posted March 25, 2002 03:42 AM    

To start off, I'm copying my list from page 3 of the 70s topic with my Favorite Superman Stories of the 60s (posted under my prior user name The Time Trapper.)

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Top Ten Superman Stories of the 1960s (in no particular order)

SM 141 - Return to Krypton - probably my fave, truly ahead of it's time (FYI for collectors, I believe it was reprinted in Superman #232.)

149 - Death of Superman - the classic, a real sense of loss at the end, even though it's an imaginary story. (Reprinted in #193)

156 - Virus X - Swan/Klein at their best, don't know why (maybe the superior coloring?) but the art just stands out more so in this issue

158 - The Kandor story - great intrigue, Swan Kryptonscapes at their best

162 - Superman Red & Blue - just a fun wish fullfillment (Ever wonder what happened to Superman Yellow? Daredevil probably knows.)

164 - Superman Vs. Luthor - mano y mano, the best "personal" battle between them, really felt the long time rivalry come to loggerheads.

167 - Luthor & Brainiac - their first team-up, great characterization and origin story, DC silver age at it's best

Action 300 - Superman Under A Red Sun - almost a wistful sci-fi tale (I recall there was a big goof at the ending; switched in midstream deus ex machinas.)

292 & 294 - Luthor kills a robot - an interesting morality tale, loved the covers

Superman Ann 4 - Villains of Space & Time - Okay, not original material, but the best 60s DC Annual by far for my money, and it also has the great eyecatching Legion feature (which I feel was decisive in establishing the Legion as a "real" group in the DC universe.)

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Most of these stories involved Lex Luthor, truly the #2 character in Superman comics during the 60s.

Post your list!

I'll post later my top ten things I loved about Krypton.

If Swan and Boring are the top two supes artists of 60s, who's #3? Is there a #3?

.

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S.P.I.D.E.R. Agent: "Get away with it? I think we will! There is no good, no evil, only strength and cunning, and we have those! Ha ha!"

Dynamo: "FOO to you and your bunk philosophy!"

posted March 26, 2002 03:41 PM    

I've discovered that good reading copies can be found at swap meets--for some of the less in demand issues that is. Fat chance ever finding a good copy of Superman 199.

Luckily, even though torn and tattered, I do have a copy of 199 with cover. That's the ish with the first Superman & Flash race, and it's a nice issue, but I can't fathom why it is so far beyond the price of the issues surrounding it. Even well beyond the usual price for 200, which I got for a nice price in near mint condition on sale for not much cash back in January--my original copy is in pretty poor condition with a detached torn cover.

So mostly in the last few months I've been getting better copies of the comics I already have or had from the sixties. Last weekend I managed to get Action 351, and 353 in good condition to go with my copy of 352 I got a couple of months. Now I bought and read 351 and 352 back in the sixties (my original copies of those are both missing covers now and in pretty poor condition), but I never did find 353.

So I read all three this morning. This is the story of ZHA-VAM, and I never did know his origin until I read 353 this morning and all was revealed. Interesting that he's yet another one of those golem kind of characters--this time fashioned from the clay provided by Prometheus and given the powers of six gods and heroes on ancient Mount Olympus and sent forward through time to do battle with the upstart Superman.

Not that I would put these issues forward as the best of Superman. I feel that the early sixties Superman is the best, but try finding good reading copies of those...prices are high on most books prior to 1966.

posted March 26, 2002 05:53 PM    

He's sort of like what Irv Novick or Bob Brown were to the late sixties/early seventies Batman.

Then, from an objective standpoint, although I never liked his version, you have to consider Ross Andru as really the artist of the late sixties Superman--doing work both in Superman/Action and in World's Finest.

posted March 26, 2002 10:33 PM    

I.E., Action 292 & 294, the great Luthor Kills A Robot two-parter than reads like it was written by Hamilton and really provides a novel take on death and responsibilty. Also the classic Action 300, Superman Under A Red Sun. He was able to convey the desolation of the distant ravaged Earth.

posted March 27, 2002 11:04 PM    

One story I do have is the Super-Menace one from 1960, drawn by the great Swan-Klein team, and written by Siegel.

Yet another bit of tinkering with Kal-El's Earthward journey sees him have an encounter with an alien device which accidentally creates a duplicate of the baby, spaceship and all. We know where Kal the original landed, but the duplicate baby lands elsewhere and falls into the hands of gangsters Wolf & Bonnie.

While Clark Kent is being raised to be law-abiding and generous, the duplicate Kal-El, seemingly possessing all the powers of the original, is raised by Wolf & Bonnie to be a super-crook. All the while, the kid thinks his gangster parents love him and are proud of him, but they secretly care nothing for him and are just manipulating him.

As the Kal-El we know grows to adulthood, and becomes famous, his super-duplicate (who is immune to the effects of Kryptonite) grows up in secret, his "parents" fostering in him an intense hatred of, first, Superboy, then Superman. The adult duplicate can hardly contain himself, but Wolf insists he wait till Wolf himself gives the OK to attack Superman and reveal Super-Menace's existence.

Wolf eventually makes a deal with a syndicate of crime lords to become their president if he has his Super-Menace son destroy Superman. They give the OK, and Wolf sends his "son" to attack Superman. For Super-Menace, it is the realisation of his life's ambition, to kill Superman for his "proud father".

Once Super-Menace has left, Wolf boasts that he and Bonnie "pretended to love that freak" for their own selfish ends. The super-criminal, however, has looked back with his super senses and heard every word.

Knowing his parents never loved him, but just used him, Super-Menace flies into an even greater rage, partly fuelled by intense jealousy at Clark's loving upbringing.

Superman meets his super-duplicate and they do battle. At one point Superman notices, with x-ray vision, that his duplicate is not human, but a "force manifestation" -- an unearthly force manifested in human form. This bit of news devastates Super-Menace and intensifies his jealousy. He uses Kryptonite to bring Superman to death's door, but he can't bring himself to finish off the Man of Steel. Super-Menace is surprised to find he takes no pleasure from watching Superman die. "Maybe Wolf and Bonnie Derek didn't extinguish the last spark of decency in me..."

In a stunning piece of reasoning, Super-Menace decides that if his parents lied about loving him, they could have lied about everything, including their justification for Superman's murder. He releases Superman from the Kryptonite trap and confronts his parents.

"My life could've been a blessing, but you, with your rotten cunning, twisted it into... something terrible..."

Superman, recovering from the Kryptonite, arrives in time to see Super-Menace abandon his human form and become pure energy -- the blast of force killing Wolf & Bonnie.

posted March 27, 2002 11:08 PM    

quote:

---

Originally posted by India Ink:
On the matter of artists, I think Al Plastino is worth a mention simply because he was always there providing art.

He's sort of like what Irv Novick or Bob Brown were to the late sixties/early seventies Batman.

Then, from an objective standpoint, although I never liked his version, you have to consider Ross Andru as really the artist of the late sixties Superman--doing work both in Superman/Action and in World's Finest.

On the other hand, one should probably consider the whole Superman Family. For the whole Superman Family you have Kurt Schaffenberger. But you've also got John Forte, Jim Mooney, Pete Costanza...

---

Ross Andru -- yeahhh!

posted March 27, 2002 11:17 PM       

Virus X:
I'd read a few issues of this serial as a younster, and I LOVED the final chapter when all the world thought Superman dead, and the JLA's solution.

"100 Years: Missing, Lost, Or Stolen!"
I finally found this issue of Action after having read it years ago. Fun story, but DC ignored it right after its publication.

"Exile"
A group of alien robots get rid of all evil and natural disasters on Earth. Superman, feeling he is no longer needed, leaves Earth and settles on a red sun planet, presumably forever. I've always loved this 2-parter.

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Robin: "Holy Oleo!"

Catwoman: "I didn't know you could yodel."

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posted March 27, 2002 11:21 PM    

Narrative: "Off in Smallville, the real Kal-El is taught a proper respect for the rules of society."

posted March 28, 2002 01:24 PM    

Since the death of Leo Dorfman (in the mid-seventies) it doesn't seem to me like any writers have really felt happy about writing Lex Luthor. They've come at the character as a problem to be solved, and they've done this by side-stepping the Luthor character entirely and writing Lex as Victor von Doom, Ra's al Ghul, Professor Zoom, or the Kingpin. All of those are great characters but they're NOT Lex Luthor. And Lex Luthor should not be a rip-off of them.

But in the sixties, when getting an assignment to write a Lex Luthor story, it's like the writers walked out of Mort's office with a spring in their step thinking to themselves--yahoo, I get to write about Lex Luthor!

posted March 28, 2002 01:31 PM    

quote:

---

Originally posted by Aldous:
Superman vs. Super-Menace

I forgot to make a point of mentioning one of the most bizarre props in any Superman story ever -- the little Lone Ranger-type burglar mask worn by Superman's duplicate.

---

Gotta agree that domino mask was kinda strange, yet it remains as the "identifying icon" of the story.

I never really considered if it was Klein who inked the book, but I guess he did. The line work is close enough and perhaps he used the brush a little more than in the middle years of 63 & 64. When I visualize Klein's work, I think of stories with more precise linework, like Virus X and the Luthor stories of those years.

Now that I consider it, the brighter colorist's palette from those years is linked in mind with Klein's cleaner lines, so the darker hues of the earlier Super-Menace story (at least in the original) probably obstructed my recognition of Klein's work.

I guess I just don't associate Klein with this earlier period. Anybody know of his earliest collaboration with Swan? Any examples of Klein collaborations with other DC artists?

------------------
S.P.I.D.E.R. Agent: "Get away with it? I think we will! There is no good, no evil, only strength and cunning, and we have those! Ha ha!"

Dynamo: "FOO to you and your bunk philosophy!"

posted March 28, 2002 05:45 PM    

quote:

---

India Ink wrote:
Then, from an objective standpoint, although I never liked his version, you have to consider Ross Andru as really the artist of the late sixties Superman--doing work both in Superman/Action and in World's Finest.

---

Hmm, yes. I'm enthusiastic about the work of Ross Andru, but I don't really have all that many stories of Superman where he's the artist.

I seem to recall he did a few Rose and the Thorn stories. I'd have to check back through my collection to find the stuff. You can correct me if I'm wrong.

Anyway, I posted this to say, after re-reading your post, India, that my regard for Ross Andru does not come from his work on Superman. When I was a youngster, I started to get The Amazing Spider-Man, which I absolutely loved -- and, at the time, Len Wein was the editor and writer, and the artist was Ross Andru. (The inker was Mike Esposito.)

So I'll always have a soft spot for this artist....

So...

This leads me to say, I find it very hard to be objective about the abilities of an artist. If I loved the comic books as a kid, I tend to always view that artist's work through rose-coloured glasses. I guess I don't analyse and evaluate the pros and cons of artists' technical abilities the way a lot of you guys do.

quote:

---

bbzero wrote:
The line work is close enough and perhaps he used the brush a little more than in the middle years of 63 & 64. When I visualize Klein's work, I think of stories with more precise linework, like Virus X and the Luthor stories of those years.

Now that I consider it, the brighter colorist's palette from those years is linked in mind with Klein's cleaner lines, so the darker hues of the earlier Super-Menace story (at least in the original) probably obstructed my recognition of Klein's work.

---

posted March 28, 2002 07:07 PM    

Basically the visual difference between pen and brush inking is the variable width of the line. Pens maintain an even linework, with the same width throughout, while a brush, being tapered, allows the artist to play with the stroke pressure creating a range of line width from thin to heavy, including all the possible tapered lines between them.

[Most inkers use both pen and brush, but examples of strong skilled pen inkers are Terry Austin and Barry Windsor-Smith, with strong skilled brush inkers being Russ Manning and Steve Rude.]

This is the usual orientation of pen & brush work in commercial art. However as you move into fine arts or experimental commercial work, that distinction loses validity. Examples: 1) Asian and other brushes with long thin hairs can produce very thin yet long, even sweeping lines with little width change. 2) There are a large variety of pen nibs and quills that allow the user to adjust pressure on their short strokes to get small precise tapering, often used in comics to achieve "feathering."

