Rereading Superman #422: The Comic Book That Made Me Learn To Read

It was a Sunday morning in the summer of 1986. I was five years old, staying with my grandparents at their “cottage” — a double-wide trailer on a muddy man-made lake in Indiana. My Grandpa had just gotten back from town to pick up the newspaper and, in what would become a weekly ritual, also returned with a comic book for me. It was the first comic book I remember owning: Superman 422.

The moment I saw the cover, I was obsessed. The image is burned into my mind, along with a single, burning question: why was Superman a werewolf?

I must have stared at that cover for hours. It scared the shit out of me, but I couldn’t look away. The image of a fanged, red-eyed Superman is exquisitely and horrifyingly rendered by Brian Bolland, who is perhaps best known today for his work on Batman: The Killing Joke. Looking back now, I think it’s probably the reason I spent much of my childhood terrified of werewolves.

At five years old, I somehow already knew who Superman was. We didnt’ have a VCR yet, so I couldn’t. have seen the movie, but we must have had other kids books or perhaps I had seen my dads’s meager, comic book collection that was as tattered as my own would become. In fact, I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know who Superman was. He was always just there. But I digress. I needed answers

Why was Superman a werewolf?

OF course, I made my grandpa read the issue to me. Then I started pouring through the book myself, and over. Trying to remember what I heard and matching that up with the images.

The issues pedigree doesn’t stop at the cover. It' was written by Marv Wolfman and drawn by Curt Swan. And, hat I didn’t realize until many, many years later, was that this issue has some historical significance as well. Superman #422

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And if I had just waited one more month to go stay at that little lake house, I probably would have taken Superman #423: “Whatever happened to the Man of Tomorrow” Pt.1 By Alan Moore. I missed that issue, but Pt 2, Action Comics TK. I must’ve picked it up from a drugstore spinner rack.

As ow this writing, I have my own five-year-old kid. She’s already a better reader than I am, but she’s cutting her teeth on arguably more age-appropriate fare like Babysitter’s Club Little Sister series, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, and various and sundry Star Wars and Spider-man comics.

Out of curiosity, I asked her to carefully look through the issue and tell me what she thinks happens. Tell me why was Superman is a werewolf?

Her’s her reply: