Their super-advanced armada is in orbit around Earth, and they've wiped out a small Pacific island demonstrating antimatter weapons which even Superman can't fight against. The story's premise is that a war-like race of aliens called “the Scrubb” (did TLC read this comic?) has come all the way across the galaxy to conquer Earth. So what to do? That question obviously had DC writers scratching their heads… and they probably should have done some more scratching, because the dilemma is an awkward undercurrent which is not handled well. Parenthetically (although I'm not framing this sentence in parenthesis just this comment), I’m fairly confident that neither Don King nor Ali would approve a story where Ali loses a fight- even to Superman. Throw in the additional complication that Superman, although technically an alien from Krypton, has a Caucasian appearance, so having him beat up on Muhammad Ali would look like some racist’s sick wish-fulfillment fantasy. On the other hand, it would also be very poor sportsmanship to feature Superman kicking a mortal Earthman’s ass.
losing to a mortal Earthman, especially one who has occasionally lost a fight to other Earthmen (Ali lost a fight to Joe Frazier in 1971, and lost one to Ken Norton in 1973). He is DC’s all-time biggest moneymaker, so they'd be fools to mess with a winning formula by putting out a story which shakes his image of invulnerability. DC Comics cant' have their top character (Superman) getting his ass handed to him by anybody. The artistic problem this project presents is that there have to be two heroes. And thus Muhammad Ali was written into the DC universe. The Afterword to this book explains that King approached DC Comics with the idea, and in a moment of… well, who knows? either artistic zeal at the creative possibilities, or perhaps just a belief that it would sell a lot of issues, DC Comics agreed. That "somebody" was (Ali's fight promoter) Don King. What more was there to do? How could an athlete’s career go any higher than that? Apparently somebody thought the answer was to have him fight Superman. By '76, Muhammad Ali was about as big as a celebrity can become… larger than life. Outside the ring, Ali had become a cultural icon, both for his public conversion to Islam (1975), and his staunch opposition to the Vietnam War- he was arrested in 1967 for refusing to enlist, stripped of his boxing titles, and then vindicated by the Supreme Court in 1971. Muhammad Ali had established himself as one of the all-time boxing greats, by beating George Foreman (1974, Zaire) in the famous “Rumble in the Jungle” fight and Joe Frazier (1975, the Philippines) in the big “Thrilla in Manila” match. Let’s put it into perspective: The year was 1976.
I can totally understand why this seemed like a good idea.
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