Look at that cover. Superman in the ring boxing against Muhammad Ali. It doesn’t get much more ridiculous than that. Even in 1978 at the tender age of six (Yes, I’m that old), when I saw this on the magazine racks of the local grocery store, I thought it was the dumbest concept DC could have come up with. Why pit Superman against Ali when there were colorful and devious villains like The Parasite, Brainiac, or Lex Luthor around? So…I passed on it.
Sooooo many years later, I realize the mistake I made.
Superman is at his most heroic in this book Ali sounds like Ali; he talks the talk and walks the walk. The Neal Adams art is something to behold. Words really can’t do these pages justice.
An alien race invades earth threatening to destroy the planet. The only way Earth can avoid this fate is if its greatest champion can defeat the champion of the alien invaders. Both Ali and Superman step forward to answer the challenge. First, however, they must face each other to determine which of the two is truly worthy enough to face the hulking alien champion. Superman is rendered powerless to make it a fair fight.
Is it ridiculous? Of course it is, …but it’s fun. We tend to forget that almost everything in comics is ridiculous upon close inspection. That’s what makes reading comics such a joyful experience. We’re leaving reality behind to enter a world where people can shrink to the size of an atom, create giant green boxing gloves through the use of a cosmically powered ring, and where the planet is invaded or held hostage on a monthly basis. We’ve become so wrapped up in wanting our comics to be ‘realistic’ that we’ve lost sight of the sense of wonder they can instill by being anything but.
Leave the world of brooding superheroes behind for a moment. Enter a world where Superman learns just how devastating a right hook from Ali can be, where Jimmy Olson calls a fight in his best Howard Cosell voice, where the fate of a planet is decided within the confines of a boxing ring.
See you ringside.
T-Shirt Joe
