Snark Free Corner for 3/26

Welcome to the latest installment of your breath of snark free air!

Enjoy!

FUN WITH SELF-CENSORSHIP

Let me just say upfront that, like all things here at Snark Free Corner, I am not saying this to be snarky.

I understand completely that John Byrne, in December 1987/January 1988, did not feel like he had the leeway to have frank and outright discussion about homosexuality.

I think everyone appreciates his efforts in giving the comic world such a cool supporting character in Maggie Sawyer (as I mentioned here) who just happened to also be a lesbian.

Great job by Byrne

However, it doesn't mean that, twenty years later, we can't look back at the issues and laugh about how the whole "lesbian" angle had to be alluded to and not said outright.

It's all in good fun.

So let me begin!

In previous issues, Lex Luthor is shown trying to blackmail Maggie with some photos he has of her in an apparently compromising position.

She doesn't care.

In Superman #15, we see a woman call Maggie "babe" and the two of them hug as Maggie is very concerned about her daughter (who ran away from her father, who lived back in Star City, where Maggie was from).

Then we have Maggie explain to Superman her life story, including such choice lines as "I was...confused in those days. There were things happening in my head that I'd been denying for a long time. Things a proper Catholic girl didn't even want to consider. When Jim popped the question, I thought maybe that was what I'd been looking for."

and "With him gone almost all the time I was adrift. My carefully fabricated life was coming apart in my hands. That was when I finally started to come face to face with myself...with reality (this last panel showed Maggie in a bar standing next to, but apart, from a woman, with a male bartender as well).

Finally, as Superman is flying looking for her daughter, his thought balloon says "It certainly seems ridiculous in this day and age that someone as upright as Maggie Sawyer should have to give up her child because she's"

And then, a flying creature flies by!

Saved by the cut-off sentence!!!

"Hold it!" he thinks as he then flies after the creature.

Readers were left wondering..."Because she's WHAT, Superman?!?! POLISH?!? An alien?!?!? A witch?!?!"

Hehe...funny stuff.

COVER THEME GAME

As always, here is the game. I show three covers. They all have something in common, whether it be a character, a trait all three characters share, locale, creator, SOMEthing. And it isn't something obvious like "They all have prices!" "They all have logos!" "They all feature a man!" etc.

In addition, please note that you must have some familiarity with comic book history to correctly guess these comics. You cannot guess the connective theme just by looking at the covers solely, you must have some knowledge beyond just the covers.

Good luck! One cool point to the first one who figures it out!

SNARK FREE CHALLENGE

Who would win in a game of chess - Doctor Strange or Doctor Doom?

COVER HOMAGE

Here's how this one works.

I give you a cover, and you have to tell me a comic cover that homages this cover.

You get a cool point for each cover (one cool point per commenter, so one single commenter can't just blow it all in one fell swoop), with double the cool points for any cover homage from four on

WHO IS IT?

Remember, tell me who it is and what number clue gave it away!

1. This character is from a planet other than Earth.

2. This character once tricked Namor into invading the surface world.

3. This character is currently dead (but has shown up at least one time in one of those "groups of dead people" things that the Avengers love so much).