This is an ancient drawing technique and what artists like Jerry Ordway, Murphy Anderson, and actually nearly everybody use somewhat to give depth to primarily human forms, but other shapes as well. It's done with tiny tapering strokes along the edge of limbs, etc, to suggest small shadows falling away on curved forms.

Klein used it moderately, not as much as contemporaries Anderson or Wood, but he went to it more when it appears he set aside some brushes in mid-60s. Trying to recall his brief later period at Marvel in '68, '69?, after DC booted a lot of artists, it seems to me that he switched to mostly brushwork on the Avengers, and didn't use pens that much, but I'm kinda guessin here long after the fact, as I no longer have those issues.

posted March 29, 2002 07:26 PM    

What are other posters' fave '60s Supes Tales?

posted March 29, 2002 11:29 PM    

Speaking of the whole Superman family of titles, I just compiled an brief index of the issue numbers range of these titles for the 1960s.

The first issues range is the actual chronological match: Jan or Feb 1960 issue to Nov or Dec 1969 issue. The second issues range is my subjective "thematic" range of the 1960s for the Superman family titles.

Your mileage may disagree.

ACTION - 260-383 - 242 (1st Brainiac) - 392 (Last Legion)

ADVENTURE - 268-387 - 247 (1st Legion) - 380 (Last Legion; Supergirl's feature doesn't end till 424, too far into 70s.)

JIMMY OLSEN - 42-125 - 31 (1st Elastic Lad) - 132 (Last Pre-Kirby issue)

LOIS LANE - 14-97 - 1 (might as well make it #1) - 103 (Last Pre-Rose & Thorn issue)

SUPERBOY - 78-161 - 68 (1st Bizarro) - 171 (Last Pre-Legion transfer issue)

SUPERMAN - 134-221 - 123 (Pre-Supergirl Tryout) - 232 (Last Pre-Kryptonite "No More")

posted March 30, 2002 11:08 AM       

But the thing that really struck me was Luthor in it. I think the name of the story is something like "Superman and Luthor's Super-Duel" or something like that. Luthor and Superman fight on an alien planet, but Luthor decides to throw the fight to help out an alien culture. This got me thinking about why I don't like the current Luthor. The old Luthor if things had gone differently in Smallville might have ended up being one of the good guys. On occasion he even was a good guy, not because it benefited him, but because it helped others. The current Luthor only does things out of greed, and never has to actually sacrifice or think about any of his decisions (remember, he didn't even care that he sold his daughter to Brainiac 13).

posted March 30, 2002 05:27 PM    

Most of my favourites sixties Superman stories are from the early sixties, yet I read them when reprinted in the late sixties or early seventies ("The Showdown Between Luthor and Superman" was reprinted in Superman 238, a 64 page Giant--although I did buy the original issue just a couple months ago and now have it in my collection! yahoo!).

Same with the Kandor stories bbz has mentioned (reprinted in a Jimmy Olsen Giant in the early seventies), and the Van-Zee/Sylvia story I mentioned (reprinted in the late sixties). And the Luthor/Brainiac story (reprinted in Superman 245, a Super-Spectacular, in the early seventies--although I also got a copy of the original, 167, around the same time).

posted March 30, 2002 05:32 PM    

"Jimmy Olsen Marries Supergirl (2-parts)" JS-CS-SK (r: SF 181, AC 251)

posted March 30, 2002 05:39 PM    

The "Return to Krypton" story I refer to is Superman #141, a three part story solely featuring and titled "Superman's Return to Krypton" (which introduces Supes love interest Lyla Lerrol.) It was reprinted in the giant-sized Superman #232 (if ya find a good grade copy, it may run ya $5-7,) and a few times elsewhere perhaps. I imagine it has been reprinted in some DC HC in the last decade, but I don't which. Any help anyone?

The Luthor story you cite is from Superman #164, and is probably my fave Luthor story, but there are several from this period. Most definately I agree: to me the '60s Luthor was the best interpretation ever done.

He was a tragic human character, sometimes even quasi-heroic as he was with the people of Lexor. He wasn't Evil Incarnate as is the current version. He was a flawed, damaged, but brilliant man in the '60s, and as #164 shows, not afraid in the slightest of Superman, really eager and willing to duke it out with him on equal terms, even if his was a poor loser at the end of the fight.

posted March 30, 2002 06:00 PM    

It took place when Supergirl's identity was still kept secret by Superman, with her being his "secret weapon." It's probably from a Jimmy Olsen story, not Supergirl, as my image memory seems to be Swan art, not Mooney.

Anyway, in the story, Jimmy has gone blind and Supergirl tries to help him. She tells him that she's Supergirl - Superman's cousin (and possibly that she's his secret weapon.) He doesn't believe her. So, I believe, much of the story is her trying to convince him (typical Weisinger plot.) The vague image that sticks in my mind is that (I believe) she intially told him while the were both standing on a bridge. That image stands out (and it seems the bridge was yellow, but that's iffy.)

That's all I can recall, but my impression has been that this might be an "incidental" DC purchase by me somewhat earlier than when I recall becoming interested in them in Summer 1961.

The main plot points are that Jimmy was blinded and that Supergirl was trying to get him to believe she really existed.

posted March 30, 2002 10:46 PM       

In the latter story, Jimmy loses his memory and his ID and is actually consigned to the Midvale orphanage where he naturally meets up with Linda Lee!

Supergirl turned up rather frequently throughout the Weisinger line during this period, and it's a shame they apparently made the decision to only archive the Action stories.

posted March 30, 2002 10:55 PM       

Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen No. 40
October 1959
Story: "Jimmy Olsen, Supergirl's Pal" (9 pages)
Editor: Mort Weisinger
Writer: Otto Binder?
Penciller: Curt Swan
Inker: George Klein
Feature Character: Jimmy Olsen
GS: Superman, Supergirl (between ACTION COMICS #256 / 257; origin retold in flashback)
Cameo: Zor-El, Allura (flashback)
Villains: "Big Con" Colby, Thora (first and only appearance for both)
Synopsis: When Jimmy Olsen threatens to expose phony acts at Colonel Colby's sideshow, he accidentally blinds himself with tear gas from his trophy case. Colby dumps Olsen in the desert,
and Jimmy activates his signal watch. Since Superman is at the center of the Earth on a mission , Supergirl (whose existence is a secret) answers the summons. But, try as she may, Supergirl
cannot convince the skeptical Olsen that she has super-powers. Olsen believes her to be Colby's strong-girl Thora. Finally, Supergirl sees Superman returning to Earth's surface, reactivates Jimmy's signal-watch to summon him, and flies away. Superman exposes Colby and takes him to jail. Jimmy, telling Superman how Colby tried to make him believe there was a Supergirl, breaks
down laughing.

posted March 30, 2002 11:32 PM    

As for "Jimmy Olsen Marries Supergirl," some things struck me when I read it this past week--things I wouldn't have noticed back when I was a kid.

Back when I was a kid I had no idea how old Linda was supposed to be. But I would judge that when the story was first printed she was supposed to be sixteen. While Jimmy was supposed to be? an indeterminant age I guess, but somewhere in his early twenties I imagine. Now the age difference isn't huge, but given their positions in life, it does seem like Jimmy is robbing the cradle. (Of course Supergirl herself was sometimes portrayed as being half in love with her own much older cousin.)

As if tit for tat, Lucy Lane ends up with a pilot who looks old enough to be her father.

And while Jimmy is the older one, he's an idiot, whereas Linda is mature and intelligent for all her youth. Why Jimmy is willing to risk his marriage just because Supergirl happens to think he's cute is beyond me. Oh sure, it turns out Supergirl IS Linda, but hormonally challenged Olsen didn't know that!

posted March 31, 2002 01:57 AM    

Now I have to figure out if I bought it new or picked it up used somewhere months later, either which supports this notion I have that I started reading DC comics perhaps one or two years earlier than I generally assumed (1961,) but was too young to have formed lasting memories about them, and relatedly didn't save them for any appreciable time that would reinforce any such memories.

My logical mind says that this never happened, but too many "charged" snippets of comic memories and images have surfaced over the years to be accounted for by later readings when reason, or adolescent facsimilies, filtered most consciousness. They're vague, but clearly deeper than early adolescence.

Having collected comics for at least 41 years, it's become mildly important to determine when I really began reading them. And actually starting in the calendar 1950s rather than the 1960s, is a "coolness" quota that perhaps only Silver Agers can appreciate!

posted March 31, 2002 06:30 PM    

Thanks also for the reprint info. I'll check around for #343 at local shops. I'm pretty sure that reprint didn't generate the memory because by 1966 I had been a full blown "serious" collector for five years. No, I really think I got it new in 1959 or recently afterward from a neighborhood friend or some store that may have had "a pile o' comics" they were selling.

posted April 01, 2002 05:59 PM    

quote:

---

Originally posted by India Ink:
Hm, I thought I had this story...I was flipping through some Actions this morning and there was one with Jimmy and Supergirl, but I just noted it, I didn't give it a read. However, the artwork wasn't Swan, so far as I could tell, so it may be another one.

---

Actually it was the story originally from Jimmy Olsen, reprinted as a Supergirl "Hall of Fame Classic" in Action Comics no. 343 from 1966. And I guess the art is Curt Swan, but not any Swan art I'm familiar with--being as, I gather, this was inked by John Forte who gives a different look to Curt's work.

posted April 01, 2002 07:37 PM    

Brainiac's first app, of course, is Action 242 - 7/58 (as well as first app of Kandor.)

Two other apps come to mind. Because Brainiac makes no cover app, Lois Lane 17, 5/60, ("Lana Lang, Superwoman,") is not widely known as a Brianiac app. Is it Brainiac's second appearance? The other is well-known because he makes a cover appearance - Action 280, 9/61 (also with the minaturized Supes and friends on cover, and guest-starring Congorilla.)

posted April 01, 2002 09:17 PM       

3rd appearance: "The Menace of Red-Green Kryptonite" from Action #275 (April 1961) by Jerry Coleman and Wayne Boring. Exposure to a hybrid red/green K Brainiac concoction causes Superman to grow a 3rd eye on the back of his head (I kid you not!).

4th appearance: "Brainiac�s Super-Revenge" from Action #280 (Sept. 1961) by Jerry Siegel, Curt Swan, and Stan Kaye. Superman and his friends are shrunk by Brainiac, but Superman is able to turn the tables with a little help from Congo Bill and Congorilla!

That's it - his next appearance would be in 1963, in a flashback "Superbaby" story in Superboy #80 entitled "The Lair of Brainiac" which relates how Brainiac kidnapped the infant Kal-El from Krypton!

posted April 01, 2002 10:40 PM    

Also as a Legion fan, I know well that many Superman characters' early appearances are littered with such "do-we-or-don't-we-count-'em" cameos. One thing you say for Marvel, they really didn't do that many cameo panels in the early days.

It is interesting to note that Brainiac (#1) had only appeared three times before Brainiac 5 was introduced as a love interest for Supergirl. It just adds further credence to the view I expressed last year at the end of our Grand Appearances Index over on the old Legion board. [It was a group effort index of all Legionnaires' appearances in Legion series' issues. (More specifically just a grand totaling/scoring of all the appearances with some weight given to starring and featured roles.]

Brainiac 5 was the overwhelming "winner," with nearly 20% more points than second place finisher (who I believe was Chameleon Boy.) Really, Brainiac 5 blew every else out of the water.

My statement upon the final tabulation was that Brainiac 5 probably was the most well-known and often used of all the different Brainiac versions over the years (the main other two "versions" being the robot Brainiac and Vril Dox of L.E.G.I.O.N.)

In fact, I stated then and still believe that Brainiac 5 has had more appearances than all other Brainiac versions combined, and probably has had greater influence on the DC mythos than any other Brainiac.

Like I said, I'm a Legion fan.

posted April 02, 2002 12:29 AM    

I seem to recall he was introduced as a descendant of the original Brainiac before it was decided that Brainiac was an android.

