veil of time over the years, why has
Superman’s Sword remained off limits?
Well, at the time it was written out of existence we had Superman and
Supergirl, and a slew of super-pets.
That limited who could wield the sword to exactly two people. Its not like the Infinity Gauntlet or the
Cosmic Cube, who could potentially be wielded by anyone. Its tied directly to two characters and
pretty much halts the story all together.
If writers thought it was hard to write around Superman’s powers before,
giving him the potential to have infinite power makes it very difficult.
Then there was the growing cast of Team Superman, involving Steel,
Superboy, Supergirl, the return of Krypto, and so forth. Now you could bring in the Sword and let it
have some options on which to present that power to, but then how do you get
rid of it to let the characters have normal stories again? It’s been around literally since the dawn of
time. It’s not getting destroyed. You could put it in the Fortress under lock
and key, but then, how can you have cataclysmic events when you could just pull
out the sword and fix everything? How do
you justify the Death of Superman if the Sword could have taken care of
Doomsday in short order?
I think, personally, from both a nostalgic point of view and
from a story telling point of view, you could justify bringing the sword back
into continuity. Tweak it’s origin just
a bit, where it became the symbol of Hope on Krypton and later was adopted as
the crest for the House of El, and leave it “out there” waiting for Superman to
prove himself again.
Just a thought.
Thanks for reading
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