Back in 1986, when we were youthful comic book fans, we entered the “Why I Ought to Be in Blue Devil” contest, which promised us the opportunity to enter DC Comics continuity; ultimately, we lost out to some guy who had the power to make balloon animals. We haven’t thought about that in years (really, we haven’t), until we recently learned about the impending publication of The Kid Who Saved Superman, part of a series of chapter books featuring licensed DC heroes and villains published by Stone Arch Books designed to “transform relucant readers into reading enthusiasts.” The story, written by comics veteran Paul Kupperberg, has its origins in a “Find a Hero” contest back in March: Students from across the United States submitted essays about real-life heroes from their schools; 13-year-old Hakeem Bennett wrote about a visually-impaired teacher at Brooklyn’s P.S. 36—and now they’re both making guest appearances in the book (along with the teacher’s seeing-eye dog).
In the story, Superman rescues Hakeem and his classmates when they’re trapped in a mountain during a school field trip, except the earthquake has knocked loose a big chunk of kryptonite… You can sort of see where it’s going from here. We imagine Hakeem will be pretty popular when school resumes in a few weeks.
(Here’s an interesting coincidence: Kupperberg’s brother, Alan, was the one who drew that issue of Blue Devil in which we didn’t appear, unless you count a brief mention in the letters page. Now that we’re thinking of it again, we wonder whatever happened to the kid who made balloon animals.)