How was this resolved? I don't think I have the answer in my comic collection. Or, if it's there, I've forgotten about it.

posted April 02, 2002 04:59 AM    

quote:

---

Originally posted by bizarro brainiac zero:
Aldous, even though I'm a Legion fan, the history of the Brainiacs will take a little time to explain. So I'm going to defer to more diligent DC historians than I out there to clue ya in. If nobody steps up, I'll come back and try to recall all of it and lay it out for ya.

Or maybe somebody knows a great website with the relevant history of the Brainiacs?

---

Thanks, bbzero!

Now, where's Mr Bridwell when we need him...?

posted April 02, 2002 02:27 PM       

quote:

---

Originally posted by bizarro brainiac zero:

Or maybe somebody knows a great website with the relevant history of the Brainiacs?

---

Ask, and ye shall receive!
http://web.archive.org/web/20050219004139/http://plaza.powersurfr.com/legion_headquarters/rollcall/b5.htm

posted April 02, 2002 04:48 PM    

"Known Relatives: Querl was orphaned at a young age (AD 356). Kajz Dox (father, deceased). Pran Dox (grandfather, deceased), Vril Dox (great grandfather, deceased)."

Brainiac was given a Coluan young man to accompany him, to pose as "Brainiac II," to back up the masquerade of Brainiac as a real live humanoid, and not an android--but the young man escaped from Brainiac and led the Coluan revolt against their computer masters. I think this young man (Vril Dox) even had a "II" tatooed on his palm. So Querl named himself after his heroic great grandfather, calling himself "Brainiac 5." (Over a thousand year period there were only four generations--they were a long-lived family.)

But I want to know about Koko! I'm serious. My only exposure to Action 242 is the few panels reprinted in the Great Superman Book (encyclopedia), which show the entertaining interaction between Brainiac and his pet space monkey.

I like all the Koko appearances that I've seen, but somewhere along the way the cute white creature disappears from the Superman stories. Does anyone have a Koko index?

posted April 02, 2002 08:19 PM    

I'd be amazed if there's a Koko site anywhere. India, you do know they brought back Koko as a "pet" of sorts for Brainiac 5 for a few recent years? I think Koko may have become attached to Brainiac 5 after the Legion fought the original Brainiac in Showcase when some of them where trapped in the 20th century a few years ago, and then Brainiac 5 brought Koko back home to the 31st century. I guessing a little on that rebooted Koko history!.

posted April 02, 2002 09:23 PM       

Of all the Weisinger innovations introduced in the '58-'59 "renaissance", I've always been most intrigued by the evolution of the bottled city of Kandor. The writers seem to grab on to this concept immediately - there were no less than 5 Kandor appearances in the '50s alone:

"The Super-Duel in Space" from Action #242 (Jul. 1958) by Otto Binder and Al Plastino. The original story of Kandor's rescue from Brainiac.

"The Lady and the Lion" from Action #243 (Aug. 1958) by Otto Binder and Wayne Boring. In this story, Superman is transformed by Circe into a lion, and finds the cure in a Kandorian text book!

"The Shrinking Superman" from Action #245 (Oct. 1958) by ? and Wayne Boring (my guess is Binder again). An evil double from Kandor takes Superman's place and even succeeds in marrying Lois!

"The Dictator of Krypton City" from World's Finest 100 (Mar. 1959) by Bill Finger, Dick Sprang, and Stan Kaye. Reprinted in the recent WF Archives volume 2, Kandor is referred to as "Krypton City" in this tale (remember WF was edited by Schiff at the time, so there may have been a lack of coordination here), and its residents as "Kryptonites" !!! This is a great story, with Luthor infiltrating the Fortress, and then Kandor, and taking it by force from its peaceful inhabitants.

"The War Between Superman and Jimmy Olsen" from Action #253 by Alvin Schwartz, Curt Swan, and George Klein. This time, an evil Jimmy Olsen look-alike escapes from Kandor to wreak havoc. They were just chock-full of doppelgangers, weren't they - and we haven't even gotten to Van-Zee yet!

posted April 04, 2002 04:18 AM    

quote:

---

Originally posted by Osgood Peabody:
Ask, and ye shall receive!
http://web.archive.org/web/20050219004139/http://plaza.powersurfr.com/legion_headquarters/rollcall/b5.htm

---

Thanks, O.P.

That's just what I needed!

posted April 04, 2002 04:21 AM    

Osgood, I do recall that Kandor was in a couple issues right after 242, but didn't show up again for a year later, in of all places World's Finest (DC did that a lot, didn't they.)

You know that reminds me of a former favorite pastime that's shared by a lot of comics fans, if not all - imaging team-ups or meetings between characters that never happened.

I've wondered about Mon-el's Phantom Zone period in '61 & '62 (before the Legion liberated him,) where he showed up in all the Superman family titles. Except World's Finest. I've imagined him in WF meeting Batman and Robin, as drawn by Swan, in probably what would have been Batman's first encounter with the Phantom Zone. If the new Legion feature in Adventure had been delayed six months, Mon-el probably would have met Batman in WF. He probably would have also met Bizarro and other Superman mainstays. Who else? Kandorians? Or did he?

Too bad villains never really crossed over in DC Silver Age books as they did at Marvel. It would have been fun to see Luthor and Batman go at it back then, or say Superman race Professor Zoom.

posted April 04, 2002 04:30 AM    

quote:

---

Posted by India Ink:
But I want to know about Koko! I'm serious. My only exposure to Action 242 is the few panels reprinted in the Great Superman Book (encyclopedia), which show the entertaining interaction between Brainiac and his pet space monkey.

---

posted April 04, 2002 03:59 PM    

quote:

---

Posted by Osgood Peabody:
"The Lady and the Lion" from Action #243 (Aug. 1958) by Otto Binder and Wayne Boring. In this story, Superman is transformed by Circe into a lion, and finds the cure in a Kandorian text book!

---

I really like that story.

"Yes, Superman has turned into a lion, the animal he most resembles... because of his lion's heart and strength..."

posted April 04, 2002 09:22 PM       

When they get around to doing a Superman in the Fifties collection, maybe they'll finally get their due.

Over on the Archives board, I've been campaigning for a Silver Age Action Comics archive line, that would start with the landmark "Super-Key to Fort Superman" from Action #241. After all, why should we have to wait for them to slog through another 15 years worth of stories to get to the good stuff!

posted April 05, 2002 03:27 AM    

I don't have the issues handy, but I'm guessing Koko's around for at least another year, maybe year and half, but of course there's several issues where he's not shown. You should still be able to get any of these issues at .50 to $1 in some stores, that is unless back issues jump up because of the increasing popularity of Legion. If Legion wins the Harvey award for best new series, who knows.

Osgood, though I've only bought one Archive Edition (Legion Vol. #1) because of my "sparse" economics of recent years, I likewise have felt for a while that the Silver Age editions should be started NOW for several reasons. Uppermost being perhaps that those that most want to read and buy them may not give a damn in 15 years. DC needs to set Silver Age demarcation issues for the all the Silver Age titles and start the "Archiving" of The DC Silver Age NOW.

Bluntly, who knows what's gonna happen in 15 years. Not to be pessimistic, but there's a not unreasonable possibility that there may not be any market for them in 15 years, and worse case, with all the non-stop growing entertainment competition, there may not be sufficently healthy comic industry to support such impressive and costly projects, by any publisher.

Let's get the DC Silver Age out in Archives NOW so this essential part of an American genre and art is published in a lasting durable form.

Because, again bluntly, I don't care what protection you use, most of our Silver Age collections aren't gonna make it past another thirty, forty years. Remember, mylars and like only came on the scene after the cheap pulp paper of '60s comics had been exposed to the elements for ten-fifteen years. The clock's ticking on our collections and the viability on "Archiving" The DC Silver Age.

posted April 05, 2002 10:21 PM       

I'm encouraged by the fact that 13 of the 16 stories in the proposed Silver Age Action collection have already been reprinted, so reproduction costs should be minimal.

To wit:

241 -(1st Fortress of Solitude) - numerous times, 1st in Superman Annual 1, most recently in [i]The Greatest Superman Stories Ever Told[i]
242 - (1st Brainiac & Kandor) - at least twice - Superman Annual 2 & Superman 217
243 - Superman Annual 3
244 - Superman 187
247 - Superman 193
249 - 80-Page Giant 11 (all-Luthor collection)
250 - Superman 183
251 - (1st imaginary tale) - Superman Annual 3
252 - (1st Metallo) - Superman Annual 3
253 - 80-Page Giant 2 (Jimmy Olsen collection)
254/255 - (1st Adult Bizarro) - 80-page Giant 6
256 - Superman Annual 3

That means only the 3 stories from Action 245, 246, and 248 have never been reprinted to my knowledge.

posted April 12, 2002 09:38 PM       

How about TPB ideas, as a precursor or alternative to an actual Silver Age Archive line?

The recent Superman in the Sixties collection just scratched the surface as far as I'm concerned.

The Kandor Chronicles.
The Greatest Luthor stories ever told.
The Greatest Brainiac stories ever told.
The Greatest Imaginary stories ever told.

posted April 12, 2002 11:47 PM    

Dream collection would be an all Lexor book (although, I think I actually have most of them now). And of course the Kandor book (there are actually too many to fit just one collection).

Krypton, hmmm...While personally I'd like a sixties only book or a collection of the seventies back-up stories--methinks a Greatest Krypton Stories type book would do better in sales. Such a book would include the early Siegel/Shuster version, the later forties and the fifties versions, certain key Weisinger era stories, a few of the seventies back-ups, one or two early eighties stories, and yes I'm afraid it would also have to include some post-reboot tales.

posted April 13, 2002 01:33 AM    

quote:

---

Posted by India Ink:
And howabout a "Super-Pets in the Sixties" collection?

---

posted April 17, 2002 01:54 PM    

On there they had pages for "Superman Under a Red Sun"--which I never got around to reading, partly because the pages took so long to load.

So far as I know I've never read this story, but it appears to be one of the favourite stories from the sixties.

Could anyone tell me what made this story so special? And would anyone care to give a synopsis?

posted April 17, 2002 03:28 PM    

quote:

---

Could anyone tell me what made this story so special? And would anyone care to give a synopsis?

---

posted April 21, 2002 05:33 PM    

In the Daily Planet building, Clark, having spotted "a great danger" with his telescopic vision, leaves Perry, Lois and Jimmy and changes to Superman in the stockroom. He flies up to the stratosphere to an encounter with a Superman Revenge Squad spaceship. Inside the ship, one of the Squad members says, "He's pursuing us, just as we planned!"

The ship accelerates at incredible velocity, but Superman is hot on its tail. The ship goes so fast it breaks the time barrier. The ship, followed closely by the Man of Steel, starts hurtling into the future. "Far into the future speeds the terrific chase..." Superman realises he has never been so far; a million years into the future. The spaceship slows down and is about to stop at this point, with Superman feeling "queer" and "weak".

With the enemy spaceship hovering high above, Superman finds all his super-powers have deserted him, and he falls out of the sky, no longer able to fly. He is hurt by the hard landing, but soft sand has prevented serious injury. He picks himself up and observes that the sun is red. This far in the future, Earth's sun has aged, as suns usually do, and has become red. "Only the rays of a yellow sun give me powers! How will I ever get back to my own time?"

posted April 22, 2002 11:15 PM    

But in related news...

Passing this on from Village Idiot...

posted April 24, 2002 01:30 AM    

quote:

---

Don't stop now, Aldous!

---

I have no intention of stopping, my friend!

Red Sun...

Superman feels determined to get out of the trap, and he decides he must first find other people. He walks along a road that looks very familiar. It's just like the seaside road that led toward Metropolis from the south, but, instead of the sea, there is just a vast expanse of dried-up mud.

He walks on, the terrible truth slowly dawning on him. He arrives into a deserted, ruined city, a city that he realises is the future Metropolis. He calls out, but there is no one to answer.

