Jab’s Builds! (Whomp 'Em! Plumbers Don't Wear Ties! ToeJam & Earl!)

[Ares]

BLOODTHIRST (Real Name Unknown)
Created By: Louise Simonson & Jon Bodanove
First Appearance: The Man of Steel #27 (Nov. 1993)
Role: Demonic Monster

-Yes, BLOODTHIRST. But it's 1993, so you know stuff like this was coming. Though it's funny from the person who got drummed out of the New Mutants comic by Rob Liefeld to be creating such things. Louise Simonson & X-Factor co-artist Jon Bogdanove created this guy- a demon who orchestrated massacres in various locatoins. He got the similarly-named Bloodsport to do some, and Hi-Tech to do others. Superman stopped both villains and then fought Bloodthirst, who abandoned the battle suggesting it was just an exercise. I... guess he never reappeared? The weirdo S&M makeup/leather suit might be part of it.

-Bloodthirst was an ageless demon (probably) with strength at least near Superman's. Bloodthirst also possesses human bodies to manifest on Earth.

Oh Lord, I actually own a comic where this dingus appeared.

Bloodthirst was apparently up to some big evil scheme that involved testing Superman, and he did it via this palm-sized device that created a bubble of 'slow time' around them. He was able to concentrate the affect on Superman more strongly, forcing Superman to move at his top speed to even have a chance of hitting Bloodthirst, eventually managing to snag the device and break it. At which point it was revealed the pair of them had been in that bubble for over a day, and police had cordoned off the area around them. Bloothirst then vanished, vowing to return . . . and to my knowledge, he never did.

I get kind of "Apocalypse" vibes from this guy, as Louise worked with her husband to create Apocalypse originally. I wonder if Walt was the one that helped give Apocalypse some degree of grandeur, because Bloodthirst here just looks stupid and was so 'vague and mysterious' it's no wonder nobody missed him when he vanished. If he did pop up anywhere else, it happened after I stopped following the Superman books.

Seriously, this guy was going to be the new big villain for Superman? He looks like Bane got a little too carried away at a BDSM club.

[Ken]

John Henry Irons Steel was one of the best things to come out of the Death and Return of Superman.

THE Best.

[Jabroniville]

THE KRYPTONITE MAN I (K. Russell Abernathy, aka The Kryptonite Kid)
Created By: Jerry Siegel & George Papp
First Appearance: Superboy #83 (Sept. 1960)
Role: Rarely-Used Villain
PL 8 (129)
STRENGTH 8 STAMINA 8 AGILITY 3
FIGHTING 8 DEXTERITY 4
INTELLIGENCE 0 AWARENESS 1 PRESENCE 1

Skills:
Deception 4 (+5)
Expertise (Criminal) 4 (+4)
Intimidation 5 (+6)
Perception 3 (+4)
Stealth 2 (+5)

Advantages:
Ranged Attack 4

Powers:
"Kryptonite Physiology"
Radiation Blast 8 (Feats: Split) [17]
Transform Anything to Kryptonite 5 (Extras: Continuous) [25]

Offense:
Unarmed +8 (+8 Damage, DC 23)
Radiation Blast +8 (+8 Ranged Damage, DC 23)
Initiative +3

Defenses:
Dodge +8 (DC 18), Parry +8 (DC 18), Toughness +8, Fortitude +8, Will +4

Complications:
Enemy (Superman)- The Kryptonite Man has been fighting Superman since both were teenagers.
Prejudice (Obvious Superhuman)- The Kryptonite Man permanently glows green.

Total: Abilities: 66 / Skills: 18--9 / Advantages: 4 / Powers: 42 / Defenses: 8 (129)

-The Kryptonite Man has appeared in five different variations over the years- he debuted as a Superboy foe called "The Kryptonite Kid", being a teenage delinquent who passed through a cloud of Kryptonite and gained superpowers (along with his DOG). He again used them as an adult, moving to the main "Superman" stories as well. In Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?, he is chosen as one of the villains in the final assault on the Fortress of Solitude, which made me assume he was a much bigger villain than he was- attacking Superman's friends and foes, he is killed by Krypto, who tears his throat out and succumbs to the kryptonite poisoning moments later.

