Superman has been saving earth for over 80 years. He’s one of the first superheroes to hit comics, making his debut in Action Comics #1, 1938! Over those 80 years Superman has starred in over two dozen titles!
The comic we are looking at today is The Adventures of Superman #475. The Adventures of Superman is one of the original comics to feature Superman. The comic started out in June 1939 simply titled Superman. In 1987 someone got the idea to rebrand it as The Adventures of Superman, but they kept the issue numbers intact. The Adventures of Superman ran from January 1987 (issue #424) until April 2006 (issue #649).
That wasn’t the end of the comic though, in May 2006 Superman #650 hit the shelves. Yep, DC renamed the comic again, this time removing ‘The Adventures of’ going back to the original title of Superman. The comic would run another five years until October 2011 with issue #714.
Today’s issue is The Adventures of Superman #475, in the story Superman’s enemies build a theme park with robot replicas of Wonder Woman, Flash, Batman and other Superheroes. (Think Westworld, only not as good).
Superman enters the park and the robots, controlled by the bad guys, attack Superman and try to kill him. They should have killed the story, it’s not good. And of course Superman doesn’t die in this issue.
Enough about the Man of Steel! Let’s see what the ads looked like in The Adventures of Superman #475.
First up is a great ad for Upper Deck trading cards. I love sports cards and Hockey was high on the list. I grew up in a state with exactly zero professional teams, no NFL, MLB NHL, nothing. We did have a minor league hockey team though which made hockey cards a hot commodity. I don’t think any of the players ever made it to the NHL.
Upper Deck hit the market in 1987 with baseball cards and quickly obtained license for the other major league sports, NHL, NFL and NBA. The cards were always great quality, they were my favorite card brand to collect.
This ad features The Great One on his new(ish) team the L.A. Kings (yuck). I don’t think a regular sized card is big enough to list all his stats!
Megaman! I played the original Megaman til my hands cramped up. The same with Megaman 2. Never played Meagman 3, but it was a huge hit. This ad doesn’t do it justice. The graphics are top notch for the time, they should have bigger screen shots and smaller box art. And why is the Capcom logo so big? Bad design for a great game.
Comic conventions were big in the 1990’s. We covered the Great Eastern Conventions in the last installment. They are heading further west and hitting Minneapolis! I can drive there, it’s only 3 hours away!! Oh wait, this comic came out in February 1991, the convention was in January… Thanks a lot.
1-900 numbers were huge in the late 80s and early 90s. There was a 1-900 line for everything, The Corey’s, He-Man, Hulk Hogan, WWF, Freddy Krueger, G.L.O.W., UFOs, everything. You could even learn Jessica Hahn’s secrets…hmmmm
The top ad is a tip line for video games. Call 1-900-TIPLINE every week for new tips, only .95 per minute.
The bottom ad is for baseball card prices. You can call 1-900-4-HOME-RUN, 24 hours a day to learn the price of your valuable card collection, only $1.25 per minute.
Mile High Comics, a power house in mail order comics. I talked about Mile High comics in the She-Hulk installment. My opinion of them hasn’t changed.
If you’re every in Colorado looking for a comic book store don’t go to Mile High Comics! If you want a comic book store recommendation call me at 1-900-COMIC-BOOKS.
Here’s a good one that was slowly going away in the 1990s. Most ads in the 90s were full page video games, movies or other comic books. This is a nice throw back, with multiple small ads for all kinds of great merch! Muscles in 7 days, learn to draw, even an at home GED!
The Bat Mobile and Mario phone look interesting though. $39 in 1991 doesn’t seem like a bad price, but that’s $75 in 2021 money. Not sure I’d buy a Bat Mobile phone for $75.
A nice 3 Musketeers ad! This is #1 in a Series, we saw #5 in the Ghost Rider installment. The first adventure finds them in the Peruvian Desert (or is it the Peruvian Dessert…)
I wonder why they choose this desert? As deserts go, this one is pretty small, South America has a much bigger desert further south in Argentina. And why not choose a massive desert like the Gobi or Sahara? Maybe I’m overthinking this a bit, I think I’ll have a 3 Musketeers and move on to the next ad.
It’s not often an ad outshines the cover art, but this one nails it! WrestleMania Challenge! Yes! We’re talking WWF baby, none of this WWE crap.
Choose from 9 WWF superstars like Hulk Hogan, Hacksaw Jim Duggan, “The Macho Man King” Randy Savage and more. Wrestlers had their own moves in the game The Atomic Drop, The Hulkster Splash, Warrior Wallop, all the signature moves were available.
I played this game a lot. If you haven’t played it you should. It’s free to play on OldGameShelf, so head over there now!
That ends our look at The Adventures of Superman #475, another anniversary comic with great ads from 1991.
Until next time, keep your comics bagged and boarded…unless you want to thumb through them to check out the great ads!
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