Here are some cool Easter eggs that I found the newest My Adventures with Superman episode, “Let’s Go to Ivo Tower, You Say”.
Links to the easter eggs post:
Episode 1 is here
Episode 2 is here
Episode 3 is here
Episode 5 is here
Episode 6 is here
Episode 7 is here and here
Episode 8 is here
Episode 9 is here
Episode 10 is here
SPOILERS if you have not seen the episode of course:
Perry assigns our intern trio to go get interviews about Anthony Ivo. I previously mentioned Ivo's deal in the comics in this post, but we'll talk more about this version of Ivo later.
Shout out to Lois' hanbok! As a kid in the 90s my first exposure to the DC was through the DC Animated Universe. Because of the way some of the characters like Lois, Clark, Bruce, Dick, Tim, and Terry, were designed, as a kid, I thought they were Asian. Very cool to see this version of Lois be Korean.
Before Lois shows up for their black tie event at Ivo Tower, Jimmy knocks down a stack of papers and magazine and Clark goes to pick it up and stumbles upon the Metropolis Star with a cover that shows him as a kid flying 15 years ago.
The Metropolis star is a rival newspaper to the Daily Planet in the comics. The publisher makes its first appearance in Superman #9 (1987) (W&P: John Byrne, I: Karl Kesel, C: Tony Ziuko, L: John Costanza).
When our intern trio makes it to Ivo Tower, Lois spots some very interesting powerful and political figures of Metropolis, the CEO of Galaxy Communications and Mayor Fleming.
Galaxy Communications makes its first appearance in Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen #133 (1970) where it was headed by Morgan Edge, the then leader of Intergang. In the comics Clark and Lois does work for Galaxy communications thanks to it buying out the Daily Planet forcing Clark to be the evening news anchor. The Galaxy Communications panels here are from Swamp Thing #68 (1988) (W&P: Rick Veitch, I: Alfredo Alcala, C: Tajana Wood, L: John Costanza).
Mayor Fleming makes her first appearance in Action Comics #894 (2010) (W: Nick Spencer, P: R.B. Silva, I: Denis Freitas, C: Dave McCaig, L: Rob Leigh) where she appoints Jimmy Olsen and Sebastien Mallory as a welcoming committee for Dalwythians aliens. Like her MAwS counterpart she is obviously the Mayor of Metropolis.
Later, Lois goes and questions Senator Sackett at the party/event.
In the comics Sackett was a councilman not a senator who makes his first appearance in Superman #130 (1997) (W: Dan Jurgens, P: Norm Breyfogle, I: Joe Rubenstein, C: Glenn Whitmore and Digital Chameleon, L: John Costanza) depicted here in the issue's panel wearing a Superman costume. Sackett in the comics is in Luthor's pocket.
I am like 99.99% sure this is Lex Luthor like who else in Metropolis is named Alex, has red hair (if this is Lex Luthor and he shows up again, I'll talk about him and what I mean by this in another post.), and works in the science and tech field.
We finally meet Ivo and he is as I was hoping he'd be a major techbro tool. The way he acts in his introduction and his meeting with Clark is very much like Lex and Clark's meeting in Batman v Superman. Both Ivo and Lex upon meeting Clark know how strong he is. In MAwS Ivo punches his chest and it hurts him and in BvS you heard an audible thud when Lex knocks on Clark's chest. Very similar vibes between both scenes.
Clark confronts Ivo about one of his deals and name drops one of Metropolis' mob families.
Bobby Gazzo, head of the Gazzo crime family in Metropolis, makes his first appearance in Batman: Dark Victory #1 (W: Jeph Loeb, P&I: Tim Sale, C: Gregory Wright and Heroic Age, L: Richard Starkings). Fantastic sequel to Long Halloween, highly recommend reading both books.
After Clark gets thrown out and Lois offers to repair his jacket, we see Lois mentioning her dad, Sam Lane a military general and if the person at the end of the second part of the first episode is Sam Lane...
...and he shows up again in the show I'll talk more about it in another post. For now this is all just speculation.
Might be reading into this but maybe a subtle nod to how the words "Superman" and "pal" are often used together. Both have been used as a comic book title, "Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen" as I've mentioned in these posts a few times.
The show here did a very clever thing with Ivo. Normally any other media pertaining to Ivo would give the audience his power and weakness stealing robot Amazo, but here the MAwS team was able to combine both Ivo and another villain in Superman's rogues gallery, Parasite.
The first Parasite, Raymond Jensen, makes his first appearance in Action Comics #340 (1966) (Cover Art by Curt Swan, George Klein, and Ira Schnapp).
All iterations of Parasite have the ability to temporarily steal away anyone's energy, strength, and their knowledge. As I've said there have been other Parasites that Superman fought, the second and most recurring Parasite is Rudy Jones, the Parasite I'm more familiar with, who makes his first appearance in Firestorm #58 (1987).
Cover Art by Joe Brozowski, Bruce Peterson, and Tom Ziuko
Alex and Alexandra Allston the third and fourth Parasite (green Parasite and purple Parasite respectively) first appeared in the Adventures of Superman #633 (2004).
