[Criticism Corner] Because Comics: DC Santa (Patreon)

Sorry things have been so slow!  Since I wrote a bunch of scripts in bulk, I've been cranking those out and haven't had any new videos to update y'all on!  Thankfully, I whipped up this Christmas special that I think you'll like.  Please let me know what you think. :)

One of my favorite moments in the Justice League cartoon is this moment with Superman.

- Clip -

And you know what, in a world of gods and New Gods and the Speed Force and a Gorilla City, is Santa Claus really that much a stretch for DC?  Well anyone with Google and access to the DC Wiki can tell you that no.  No it’s not.  But surely nobody would be dumb enough to read every DC Comic Santa has ever been in, right?  Yeah, that’s me.

Now the original plan for this video was to look over all of the various depictions of Mr. Claus throughout the comics and give a run down of his history, but what I found is all over the place, contradictory, and like really REALLY weird and since I am cursed with all this knowledge, well you’re going to have to be too.

Okay, so the first appearances that any DC property would see of Santa were in the Superman’s Christmas Adventure comics.  These special issues were a promotional item handed out to retailers, but although two were made, only one got digitally released.  The other is honestly pretty boring and has a racist depiction of a Japanese pilot so I guess good call on that one.

So for the book we’re talking about, a couple of greedy businessmen trying to sabotage Santa after he refused to have his workshop make commercial goods for them to sell at retail.  Huh.  Interesting villains for a comic literally made for corporate stores.  Anyway, they kidnapped Santa’s reindeer, but when Superman got them back, one of the businessman made them sick by spraying them with a special gas.

Not wasting any time, Superman lifted Santa’s sleigh and flew him around the world as scheduled.  As for the businessmen, Mr. Claus forgave them, teaching them the true meaning of Christmas.

Just a few years later, Santa made an appearance in the official Superman comics in Action Comics #105 in 1947.  It’s here that we find yet another greedy businessman, but instead of wanting to exploit Santa, this dude just hates Christmas, so much so that he went all the way to the North Pole to sabotage the holiday.

This wannabe Grinch gave Santa Claus some special chocolates that made him way fatter than usual and thus unable to slide down chimneys.  Just to be thorough, the businessman also drugged the reindeer so they couldn’t fly.  Superman came to the rescue and did what he could to help Kris Kringe lose the weight as fast as possible including a super massage, scaring the pounds off by putting Saint Nick into deadly situations, flying him to a volcano to sweat the pounds off, and pushing him to run at superhuman speeds to burn calories.  This got Santa back down to his original weight and of course, Superman flew the sleigh himself in lieu of the zonked out reindeer. (Action Comics #105 - 1947)

Of course, Christmas was saved and much like the last story we talked about, the greedy businessman had a change of heart and learned the true meaning of Christmas.

Now although I’m sticking with the main canon universe as best as I can for this video, I’d be remiss to not mention that a few years later, DC started to publish officially licensed Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer comics that they would put out once a year.

Couple of fun facts about this.  First off, that Rudolph comic is officially stated to take place on Earth-Twelve.  As for the book, it’s licensed because Rudolph is a trademarked character enforced by the Rudolph Company.  The famous animated movie on the other hand is in the public domain because of a typo.  Yeah look it up!  Just a neat tidbit I found out while doing research.

For a good while, these Rudolph comics would be the main place where we’d see Santa appearances, but we did get the occasional pop-up like the time when he teamed up with Superman to fight the villainous Toyman.  Superman thought it was all a dream, but when he discovered a Kryptonian holo-toy in his cape’s pocket that projected an image of Santa!  Clearly, the adventure was real and he teamed up with the genuine article! (DC Comics Presents #67 - 1984)

Sadly though, not everything was holly and jolly in this Pre-Crisis era.  Take this issue of DC’s horror comic, Dark Mansion of Forbidden love.  It features one of those fake donation Santas bringing a little girl to his apartment, and hanging her for pocket change.  When the landlord discovered the crime, she sent the cops after him.

Now this bad Santa needed a place to hide so he got inside of a random sleigh that he found in an alley.  Yep.  Turns out that Kristopher Kringull has a downtown workshop and was just about to start his annual trip around the world.  The murderous fake Santa got up to discover that he was flying, but he lost his footing, fell, and accidentally hung himself on some rope that he got tangled in leading to this ghastly image gracing the skies.  Oddly enough though, that’s not the darkest Santa related thing in this video so uh… stay tuned.  (Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love #15 - 1975)

After Crisis on Infinite Earths reset the multiverse, DC started to be a lot more diligent with their continuity so now that we can forget about all the mismatched depictions of Santa Claus prior, you’d think that this would be the perfect opportunity for DC to get their story straight for Father Christmas here.  They didn’t.

I mean with the 90s being well you know… the 90s.  We got a murderous salve driver depiction of Kris “Crusher” Cringle in the Lobo comics who was so evil that Lobo had to kill him twice. (Lobo Vol 2 #0 & #48)

We also got a depiction in the 2008 DC holiday special where they give him a similar origin story to Superman.  Doomed planet, baby in a spaceship, lands on Earth, a nice old couple raise him, he develops powers as he ages, decides to do good in the world, has a base in the arctic, all that stuff. (DC Universe Holiday Special - 2008)

However, that very same year, the Hellblazer series goes into the origins of the actual Agios (ah-gee-os) Nikolaus and walks the reader through his life where he became a bishop revered for his charity, benevolence, and anonymous gift giving.  Oh and in the comic, he’s also a miracle worker who resurrected some murdered kids.  Well anyway, Constantine tracked down Saint Nick’s remains, ground them into a powder, transported them through airport security, and snorted them for power.  Yeah, DC Santa stuff is weird. (Hellblazer #247 - 2008)

However, Santa Claus as a mythical figure also does canonicaly exist in the DC Universe, most likely though the power of The Dreaming, a dimension outside of the multiverse that contains the dreams of all sentient beings that’s ruled by a man named Dream from a powerful group of cosmic entities called The Endless.  Santa existing in The Dreaming was explicitly confirmed by DC’s map of the multiverse.

