In "To Quote a Phrase," I spotlight memorable quotes from comic books.

Today, we look at Alan Moore's classic "'This Is An Imaginary Story… Aren't They All" line from Superman: Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?

The idea of an "imaginary story" was a well-established conceit in DC Comics of the 1960s, where the writers would get to tell out of continuity adventures featuring the Superman characters. So they could go all out nuts if they wanted, like having Superman split into two versions of himself (with each one marrying one of Lois Lane and Lana Lang)...

So that was a long-established tradition coming into Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?

Although it was not one that DC had been using in recent years, as the 1980s brought with it an increased reliance on continuity among comic book readers. Suddenly, a story "mattering" was more important than ever. As a result, team-up books, in particular, were hit hard, as team-up books, as a rule, almost NEVER matter to continuity. A major event in a character's life isn't going to happen in their team-up book, ya know?

This extended to Marv Wolfman and George Perez wanting Dick Grayson to become Nightwing, since there was a belief that the New Teen Titans (DC's hottest book in the early 1980s) couldn't REALLY do anything to Dick so long as he was Robin. People were obsessed with stories MATTERING.

Speaking of continuity, DC had just recently altered theirs and John Byrne was about to reboot Superman's continuity, so outgoing editor Julius Schwartz decided to do one last "imaginary story" set in the old continuity, an attempt to do a "last" Superman story before the reboot.

Alan Moore, working with Curt Swan, Murphy Anderson and George Perez, delivered that final "imaginary story" across two issues...

The opening of first issue is a beautiful paragraph that worked sort of like an encapsulation of the entire story. It ended with "This is an Imaginary story...aren't they all?"

Over the years, that line has been read in so many different ways. One, it was read as a shot at the upcoming reboot (as DC was so into continuity at the time, then it was a way to say that it was no more "real" than any other story) and two, it was read a shot against taking comic books too seriously period, as after all, they're all just imaginary stories.

However, I don't buy that at all. I think it is an EMBRACE of the "imaginary story."

After all, this is the same guy who years later did Supreme, where he wrote him as a Superman stand-in that allowed him to tell MORE "imaginary stories"...

I think Moore is saying that all stories are inherently imaginary, so that means we SHOULDN'T dismiss comic books as unimportant. It's a celebration of comics and imaginary stories, not a shot at anyone. It's a happy line.

And, of course, it's a really clever line either way.

So be cool about the line, everybody! Don't use it as a rhetorical weapon! It's not meant that way.

Okay, folks, if you care to suggest cool comic book quotes that you'd like to see spotlighted here, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com. There's a decent enough chance that if you think the quote in question is super cool than I, too, will find it super cool and feature it here. Not a 100% chance, though, of course. Let's say roughly a 60% chance.