What’s in a Name? Superman’s greatest enemy we don’t hear about. by Nigel Brown

As I’ve already mentioned on this blog (The Mad DC Comic Hunt – or Tales of the Fabulous Bronze Age/posted on July 10, 2011  http://superstuff73.blogspot.com/2011/07/mad-dc-comic-hunt-or-tales-of-fabulous.html ) my first American comic book was Superman No. 190, cover dated October 1966.

Although this encounter took place 54 years ago, I remember it well; you never forget your first love! My father ran a market stall selling cheap clothes for children in Charlotte Street, Portsmouth. The market ran from Thursdays to Saturdays, and every now and then I would be hanging around, bored. The stall was situated on a street corner, just opposite a large newsagent, August’s.

(Photo of August's in Charlotte St, Portsmouth credited to Shane Michael Barker)

One day, in an attempt to keep me occupied, I was allowed to enter the shop and choose something to read. My eyes alighted on the Thorpe and Porter rack just inside the doorway (to the left, I recall) and I picked out that Superman comic from amongst the colourful Silver Age DCs packed therein. For me, it was like that first pebble that rolls down a slope, leading to an avalanche of rocks thundering along for the next half-century.

But there are also several remarkable things about that particular issue of Superman, beyond my personal attachment to it.

To start with, the featured story ‘The Four Element Enemies’, was one of the first Superman tales written by fourteen-year old Jim Shooter. He’d already begun his career in comics earlier that year, aged thirteen, when he began to sell Legion of Super-Heroes stories to Superman editor Mort Weisinger. Their relationship has been well documented elsewhere (I would recommend Shooter’s own website as a starting point http://jimshooter.com/category/02-early-life/?order=asc); suffice to say that Weisinger recognised this schoolboy’s immense talent and was eager to use Shooter’s skills as a bulwark against the growing assault on DC’s market dominance from the ‘Marvel’ous competition.

Another point of interest is that the Curt Swan cover of Superman No. 190 has a character, a humanoid ablaze with fire, that might be confused with Marvel’s Human Torch. But this isn’t what today would be called a ‘cross-over’ between comic book publishers.

I think Swan was careful not to copy Johnny Storm’s ‘Human Torch’ too closely, although the early Kirby illos of the Torch, especially from Fantastic Four # 1, are a closer ‘match’ (to use a Marvel-ous pun…).

Human Torch in Fantastic Four No.1 Art by Jack Kirby

As stated in the story’s own introduction, the eponymous ‘Four Element Enemies’ in Superman No.190 are based on the ancient Greek belief that the world was constructed of the four basic elements of Earth, Air, Fire and Water.

Although, on the surface, Marvel’s Johnny Storm ‘Human Torch’ was derived from one of the two first Marvel superheroes published in October 1939 in Marvel Comics No.1 (the other hero was the Sub-Mariner), there actually is a connection between the fiery humanoid on the cover of Superman No.190 and Marvel’s Human Torch; Stan Lee did reveal an inspiration for the Fantastic Four’s powers was also this ancient Greek concept of the Elements, with the Human Torch representing Fire, the Invisible Girl as unseen as the Air, Mr Fantastic being able to flow and change shape as easily as Water, and the rugged, boulder-looking Thing representing the ancient Greek element for Earth.

But the most remarkable aspect of Superman No.190 is the name and identity of the villain in this comic who created ‘The Four Element Enemies’ to fight Superman: the space pirate Amalak.

Amalak in Superman No.190 Art by Wayne Boring

After this first appearance, Amalak resurfaced for a second bout with Superman in another Shooter-scripted story ‘The Fury of the Kryptonian-Killer’ the following year, in Superman No.195 cover dated April 1967.

Then Amalak seemed to be incarcerated in his Space Prison for the next nine years.

Amalak in Superman No.195 Art by Curt Swan

Amalak only came back briefly in Superman No.299 in 1976, and then again for the final time in the Earth One Universe, in a Martin Pasko 4-part story in Superman Nos. 311- 314 in 1977.

Those readers with Old Testament Biblical knowledge have already spotted the difference between the villain Amalak and all the other more well-known Superman enemies such as Lex Luthor and Brainiac. Uniquely, the name ‘Amalak’ is found in the scriptures, first, as an individual’s name, in Genesis chapter 36, verse 12, as Amalak, a grandson of Esau.

But, more pertinently, in Exodus chapter 17, verse 8: Then came Amalak, and fought with Israel. The people of Amalak attack the Israelites without cause, an action piratical in nature.

And later on, in Numbers chapter 24, verse 20, Amalak is described as the first among Nations, taken by commentators that Amalak is the leading force of evil.

All of this indicates that Shooter, or perhaps Weisinger himself, didn’t just pull this space-pirate’s name out of a hat, but there was an awareness of the resonance the name Amalak would have with well-versed Sunday school attending American youngsters (and remember, this was in 1966, when religious education across America would have given American youngsters a familiarity with the Old Testament).

And there’s yet more resonance here. It’s been noted elsewhere that Jerry Siegel’s naming of Superman’s Kryptonian family line, –El’, is also a Hebrew term for ‘of the God of Israel’.

So perhaps the war between Amalak and Israel was being played out in that Superman No.190 at a deeper level than was noticed by a lot of readers at the time, including me.

Copyright. Nigel Brown