-Strangely, another Kryptonite Man appeared in 1984- one of a race of brutish humanoids who lived on Krypton before human-like beings did. He awoke from suspended animation to find another race living there, and later came to try and kill them all in current times. This led him to fight Superman and Supergirl, and he died in the battle, disintegrating despite Kryptonian-tier powers. In 1990, the Kryptonite Man reappears Post-Crisis, but is a clone of Superman mutated by Kryptonite exposure. In 2005, an energy being formed from the latent energy given off by Major Force combined with energy from a Kryptonite meteor. This formed a creature that could hop between bodies. Only a year later, a scientist trying to turn Kryptonite into a fuel source arrogantly ignored the dangers of his experiments and transformed himself into the Kryptonite Man.

-A PL 8 fighter, the Kryptonite Man is no great shakes as a villain, and pretty simple-minded... but he's made of KRYPTONITE, making him a deadly foe for Superman and any of his Kryptonian allies.

[Ares]

Kryptonite Man is one of those obvious villains for a hero with a defined weakness like Superman. It's thus kind of weird that the character never really amounted to much, but it's kind of obvious in retrospect. Kryptonite Man is dangerous as heck against Superman and Kryptonians . . . but ONLY Superman and other Kryptonians. Especially if we go with the classic "Kryptonite radiation is harmless to humans" version of Kryptonite. It isn't like, say, Hydroman vs the Human Torch. Even if he isn't fighting the Human Torch, Hydroman is still a guy able to turn into water and do all kinds of impressive things. Kryptonite Man could be largely worthless against most people, especially given his relatively low strength.

It's just one of those things where you can't make him too powerful (like if he was a powerful flying blaster brick) because his whole purpose is to make Superman really weak just by his presence. So if he's too powerful on his own, then he should logically be able to kill Superman easily if he gets too close. So naturally the Loeb-written Superman scans have Superman getting into a punch-fight with the Kryptonite Man, because of course Loeb would have Superman able to resist a man emitting constant Kryptonite radiation when a bullet-sized piece nearly killed him.

Moral of the story, I guess it's better to stick with Metallo over Kryptonite Man.

Those scans of "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow" is honestly making me wonder: Was Alan Moore ever actually good? Because "Whatever Happened" basically goes through and slowly destroys most of Superman's supporting cast, engaging in torture, suicide, murder and death, made tolerable only by the happy ending Superman technically gets while also saying "Superman was overrated and too wrapped up in himself. He thought the world couldn't get along without him". And despite my feelings that some writers do overrate Superman and do make him someone the world can't do without, I also don't think that (even as some self-deprecating humor from Clark) it's a fair statement to make about Superman, especially not after slaughtering his supporting cast and villains. I don't know, I was never really a fan of the story and it's rubbed me the wrong way more and more with each revisit.

[greycrusader]

It strikes me that Superman has had an awful lot of villains over the decades who were sort of big deals for a few years, or SEEMED like they were going to be a big deal, and then just kind of...faded out. Amalak, Atlas, The Atomic Skull i and II, Conduit, Faora, Grax, Lightning Master, Master Jailer, Neutron, Satunus, Silver Banshee, Terra-Man, Toyman, Ultra-Humanite, Zha-Vam...but the only ones with staying power are Luthor and Brainiac, with a handful of others as semi-regulars who get regularly re-invented (Bizarro, Metallo, Mongul, Myxzptlk, Parasite, General Zod). Sort of speaks to how difficult it must be to come up with suitable opponents when writing a character with that power level and that much longevity. Of course, Clark's rogues gallery is still MASSIVELY superior to his distaff counterpart, as Wonder Woman's credible foes can be counted on one hand.

All my best.