Superman does a bit of exploring amongst the ruins, and finds an historical archive. He dons a special helmet which appears to have survived, and the recorded image of an historian appears to him telepathically. The telepathic messenger speaks of a catastrophe that began in the year 824,057AD. Earth's yellow sun started to turn red from old age, and this caused changes to Earth as well. The planet experienced a great drought, with the science of the day unable to prevent the drying-up of the oceans. To survive, the people manufactured water using atomic energy, but it was a very expensive process.

When this process began to fail, the people took the difficult decision to abandon Earth, to build spaceships in which to migrate to other worlds. Eventually all people left Earth forever. The last man to leave the planet was the historian now appearing telepathically to the Man of Steel (via a recorded message).

posted April 25, 2002 11:00 PM       

I have to say, I think a lot of the characters were better fleshed out ina shorter period of time. Lyla, of course, being probably the best example. One issue, and you knew what she was about, you actually cared about her (R2K is quite possibly my favorite Superman story). And Luthor was actually fleshed out as well. Sacrificing his final defeat to help the people of that dead planet. The current Luthor wouldn't have done that. The current Luthor probably would've slaughtered them all or sold them into slavery or something equally evil.

posted April 26, 2002 06:32 AM    

Those great old stories did have the power to make you care, in a very short time. They were like any good short story -- they sucked you in really fast, got to the point, had characters you felt concern for.

That's something missing in a lot of modern writing, especially comic book writing. The computerised/airbrushed art and the soap opera hand-wringing is all very colourful and hip, but who CARES about what happens to anybody? The old stories captured your concern.

I find this very hard to explain. I guess, if you've read and loved 'em, you know just what I mean. If you haven't read and loved 'em, you haven't a hope in hell of understanding.

As you say, U2 -- Luthor was human, and human in the way that, sure, he was Superman's enemy, and Supes was the good guy; but you really, honestly could feel for Lex's motivation. (This is where Smallville succeeds.) As you say, he was "fleshed out". You gave a damn about Luthor. You were kind of torn -- "Well, gee, I sort of hope Lex wins!" You know what I mean. Lex had a soul. The characters had soul.

And, because they had soul, you cared. Some of those hokey, fun stories had such pathos and poignancy! Those old timers were great writers.

posted April 27, 2002 07:10 PM       

quote:

---

Originally posted by Aldous:
I second that, India.

Those great old stories did have the power to make you care, in a very short time. They were like any good short story -- they sucked you in really fast, got to the point, had characters you felt concern for.

That's something missing in a lot of modern writing, especially comic book writing. The computerised/airbrushed art and the soap opera hand-wringing is all very colourful and hip, but who CARES about what happens to anybody? The old stories captured your concern.

I find this very hard to explain. I guess, if you've read and loved 'em, you know just what I mean. If you haven't read and loved 'em, you haven't a hope in hell of understanding.

As you say, U2 -- Luthor was human, and human in the way that, sure, he was Superman's enemy, and Supes was the good guy; but you really, honestly could feel for Lex's motivation. (This is where Smallville succeeds.) As you say, he was "fleshed out". You gave a damn about Luthor. You were kind of torn -- "Well, gee, I sort of hope Lex wins!" You know what I mean. Lex had a soul. The characters had soul.

And, because they had soul, you cared. Some of those hokey, fun stories had such pathos and poignancy! Those old timers were great writers.

I never see any great old DC story as "stupid". No way. Never.

---

posted April 28, 2002 01:37 AM    

Superman hears footsteps in the street outside, and goes to investigate. He runs into Mr. Mxyzptlk, and, for once, is glad to see the pest from the 5th Dimension. Superman says his own name backwards (LE-LAK) as this would normally send him into the 5th Dimension, and from there he could return to his own time. Unfortunately, nothing happens. Mr. Mxyzptlk doesn't seem to be himself, and is puzzled by Superman's mention of "magic". The imp doesn't even recognise the Man of Steel.

The next familiar face Superman encounters is Perry White's. There's the editor of the Daily Planet, looking as he always did, puffing on a cigar. But he, too, fails to recognise Superman. The best Perry can come up with is, "You're wearing a costume like Supergirl's..."

Superman decides something isn't right about these people (!!) and he goes back to the hall of telepathic records. He once again dons the telepathic helmet. He accesses further records and finds the people of Earth long ago created a memorial to the world's greatest past hero, Superman himself. The memorial consists of android duplicates of Superman's comrades and enemies, including Supergirl. The androids were left behind when the people of Earth departed for outer space.

Superman feels despair, but pulls himself together. He has one hope left -- his Fortress of Solitude in the Arctic. He decides to set out at once, and takes the Perry White android along for the journey. "He'll make me feel less alone."

posted May 05, 2002 02:50 AM    

I know I have to finish Red Sun.

posted May 25, 2002 05:27 AM    

Superman's enemies watch from their space craft, high above. They guess Superman is trying to reach the fortress, but, certain he will not make it due to the "dangers of this dead world," they return to their own time to report their success.

The Man of Steel spots some strange creatures and asks the Perry White android what they are. The creatures are "balloon beasts," and inflate so as to float away when threatened. Perry explains that there are many mutated animals due to past atomic fallout.

After hours of walking, Superman and Perry arrive at what was once Smallville. Suddenly, while Superman is reminiscing, Perry yells a warning. "Superman, beware! A color-cat is charging!" The creature, looking like a cross between a tiger and a rainbow, flies at the Man of Steel. Playing matador, Superman diverts the beast, and he and Perry seek refuge in a store.

The store is stocked with food and water tablets, and the duo fill their pockets.

Moving northward on the long journey, they encounter other weird mutations, like a whale which has adapted to life on land, and a giant eagle that can shoot lightning bolts from its eyes.

They rest for the night by a fire, with Superman feeling tired and discouraged.

By the light of the fire, Superman notices footprints in the dust, but there is nothing to be seen. Perry explains, "I've heard of strange beasts of prey called The Unseeables, that evolved to invisibility." Superman tosses ash from the fire and, with ash covering them, The Unseeables become visible. The Man of Steel, deducing they are evolved sea creatures, frightens them off using fire.

The next day, Superman and Perry walk on. They pass through a sort of valley of weird pink crystals, and Superman gets the feeling the crystals are alive and watching.

They apparently come to the end of the "land," and all that is before them is the dry, cracked bed of what was once the ocean. The Perry android tells Superman the expanse cannot be crossed, and Superman orders Perry to return to Metropolis.

posted May 25, 2002 11:55 PM    

In a discarded mirror fragment, Superman notices his hair and nails have grown longer (as with his beard). Aldous note: the point is made here that under a yellow sun, Superman's hair, nails, etc. do not grow. Day after agonising day Superman marches on, his once-mighty strength waning. He comes across Atlantis, once the undersea home of Lori Lemaris and her people. The deserted and derelict nature of what was once a kingdom depresses Superman even further. Great winds wail ominously, and Superman falls, all but exhausted. "I'll never reach the Fortress --"

He notices two Balloon Beasts who inflate when frightened, and, as they inflate, Superman latches onto one, and is borne aloft on the winds. For hours, the wind carries the Balloon Beast and the Man of Steel northward. The Beast is beginning to tire, starting to deflate, but Superman notes they have almost reached the mountains where the Fortress is.

posted June 02, 2002 04:57 PM    

Since anyone reading and enjoying this thread probably thinks Curt Swan art when they think Superman, I wanted to let you see a link I found paying tribute to the great one:
http://web.archive.org/web/20050219003802/http://www.fortunecity.com/tatooine/niven/142/talentpo/tp14.html

And also give notice of an upcoming harcover book tribute to Swan that looks very promising:

CURT SWAN: A Life in Comics
-Foreword by Mort Walker.
The elegant comic book art of Curt Swan defined the look of Superman for over 30 years. His amazing skills of storytelling,
draftsmanship and design brought a realism and sense of wonder to The Man of Steel's adventures, making them the best-selling comic books of their day.
Filled with iconic and previously unseen pop art, this fascinating biography traces the artist's career from the beginning on features like GANGBUSTERS to his rise as the top Superman artist. Engaging one-on-one interviews with Swan family members as well as comics legend associates like Joe Kubert, Julius Schwartz, Carmine Infantino, Alan Moore, Murphy Anderson, Dan Jurgens and dozens more paint a portrait of the man as elegant as the artist's own work.
Includes never-before-published Superman art and sketches.
Vanguard. [Expected: July].
HC, 9x11, 196 pages, PC.
$34.95

posted June 02, 2002 05:38 PM    

quote:

---

From the article:
The action within the comics often fared little better. Even in his most active scenes, Swan's Superman did not blaze through the sky as he would in the hands of later artists John Byrne, Dan Jurgens, Jon Bogdonove, Jackson Guice, or Alex Ross. The lessons Jack Kirby had taught by his reinvention of comics vitality in the sixties never seemed to permeate Swan's style, partially because Swan may have remained aloof from the industry, and partially because Swan's dedication to realism precluded much of the experimentation and distortion that made comics leap from the page.

---

I strongly disagree with this. Just a week or so ago I posted a "thrilling moment" from Superman in the 70s, drawn by Swanderson, and even in the couple of pages of the jet-interception sequence from that issue gave such a feeling of speed and power on the part of Superman. True, the greatest Swan scenes didn't have the "distortion" or cartoon-like exaggerations of today's Super-balloon-art, but to imply Swan's art lacked "vitality" is just plain wrong. I've talked about comics on the 70s thread wherein the Swan art still thrills me as it did when I was a kid. It's easy to forget/overlook how innovative Swan was. His Superman became so super-familiar that I think a lot of people mistake the familiar for the ordinary.

posted June 04, 2002 07:48 AM    

Superman resigns himself to the fact that he will eventually die in the Fortress, as the "last man on Earth". He takes a walk amongst the souvenirs of his career, his mementoes, statues and trophies. As he passes by the "Batman and Robin Room," he fondly remembers his good friends of "long ago". Then he notices something seemingly out-of-place, a display of a tiny house and rocketship taken from the Bottle City of Kandor before the city was enlarged. Superman immediately latches onto the idea that the miniature rocketship can take him back to his own time.

He searches elsewhere for something he knows must be there and comes up with a lead-wrapped specimen of Red Kryptonite from a drawer. Superman had once observed the effect of this particular chunk of Kryptonite on Krypto, and he's sure it will have the same effect on him.

Before setting his plan in motion, the Man of Steel shaves and cuts his hair and nails in preparation for returning to life under a yellow sun.

Using a shrinking ray from the Fortress, Superman shrinks himself to tiny size so he can enter the miniature Kandorian rocketship. "These Kandorian rockets were powered by atomic energy, capable of unlimited speed! And I'll need such speed!" Superman flies the tiny rocketship out through the Fortress keyhole and reaches a speed great enough to crack the time barrier. By "steering" the ship "counter-clockwise," he hurtles back into the past to his proper time of 1963.

He successfully completes the journey, and, although he now has all his super-powers again, he is still of a tiny size. "Now to wait until the temporary effect of the Red Kryptonite wears off and I'm my super-self again!"

Later, when the "Red Kryptonite effect" has worn off and Superman is normal-sized again, he sits looking out over the city and ponders this latest adventure.

And, having endured enough scientific, geographic, and continuity plot-holes to sink a ship, we have come to....The End.

posted June 07, 2002 05:56 PM    

Superman through the Ages (Man O Man, those pages take a looooonng time to load), credits this to Edmond Hamilton and Curt Swan. But Swan it obviously aint.

I've managed to find this story reprinted in The Best of DC, vol. 1, no. 1 (Sept./Oct., 1979), featuring Superman, the first Blue Ribbon Digest. There, credit is given to Al Plastino, as clearly he is the artist--but no writer is listed. I must admit, however the art does look Curt Swan-y at times!

posted June 07, 2002 11:24 PM    

Meanwhile, I'd like to throw this open to anyone else. As I was asking some weeks ago why this story figures as so significant to so many, I'll ask again Why? I have my own suspicion, but would like to hear from others.

posted June 08, 2002 12:53 AM    

quote:

---

Originally posted by India Ink:
Owing to some unrelated debate over on the archives board, my brain is fried.