Cover art by Gene Ha and Art Lyon
The latest Parasite, Joshua Allen, makes his first appearance in Superman #23.4 (2013).
Cover art by Aaron Kuder and Dan Brown
So yeah there are similarities between the Amazo robot and Parasite and it was smart of the MAwS team to just combine Ivo with Parasite to avoid redundancies. Besides the Amazo robot is more of a Justice League villain anyways.
Near the end of the episode, after the Parasite suit wrecks Ivo's body, he begins to look more like his recent iterations in the comics now. The panel here is from Justice League of America #4 (2013) (W: Geoff Johns, P: Brett Booth, I: Norm Rapmund, C: Andrew Dalhouse, L: Rob Leigh).
Hope you all had a wonderful time checking this post out. Like I said at the beginning my other MAwS easter egg posts are:
Episode 1 is here
Episode 2 is here
Episode 3 is here
Episode 5 is here
Episode 6 is here
Episode 7 is here and here
Episode 8 is here
Episode 9 is here
Episode 10 is here
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Hiya~! You're always in the back of my mind as a kind and knowledgeable source for Daredevil. ♥
Do you know if it has ever been revealed exactly what chemical blinded Matt? Or even where it was coming from/going in the middle of the city? My knowledge of comic books exploiting all potential plots makes me feel like this is a thread that would have been pulled at some point over the last 60 years, but I don't see anything.
Aah, thank you! That's a great question, and the answer is that a lot of these details have actually been kept vague. There have been a lot of retellings of Matt's origin, but they haven't explored the actual context/nuances of the accident that much and the details they have included have tended to be inconsistent. The thing that blinded Matt was a radioactive substance of some kind, but visual depictions have varied wildly, from a glowing "radioactive cylinder" to leaky barrels of toxic sludge.
Matt's accident depicted by Frank Miller, Klaus Janson, and Glynis Wein (left); and by Chris Samnee and Javier Rodriguez (right).
As I mentioned, the details of the accident itself also vary. In Daredevil #1, we learn that the substance that blinded Matt was being transported by Ajax Atomic Labs, and that the accident was caused by the truck's brakes malfunctioning:
Daredevil vol. 1 #1 by Stan Lee, Bill Everett, and Sam Rosen
In Daredevil #164's origin rehashing, Roger McKenzie tells us that it was the army transporting bomb materials through the city, and that the accident was caused by the driver suffering a sudden heart attack:
Daredevil vol. 1 #164 by Roger McKenzie, Frank Miller, Klaus Janson, Glynis Wein, and John Costanza
Perhaps most compellingly (at least to me), Tony Stark's notes on Daredevil in the Civil War Files identify a Stark Industries project (under the leadership of Tony's father) as the source of the substance, which is referred to as radioactive waste:
Civil War Files #1 by Anthony Flamini, Stuart Vandal, Ronald Byrd, Madison Carter, et al.
Mark Waid added one more detail, which gave voice to something that had previously just been implied: that this dangerous substance—whatever it was—was not supposed to be going through a populated area at all:
Caption: "That's when the driver opted to finally look up. His tires screaming, his cargo tumbled loose. It had been secured with the same kind of care one would expect—from a fly-by-night company that thought it'd be okay to illegally transport toxic waste through New York traffic."
Daredevil vol. 3 #23 by Mark Waid, Chris Samnee, Javier Rodriguez, and Joe Caramagna
To this, I might add the inference that it was likely being driven through Hell's Kitchen in particular because it was (at that time) a low income neighborhood where the authorities would be less likely to notice or care.
Waid's description of the accident, and the visual of barrels of toxic waste rather than a radioactive cylinder, are reminiscent of the alternate universe version of Matt's origin that Frank Miller and John Romita, Jr. presented in Man Without Fear—which also included the juicy detail of lawyers for the corporation showing up at Matt and his father's apartment afterward and strong-arming Jack into not pressing charges.
But yes, though I understand keeping the science involved in superhero origin stories non-specific, this is definitely an area of the Daredevil lore that could use further clarification. For real-world inspiration, here's an interesting New York Times article from 1985 about the transportation of nuclear waste through New York City. This part in particular seems relevant, and fits the timing of the publication of Daredevil #1 in 1964:
"Brookhaven has had a nuclear reactor operating since 1954. From 1954 to 1976, the spent fuel - radioactive uranium - was carried by truck into New York City, across the 59th Street Bridge, north on Third Avenue and across town to the George Washington Bridge. It then went south to a site in South Carolina for reprocessing. But in 1976 the city passed a local law banning the shipments, and triggering a battle over who has authority to control the shipments."
Maybe Matt was blinded by radioactive uranium? That transport route doesn't hit Hell's Kitchen at all, but I will also point out that Matt's childhood neighborhood wasn't specified as being Hell's Kitchen until Daredevil #164. At the very least, we know that toxic stuff was going through Manhattan in 1964, so if you were interested in a potential real-world source for more details to add to Matt's accident, that seems like a good place to look.
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