MYTHCOMICS: "THE GHOST OF KRYPTON PAST" (DC COMICS PRESENTS #82, 1985)

 

Though Superman and Adam Strange were created over twenty years apart, and only one of them was explicitly conceived to be a DC Comics hero, both share some inspiration from a hero created over twenty years before Superman: Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter, first appearing in 1912's A PRINCESS OF MARS. The indebtedness of Adam Strange is more obvious. Earthman John Carter was mysteriously spirited to the red planet Mars, where he indulged in lots of fighting in defense of his cherished princess Dejah Thoris, whom he married in the third book. Adam Strange was yanked from Earth by a Zeta-Beam originating on the planet Rann in Alpha Centauri, and once he reached Rann, he indulged in lots of fighting in defense of his girlfriend Alanna (who would become Strange's wife some time after the demise of the original series). Superman's debt, though, is more apparent than real. Though it seems well established that Jerry Siegel was familiar with the Burroughs hero, all he really emulated from John Carter was the idea of a super-strong hero amid lesser mortals. Siegel's original idea seemed to be that all denizens of Krypton had super-powers even on their own world. But once the Man of Steel fell under the aegis of other editors, the hero became much more Carter-like, powerless on his homeworld but empowered by the conditions of an alien planet.

Written by Cary Bates and both penciled and inked by Klaus Janson, "The Ghost of Krypton Past" (which happily does not force any other Dickensian tropes into the mix) opens with Adam and his wife enjoying a picnic on Rann. Alanna thinks Strange is trembling at her touch but it's really a Rann-quake, caused by the advent of a Kryptonian "ghost." The continuity of what happens next is muddled, but Strange apparently rescues her from the cataclysm, after which Alanna falls into a trance and starts speaking Kryptonese. This moves Strange to have his father-in-law Sardath summon Superman to Rann via the Zeta-Beam. 

As soon as the Man of Steel arrives, though, the happily married Alanna greets him like a trollop trying to pick up a sailor, remarking on the "physical and psychic magnificence" of the Kryptonian race. It's immediately evident that Alanna's being possessed by a spirit who's both vixenish and unsubtle-- she comes on to Superman right in front of her "husband"-- and on top of that, she speaks in tongues, or rather, the one tongue of Kryptonese. But even before Superman reveals the significance of the foreign phrase, the spirit changes Alanna into a monstrous form (with risible lobster-claws), wounds Strange, and escapes while Superman's helping his buddy.

Superman then provides a mini-history of the Kryptonian legend of Zazura, "a space-succubus, a female demon who subsisted by devouring the life-force of other human beings." It's not clear if Zazura is an alien creature or a metaphysical construct, though the former seems more likely, since we're also told that Zazura dwelled in space just beyond Krypton's atmosphere. This bit of retconning plays into a commonplace of the Krypton mythos: that for one reason or another, the super-advanced people of the planet eschewed space-travel, so that they were caught flatfooted when their world went boom. Thus Zazura, who for some time devoured any Kryptonian astronauts who came her way, bears indirect responsibility for the near-extinction of the race. Superman further theorizes that Rann has become infected by Zazura's presence since the Alpha Centauri star-system has passed through space once occupied by Krypton, and that the demoness plans to eradicate Rann to devour the energies of its inhabitants.

While Superman flies off to find the demon, Strange characteristically uses brain-power to deduce that Zazura isn't the only phenomenon that has appeared on Rann. Strange and his father-in-law learn that particles of crystal from Krypton's ancient "fire-falls" have entered Rann's atmosphere; crystals which weaken the creature the way kryptonite harms Kryptonians. When Strange finds his way to the locale from which Zazura is working her evil will, he finds that she's already subdued the Man of Steel. But the Champion of Rann shoots her with firefall-crystals, thus separating the spirit from the body of Alanna. This wound weakens the demon enough that Superman breaks free and administers the coup de grace: setting off Strange's second weapon-- a bomb full of firefall-crystals-- so that Zazura is destroyed and Rann is saved.

I said earlier that there's no precise proof that Zazura was in any way connected to Krypton's worship-systems; that she could as easily be an alien force interpreted as a "space succubus" (though negative incarnations of femininity were certainly a big part of the Judeo-Christian religion that influenced much of the Superman mythology). Being an alien rather than a magical demon doesn't keep Zazura from having metaphysical significance, though, and in any case the conclusion of "Ghost" reveals a different sort of mystical import. Rann, having passed into the space-sector of vanished Krypton, also came into contact with the spirits of that long dead race. Those spirits (whose plurality means that the title should have read "Ghosts") were aware of Zazura's malign plans. They, not Zazura, caused Alanna to speak her initial Kryptonese words, so that "their planet's last surviving son" would be called to Rann. As that world passes out of the Krypton sector, the final two pages show Superman enjoying a fleeting communion with his deceased ancestors.

"Ghost" is definitely far better than the usual run-of-the-mill stories seen in DC COMICS PRESENTS, and possibly artist Klaus Janson had some uncredited story input, in addition to his producing a stark yet evocative take on the wonderworlds of Rann and Krypton. Both Janson and Bates do credit to the classic Jerry Siegel-Wayne Boring story "Superman's Return to Krypton," wherein the Fire-Falls and other Kryptonian spectacles debuted. In addition, as shown above, a 1965 Supergirl story by Leo Dorfman deserves credit for first using the fire-falls as an exorcism-device, for when Supergirl becomes demon-possessed, only the surviving phenomenon of the falls can purge the evil in a Kryptonian's heart.

ADDENDUM: I initially didn't make much of Zazura's name, since it didn't seem to correlate with any established names from myth and legend. Of course I noticed that the demon's name begins with the last letter of the English language, while Alanna's begins with the first letter. This by itself could be an example of positive-negative mirroring, where "A" is "the beginning" and "Z" is "the end." But I then noticed that Bates (assuming he created the name) went a little further by (a) having the two names possess the same number of syllables, while (b) the first three letters of each name is a palindrome: ALA for Alanna, ZAZ for Zazura. A little more evidence of non-formulaic thinking in the story as a whole.