[Ares]

It strikes me that Superman has had an awful lot of villains over the decades who were sort of big deals for a few years, or SEEMED like they were going to be a big deal, and then just kind of...faded out. Amalak, Atlas, The Atomic Skull i and II, Conduit, Faora, Grax, Lightning Master, Master Jailer, Neutron, Satunus, Silver Banshee, Terra-Man, Toyman, Ultra-Humanite, Zha-Vam...but the only ones with staying power are Luthor and Brainiac, with a handful of others as semi-regulars who get regularly re-invented (Bizarro, Metallo, Mongul, Myxzptlk, Parasite, General Zod). Sort of speaks to how difficult it must be to come up with suitable opponents when writing a character with that power level and that much longevity. Of course, Clark's rogues gallery is still MASSIVELY superior to his distaff counterpart, as Wonder Woman's credible foes can be counted on one hand.

All my best.

You're not wrong. I think part of the problem is similar to a lot of creators who try to add new villains to the mythos and instead of other writers using them as well, they're more interested in establishing their own characters or using classic villains everyone knows. Batman and Spider-Man have similar problems, and it often takes a major concerted effort for someone like Bane or Venom to be introduced relatively new ('only' about 30 years ago) and still have some staying power. Basically, whoever is writing the current book wasn't reading the more recent stuff and might not be talking with other writers. I know comics is a lot of 'work for hire' stuff, but it still feels like it'd be beneficial to have the new writer talk to the previous writer, get a sense of ideas and why certain characters were used a certain way to help maintain cohesion and give the new guys exposure.

Superheroes like Superman, Batman and Spider-Man often have a wealth of little used villains who are just a little polishing away from being a fun, regularly occurring member of the hero's rogues gallery if people are willing to put in the work. It would definitely help cut down on how overused some villains are.

[Jabroniville]

Those scans of "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow" is honestly making me wonder: Was Alan Moore ever actually good? Because "Whatever Happened" basically goes through and slowly destroys most of Superman's supporting cast, engaging in torture, suicide, murder and death, made tolerable only by the happy ending Superman technically gets while also saying "Superman was overrated and too wrapped up in himself. He thought the world couldn't get along without him". And despite my feelings that some writers do overrate Superman and do make him someone the world can't do without, I also don't think that (even as some self-deprecating humor from Clark) it's a fair statement to make about Superman, especially not after slaughtering his supporting cast and villains. I don't know, I was never really a fan of the story and it's rubbed me the wrong way more and more with each revisit.

I'm fairly critical of Moore's issues as a writer (primarily his unhealthy obsession with rape and a tendency to always lean fully into Edgelord stuff) but I feel like his body of work stands in tremendous opposition to an "Alan Moore was always a bad writer" take, lol. I mean, the ending of that story alone, with the foreword given ("It ends with a wink. This is an imaginary story- aren't they all?"). Yeah it wipes out all the damn characters and if you did it TODAY it would be nowhere near as shocking, but the Pre-Crisis era? You've stated you just don't like dark stories in general or the bleakness of a lot of his work but I feel that's tainting your opinions of the skill he had.

[Jabroniville]

It strikes me that Superman has had an awful lot of villains over the decades who were sort of big deals for a few years, or SEEMED like they were going to be a big deal, and then just kind of...faded out. Amalak, Atlas, The Atomic Skull i and II, Conduit, Faora, Grax, Lightning Master, Master Jailer, Neutron, Satunus, Silver Banshee, Terra-Man, Toyman, Ultra-Humanite, Zha-Vam...but the only ones with staying power are Luthor and Brainiac, with a handful of others as semi-regulars who get regularly re-invented (Bizarro, Metallo, Mongul, Myxzptlk, Parasite, General Zod). Sort of speaks to how difficult it must be to come up with suitable opponents when writing a character with that power level and that much longevity. Of course, Clark's rogues gallery is still MASSIVELY superior to his distaff counterpart, as Wonder Woman's credible foes can be counted on one hand.

I feel like Luthor's status as "THE Superman Villain" in many ways leads to this, similar to how Doctor Doom overwhelms all FF foes. Everyone else just ends up kinda forgotten.

