That Time Santa Had to Save Superman’s Bacon (Maybe)
Just as many TV shows will at some point have a Christmas special, comic books are also known to commemorate the season with appropriately themed adventures. This year, I thought we’d take a look back at Christmas of 1983, with DC Comics Presents #67.
The story begins with Superman stopping a boy — whose name is Timmy Dickens, because of course it is — from robbing a corner Santa with a toy gun. The gun, as it happens, had hypnotized the boy into turning criminal, a fact that Superman discovers when he brings Timmy to the Fortress of Solitude to break the brainwashing.
All Access members, read on for more of Superman and Santa’s adventures.
Superman’s efforts also reveal that Toyman is behind the nefarious toy plot, though I think we could have guessed that even without the forensic hypnosis.
He then tries to take Timmy home, but an energy blast from another of Timmy’s hypno-toys (which he…had with him, I guess?) knocks him unconscious. Just as Timmy really starts to worry, what to his wondering eyes should appear but a group of elves to bring them to the safety of Santa’s workshop!
When he wakes up, Superman raises the obvious question.
Still weak from being blasted out of the sky, Superman has no choice but to accept Santa’s help in confronting the Toyman and disarming all of the other hypno-toys currently sitting under people’s Christmas trees. Toyman, however, has seen Santa Claus Conquers the Martians and is prepared for Superman’s arrival with an army of killer toys.
Thanks to Santa, Toyman is defeated, and Superman is free to hurry around the country and replace all of the hypno-toys with harmless duplicates made by Santa. When he tries to replace Timmy’s toy, however, it blasts him yet again…and Superman wakes up in the snow by the Fortress of Solitude, Timmy at his side, to realize that — say it with me now — it was all a dream. Boo!
So, despite Superman only having defeated Toyman in his dream, all he does now is take Timmy home and then go to his own apartment. There, he finds a long-since-destroyed Kryptonian toy hidden in his cape, introducing the possibility that at least some of Superman’s adventure with Saint Nick really happened.
Yeah, kind of a letdown, and so unnecessary. This is the DC universe, where magical things happen every day. There’s no need to coyly play is-Santa-real-or-isn’t-he. Other comics were a lot less circumspect about his existence, notably Batman – Santa Claus: Silent Knight, where Superman is upset to learn that Batman has known Santa for years and never told him.
Don’t worry, Supes. Batman may have gotten to train under Kris Kringle, but you got to, um, spend most of an issue unconscious while Santa did all the work. Happy Holidays!
For more holiday comics adventures, check out:
