Superman is one of DC Comics’ most powerful superheroes. Because of this he normally doesn’t have time to bother with weaker criminals like The Joker. But sometimes Superman will face a villain so powerful that even the Man of Tomorrow can’t defeat them alone. When that happens, Superman often needs to team up with someone else to defeat the threat. So it may come as a surprise to some fans to know that Superman once needed help from none other than the Joker to defeat one of his strongest Silver Age foes.
With a superhero career spanning over eight decades, Superman has fought many powerful villains. One of his lesser-known villains from the Silver Age was the Dark Lord Maaldor, an evil sorcerer from another dimension. As a magical being who ruled his own dimension, Maaldor was essentially DC’s equivalent to Marvel’s Dormammu. But although he isn’t very well known, Maaldor is still incredibly powerful, and he was one of the few villains capable of defeating Superman in a straight-up brawl. However Maaldor did have one crucial weakness, and it’s one that only someone as crazy as The Joker could exploit.
Superman and Maaldor fought a few times in the pages of DC Comics Presents, and usually Maaldor would have the advantage due to Superman’s unfortunate weakness to magic. In DC Comics Presents #72 Maaldor returned once again, except this time things were different. When a rift in space opens up above Metropolis, Superman is informed by The Phantom Stranger that Maaldor had lost control of his power and was threatening to destroy the entire multiverse. But because Maaldor’s home dimension was a realm of pure insanity, Superman couldn’t enter it without going insane. So he needed to take a trip to Arkham Asylum and find the one person on earth even crazier than Maaldor – the Joker himself. Once Superman, the Stranger, and Joker entered Maaldor’s dimension, Joker was able to take Maaldor’s power away from him with the power of his own madness.
By taking control of Maaldor’s home dimension, Joker was able to protect Superman from Maaldor’s insanity. But Maaldor didn’t appreciate a mere human trying to usurp him, and so he fought the newly empowered Joker to a standstill. Luckily for Superman, this proved to be the perfect distraction to allow him to deal the finishing blow. Maaldor was finally defeated, and so Joker decided to use the powers he stole from him to take over the universe himself. But luckily for the universe, defeating Maaldor also caused his magic to disappear, stripping Joker of his newfound abilities before he could do any harm.
With Maaldor taken care of and Joker no longer omnipotent, Metropolis was saved. DC Comics Presents #72 would be one of Maaldor’s last appearances in comics before he disappeared into obscurity. But despite not leaving a lasting impact like other villains, it’s likely that Superman will never forget the threat of Maaldor, or the fact that he needed help from The Joker to save the universe from his insanity.