Zod SHOULD have been the hugest deal, especially with Superman II, but then Wolfman & Byrne together were like "Okay there's only ONE Kryptonian now" and so he misses out on 15+ years of story possibilities. Zha-Vam and others are one-offs, used for a single story and then forgotten. Toyman, Parasite & Metallo are clearly SUPPOSED to be recurring foes of great importance, but even the writers are largely disinterested in them and don't give them the focus they need, turning them into mere goons- you can tell it's bad when nearly every adaptation of the Superman mythos (like Superman: The Animated Series or the various other TV shows) COMPLETELY RENOVATES these characters rather than uses them as-is. This was something that Batman: TAS only did with the SHITTY villains, turning Mr. Freeze into something and making Poison Ivy a lot cooler- they left the Joker, Penguin and others as-is.

I mean, those villains weren't exactly created by nobodies or people with short runs, for the most part. Otto Binder created Brainiac AND Zha-Vam. Jim Shooter created Parasite. But even they seemed to barely care.

Another issue might be Superman kind of fading from popularity starting in the 1970s- like I haven't read much '70s stuff but it feels a lot more experimental and strange, just "the writer is trying something" or "they're on the weird 'shrooms today" and this engenders creativity but not STABILITY. But this impact to Superman's popularity as a character probably affected a lot of his villains.

[Ares]

Those scans of "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow" is honestly making me wonder: Was Alan Moore ever actually good? Because "Whatever Happened" basically goes through and slowly destroys most of Superman's supporting cast, engaging in torture, suicide, murder and death, made tolerable only by the happy ending Superman technically gets while also saying "Superman was overrated and too wrapped up in himself. He thought the world couldn't get along without him". And despite my feelings that some writers do overrate Superman and do make him someone the world can't do without, I also don't think that (even as some self-deprecating humor from Clark) it's a fair statement to make about Superman, especially not after slaughtering his supporting cast and villains. I don't know, I was never really a fan of the story and it's rubbed me the wrong way more and more with each revisit.

I'm fairly critical of Moore's issues as a writer (primarily his unhealthy obsession with rape and a tendency to always lean fully into Edgelord stuff) but I feel like his body of work stands in tremendous opposition to an "Alan Moore was always a bad writer" take, lol. I mean, the ending of that story alone, with the foreword given ("It ends with a wink. This is an imaginary story- aren't they all?"). Yeah it wipes out all the damn characters and if you did it TODAY it would be nowhere near as shocking, but the Pre-Crisis era? You've stated you just don't like dark stories in general or the bleakness of a lot of his work but I feel that's tainting your opinions of the skill he had.

I'm being mostly hyperbolic. I know Moore IS a talented writer, and even if I don't appreciate what he's saying with Watchmen I can appreciate the craft he put into the story and the work he does to make the characters feel like characters. He definitely isn't, say, Garth Ennis. "For the Man Who Has Everything" is a solid story, his Supreme run was mostly a lot of fun with little to no of his more rapey, edgelordy stuff, etc. It's just "Whatever Happened" reads like one of those Marvel What Ifs where the writer decides "lets see how high we can make that bodycount".

[greycrusader]

I think your above points are sound, Ares, and with Superman (and to a lesser extent, other similarly-powerful heroes such as Dr. Strange), coming up with viable foes just isn't easy; too many will be overly-specific (Kryptonite Man, Silver Banshee), way too formidable to be other than plot devices (Maaldor), or too minor to be other than distractions or minions for a greater villain (take your pick).I mean, writers can actually craft believable fight scenes between Spider-Man and a couple dozen of his regular enemies, Batman can either match wits or contend physically against most of his roster, but Superman? You cannot flood the series with foes who can match him in power level, because that devalues Clark and makes him less special (the same reason why Flash should only have a handful of super-fast opponents); enemies who use their intellects to go up against Kal-El? Sorry, Luthor and Brainiac have that covered. So you have to write stories around this problem, coming up with villains who drain Clark's powers or weaken him somehow, or whom he just can't directly deal with initially-but once Superman overcomes whatever obstacle is thwarting this, its game over.

