Winter 2024

Letter from the editor

Heroes were born and the story continues to continue

Almost every letter I ever start feels wrong if I don’t include “dear reader,” so, dear reader, welcome to the Planet. The real Daily Planet. Like we’re legit as of this instance. I’m making the decision with this, our first ever winter magazine. The Daily Planet is real, and you’re reading it. 

2024 is a massive year for us. It marks a decade since I first started this digital news organization in Northern Minnesota. Specifically, I made the Twitter page with Rylee Appleman, Emily Anderson, Abbie Mobberg and Abby Newman in my pastor’s van on the way back from a Grace Lutheran Church of Chisholm family trip to The Edge Waterpark in Duluth, Minnesota. Once home on the farm, however, I obsessed over the interactions with fellow nerd accounts and played Twitter like it was my Game Boy. 

The account soon grew faster than a speeding bullet amassing thousands of followers in the first year alone. The concept of the original Daily Planet Twitter page was centered around fiction. It reported on the roleplay accounts inspired by the same characters the Daily Planet of DC Comics reported on. I soon intertwined the roleplay reporting with the DC Extended (Cinematic) Universe and the Arrowverse on The CW, creating the first online edition, then called e-editions, in June 2014. 

My first time reporting on actual news was when I interviewed “Advocate Monster Truck” that same year. It was an anti-bullying advocacy group that drove monster trucks to local schools in an effort to prevent bullying. I’m still in awe of that. The Daily Planet enabled me to do that and I still can’t believe it. We reported on them two more times afterwards, and I’ve just decided to revisit them again while writing this. 

Anyways, as you can probably tell my brain goes all over the place when thinking of the Daily Planet. The lateral lines across the globe on the logo actually represent my thought patterns you know (just kidding). This attention deficit disorder came in handy whilst trying to build the Planet as a hobby in the early years. It was a place to escape from my troubles, and I soon found that it was a place for others to escape to as well. 

By 2019 to 2020 the Daily Planet was attracting many talented writers who faced self doubt. They were fresh off recent writer rejections, and I wanted the Daily Planet to rejuvenate them just like it does for me every day. So I created the contribution program to bring in outside work. The website’s conception in a journalism class in 2018 at the hands of Addie Marzinskie, Brianna Taggart and myself certainly helped enable that capability.

Today, the Daily Planet fosters the creative talents of over 30 people from across the globe while still continuing to grow. We are backed with tremendous support. I look at every person who interacts with the Daily Planet as the god Atlas holding up the world. Each reader, watcher, listener, podcaster, writer, contributor, editor, etc., hold the gilded golden globe up like Superman himself. The Planet is where heroes are born and the story continues after all. I’m just so proud that this thing I’ve built has shown that to everyone. There are heroes out there. You have to be in today’s world. 

“In this world, there is a right and there is a wrong, and that distinction is not difficult to make.”

Superman’s words from “Kingdom Come” no.3 (1996) always echo in my brain. In this, our first winter issue, you’ll find stories of Superman, stories of entertainment, tales of community and most importantly stories of perseverance. 

I couldn’t be happier to share,

Zack Benz