#Mike Parobeck

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Justice Society of America (Volume 2) #1

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Superman/Clark & Lois portraits.

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I love Mike Parobeck’s artwork.

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What does a 90's Superboy comic book has to say about the biochemical evolution of early life on Earth

I love bad science in comic books and I'm glad there's so much to choose from, from the 1940s to today. Even though I'm a biology teacher and usually dislike when media gets Evolution so wrong, spreading disinformation about an already complex scientific theory, I still have a soft spot for these comics that try to implement evolutionary concepts and fail. And this Superboy issue does just that, but in such an entertaining way, I had a few good laughs and saw it as a learning opportunity.

In this issue there's a Superboy "animated series" pilot being produced featuring the real Kon el and his entourage, this is a brain child of Rex Leech, Superboy's manager at this time in the comics. We see the "animation" as the characters watch it in the comic. In the pilot episode Rex reveals that his daughter, Roxy, was turned into "primordial slime" (panel above) by a villain. This is a reference to the "primordial soup" concept from the heterotrophic theory proposed by the scientists Oparin and Haldane. They stated that a prebiotic liquid with lots of elemental molecules evolved into organic molecules due to the intense conditions the primitive Earth faced (thunderstorms, volcanic activities, asteroid bombardment etc). Then, said organic molecules later grouped in cell-like structures (coacervates) capable of replication, thus creating a primitive form of life.

Roxy IS that prebiotic soup, a slime contained in a glass, that tragically gets shot during the pilot, leaking into an underground pool of undetermined origin water (in which Superboy says he occasionally bathes in).

Behold then, that by the end of the pilot (panel right above), Rex, Conner and Dubbilex discover the pool of mysterious water changed, now that Roxy was mixed into it... EVOLVING into algae (according to Dubbilex) and a fungus (according to an emotional Rex - happy to see his daughter once again alive in the form of this green goop). To be clear, algae and fungi are as different as insects are from trees, they're not only into separate biological kingdoms, but while algae has a machinery to make photosynthesis and produce their own food, fungi cells need to extract their energy from their surroundings (soil, trees, animals, you and me) and they have a cell wall made of the same material as insects exoskeletons! So, pretty different...

But the most insane thing about this development in the story is the implied idea that Roxy is evolving, going from organic slime to unicelular algae to fungi and... what's next? According to Rex (in the panel below - when the animation episode ends and real life Roxy is upset about being turned into a fungus) - A slug - oh yes, the next big step in evolution.

This was so funny to me because it's a different way to portray that old and very wrong idea that the evolutionary process is like a set of stairs in which life is slowly going up, higher and higher, getting "better and better", step by step. While truly, a more realistic view of evolution would look like a twisted tree of ramifications, some going nowhere, some staying apparently the same, and some getting more and more twisted by the minutes (yes, those would be bacteria).

Evolution is not a progression from less complex to more complex, evolution is simply changing, adapting, transforming through time. Birds would consider humans lesser beings for our lack of wings the same way most of us consider flatworms lesser for their lack of, well, lots of stuff, arms, backbone, blood, a respiratory system. And yet, we're all equally well adapted to our respective habitats, we are on the same level because we are alive and thriving, there's no hierarchy in evolution.

To think that Roxy would go from primordial slime to algae to fungi until potentially reach the complexity level of a human being is, as Dubillex put it in that panel above: bad science. However I had so much fun reading this story. I don't know if it's right as a biology teacher to have such an enthusiasm for bad science in comics, but I refuse to deny Art! I'd love to bring this issue to my students so we could read it in group and interpret together the message implied in Roxy's "evolution", and what is wrong about it. It would be a nice way to make the students read the comics I enjoy and learn something about real science.

My favorite thing about this issue is that the butt of the joke does not seem to be the theory of Evolution, but the distorted view someone can have of it. I didn't highlight it here, but in the end, there was a lot comically wrong with the pilot besides the Roxy "evolution" plot. So when Dubillex acknowledges to Rex that his pilot episode is not educational, but presents poor science, it's clear to me we're laughing at Rex's perception of scientific ideas and not at the ideas themselves. Which is refreshing. Yes, this is my favorite issue of this Superboy run so far and yes I'm biased. Thanks for reading this!

From Superboy #4 (1994) by Karl Kesel, Tom Grummett & Mike Parobeck

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Babs

Mike Parobeck - Rick Burchett

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Mike Parobeck and Rick Burchett’s original cover art for The Batman Adventures #22 (1994)

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DC Finest: Harley Quinn - Birth of the Mirth by Paul Dini, Bruce Timm, Kelley Puckett, Mike Parobeck, Karl Kesel, Terry Dodson and Rachel Dodson. Cover by Timm. Out in February 2025.

"The Maid of Mischief stars in her very own DC Finest collection featuring her very first comics appearances in the pages of The Batman Adventures #12 and The Batman Adventures: Mad Love #1, plus her follow-up wacky escapades from Batman: Harley Quinn #1, Harley Quinn #1-8, Action Comics #765, Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #126, Azrael: Agent of the Bat #60, Batman #570 and #573-574, Batman: Shadow of the Bat #93, Detective Comics #737 and #740-741, Catwoman #82-84 and #89, and a story from Batman: Gotham Knights #14."

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Superman & Batman Magazine #4 (1994) by Jerry Ordway & Mike Parobeck

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Batman Adventures #26

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60 Years of the Original X-Men pt 2

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Mile Parobeck and Rick Burchett: Batgirl

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Justice Society of America house ad from August 1992

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Batman and Robin pt 2

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Mike Parobeck was such a great artist! He left us way too young.

[onlylonelylatino]

Batman by Mike Parobeck

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August 1992. Six years after DC forced Roy Thomas to send his childhood favorite characters to Valhalla, the JSA returned in this delightful series by Len Strazewski and Mike Parobeck. Far less fussy and continuity-obsessed than Thomas's earlier ALL-STAR SQUADRON, INFINITY INC., and YOUNG ALL-STARS, this book nonetheless provided some amusing twists for those familiar with the characters' long history, like the revelation that Johnny Thunder's foster daughter Peachy Pet had made a mint in frozen yogurt. The series is probably most notable for the debut of Jesse Quick, the daughter of Golden Age heroes (and All-Star Squadron headliners) Johnny Quick and Liberty Belle, but Strazewski also introduces a presumptive successor to Johnny Thunder in the form of Kiku, a plucky Bahdnesian girl who can also control the Thunderbolt. She's a fun character, but her depiction is marred by an extremely ill-advised coloring choice that makes the people of Bahdnesia look like literal redskins. (Recent digital editions dial this back a little, but not enough — the Bahdnesians look like cousins of Sinestro!)

This book sadly produced an internal editorial backlash to the effect that publishing a comic about septuagenarian superheroes was making DC look bad, so the series was cancelled after 10 issues, and the order came down to kill most of the JSA in ZERO HOUR. (Most of them survived anyway, but that's another story.) Kiku, meanwhile, has been completely ignored by subsequent writers, outside of a brief and confusing cameo in the obscure and terrible PRIMAL FORCE series in 1995.