When Hal Jordan became a powerful being called The Spectre, he wandered into The Dreaming where he met Santa who reveals that while he was once flesh and blood, he has since evolved thanks to the imagination and faith of millions of children.  Oh and also in this winter wonderland was Ebinezer Scrooge and Charles Dickens, but like not the real writer, but rather the idealized version of the man from the culture’s imagination. (The Spectre Vol 4 #12 - 2002)

However, despite living in this extra dimensional realm, Santa clearly has a place in the world such as this early adventure of Superman when he discovered a reindeer that fell from the sky.  Clearly, this was one of Santa’s so Superman flew to the North Pole to return the beast to Mr. Claus who reveals that his steeds have come down with a virus that prevented them from flying.  Of course, this prompted Superman to pick up the sleigh and fly it himself. 

You might notice a recurring theme with Superman carrying the sleigh.  I guess DC just really liked the imagery and it’s now super iconic, but nobody but me has been dumb enough to read so many holiday specials back to back to notice.

Anyway, Supes begged to deliver a few of the presents himself and when he broke away from the sleigh, Superman noticed that time passed differently for Santa on Christmas eve. (Adventures of Superman #623 - 2003)

Apparently Santa doesn’t just limit himself to Earth because in the DCU Holiday Bash in 1997, we get this amazing display of Santa traveling to Apokolips, avoiding the planet’s  hyper advanced weaponry, and manages to hand deliver a lump of coal to Darkseid year after year. (DCU Holiday Bash II - 1997)

It also appears that even though Santa is powerful, he can still be killed as seen in Young Justice #40 in 2002 where a villain named Mordrek put his essence into a meteor-like bomb in the hopes of destroying the Earth.  Because comics.  Santa’s sleigh accidentally intercepted the bomb which instantly killed him and his reindeer.

Oh and just so we’re clear, Santa’s reindeer are sentient talking creatures, like we saw in the DCU: Infinite Holiday special where Blitzen enlisted the help of Detective Chimp to prank call Santa, claiming that he was with the Anti-Christmas League in hopes of getting some time off.

That’s why it’s extra disturbing that the Young Justice issue literally mentions the smell of cooked reindeer in the air and how it raining torched pieces of fur and antler.   Young Justice took it upon themselves to deliver presents that year and speculated that since he’s immortal, maybe Santa would be reborn next year. (Young Justice #40 - 2002)

Maybe that explains why in Swamp Thing #115 we saw the cajun Papa Noel and his flying crocodiles.  Is this the same Santa Claus?  Are there several different Santas that exist?!  I honestly don’t know! (Swamp Thing Vol 2 #115 - 1992)

After Flashpoint, the DC multiverse was rebooted again and of course, this gave DC yet another opportunity to get their Santa lore straight.

Now admittedly, when he made an appearance in the Harley Quinn series, we could consider that to be non-canon.  After all, comedy series like hers do a LOT of wacky stuff that’s never mentioned again and considering that this issue involves Harley entering Santa’s mind to fight the inner demons that old Saint Nick was repressing to stay jolly all the time… yeah, that sounds pretty non-canon.  Oh and Santa has a mental summer paradise filled with bikini babes doting on him so there’s that.

One of the more serious interpretations is also one of the more confusing ones.  So in Black Adam’s country of Kahndaq, he spoke to one of his citizens, a little girl who used to live in New York.  She was sad that Santa wouldn’t be coming to their country so Black Adam took matters into his own hands.

He flew to an island in the North Pole and uncovered the hidden city of Myra behind an enchanted wall of ice.  Its residents are a bunch of yetis and green skinned elves, but it’s ruler, Ni’klaus was a powerful wizard and is actually the one who hid the city in the first place.  Black Adam swiftly defeated old Saint Nick and shoved a map in his face, threatening him to deliver gifts and fill the stockings of all the children in Kahndaq.  As for Adam, a lump of coal will suffice. (New Year’s Evil #1 - 2019)

Now here’s where things are a bit tricky.  The book says that this is “Ancient Myra” so either the whole hidden city exists in modern day or Black Adam somehow traveled to the past for this.  Now since Santa clearly existed as a concept beforehand for the child to miss him and despite the magical beings, Myra WAS an actual ancient city, I’m inclined to believe that this was some time travel stuff and that freaking Black Adam of all people is the one that created Santa Claus.

I thought this video was going to just be a cute and fun look at a bit of DC Comics lore that’s overlooked, but I’m honestly just more confused than when I started.  None of this adds up which is frustrating because the company has shown that they can keep even weirder concepts somewhat consistent like the Speed Force or the Emotional Spectrum.  So what do you guys think?  How should DC handle Santa Claus in the future?  Also, what’s your favorite interpretation of him that I talked about?  Let me know down there in the comments!