Here’s a few things I picked up from old Superman comics that have served me well in life.

For a cheap date, nothing’s more romantic than flying a kite in the park.

Art is very important. More important than saving someone from quicksand, for instance.

When the conversation turns awkward, a good way out is to pretend you’re drowning.

Never, NEVER trust Batman.

You didn’t really think you’d escape from presidential politics on this site, did you? Today we take a look at Superman in the White House (Superman #112, July 1958), written by Otto Binder with art by Al Plastino.

We open with Perry White assigning Lois Lane and Clark Kent to write stories on famous presidents as part of the Daily Planet’s celebration of Patriot’s Day. Being an editor of great imagination and forever mindful of his duty to keep things interesting for his readers, Perry makes the courageous choice to focus on George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Jimmy Olsen eagerly asks who he should write about and Perry answers, “There are thirty other presidents for you to choose from. Tell me your choice when I return from lunch!” (Unspoken: “Not like I’m ever going to print it, anyway, you loser.”) I can never quite shake the feeling here that Perry suddenly exits for “lunch” to avoid admitting that, like most Americans, Washington and Lincoln are the only presidents he can name.

Jimmy weighs his options (encouragingly, he can list at least three other presidents from American history) as he straightens a picture of Superman on Perry’s office wall and thinks how cool it would be if Superman were president. In a classic Jimmy Olsen move, he somehow manages to drop the picture on the back of his head and is knocked cold. Then we enter Jimmy’s dream, wherein Superman is indeed elected Chief Executive (his party affiliation is diplomatically withheld, but he wins with the “largest plurality in history!” One sympathizes with the poor schmuck who was talked into running against him). Superman names Clark Kent as his vice president and makes Jimmy his press secretary.

Superman’s secret service detail is frustrated by the President of Steel’s tendency to fly out the Oval Office window for a “breath of fresh air.” Their efficiency is pretty suspect anyway, considering President Superman is attacked by no less than three would-be assassins with knives, machine guns and bombs on a single stroll, and all in broad daylight on the White House lawn. Clark Kent resigns the vice presidency, saying “I saw that from the window!” You might expect he’s resigning out of cowardice (though who could blame him, considering 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in this story makes Fallujah look like Mayberry, NC), but in fact he’s quitting because if no one can ever kill the president, then what’s the use of being vice president? (If Jimmy was a reporter worth his salt, he’d check into the possibility Kent hired the assassins!)

The pressing issues of the day are no great challenge for a super-president. To save the taxpayers on fuel costs, Superman flies his staff to meetings by pushing Air Force One (or what passes for it here) through the air. A million admirers visit the White House and at super-speed Superman shakes the hands of every one of them (fulfilling a duty Jimmy is convinced is required by law).

When a new ship fails to launch, Superman performs the deed by hand. Tasked with being in two places at once, Superman throws out the first ball at a baseball game in DC, hurling it around the Earth to open a simultaneous game in Tokyo. Then there’s a real challenge as the national deficit hits the astonishing sum of $387 million (a little less than the box office for “Superman Returns“). Understanding the need for efficient government and fiscal responsibility, Superman bails out the country by retrieving treasure from a sunken pirate ship.

For his efforts, Superman apparently becomes the first sitting president to get his image on postage stamps and U.S. currency. But of course it’s all too good to be true, and Jimmy wakes up to find that not only is Superman not president, but he never can be, as he was not born in the U.S. and is thus ineligible for office. It’s a cute ending, and one that teaches kids a useful fact about the presidency, but it doesn’t do to think about it too long, as you’ll realize Superman is in this country as an undocumented alien.

When Leo The Lion Records put together their album, “The Official Adventures of Superman,” this story was one of only four selected for audio dramatization. Renamed “President Superman,” it features Bob Holiday as the Man of Steel. Give it a listen if you get a chance, and remember to exercise your right as a U.S. citizen and vote! (If you’re still undecided, you can always write in “Superman”).

Superman has never been a character to adapt easily to horror stories. Monsters can work, providing they’re of the sci-fi variety, but ghosts and goblins and things that go “bump” in the night are an ill fit for a character as upbeat and powerful as the Man of Steel.

Unlike Batman, who operates in the shadows of a big, scary city and has one foot in the world of horror from the start, Superman works the sunny side of the street. In classic Superman comics of the Atomic and Silver Ages, “monsters” are presented as harmless fun, creatures who wreck property and cause panic but rarely if ever claim lives; punching bags for Superman to pummel. Titano The Super-Ape is King Kong without the attitude (he’s a good monkey at heart). Frankenstein is just a movie character (and a heart-throb for viewers on Bizarro World). Lois Lane becomes a “witch” without embracing necromancy; she just gets a pointed hat and a broom and she’s in business. Jimmy Olsen becomes a werewolf, but finds lycanthropy is mostly just a social handicap, like acne.

I discovered comics in the early 70s, when America was obsessed with horror films and fiction; The Exorcist, Jaws, Amityville Horror, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, etc. Then as now comics were more into following trends than setting them, so the spinner racks were filled with four-color forays into the macabre. Batman battled Man-Bat, the Spook, vampires and werewolves. Spider-Man grew an extra pair of arms and battled Morbius, the Living Vampire. Dracula and Frankenstein got their own books, joined by made-for-comics characters like Swamp-Thing, The Demon, Man-Wolf and Man-Thing. Long-languishing “suspense” titles like “House of Mystery” and “Tales of The Unexpected” found new popularity, and Warren’s black-and-white “Creepy” magazine, freed from the constraints of the Comics Code Authority, grew so successful it inspired even mainstream Marvel to publish its own line of “adult”-ish b/w mags.

In the midst of all this, Superman was definitely a fish out of water, with his brightly colored costume, his “can-do” attitude and virtual omnipotence and a still-bright and shiny sci-fi-oriented mythos created at the height of 60s optimism. Luckily (I suppose) he still had that well-documented vulnerability to magic, so there were always sorcerors, necromancers, voodoo priests and even vampires (who are “kind of” magic…I guess) to help Superman dip his toe half-heartedly into the fad of the moment. But it wasn’t really the same.

Maybe someone can help me out here, but I really can’t think of any horror-themed Superman stories that would make it onto a “Best Of” list. There was a nice post-Crisis Action Comics annual featuring Superman and Batman against bayou vampires, but that turned out to be a better Batman story in the end.

The “spooky” covers were often great, however, as witness the gallery below.

[Show as slideshow]

Anyway, since the first time a kid pinned an “S” to his chest and tied a cape round his neck, through the days of Ben Cooper masks right up to today’s deluxe, “muscle-chest” super-suits, Superman has always been a mainstay of the Halloween tradition, even if monsters and boogeymen never really cut it in the Man of Steel’s universe.

As this public service announcement from the UK shows, Superman takes a dim view of anyone who supplies children with tobacco products. Luthor, Brainiac and the Parasite get prison time, but nicotine pushers? Those lowlifes get hurled screaming to a fiery death in Earth’s upper atmosphere. Not that I’m complaining, mind you.

Although it is a bit unnerving to hear Superman sounding like Sylvester Stallone with a mouth full of Novacaine.