In Meta-Messages, I explore the context behind (using reader danjack's term) "meta-messages." A meta-message is where a comic book creator comments on/references the work of another comic book/comic book creator (or sometimes even themselves) in their comic. Each time around, I'll give you the context behind one such "meta-message."

Today, based on a suggestion from reader Rob H., we look at the OTHER Colonel Future tribute to Edmond Hamilton!

I'll recap from the previous entry...

Edmond Hamilton was an acclaimed science fiction writer who co-created with Mort Weisinger the iconic pulp fiction character, Captain Future...

Hamilton, like many pulp writers, quickly adapted to the comic book medium, as well.

Years later, when Hamilton began writing for DC's science fiction anthology, Strange Adventures, he essentially brought Captain Future to the series as Chis-KL99...

Hamilton and Weisinger would work together in comics for many years as Hamilton was one of the main writers of the Superman series of comics for over a decade. He wrote some of the most notable Superman stories of the 1950s and 1960s, like the iconic Action Comics #300...

Hamilton was married to another legendary science fiction author, Leigh Brackett (Brackett was a renowned screenwriter, as well, writing The Big Sleep and Rio Bravo, as well as the first draft of Empire Strikes Back.

Anyhow, Hamilton and his wife passed away within a year of each other in 1977 and 1978.

I wrote about the tribute character Paul Kupperberg introduced called Colonel Future in 1982, but Cary Bates actually had his OWN Colonel Future on Earth-2 soon after Hamilton passed away (note that obviously both of the characters would have been created in conjunction with Superman's editor at the time, Julius Schwartz, who was a longtime friend of Hamilton's going back to the pulp days).

Action Comics #484 (by Bates, Curt Swan and Joe Giella) told the story of how Clark Kent and Lois Lane got married on Earth-2.

The person who inadvertently got this marriage going was Colonel Future, a new villain introduced in the issue...

Future then brings in the old Justice Society villain, the Wizard, as we even learn that Future's first name is Edmond...

And Future is obviously visually based on Hamilton, as well...

Future cuts a deal with the Wizard for the magician to get rid of Superman with a magic spell...

Wizard does so, but it only gets rid of SUPERMAN, not Clark Kent...

And Clark Kent is suddenly just as tough on Colonel Future as Superman was...

This version of Clark woos Lois and then marries her. She discovers his secret identity and she convinces the Wizard to bring Superman back (under the theory being that no one knows that Wizard pulled it off in the first place, and thus he gets no credit)...

Fun stuff. Colonel Future would be a recurring villain when Mr. and Mrs. Superman got their own recurring back-up series in a few different Superman titles.

Thanks to Rob for the suggestion!

Okay, that's it for this Meta-Messages. If anyone else has a suggestion for a good Meta-Messages, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!