Almost admirable that Superman's cast of regular bad guys is an large as it is.

[Jabroniville]

ATOMAN (Heinrich Melch)
Created By: Roy Thomas & Rich Buckler
First Appearance: World's Finest #271 (Sept. 1981)
Role: One-Off Villain, Superman Rival

-Heinrich Melch was a soldier in Nazi Germany on Earth-Two, and was charged with developing a plan to kill the Golden Age Superman. He was dosed with Kryptonite by his own father, turning him into a super-soldier. He was beaten and presumed dead. Many years later, he was transported to Earth-One,w here he gained far more superpowers, and took the name "Atoman", with a Superman-like uniform. He tried to kill that Superman, but was faced by Superman & Batman, who transported back to Earth-Two, where Superman I & Robin I captured him. Given that this was written by Golden Age fanboy Roy Thomas, it's likely that Atoman is based off of the "Atom Man" who appeared in the old Superman radio program, or took inspiration from a name Luthor had in a 1950 film serial.

-As Atoman, Heinrich had super-strength & durability, flight, and Radiation Blasts made of Kryptonite. He could also simulate his own death. On Earth-Two, he was significantly less durable, couldn't fly, and needed a pair of gloves to channel his energy into blasts.

[Ken]

but the only ones with staying power are Luthor and Brainiac, with a handful of others as semi-regulars who get regularly re-invented (Bizarro, Metallo, Mongul, Myxzptlk, Parasite, General Zod). Sort of speaks to how difficult it must be to come up with suitable opponents when writing a character with that power level and that much longevity.

With all due respect Grey, you isolating Luthor and Brainiac from that list is wrong. The two of them get re-invented from time to time as well. Luthor of the fifties, when he still wore street clothes, wasn't weighed down with the "Superboy, my former friend, made me bald" stuff that bothered Lex so much that he couldn't be bothered to change out of his prison fatigues for a decade in the 60s. Then in the 1974 he got the green and purple bandolier suit, and 9 years after that he got the power armor. And that's just before the Crisis. Post-Crisis he was someone else entirely. And then he was his own son. And then he had history in Smallville again. Then he was the President. Then he's in the power armor again. Brainiac similarly went from being an alien scientist, to an alien scientist who was also an android. Then he was reinvented as a Giger-esque robot. Then he was a human mentalist. Then a human mentalist possessed by an alien, etc. etc.

The main difference has been that for the past thirty years the reinventions have been done with the goal of restoring some element that got cut away by some previous reinvention.

By comparison, the changes to Metallo, Mxyzptlk, Mongul and the Parasite are minor.

[Ken]

ATOMAN (Heinrich Melch)
Created By: Roy Thomas & Rich Buckler
First Appearance: World's Finest #271 (Sept. 1981)
Role: One-Off Villain, Superman Rival

-Heinrich Melch was a soldier in Nazi Germany on Earth-Two, and was charged with developing a plan to kill the Golden Age Superman. He was dosed with Kryptonite by his own father, turning him into a super-soldier. He was beaten and presumed dead. Many years later, he was transported to Earth-One,w here he gained far more superpowers, and took the name "Atoman", with a Superman-like uniform. He tried to kill that Superman, but was faced by Superman & Batman, who transported back to Earth-Two, where Superman I & Robin I captured him. Given that this was written by Golden Age fanboy Roy Thomas, it's likely that Atoman is based off of the "Atom Man" who appeared in the old Superman radio program, or took inspiration from a name Luthor had in a 1950 film serial.

-As Atoman, Heinrich had super-strength & durability, flight, and Radiation Blasts made of Kryptonite. He could also simulate his own death. On Earth-Two, he was significantly less durable, couldn't fly, and needed a pair of gloves to channel his energy into blasts.

Thomas was using the radio villain, pure and simple. I've listened to the radio Atom man story. The Earth-Two version, as you described him, is the radio version. Milch getting more powerful on Earth-One was Thomas's conceit to make Atoman more of a threat to the earth-One Superman.

I'll also note that he was the embodiment of what Ares said.

