Superman Holiday Special ’09

DC Universe Holiday Special ’09 (Superman)
“Man of Snow”
Writer – Arie Kaplan
Pencils – Nick Runge
Inks – Gabe Eltaeb
Colors – Ulises Arreola
Letters – Travis Lanham
Editors – Adam Schlagman & Eddie Berganza

Hey gang… I come to you today, kind of in an odd state.  As I sit here typing, I’m about an hour away from driving our eldest Pup up to the vet for some surgery.  I’ve had a few sleepless nights in the lead-up.


A few weeks back, he began drooling.  He’s getting older (just turned 12), and has lost a couple of teeth over the years… I just assumed that he had reached the “drooling stage”, ya know?  It wasn’t like a constant flow or anything… just every now and again, I’d have to wipe his chin.


Then… right around Thanksgiving, the smell kicked in.  It was a horrid, acrid… almost sweet smell.  We couldn’t find the source of it… and, honestly, assumed we’d find some spoiled fruit under a piece of furniture or something.  It quickly became clear that it was coming from our boy.


It had been a little while since his last bath… so, we popped him in the tub, and gave him a scrub.  The smell went away, and we just figured he’d just gotten more stinky than usual (the things we tell ourselves when we worry, right?)


The smell was gone… for a day or two.  It came back, with a vengeance.  It was clear that it was coming from his mouth… the rest of his body was still lavender-fresh.  I tried getting into his mouth to see if I could see anything weird, but he wouldn’t let me anywhere near it.  That’s when I knew it was time to call the Vet.


Unfortunately, our vet… the Vet we’ve seen for the past 12 years, was all booked up… and we had to wait a few days (and over a weekend) to get him in.  The Doc didn’t seem terribly worried from my description… which put me a bit at ease.  Least I was able to function.


His appointment was yesterday morning… and it took all of 3 minutes for the Vet to deduce that our Pup has a bad abscess… and would require some oral surgery (and likely lose a few more teeth) in order to get some relief.  So, I gotta drop him off for surgery in… well, about 45 minutes.


I’m sure this is all routine, and I have all the faith in the world in our Vet… but, ya know… it’s still pretty scary.  It’s gonna be a long day, my friends.


But that’s not the sorta stuff you’re here to read… no, no, no… you wanna see a short Holiday-themed story featuring Superman!  It’s actually our second Hanukkah story this week!


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We open with Superman passing over Park Ridge on his way to Smallville in order to drop off a pair of great big tubs of caramel corn for Ma.  It’s a Christmas-time tradition at the Kent Farm, and Clark would like to make sure it continues even in this post-Pa world.  As he makes his approach, however, he is positively pummeled by a snowman!  Heck, it even cost Superman one of his popcorn tubs!

He lands, and the fight carries on in front of a house with a Menorah in its window.  A young fella named Yosef and his grandfather rush outside to see what all the hub-bub’s about… and it turns out that the youngster isn’t exactly surprised to see what’s going down!  He taps the snowmonster on its head, seemingly “deactivating” it.

The small family invites Superman inside to tell him a story.  Ya see, Yosef has himself some spectacular powers… he can create things out of clay, and make them come to life.  He then turned his attention toward creating a Golem from Jewish folklore… however, rather than forging it from clay… he thought snow might be a bit more “festive” for the season.  Through a series of miscommunications, the Snow-Golem believes that it had been instructed by its master to “Get Sooperman”… and so, he did!

We wrap up with young Yosef learning a valuable lesson… and making a single request to the Man of Steel.  Here’s the thing, Yosef’s got Cystic Fibrosis… and is cooped up at home a lot.  Since this is the first night of Hanukkah… he’s hoping to maybe get some “air”.  Superman is more than happy to oblige, so long as the kiddo helps him find a replacement tin of caramel corn.

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Well, this was a neat little uplifting tale, wasn’t it?


Really not a whole heckuva lot to actually say about it… but, I did enjoy it for what it was!  We got quite a bit of backstory on young Yosef over the course of these four-pages… gotta wonder if he might’ve been based on somebody?


Tomorrow: Christmas with Jai and Iris