Swedish Comics

Stieg Larsson, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (London, 2008), p. 261.

Investigating the disappearance of a young woman, Harriet Vanger, Mikael Blomkvist finds some comic books on a bookshelf:

The 91;
Phantomen;
Romans;

- also a copy of Lektyr magazine.

Blomkvist has studied photographs of Harriet and others taken on the day when she disappeared. He intuits that he has spotted something significant in one of the photos but does not yet know what it is. This rings true. It sounds like the experience of other fictional detectives including Poul Anderson's Trygve Yamamura and Anderson's other characters, Nicholas van Rijn and Dominic Flandry, who must also apply detective skills to diverse situations.

Comparisons With Superheroes

Copied from Poul Anderson Appreciation:

Alien Animals
Words And Texts
 Hugh Valland And Superman
Watchmen
Green Lantern
Hawkman
Superman
Batman
A Mad Time Patrol Story

I hope that page viewers reread these earlier posts while I am out of town all day!

Addendum: Nineteen or so hours later, I am back from London and adding more links:

Aquamen
The Martian Manhunter  

Before Superman

There have been at least three versions of a pre-Superman superhero role for Clark Kent:

Superboy in comics;
Superboy in the Superboy TV series;
the Red and Blue Blur in the Smallville TV series.

There was a pre-Superboy "Smallville Angel" in some comics and in a Superman novel by Elliot S! Maggin.

There have been at least three spin-off Superboys:

the Superboy of Earth Prime before the Crisis on Infinite Earths;

the Superboy of the Time Trapper's pocket universe after the Crisis;

the Superboy during the Reign of the Supermen after the Death of Superman.

Smallville presents characters who are the same only in name as the original versions:

Pete Ross;
two Hamiltons;
Morgan Edge;
Maxwell Lord;
Cat Grant;
Glorious Godfrey;
Oliver Queen.

Lois, Lana, Cat And Chloe

In 1938, Superman introduced Lois Lane.
In 1950, Superboy introduced Lana Lang.
In 1987, a new version of Superman introduced Cat Grant.
In 2001, Smallville introduced Chloe Sullivan, who is:

Lois' cousin;
the only one of these four to appear first on screen.

The Superman myth can still introduce new enduring characters.

Smallville: Lazarus

I saw Logan today but maybe it is too soon for spoilers.

Smallville: The Final Season, disc 1, begins with a trailer for the Green Lantern film.

To share Lex's memories, his clones would need not only bodies based on his DNA but also his RNA somehow inserted into their brains. Lex would not give them his memories if he wanted them only for body parts. There seems to be an assumption that a human clone is not only a genetic duplicate of an organism but also an exact duplicate of a person.

Clark wrongly assumed that it was Jor-El who had the power to give him a second chance at life. But who was it? Since Clark fell from the roof of the Daily Planet building without his powers, why was his body not damaged by the impact when it hit the street? How come he is back in an NDE scenario speaking to Jonathan at the end of the episode?

I think it is a bit much and over the top to have Darkseid invading at this stage. There is already more than enough going on to help Clark to become Superman. I think that the costume should first have appeared right at the end of the last episode.

Smallville: Approaching The End Of Season 9

In DC Comics in the 1950s and '60s, US government agencies did not kidnap, coerce or kill. Times change. In Smallville, Watchtower has two enemies: Zod and Checkmate. There could be a three-sided war. Temporarily at least, Luthorcorp has merged with Queen Industries and is run by Oliver Queen so it is no longer a threat.

Checkmate has internal sections that are secret from each other. How does Waller know about a threat from Apokolis?