efore DC's recent "Elseworlds" line of alternate-history superhero stories, before Marvel's What If? series postulating other tangents the Marvel Universe might have taken, DC Comics pioneered the "imaginary story"—out-of-continuity tales starring the company's most famous characters. DC's Greatest Imaginary Stories collects nine examples of these and, in the interest of diversity, two other stories that flirt with the concept.
The classic DC imaginary story thrived from the late 1950s to the late 1960s, with one recurring series, "The Super-Sons of Superman and Batman," surviving into the mid-1970s in World's Finest Comics. Such "imaginary stories" appeared almost exclusively in the Superman and Batman family of comics, with one notable exception: a series of stories in which Wonder Woman teamed up with her earlier (nonexistent) selves, Wonder Girl and Wonder Tot. Regretfully, not a single example of either this or the Super-Sons series made it into this book.
The Superman family dominates DC's Greatest Imaginary Stories, taking center stage in seven of the eleven stories. Batman shares the bill in one of these, "Superman and Batman ... Brothers!" Batman takes the lead in two other stories, while Captain Marvel and Flash round out the book with one tale each—neither of which quite follows the classic template. The Captain Marvel story is a cautionary TV broadcast; the Flash story is a daydream.
What can readers expect to find in these stories?
Captain Marvel witnesses the horror of nuclear armageddon. Bruce Wayne's parents are not gunned down in front of his 10-year-old eyes. Superman and Lois marry and settle in suburbia. Lex Luthor murders Superman. Jimmy Olsen marries Supergirl. Flash reveals his real identity to the world. Batman is unmasked. Superman splits into two super-evolved selves. Superman weds all three of his sweethearts (but not simultaneously). Superman's sons become superheroes. The recently orphaned Bruce Wayne is adopted by the Kents.
Aren't all stories imaginary?
To say that these stories have aged, and not aged particularly well, is probably an understatement. Nevertheless, there's a naïve and campy charm at work here that succeeds in both seducing and entertaining. In the wake of the Comics Code Authority, established in 1954, the subject matter of comics became ridiculously restrained: For example, the main plot point in Superman stories was whether Lois would uncover Clark's secret.
The Superman family of comics produced more "imaginary stories" than any other corner of the DC Universe, and that's reflected in DC's Greatest Imaginary Stories—probably too much so. These Superman tales, although all of them are beautifully rendered by either Curt Swan or Kurt Schaffenberger, do suffer from too much repetition from story to story. In these domestic melodramas the interaction between Superman the suburban husband and his nagging housewife Lois seems lifted straight out of a 1950s sitcom (perhaps that's not so surprising: George Reeves, after all, did appear as Superman in a famous episode of I Love Lucy!)
The book would have benefited from a few more non-Superman stories. DC's Greatest Imaginary Stories is best regarded as a historical document; as such it's regrettable to see so many examples of one particular brand of story to the near-complete exclusion of others (and the total exclusion of some). Although there's certainly pleasure to be taken from reading these comics, they can now mostly be enjoyed for nostalgia's sake and for history's sake. Whether or not all the Superman stories here are indeed the "greatest" imaginary stories of their era, it might have resulted in a more interesting and pertinent book to have a better balance of feature characters.
