Comic Cameos

Awhile back I took a look into why Thor was the official Avenger of the state of Oklahoma.  Turns out, the big guy spent quite a bit of time in the town of Broxton, OK and the town itself was featured somewhat prominently in one of the hammer-swinging Avenger's story lines.

Ever since then I've been on the lookout for other Oklahoma comic book appearances.  The Sooner State does show up from time to time but our heroes and villains rarely stick around to take selfies with the Catoosa Blue Whale or to check out a Thunder game.

So periodically, I'm going to check in on the never ending battle for truth, justice and ever-increasing cover prices to see when there's a little Okie-love.  And we begin today with DC Comics:

Metropolis S.C.U. (Vol 1) #2 - 1994

The S.C.U. (Special Crimes Unit) is a division of the Metropolis Police Department that investigates super powered criminals and the crimes they commit.  They essentially take care of the stuff Superman would do if/when he's not around (and sometimes if he is).  This issue features a very quick Oklahoma cameo:

There's an explosion at the "Soon Mere Oil Refinery" in the fictional town of Glassville, OK.  At least, I assume it's fictional because Google hasn't told me otherwise.  There is a Glassville, New Brunswick so I assume maybe there's a hidden joke or meaning in there somewhere?  It's lost on me though.

"Soon Mere" is also lost on me.  Was the name of the refinery originally meant to be "Sooner"?  And maybe the editor changed it to avoid any issues with OU?  Or am I possibly putting too much thought into it?  There's no way to be sure.  Next up is...

Justice League of America (Vol 2) #20 - 2008

The majority of this story involves the Flash and Wonder Woman yapping at each other about the Flash's latest drama.  But they do take a break to fight off longtime JLA adversary Queen Bee.  Her target?  Tulsa!

Science and Technology Advanced Research, or S.T.A.R Labs, is the premiere scifi-MacGuffin generating factory in the DC Universe.  They have facilities all over the world where they make ray guns, assist super heroes and get attacked by super-villains .  Looks like they've got a fairly advanced campus in Tulsa that needed a bit of an assist from two of the Justice League's big guns.  Spoiler: It all worked out in the end...which leads us to our final cameo...

Supergirl (Vol 5) #35 - 2009

Supergirl finds herself wrapped up in another bloated cross-over storyline that lands this issue smack dab in the middle (Part 5 of 10) of a lot of super-drama involving an influx of Kryptonian tourists chilling out across the planet including the town of...

Pauls Valley, Oklahoma!  This issue was written by Tulsa native Sterling Gates so I'm guessing he took the opportunity to give his home state a shout-out.  Additionally, Pauls Valley is the home of the Toy and Action Figure Museum so I'm sure that helped seal the deal.

So there's our latest round Okie cameos in the four color pages of comics.  More coming soon!  And feel free to send me suggestions for issues I need to check out!