#supermobile

Supermobile

Original Art

Art by Dick Giordano

DC Comics / Corgi (1979)

From Heritage Auctions...

Action Comics #481 and 482, March and April 1978: the introduction of the Supermobile!

Why oh why does a man who can fly faster than the speed of light need a flying car with hands?

Because radiation from an exploding red sun struck Earth and re-activated the villainous android Amazo, which had been on display in the Justice League of America’s satellite headquarters.  This same red sun radiation left Superman powerless.

Amazo managed to trap the majority of the JLA off Earth so they could not interfere with his nefarious plans.  That left Superman as the only hero standing in its way.

Luckily, the Man of Steel had planned for such a contingency.  He built the Supermobile, a vehicle constructed out of indestructible Supermanium, and designed to duplicate all his super powers.

Writer Cary Bates has stated that the Supermobile was not his idea; he had received an edict from on high to include it in a story.  

DC Comics had entered a licensing agreement with a British company, Corgi Toys, which manufactured toy cars about the same size and scale as Matchbox cars.  Corgi was releasing a line of Superman-themed vehicles in anticipation of Superman the Movie being released later that year.  Among the vehicles in this line were a Metropolis Police Department police car, a Daily Planet newspaper delivery truck, and the Supermobile.

The original Corgi Supermobile was the same size as a Matchbox car, approximately 3 inches-long (top 2 photos).  Corgi also released a larger version in 1/36th-scale (bottom 2 photos).

A few years later Kenner produced an armless-version of the Supermobile as part of their Super Powers line.  That vehicle was large enough to hold a Super Powers Superman figure in the cockpit.

McFarlane Toys has released a new Supermobile based on the original design as part of the Super Powers revival line.  The only major difference is the McFarlane version has red cockpit canopy.

Manchester Black summed it up perfectly:

It was a joke from the moment it debuted, it could never even pretend to be something other than an obvious ripoff/attempt to make Superman more toyetic. I talked about various outdated paraphernalia popping up again as gags/nostalgia bait over in my post on the Invisible Plane, and this is a perfect example of that. Only ever shows up again as a winking acknowledgement of how silly Superman's history can be.

That said, damned if I didn't love Janin's design for the silly thing, and seeing it in action against Ultra-Humanite got a grin out of me.