Reign of the Supermen #490: Captain Tomorrow / Crimson Meteor

Source: Superman 80-Page Giant #1 (1999)
Type: Analog/Precursor

In the story "Too Close to Home" (by Danny Fingeroth and Bob McLeod), Clark Kent gets frazzled by reading a comic strip that seems to be based on his life, right down to a secret identity and marriage to a girl called "Cloris". It's close enough that a kid he saves mistakes him for Captain Tomorrow. Suspecting a hidden agenda, he visits the writer/artist, the aged Willie Schuman, under the pretense of maybe writing an article on him. The meeting ends unpleasantly when Clark gets antagonistic, though I suspect it has something to do with a strip showing the Captain in a new costume. Dude had just gotten back to the red and blues after a stint as Electric Superman after all.

Clark is thrown out for being a dick. So you might think this is a homage to the Silver Age, but it's actually a Golden Age tribute. A second visit, this time as Superman, is much friendly, and Willie admits that his stories, while taking some material from Superman's modern-day exploits, are actually based on HIS own, short-lived career as the Crimson Meteor in the 1940s.

Never heard of him? That's because he operated in Seattle, and Green Arrow probably destroyed all records of any other hero fighting the good fight in his home town. Jerk. So instead of suing him or something (it's a DC comic, it could happen), Superman just takes him out for a quick spin so he can fly again. Awww. And then he's never heard from again.

I sure hope that's not some kind of Siegel/Shuster metaphor.