By Todd Russell
The 70s were the heyday decade for Superman.
The only on screen Superman this author will ever recognize officially is the late, great Christopher Reeve starred alongside Margot Kidder as Lois Lane to bring us the 1978 Superman movie. It was a time where taking a comic book to the big screen was a thing.
Also, a time that Atari tried — badly — to get into the pinball business. You’d think they would have been amazing making games with people like Eugene Jarvis (Defender, Robotron, Stargate, Raw Thrills, etc) working for them and this pin being from the flow master Steve Ritchie, but no, the Atari pinball games were not good.
Atari’s Superman (1979) is a wide body that is full of bricked shots, moves like Superman is slowman, with a ball that just floats around the playfield. The playfield artwork is good, but that’s the high point. The gamepay is mostly terrible.
How does Atari Superman pinball rate at Pinside? (https://pinside.com/pinball/machine/superman/ratings) 7.3 out of 10, below average. Read ratings from other Pinsiders and you’ll see the biggest compliment to the game is the artwork.
The Incredible Hulk, also a 70s pin, is a much better comic book hero turned pinball game. Still, would like to see both of these redone as modern pinball games. Just imagine how cool both of these could be with modern toys, great flow, deep rulesets and interactive, connected scoring.
What about Harley Quinn? Oh man, so much could be done with that mallet wielding seductress. The Joker’s girl. Oh yeah.
What comic book character(s) would you like to see made into games? Comic book heroes and villains can make fun games.