It's just one of those things where you can't make him too powerful (like if he was a powerful flying blaster brick) because his whole purpose is to make Superman really weak just by his presence. So if he's too powerful on his own, then he should logically be able to kill Superman easily if he gets too close.

On the radio, Superman was knocked into a coma by Milch, and Superman only won, ultimately, by Milch's powers being finite. He used up the kryptonite in his body .

[Ken]

I feel like Luthor's status as "THE Superman Villain" in many ways leads to this, similar to how Doctor Doom overwhelms all FF foes. Everyone else just ends up kinda forgotten.

This. Exactly this.

After the Crisis, they turned Luthor into supporting cast. Sure, he was still an enemy of Superman, but he while he was hindered, he was never defeated. He never went away. And it turned so many of Superman's foes into Luthor offshoots. Winslow Schott was now a toymaker who turned to villainy because he was screwed by Luthor. Mxyzptlk learned to cheat from Luthor. By making 90% of Metropolis a Lexcorp subsidiary, most of Superman's enemies would end up affecting Luthor too, somehow.

The reinvention of Luthor weakened Superman's rogue's gallery. And Luthor himself... He became the wallpaper. He was just there.

I mean, those villains weren't exactly created by nobodies or people with short runs, for the most part. Otto Binder created Brainiac AND Zha-Vam. Jim Shooter created Parasite. But even they seemed to barely care.

No. If you read their stories, from when they worked for DC, it was clear that they did care. Binder died in 1974, so it isn't like he could influence Brainiac after that. And Zha-Vam was a parody of a character who DC got control of in 1974, so no they didn't keep parodying him.

Shooter, of course, went to Marvel, and then to other places. But when he wrote the second Superman&Spider-man team-up in 1980, the Superman villain he used was his creation the Parasite. The "Spider" villain was Doctor Doom. I think Marvel was trying to reposition Doom to not be trapped in the F4's orbit at the time. Amusingly, Superman eventually stole one of Doom's gauntlets (since Doom had put shielding in his armor to protect him from the parasite), and thus was able to punch Jensen out without Jensen absorbing too much of Kal-El's powers. Parasite also used some absorbed Spider-Sense to avoid Doom's inevitable betrayal.

[Jabroniville]

THE ANNIHILATOR (Karl Keller)
Created By: Leo Dorfman & Wayne Boring
First Appearance: Action Comics #355 (Oct. 1967)
Role: Short-Lived Villain

-LOL, this guy's costume. Like someone took the Golden Age Green Lantern, stuck an "A" on the chest, and put a purple star over his face like Spongebob's Sea-Man. Karl Keller was a scientist in an Iron Curtain country who was imprisoned and forced to build weapons for the regime- he resented Superman for supposedly protecting the weak but missing people like him. He discovered a fallen Kryptonian rocket ship, deduced its origins, then of course DRANK SOME EXPLOSIVE FLUIDS he found in it, and this gave him super-powers like energy blasts. He escaped his captors and became the Annihilator. He threatened that he'd destroy the entire planet if anyone tried to stop his destructive rampage, and Superman realized he was powerful enough to do it. He developed a cover-story as a normal man to hide his identity, and adopted a teenage purse snatcher named Peter as part of the cover- Peter thought being the son of a supervillain was AWESOME and agreed, and the two actually formed a genuine relationship.

-However, the Annihilator's powers started to fade- he needed to keep drinking the chemicals to gain the powers, and his body was starting to get used to them. However, Peter discovered the cache of Kryptonian science-juice and drank the remainder HIMSELF, going on his own rampage as "Annihilator Jr.". Keller at last felt remorse on seeing this, agreeing to help Superman stop the teen. He posed as Superman to lure Peter in, and exposed him to an explosive agent that... combined with the chemicals to turn Pete into a baby. Now how didn't I guess that would happen? Keller took his now-newborn son away and promised to raise him to be a law-abiding citizen. And that was the end of Annihilator, after three issues of Action Comics.

-The Annihilator had Superman-tier super-strength and energy blasts- enough to apparently destroy the entire world.