Christmas Comics Cavalcade: Dive Into Superman’s Christmas Tradition In ‘Superman’ #64

There is something special about DC’s Christmas and holiday specials, especially in the ’90s. They always seem to land better, no matter their intent, than anything other publishers released around the same time of year. One of the greatest, by far, was the Metropolis Mailbag, from Superman #64.

This issue, from Dan Jurgens, Butch Guice, Glenn Whitmore, and John Costanza, was the first of many stories to explore Clark Kent’s Christmas tradition- sitting down in Metropolis’s Thirty-Fourth Street Post Office to read all the letters to Superman he possibly can.

Now, a lot of people don’t get Superman. They wonder what’s the point of a guy who can see through walls, break the sound barrier and punch through solid steel. They call him boring, whether for his power levels, or his code of honor. Superman #64 takes all those concerns and complaints, and addresses them in the course of twenty-ish pages.

This is a story of the most powerful hero on the planet trying to face that fact that he can’t help everyone. It’s also a story of the good that Superman can do, and the lives that he can touch. This is Superman done right, as a force for hope, compassion and love, and not as the invulnerable alien who could tear anyone apart.

Without the former, the latter wouldn’t matter. We need Superman as that icon, not just for Superman to work as a character, but also for an aspirational figure. He’s a god-like being who could tear the planet in two, no doubt. But the core of the character is that he doesn’t, because he’s raised to be good. That trait is perfectly on display at Christmas.

This story shows us that. It shows Clark grappling with the fact that he won’t be able to help everyone that sent him a letter. Hell, he might not even be able to read all of them. But to those he does answer, he makes all the difference to those people. Even the story of the cancer-ridden father in Salt Lake City, a classic example of someone Superman couldn’t help, is turned around to become something more than it might seem on the surface.

This is the sort of story Superman writers need to tell more often. It’s a humanizing tale for a superhero that too many readers can’t relate to. Superman is the best of us, but even the most powerful man on the planet, at Christmastime, can’t save everyone. But he’ll do his best, and sometimes that’s all we need.