---

Really...? I'll have to nip over to the other board later to have a look. Are you starting arguments again?

quote:

---

Meanwhile, I'd like to throw this open to anyone else. As I was asking some weeks ago why this story figures as so significant to so many, I'll ask again Why?

---

I don't know. The story doesn't impress me. At best it's a curiosity.

It may be significant because early on in the story Superman is a man alone, bereft of allies, powers, and even villains. In a sense, particularly as he is often feeling the weight of despair, he is struggling not with an outside agency, but with his own limitations. He is fighting a spiritual and mental battle.

Reading back through my own synopsis, he also seems to make a series of "pit stops" at the significant places of his previous life: Metropolis-Smallville-Lori's Atlantis-Fortress. Hardly a direct route to the Arctic, I'm sure.

posted June 08, 2002 06:09 PM    

I know that the original Luthor/Superboy was reprinted at some point because I sure didn't read it in the original--and I'm pretty sure I read it.

I have this feeling that it might've been reprinted in a tabloid sized Limited Collector's Edition--like "Secret Origins of Super-Villains."

"...Red Sun" doesn't feel like Edmond Hamilton to me, either. More like Jerry Siegel. Even set within the context of all the Superman science fiction of the time this story doesn't quite fit. Although I think that's actually its strength in a round-about way.

Both Hamilton and Siegel had been writing the LSH for a while by the time of this story--Superboy routinely jumps into the 30th century as if it were a backyard playground. And we never see him being terribly morose about the long distant past--we don't see him going on a tour of old Superboy sites.

Of course, in this story Superman is marooned. But he was marooned a lot in many stories, either in the distant past or on far-off planets, and never quite seemed to act in this sad fashion.

And he's One Million years into the future (need I mention that he would become marooned One Million years into the future some years later in another Action story--this one by Cary Bates--as the "Immortal Superman"?), which seems very very distant--too distant for so much of his legend to be preserved on Earth I think. It's hyperbole in the extreme.

But there's this bizarre dream-like atmosphere to the story, making it seem quite surreal. That's the level on which I enjoyed it.

I think the most significant line in the entire thing is at the very end when Superman is just sittin' on the dock of the bay wasting time and wondering...

"Will Earth really be like that a million years from now? Or was that only one of many possible futures?"

I mean, here's a guy who has spent most of the story living this existence, and yet at the end he doubts its authenticity? It's a kind of wierd juxtaposition. For Superman, how much reality is really real? How does he ever know where he really is, since he may just be in a possible world and not the true authentic world. In this light, the entire run of Legion Adventures could just be possible experiences and not what Earth will really be like.

With this story and the "Immortal Superman" I'm tempted to think that maybe Superman really has stepped through a doorway between one existence and another. One could even carry the argument so far as to argue that Superman begins his adventure in one possible reality and ends up in another by the end.

posted June 08, 2002 06:47 PM       

quote:

---

Originally posted by India Ink:
As I was asking some weeks ago why this story figures as so significant to so many, I'll ask again Why? I have my own suspicion, but would like to hear from others.

Osgood Peabody--are you out there?

---

While Action 300 was a bit before my time, I think I can surmise the appeal it has. Mort Weisinger summed it up in this quote I found in The Comic Book Heroes: "The type of story I became fondest of was the ones where Superman lost his powers and had to survive on his natural wits...You could identify with him then, an outstanding character deserving of your admiration, a real hero because of the clever things that he did when deprived of his super-powers."

posted June 08, 2002 09:59 PM       

quote:

---

Originally posted by India Ink:

And he's One Million years into the future (need I mention that he would become marooned One Million years into the future some years later in another Action story--this one by Cary Bates--as the "Immortal Superman"?), which seems very very distant--too distant for so much of his legend to be preserved on Earth I think. It's hyperbole in the extreme.

With this story and the "Immortal Superman" I'm tempted to think that maybe Superman really has stepped through a doorway between one existence and another. One could even carry the argument so far as to argue that Superman begins his adventure in one possible reality and ends up in another by the end.

---

That was part of a three parter in Action comics, meaning three issues.

In that story, I'll dig it out if anyone wants, Superman can only go into the future, the Time Trapper has shut off the past to him. It was one of my favorite story-arcs of mine from my teen years and one of the first ones I bought when I started to recreate the collection I lost to the ages.

It is a sad story but full of the headaches that time-travel stories have. In a way, this story may be one of the worst.

Bill

posted June 08, 2002 11:45 PM    

Bill,
I'm always plesantly surprised to find yet another person who loved the "Immortal Superman" three-parter.

This has to be one of my big favourites. And I went on about it at great length, almost a year ago, over on the "Superman in the 70s" thread, on page 4...
http://web.archive.org/web/20050219003802/http://dcboards.warnerbros.com/files/Forum30/HTML/004040-4.html

Then about half a year later, Kev-El went on about this story, too, in February, over on page 10 of the same thread...
http://web.archive.org/web/20050219003802/http://dcboards.warnerbros.com/files/Forum30/HTML/004040-10.html

And since I'm putting up links, I transcribed the entire 1974 interview (by Guy H. Lillian, in Amazing World of DC Comics) with Bates and Maggin, over on page 2 of the "Backdoor to the 70s" thread...
http://web.archive.org/web/20050219003802/http://dcboards.warnerbros.com/files/Forum89/HTML/001224-2.html

...in which the "Immortal Superman" is mentioned in passing.

Also from that interview, it's interesting to note that Bates created the cover idea for the Luthor/Brainiac story that was published in Superman 167 (although the actual story was by Edmond Hamilton, Curt Swan, and George Klein). This is another story I definitely hold in high regard--and I went on about it also somewhere on the "Superman in the 70s" thread.

posted June 10, 2002 02:58 PM    

quote:

---

Originally posted by India Ink:
...

I've managed to find this story reprinted in The Best of DC, vol. 1, no. 1 (Sept./Oct., 1979), featuring Superman, the first Blue Ribbon Digest. There, credit is given to Al Plastino, as clearly he is the artist--but no writer is listed. I must admit, however the art does look Curt Swan-y at times!

This Blue Ribbon Digest is a great little item, filled with neat stuff from the 50s, 60s, and 70s--and with a painted cover by Andru, Giordano, and Orlando (I think Joe Orlando must've been the one who did the actual painting chores).

---

This digest has quite a few 70s tales--including a Murphy Anderson gag from PLOP!--Lois falls out the window, Clark flies out to save her, and then when he catches her Lois says she always knew he was Superman, next panel Morgan Edge comes in looking for Lois and Clark says, "Lois? She fell out the window..."

There's another 60s story in here, an imaginary story--"The Death of Superman."

And there's a story, illustrated by Wayne Boring, that looks like it might be from the 50s--"The Adventures of Mental-Man!"

A comic strip character, Mental-Man is the creation of Al Fallon, Daily Planet staff artist. Everybody in Metropolis can't wait for the next Mental-Man adventure. Even underworld gansters read the comics, and apparently they employ their own staff artists--who knew? One underworld artist is "Inky," who makes an intriguing discovery.

Just like Al Fallon, Inky has his own drawing table. Sitting at his board he instructs his fellow criminals in certain principles of art--"Look--I'm making an exact tracing of a car from a photo...And here, beside the photographic copy, is an ordinary free-hand drawing of the same car! Notice the difference? You can tell that one is taken from a photo!"

One of the gangsters doesn't see the point and pipes up that "A drawin' is a drawin'," but Inky then shows him the Mental-Man drawings which look like the photographic drawing. So Mental-Man must really exist!

Actually it's a hoax being played by Superman, but they don't know that and they get Mental-Man to help them out on a job. As Mental-Man goes with the gang in their car, one of the crooks observes about Mental-Man, "Gee, boss...He's spooky! Never says a word!"

posted June 14, 2002 12:55 PM    

quote:

---

Originally posted by India Ink:
[b]Seeing the World through Super-Spectacles

... mostly the Super-Specs are part of the runs of regular titles. As with the next issue, DC-7, which was also Superman 245 (Dec.'71-Jan.'72). In addition to Superman himself, there were stories of Kid Eternity, The Atom (Ray Palmer), Super-Chief, Air-Wave, and Hawkman (silver age version).

Leading off the collection is another epic by Swan and Klein (and no doubt by Edmond Hamilton, though he wasn't credited in this Super-Spec), running at 27 pages, from Superman 167 (February, 1964)...

...This one confirms the greatness of the Hamilton/Swan/Klein team (not that there was any doubt). Several elements that were stirring in other stories come together here. We get a slight nod to their work over on the Legion, mention of Lexor (the planet where Lex is a hero), and more Kandor content. The mythology is firmly in place and Hamilton can now move around in it, using bits of it as he pleases...
[/B]

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And then on page 8 of the same thread I referred to the actual original comic

quote:

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Originally posted by India Ink:

Today I was looking at my copy of Superman 167 (Feb. '64)--that's the issue where "The Team of Luthor and Brainiac !" first appeared, the 27 page epic that was reprinted in Superman 245 (Super-Spec DC-7).

This story is notable for a lot of firsts, and for advancing the mythology further. The first story to reveal Brainiac as an android or his 12th level intelligence. The first story to introduce Ardora--okay she's called Tharla in this story, but she's Ardora in all subsequent Lexor stories, and she'll marry Luthor and have his son. Not to mention revelations about the people who created Brainiac (and the history of Brainiac 5) or further Kandorian trivia.

But on page 8 in the original comic there's an editorial note that instructs us to check the "Metropolis Mailbag" page, where there's this "Special Announcement!"

"Thousands of DC readers have avidly followed the spectacular duels between SUPERMAN and his greatest foe, the nefarious scientist, BRAINIAC." [Lex must have been mad enough to spit when he read that...=>] "Their exciting clashes have taken place deep below the ocean and in distant galaxies. But whether the battleground has been Atlantis or Arcturus, each time BRAINIAC has proved himself an opponent worthy of the Man of Steel's mettle!

"And now let us go behind the scenes and unveil a remarkable conincidence. The fictional character, 'Brainiac,' was created for us by Otto Binder, a famous science fiction writer who is currently the editor of 'Space World,' a magazine for rocket experts. (Otto also created 'Bizarro' and wrote the great Superman novel, 'Krypton Lives On.')

"Shortly after the first 'Brainiac' story appeared in ACTION COMICS, in 1956, we learned that a REAL 'Brainiac' existed...in the form of an ingenious 'Brainiac Computer Kit' invented in 1955 by Edmund C. Berkeley. Mr. Berkeley is a distinguished scientist and a world authority on automation, computers, and robots.

"In deference to his 'Brainiac,' which pre-dates ours, with this issue of SUPERMAN we are changing the characterization of our 'Brainiac' so that the master-villain will henceforth possess a 'computer personality.' We are confident that our readers will approve of this transformation; it should make 'Brainiac' a mightier adversary for the Man of Steel.

"Readers will be interest to learn that they can build their own 'Brainiac' by purchasing one of Mr. Berkeley's computer kits and assembling the parts. Thousands of youngsters, as well as adults, have bought these kits and, by following the simple directions, have been able to construct home-made computers which can solve interesting problems of all kinds. 'Braniac' kits cost less than $20.00 and make an ideal educational hobby. For more information, write for free literature to: Berkeley Enterprises, Inc., 815 Washington Street, Newtonville 60, Mass."

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It's interesting that all this stuff came together in one story which was presumably sparked by Cary's cover idea.

My thinking is that there was already a lot of ideas just floating around in Weisinger's office. Hamilton had things he wanted to develop from previous stories, Weisinger had this whole tie-in with the Berkley "Brainiac." So all this stuff was built around that one scene from the Bates cover idea.

posted June 14, 2002 02:10 PM    

In the case of Weisinger's titles, it seems like many covers posed a puzzle. A puzzle for the reader in that we look at this cover and wonder to ourselves how this could possibly happen. Perhaps more importantly, a puzzle for the writer, who has to try and build a story around the cover idea. The scene from the cover usually is right at the middle of the story, so the writer is building toward that scene and then trying to get out of that scene back to a state of normalcy.

Maybe Mort thought that these puzzle/cover ideas challenged his writers and got them to use their brains. Who knows? I sure don't!

Again over on the 70s topic, but more recently (page 16), I was talking about the Super-Spectacular Superman 172, which had, among other things, a reprint of "Beauty and the Super-Beast!"

Aldous wanted to know more about this story, so I thought I'd mention it here.

This story--from Superman 165 (Nov. '63)--seems like a good candidate for a cover-idea-first story. It certainly is a puzzle story. At the front of the story scenes play out one way, leading to the scene on the cover (more or less) which shows Circe stepping out of a glass-covered ornate casket, holding up her wand and transforming Superman into a lion-headed man (with lion paws). I gather that this was illustrated by Swan and Klein--Swan uses his technique of double imaging Superman to show action in time.

Circe is saying: You were a fool to think only Kryptonite can affect you, Superman! With my mighty magic, I now turn you into a beast! And the spell will remain until you agree to marry Circe!

The splash page shows Superman being forced by Circe to juggle balls upside down.

In part I of the story, Lana comes to interview Lois who is preparing for a solo space-shot--which will make Miss Lane "the first U.S. girl to orbit Earth." There's lots of catty dialogue here. Lois does admit that the only reason NASA selected her was because they could be sure that Superman would fly to her rescue if anything untoward happened. Lana accuses Lois of just seeking public adulation and Superman's attentions. For her part Miss Lang is off to Crete (long-time readers will remember that her father is a respected archaeologist, and Lana is a capable archaeologist in her own right). In Crete, Lana is going to look for the glass coffin of Circe. Lois jeers her, doubting that any such coffin could really exist.

So Lana goes off to Crete and Lois goes into orbit.

Sure enough a meteor threatens to crash into Lois Lane's space capsule and Superman goes flying UP to knock it away, but as he does so a strange blue beam strikes him, and his reknowned strength does not smash the meteor to bits. Instead the meteor falls toward Washington, D.C. But flying DOWN Superman manages to smash the meteor into dust.

Lane splashes down in her capsule and is brought to shore with congratulations, which she answers by saying, "Oh, skip it! With Superman guarding me every inch of the way, my Aunt Matilda could've made the trip!"

Meanwhile, in Crete, Lana has unearthed a glass covered coffin containing a Beauty who looks just like Circe (just like the Circe that has appeared in other Superman stories). The Beauty steps out of the coffin like she was getting out of bed after a long night's sleep. She's a rather sharp-tongued woman. When she hears Superman's name she goes off on a tirade--for Circe really did meet Superman in a previous story and at that time he spurned her offer of marriage. Now the Beauty proclaims that she'll have her revenge by making a fool of the Man of Steel.

Lana's amazing discovery is headline news, but Jimmy Olsen thinks it must be a hoax. Perry White tells Superman he must see this Circe, when she comes to an interview at the Metropolis Museum, to determine if she's the real deal. And Superman does just that.

Sure enough, the Beauty does seem to prove she's the real Circe, first by reading minds and then by turning Superman into a Lion-man (lionhead, lion paws). End of Part I.

Part II ("Circe's Super-Slave"). But believing a lion is too noble, she turns his head into that of a mouse (this time his hands are normal). Superman begs her to let him go out and perform his job as hero of Metropolis. She relents, and his head goes back to normal, then she decides to embarass him by commanding him to climb a crane and fly DOWN into the Earth. Which he does although he manages to kick out a large section of bedrock excavating the foundation for a new City Hall.

The Beauty who calls herself Circe commands Superman to juggle balls while floating upside DOWN. He does this, but by throwing the well-aimed balls he manages to stop criminals using a large armoured tank who would have tried to rob the Peerless Gem Company.

The Beauty then says that he's too clever for her and flies off and fades away.

And at that precise instant, inside a flying saucer off in space, members of the Superman Revenge Squad are watching and cursing their bad luck. It's been 24 hours and their counter-energy has shown no signs of affecting Superman, he still has his powers. Even Circe didn't manage to best him with her magic! And so they take off, glumly, to face the wrath of their superiors.

With his telescopic vision, Superman sees them leave and has a good laugh, and then meets with the unmasked Beauty who is not Circe but Saturn Woman with her pet Proty II. He recalls how things really happened (the answer to the puzzle that this story has posed)--

Superman realized that when the blue ray beam hit him it had deprived him of his powers, but only when it struck him in a right side up position. Once positioned down he had all his powers. He sent Krypto off to the future to get Saturn Woman, and coming to the 20th Century she tuned in on Superman's thoughts, staging the elaborate hoax, posing as Circe. It was Proty II wrapped around Superman's face that transformed into a lion's head and a mouse's (but what about the paws? I wonder).

Superman had figured out that his body has a North and a South pole, just as all energy has two poles. And apparently his upside down body's polar energy repelled the energy of the Revenge Squad's beam. Which is why Circe's commands had Superman in an upside down position--a fact that Perry and Jimmy both notice at the end of the story.

posted June 14, 2002 06:48 PM    

And if I didn't make it clear, the cover story, "Beauty and the Super-Beast" (14 pages), was done by Swan and Klein, but I don't know who the writer was for a certainty.

posted June 15, 2002 01:51 PM    

One will note that it's Saturn Woman who comes to Superman's aid--not Saturn Girl. That is to say a grown up Imra, member of the Adult Legion of Super-Heroes (Superman had one adventure with this group prior to this story).

This just adds to the pile of confusion surrounding Superman's hoax. Surely he could have found an easier way to fool the Revenge Squaders.

posted June 16, 2002 02:11 AM    

I've always regretted letting this comic go. To make matters worse, I can't even remember what comic book I received in return!

posted June 16, 2002 01:13 PM    

The reason I read it was because it had Superman on the cover. This is how it worked--I read Batman comics because of the Batman TV show, I picked up an issue of Action because it had Batman on the cover, which turned me on to Superman and I read this Adventure comic because it had Superman in it.

posted June 17, 2002 12:11 AM    

I always think of that line from Woody Allen's Annie Hall. He tells the joke about the guy who goes to a psychiatrist and says, "Doctor, my wife thinks she's a chicken," and the doctor says he can cure her, and the guy responds, "But we need the eggs."

The lunacy of the plots is acceptable because "we need the eggs."

This may not be abundantly clear when reading "Beauty and the Super-Beast." Does seeing Superman hover upside down while juggling really satisfy some need inside? I think it does, but I would be hard pressed to make a convincing argument.

I can much more easily make my case with "The Sweetheart Superman Forgot!" In that story, the twists and turns of plotting yield something that we can grab hold of, and say "yes, it's all worth it for this!"

Let's review.

"One day in the Daily Planet newsroom..." I love that line, or those similar to it. So many of these stories began with that innocuous setting. Clark reads off the teletype that a UFO is about to collide with the Telstar sattellite. Next panel Superman is averting the danger high above the Earth. The UFO is a "cosmic booby trap" as it contains a piece of Red Kryptonite. Superman feels the familiar effects of Red K, and falling under the influence of the strange substance he flies Earthward, changes into his Clark Kent gear, and buries his super costume.

Wandering down the road, Clark finds he has lost his memory (and his powers). Eventually he comes to a farm, and asks a young lady if he might get a drink of water, as it's a hot afternoon and he's parched. But Clark has become so weak that he faints. Soon Clark is sleeping in a bed provided by the young lady, Sally Selwyn, and her father, Digby Selwyn.

When the bespectacled stranger revives he can't remember his own name, yet gives a false one "Jim White." The Selwyns are good folk and extend the utmost charity to this stranger. And "Jim" returns their generosity one day while riding on their property, by lassoing a pitchfork that would have attracted lightning to a box of dynamite. Digby admires Jim's courage and puts him to work as a hired hand.

However Bart Benson, Digby Selwyn's foreman, has other ideas and tries to show up Jim again and again, but his attempts only make Sally fall for Jim all the more. After they win first prize at the town dance hall, Jim and Sally step outside for some fresh air and embrace each other in a passionate kiss.

"But after a breathless moment..."

Clark: "Forgive me, Sally! I'm in love with you...yes! But I don't have the right to ask a girl like you to marry me!"

Sally: "I'll never forget that kiss, Jim dearest!"

Sally tells the man of her dreams that her Dad will retire soon and then Jim can run all of Digby Selwyn's propertis for him. But Jim White is a strong-minded individual who wants to make his own way in life without hand-outs.

Jim decides to enter a rodeo contest to win enough money to start his own business. Then he can ask Sally to marry him.

At the rodeo, anyone who can ride Black Terror the longest will win $5,000! But Bart has fed loco weed to the stallion. Nobody else will dare ride the excited steed. But Jim, desperate to win the prize money, mounts the stormy horse. And is thrown violently off. And Jim White ends up in a wheel chair.

Now that he's a cripple, there's no way that Jim can see himself marrying Sally. But Sally will never give up on her love for this man.

Out in a secluded spot near a cliff by a river, Jim White wheels himself out to think about his situation. But Bart is there and taunts him. Jim tells this tormenter to get away ("Your brain is sicker than my body, get away from me!"). But on a hill high above Jim, Bart sends a boulder toward the wheel chair, which knocks Jim out of the chair and down into the river.

Finding the chair by the river, Digby and Sally assume that Jim White has committed suicide.

They don't know that Jim's unconscious body floated down the river until it was found by Aquaman, who brought him to Lori Lemaris in Atlantis.

Clark revives in a transparent air-filled chamber at the ocean's depths. Lori tells him that he was in a delirium for a week, not knowing who he was.

Clark can't remember what happened after he buried his super costume, all he knows is that he must have been suffering from the effects of Red K.

And so Clark Kent returns back to the status quo of the Daily Planet newsroom. Overhearing Lois Lane saying that Superman will never marry because his carrer comes first, Clark wonders to himself how it would be to find someone who truly loved him for himself and not his powers and celebrity.

The last panel is a montage showing both Clark and Sally as they each think to themselves.

Clark: "It would be nice if there were such a girl! No such luck!"

Sally: ">sob< --Jim--Jim! My love for you will never die!"

The End

posted June 17, 2002 09:07 AM       

Did you know that there was a sequel to this in Superman #169 entitled "The Man Who Stole Superman's Secret Life"?

posted June 17, 2002 04:26 PM    

The remarkable thing here is that Weisinger managed to turn Superman into a ROMANCE COMIC for a story and probably none of the young boys that made up most of the audience even realized that's what they were reading! If you omit the beginning and end of the story, where Superman has his powers, it reads exactly like a "girls' romance" story of the time. Maybe Weisinger added all the horses and such to make it seem more like a Western?

Yet it must have proven hugely popular with the fans, if a sequel appeared so soon. Jerry Siegel doesn't seem to have had a follow-up deliberately planned, and I'm pretty sure that at least three months or so were required for a story to go from typewriter to newsstand. So a lot of mail must have poured in to Weisinger's office. Interesting that Siegel seemed to be the one coming up with all these doomed one-story romances for his creation... I think he wrote the Lyla Lerrol, Luma Lynai AND first Lori Lemaris tales as well.

posted June 17, 2002 06:41 PM       

This topic is really bringing back memories. Bonus points to the eagle-eyed reader who remembers which Jimmy Olsen cover referenced MY t.v. show from this great era.

posted June 18, 2002 01:30 AM    

What an extraordinary story for Superman. Too bad I can't read the comic. But a great synopsis, India.

posted June 18, 2002 02:27 PM    

I wonder if Siegel wrote for any of DC's romance comics? He clearly does have the whole style down.

The beauty of the Weisinger system is that it allowed for any kind of genre story. You just needed the set-up. I don't think we're ever supposed to believe that Red K is a realistic scientific possibility--it's just the set-up device that allows the writer to do whatever the hell he wants in the main body of the story and then return to situation normal at the story's end.

When I read "The Sweetheart Superman Forgot" I felt that I was reading about the real Clark Kent in the person of Jim White. And he isn't far different from the Clark Kent that Superman "pretends" to be--he is vulnerable even weak at times, a tender person who shows his emotions, yet he has great strength of character and courage.

posted June 18, 2002 03:33 PM    

quote:

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Posted by India Ink:
The beauty of the Weisinger system is that it allowed for any kind of genre story. You just needed the set-up. I don't think we're ever supposed to believe that Red K is a realistic scientific possibility--it's just the set-up device that allows the writer to do whatever the hell he wants in the main body of the story and then return to situation normal at the story's end.

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posted June 18, 2002 07:59 PM       

quote:

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Originally posted by India Ink:

The beauty of the Weisinger system is that it allowed for any kind of genre story. You just needed the set-up. I don't think we're ever supposed to believe that Red K is a realistic scientific possibility--it's just the set-up device that allows the writer to do whatever the hell he wants in the main body of the story and then return to situation normal at the story's end.

"

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posted June 19, 2002 01:16 PM    

But 14 pages isn't really enough to give due consideration to all the things going on in this story.

By way of a synopsis, here's a list of the things going on in that story:

1) "Superman" shows up at a special space ship building plant and takes photographs of the top secret equipment. When he accidentally bumps his arm in pain, the guard realizes this man is not Superman. Making his escape, the Superman lookalike hijacks the car of a plainclothes detective. He then knocks out the driver and takes his clothes--hat, suit, glasses--and ends up looking like Clark Kent.

2)The impostor Superman/Clark has a flashback memory of how in Smallville, he, Ned Barnes, once admired Superboy and then Ned was trapped in a fire, from which he was saved by Superboy, but not before his face was horribly destroyed by the fire. And so a plastic surgeon reconstructed his face, and at Ned's request made him look just like Superboy. But then Ned Barnes came to hate Superboy, and embarked on a life of crime.

3) Hitching a ride with a stock car racer, on the way to Orville City, Ned's ride is held up by cows on the road, when Sally Selwyn comes riding by on her horse and sees her "Jim." She embraces him just as a cop car comes up the road and so Ned plays along with her and pretends to be Jim. And expository sentence plagued Sally is compelled to tell the whole story of her tragic romance with Jim to the man she thinks is Jim.

4) The editors are compelled to retell the whole story of "The Sweetheart Superman Forgot" in seven panels.

5) The fake Jim White goes back to the Selwyn mansion

6) Perry White pursues his interest in horse-flesh.

7) Superman scouts Orville City for signs of the impostor Superman, while "Jim" and Sally are at the Orville City stock car races.

8) With no leads on the impostor, Superman switches to Clark and looks at a horse for Perry. Clark rides a bucking steed and pretends to fall off so people won't suspect he's Superman. Then Sally Selwyn comes running over to her Jim.

9) The kiss from the beautiful blonde stranger stirs up emotions in Clark Kent and he is flooded with memories of what happened in the "Sweetheart Superman Forgot" story.

10) Clark soon realizes that there is another "Jim White" who must be the Superman impostor and spots the fellow hiding a super-costume and camera.

11) Clark puzzles over his problems in a hotel room, takes a nap, and then wakens with a resolve to marry Sally--"Why not? I love her and she loves me--and I may never find a girl who truly loves me for myself!"

12) Meanwhile Ned Barnes--the impostor Superman/Clark/Jim--meets up with Big Tony who hired him to photograph those space ship secrets. Sensing that Ned wants to go straight and take up with the rich blonde, he has a sharp shooter train the sights of his gun barrel on Sally. There's a struggle and all three--Ned, Big Tony, and the sharpshooter--go tumbling over a cliff.

13) Big Tony and the hired gun die immediately, but Ned still has moments to live before death will claim him, when Superman discovers the morbid scene. In his last seconds of life, Ned tells Superman the story of why he came to hate him. Because looking like Superboy but not having his powers he was constantly taunted and bullied. Until he ran away from Smallville and started to steal things to get back at Superboy who seemed the cause of all his heartache. But now at the end of life Ned realizes he was wrong--but he asks one favor, that Superman doesn't let Sally know this "Jim White" was really a skunk.

14) Superman tells Sally that Jim White died trying to save her "from gun-happy prowlers."

15) Superman reflects on why he told Sally that Jim White died. In his mind he pictures coming home one day to find Sally killed by Superman's enemies in retribution.

16) At story's end, the last panel montage shows both Superman and Sally thinking---

Superman: "How ironic! Mighty Superman can help everyone...but when it comes to my own happiness--I can't help--myself!

Sally: "Though you're dead, Jim, you'll always be alive in my heart."

posted June 19, 2002 08:03 PM       

quote:

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Originally posted by India Ink:

17) The final caption of the story seems to promise that there might be yet another Sally Selwyn story. But I don't know if this ever happened.

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There never was.

I would agree that the sequel doesn't hold up, especially as it seems to negate (at least partially) the tragic ending of the original. And they had to resort to the usual cop-out - I can't risk Sally's life, blah, blah...

posted June 19, 2002 11:35 PM    

The fifteen page tear-jerker is the second feature in the issue (The cover feature being "The Thing from 40,000 A.D." reprint). It begins with Clark at a press event in Metropolis for Lyrica Lloyd, movie queen, just returned from a film shoot in Africa. Accompanied by a Safari outfitted actor, Alistair Wight, and a spotted leopard--Lyrica's weak grasp on the leash can't hault the feline as it leaps forward. But reporter Kent manages to grab the leash. And Lyrica touches his face as she thanks him.

Producer Marcus Moller's next project is "The Super-Saga"--a movie about Superman! Moller is scouting for a leading man, but Lyrica rushes toward Clark and removes his glasses pointing out the resemblance to Superman. Moller decides then and there to cast the reporter in the lead role. But something will have to be done with that name--so Clark Kent becomes Claude Kieth!

And so Clark/Claude says farewell to the Daily Planet (for the time being) and heads for Hollywood with the musically named Lyrica. In the movie she will play nurse Susan Dale of Midcity, while Claude will play Dr. Stan Sage, alias Superman. With contact lenses and a super-costume outfitted with all kinds of gadgets to simulate some of Superman's powers, Clark/Claude becomes a silver screen Superman.

As they work together, Claude and Lyrica become closer (although she always seems to be dropping things and gets faint for almost no reason). The sight of Claude Kieth and Lyrica Lloyd at a Hollywood nightclub is not uncommon.

Playing Dr. Sage's rival for the affections of nurse Susan, Alistair Wight drops dead on the set one day during filming. But the show must go on and the production proceeds. Claude's favourite scenes are the kissing scenes with Lyrica. And then one day, lifted into the air by miniature jets in the boots, Claude as Superman flies Lyrica as Susan up into the air. But actor Kieth (in reality the real Superman) flies even higher into the clouds. So in love is he. When suddenly, the screen queen faints in his arms.

The high flight is explained away as a powerful updraft. Another time, though, a large model of a heart breaks into pieces (foreshadowing and symbolism all in one) and threatens to kill Lyrica as she's filmed in a scene. Claude flies out as Superman and saves Lyrica but the shards from the heart should cut him to ribbons, yet don't!

Superman then pretends to be the real Superman come to visit the set--that's why the shards didn't hurt him! Moller wants to film both the real Superman and his actor Superman together. So he calls out Claude Kieth. Superman is not undone by this, because he manages to move so fast that he seems to be in two places at the same time, talking to himself.

Meanwhile Lyrica and Claude pursue their affair, out on dates every night. Clark decides that he'd like to continue to be an actor so he can always be near the beautiful screen goddess. When in her apartment he suggests marriage to Miss Lloyd, she turns away from him and laughs at the suggestion. How could she marry a jellyfish like him!

Angered Clark smashes an end table with one fist, crushes a phone in his hand, bends a fireplace poker into a pretzel, burns a log in the fireplace with his heat vision into charcoal, and then taking the charcoal from the hearth with his bare hands compresses two lumps into diamonds!

Then he suddenly realizes what he's done--"But I don't care! I have a right to live my own life! If Lyrica will have me, it's worth any risk!" he thinks. Yet as he opens his shirt to reveal the red S on his chest, Lyrica falls in a faint.

Reviving she tells him that she is suffering from a rare African jungle disease that is gradually killing her, just as it killed Alistair. And there's no cure. "The Superman Saga" was to be her swansong. But now she will at least die happy knowing that she could have been his wife if destiny had chosen it to be.

Superman swears he will do everything to save her, "but even Superman cannot defeat the grim reaper, and shortly, in a real hospital..." Lyrica gasps her last good-bye to Superman.

In the final panel, unable to watch the movie premiere, a sad Superman flies away from the theatre, leaving a black wreath, hung on the marquis that reads:

THE SUPERMAN SAGA
Starring LYRICA LLOYD
CLAUDE KIETH

posted June 20, 2002 12:50 AM    

quote:

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Posted by India Ink:
And expository sentence plagued Sally....

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heh heh heh

quote:

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Posted by Osgood:
Sometimes it's just better to leave well enough alone.

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Oh yep!

quote:

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Posted by India Ink:
The Sally Selwyn love story reminds me of another Superman Love Story, also illustrated by Al Plastino, "The Star of Steel" from the May 1967 issue of Superman (no. 196). This was probably one of the first Superman stories I read, back when I was very young, and I remember thinking it was like my mother's "stories" on TV, like her "Love of Life."

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posted June 20, 2002 01:03 PM    

The beauty of the first Sally Selwyn story is in its ironies. It is irony--not tragedy, romance, or comedy--but irony which seems to have interested Weisinger the most. Constructing these big ironies seems to be the prime task of all his writers.

And at the end of "The Sweetheart Superman Forgot" we have a double irony. First there's the irony that Sally is in hellish torture over her love for a man that she thinks is dead, when the irony is he's really alive and would love her as much as she loves him. But the second irony is that Clark doesn't remember any of it. Here he had the greatest love of his life, the one romance he thinks he can never really have because of his powers and celebrity, and yet he doesn't remember it. And what makes all of this so ironic is that we the readers know the real truth, but we can't tell the characters what really went on. Which is fustrating to no end. And fustration is the source of our enjoyment.

posted June 22, 2002 01:59 PM    

Writer: Jim Shooter
Artist: Wayne Boring
Cover: Curt Swan and George Klein

"He's mightier than a million mastodons...more intelligent than an army of Einsteins... and H-Bomb bursts don't bother him! Who is he... SUPERMAN? Nope, you LOSE! We mean that 50-foot fink, ETERNO! And what happens when these two titans tangle? Dive for cover and find out, as the CAPED KRYPTONIAN matches muscles with that gigantic juggernaut...

...ETERNO THE IMMORTAL!"

The tale begins as a sleek spacecraft flies toward Earth's solar system "from the deep void". Aboard are three members of the Superman Revenge Squad. One, Garan, is nervous about heading onto Superman's home turf again since the Squad has been beaten by him so often. But another, Arl, the apparent leader of the expedition, announces that he has a cunning plan...

(Arl looks like a bearded, long-haired human in futuristic garb; the other two are hairless, blue-skinned types with insect-like compound eyes, somewhat resembling Kanjar Ro.)

Arl has used the Squad's Time Viewer device to probe Earth's distant past and relates an interesting history lesson to his comrades:

"About a billion years ago, on Earth, existed the XAN... the XAN were a super-civilization of tall, handsome people, who lived in mighty sky-cities built by their super-science. They were also skilled robot and android makers! They had constructed many different types, for labor and higher functions... but their crowning achievement was... ETERNO!"

"ETERNO stood nearly 50 FEET high... he was half android, half robot, with the advantages of both! He was constructed to be immortal... eternal. The energy of the stars, harnessed by XAN science, was built into his invulnerable body... in his artificial brain they stored all the knowledge they possessed! Incredibly wise and powerful, he could perform astounding feats... like using his DESTRUCTO BEAMS to split mountains apart! But Eterno was TOO wise... TOO powerful! He secretly planned to conquer Earth!"

(Apparently, the time viewer can read minds, too, since it reveals Eterno thinking , "I will bide my time! And soon I will be the Master and these tiny creatures will be MY subjects!" But why, Eterno, why? Didn't they give you ALL the advantages of being both robot AND android? Whatever that means. Big discounts on lube jobs, I guess.)

"However, before he could strike, a DIFFERENT disaster overtook the XAN, in the form of a cloud of space gas, which drifted to Earth...". The Xan are seen looking through their huge telescopes in horror. "The gas will wipe us out! Only the life in the sea will survive!" One Xan scientist points out that "the element ABSORBIUM could soak up the gas... but it exists only at the Earth's core!"

That's right... Absorbium. Shooter must have thought long and hard coming up with that addition to the periodic table.

Eterno knows that he would easily survive the gas, but needs living subjects to rule, so he agrees to go get the Absorbium. Firing destructo beams from his mechanical eyes, he blasts himself a path "4000 miles to the center of the Earth, to save the race he planned to conquer! He reached the Earth's core... but due to some strange property of ABSORBIUM, it paralyzed him... ('Can't...move') ... and the Xan slowly died out..."

Arl plans to release Eterno, who will inevitably clash with Superman once he is free from his billion-year imprisonment. The Revenge Squad fires a "cyclo-ray" from their ship deep into Earth's crust, where it vaporizes the hunk of Absorbium that has been paralyzing Eterno all this time.

"FREE!" cries the robotic fiend. "After all these eons-FREE!"

"Suddenly, the colossus turns, and with the power of 100 suns uleashed" (yeah right), "he bores through the inner core's wall, and digs hungrily toward the surface...", erupting from within a mountain just outside Metropolis.

Eterno wastes no time going on a rampage, in typical giant evil robot style. Soon Clark Kent, at work at the Daily Planet, hears a call for help being broadcast, summoning Superman to the Metropolis Science Institute (S.T.A.R. Labs wasn't around yet). The scientists alert him to the menace, just as Eterno is arriving in the city anyway. Eterno's computer brain has already mastered the English language, and he mocks the humans who have replaced his creators as Earth's dominant race. He rips an entire skyscraper in half to show them who's boss (of course the skyscraper is "deserted" during the day right in the middle of a huge city). Before he can throw it at the crowd, Superman arrives and smashes the building to fragments in Eterno's hands.

The Avaricious Automaton is astonished that a mere human could be so powerful, but still considers Superman a mere "gnat". With one punch he slams the Man of Steel right into the pavement below. But Superman was only stunned, and warns the police to evacuate the area. Superman builds a giant wall around Eterno using the rubble of the building, but the Robotic Rogue smashes his way out of the wall as fast as Superman can build it. Even worse, his mightiest blows can't even dent Eterno.

But unlike his enemy, Superman can fly, and zooms up to grab the giant metal globe from atop the Daily Planet building (how'd you like to pay the insurance on that thing considering how often it was removed?). He flings it at Eterno like a bowling ball and smashes him through the street into a subway tunnel underground. "Ah! A PERFECT STRIKE!" he congratulates himself.

But Supes is overconfident, and Eterno manages to reach up and seize him within a metal fist. Even Kryptonian strength can't break the grip, so he tries giving Eterno a faceful of heat vision. Eterno responds with contempt:

"What are you doing now? More of your comedy, eh? Those pitiful rays are no match for MY destructo beams!" Fortunately, Superman is just as invulnerable to the destructo beams, but the two cancel each other out.

Meanwhile, the Revenge Squad members have been observing the entire fight from their hovering spaceship. Garan is gleefully piloting the ship closer and closer to the battle so he can get a good view of Superman's humiliation. Arl warns him not to get so close in case Superman wins, but Garan sneers. "There's no chance of that happening! Sooner or later, Eterno will triumph over our foe... and I want to be watching... in PERSON! How I'd like to tell SUPERMAN that ETERNO is merely a puppet... a tool... of the SUPERMAN REVENGE SQUAD! Our super-enemy foiled our plans to conquer other worlds! But now we'll..."

Arl suddenly cries out in horror. "GARAN! You FOOL! You struck the loudspeaker switch and turned it on! Quiet, before ETERNO hears you!"

Too late. Eterno heard. Eterno is pissed. Enraged at being called a mere puppet, the Electronic Evildoer flings Superman aside and forgets all about him. "Well, what do you know?" thinks Superman, as he strikes a typically stiff-armed Wayne Boring pose. "Old iron face is tossing me aside to take on that ship!"

The SRS memebrs try to flee into space, but Eterno brings them down with his destructo beams. The ship crash lands between the skyscrapers below. The panicking aliens quickly man their space-cannons and fire on Eterno, but even their "new, experimental weapons" are unable to harm him, as he keeps on marching closer to the downed spacecraft.

Then they remember that Absorbium is Eterno's one weakness... too bad they don't have any! But Garan quickly uses their onboard "atomic transmitter" to change some handy "nuclear capsules" into a fresh batch of Absorbium, which they load into their cannons.

With a thrilling "ZZL-LMM!" and "FZZ-AMM KLZZZ!" sound effect, the ray blasts slam into the Marauding Mechanoid again and again, slowing him down with every direct hit. Finally, one of the Squad members cries out, "Success! We've charged his whole frame with ABSORBIUM... and it is neutralizing his artificial life-force! We stopped him!... No! Look out! He's FALLING!"

And they don't mean falling in love.

Eterno plunges forward, right smack dab onto the fallen spaceship, with all three alien villains inside. "CRASH!" goes the ship. "AAAHHH!" go the bad guys. "Great Moons of Krypton!" goes Superman. "That monster CRUSHED the REVENGE SQUAD ship!" (Yeah, and you just stood there and watched it!!! I guess his ironclad, no exceptions code against killing didn't apply to letting villains die through INaction?)

Supes lifts the inert Eterno off the wreckage to search for survivors (yeah right) and finds none. But he does find written records explaining Eterno's history and the Revenge Squad's scheme to free him from the Earth's core, which allows him to proclaim: "How ironic... by destroying HIM, they destroyed THEMSELVES!"

Yes... Choke! How ironic!

The End.

Little Jimmy Shooter was only 13 years old when he broke into DC Comics, and this was one of his earliest efforts. Shooter was clearly influenced by Marvel comics, with heroes like Spider-Man often struggling to use every last iota of their diminishing strength and indominible courage to triumph against physically more powerful villains. Shooter often did this in the Legion, creating villains like Mordru and the Fatal Five who outclassed the Legionnaires in raw power. But it was still a novelty for Weisinger's Superman to encounter a villain stronger than he was. This issue's letter column contains a letter from future SUPERBOY (and X-MEN) artist, Dave Cockrum, who praises an earlier issue where Shooter first uses this approach with his creation, the Parasite. So apparently it was an idea whose time had come... readers wanted to see Superman go through tough fights more often. Weisinger promised that the Parasite would be back, but sadly Eterno never was. Even though this story isn't all that great, it would have been cool to see him propped up like a statue in Superman's Fortress or something later on.

Or should I say, Eterno never QUITE returned. Shortly after his revamp of Superman, John Byrne obviously recycled elements of this story in SUPERMAN vol.2 #5-6. The ancient race called the Xan became an ancient race called the H'V' Ler'Ni and the giant robot Eterno became the giant robot Host. Instead of a space gas, the race was killed by germs from early humans. Host even has the same kind of destructo beams fired from his eyes, but instead of being sentient he is animated by the collective minds of the H'V'Ler'Ni, who are the evil power-hungry ones in Byrne's version. When I first read that story, I assumed that Byrne was influenced by the Sentry in Marvel's FANTASTIC FOUR #64, a powerful robot left behind by the vanished pre-human Kree race on Earth. But years later I came across this story, and realized that Byrne must have been retelling it instead.

(It's no wonder that he didn't tip his hat more openly to the original story, since he had just left Marvel under less than cordial circumstances at the time, mostly thanks to his relationship with editor-in-chief Jim Shooter. In all fairness, though, he may never have known who wrote the Eterno story since Weisinger allowed no credit boxes then.)

Actually, this story resembles nothing so much as one of those low-budget, 1950s "giant alien monster on the rampage" B-movies. (All it would need to be complete is a shrieking Lois Lane at the finale. But strangely, none of the supporting cast appears, except for a perry White cameo.) Maybe young Jim Shooter spent a summer night at the drive-in theater for inspiration.

posted June 22, 2002 06:55 PM    

I had no idea that little Jimmy had written it. Nor did I recall the Byrne stories (of course now I have to go looking for those).

I'm always happy to find yet another villain with a name ending in "o." I imagine that they all while away their hours in little vacation homes on the coast of Spain when, as with Eterno, they remain unused for decades. I picture them bicycling down to the village from their sun-splashed haciendas, to check the post for any messages.

Eterno is peddling his over-sized bicycle now, still hoping for that telegram that never comes...

posted June 23, 2002 03:19 PM    

(1)The first time Superman has a wet dream about Wonder Woman.

(2) The first time Clark Kent is compared to MIAMI VICE star Don Johnson.

posted June 30, 2002 08:44 PM    

Since tomorrow is the statutory holiday, I doubt I'll be able to get online. But I'll try to check in on Tuesday to see if anyone has responded to my patriotic challenge.

posted July 02, 2002 03:16 PM    

Sadly, I don't have a copy of SUPERMAN #200 and could offer no comment for our Northern neighbor. But the lack of response probably demonstrates that most of the posters on this board are too young to have bought it first hand, and are unable to afford it as a back issue (Silver Age "anniversary" issues have all skyrocketed in price lately, whether or not the actual story inside is anything special).

Actually, I could have sworn that I saw a posting from bizarromark somewhere that provided the details on that issue, but I can't seem to find it anywhere on the board now. I thought there was a "Happy Canada Day" thread here but it seems to have been deleted, else I would have directed you there....strange, considering some of the off-topic stuff that gets posted.

posted July 02, 2002 05:12 PM    

I know that I've seen other posters mention the details of # 200. There was even a poster who used the name of Kal-El's brother, I think. And a bit of internet searching would probably get some info on 200--at least the cover (by Swan and Klein, it shows brown-haired Knor-El with a wrestling hold on his brother, Kal-El, and Jor-El in the background holding up a super-suit for the victorious younger brother).

This was probably the first story in which I saw Brainiac--or at least the first one where he was a featured character. Being it's a an imaginary tale, the premise is that Brainiac was a good guy. He shrinks Kryptonopolis (not Kandor) to save it, but is too late to save the other cities of Krypton before that planet explodes.

The scene of an evuncular Brainiac lounging on the patio of the El home, sticks in my brain. What a great fellow!

Since Brainiac 5 was also a good guy, this good character in the android Brainiac felt right to me. I could never shake it. When I read other stories of Brainiac, I never could quite believe he was really evil. Was shrinking Kandor an evil deed? How? He didn't hurt the people, he just made them smaller. A bit paternalisitic, sure, but evil? And if he hadn't shrunk the Kandorians then they would have died along with the rest of Krypton. And it's not like he had a pencil thin moustache, or other marks of a criminal personality.

Any guy who wears pastel pink and black striped pumpkin shorts can't be so bad. At least Koko loved him.

I imagine that Jim Shooter wrote this 200th issue, while I know that Wayne Boring did the interior art. It came out around the summer, just around July 1st in fact, when all the centennial celebrations were underway.

The focal point for the 67 hyper-fun seemed to be Montreal, where Expo '67 was happening. Buckminster Fuller's geodesic dome being the signature building of that site.

posted July 02, 2002 05:17 PM    

quote:

---

Originally posted by India Ink:
Hey, since tomorrow is July 1st, and it will be Canada's 135th birthday, would anyone be willing to give a brief summary of Superman 200 from 1967--which among other things celebrated the 100th birthday of Confederation in this blessed Dominion? And explain what form the celebration took in that Imaginary Story.

Since tomorrow [b]is the statutory holiday, I doubt I'll be able to get online. But I'll try to check in on Tuesday to see if anyone has responded to my patriotic challenge.

Until then, remember "we see thee rise the True North strong and free..."[/B]

---

Hey, India... Happy Birthday from a fellow member of the Commonwealth!

posted July 02, 2002 05:30 PM    

quote:

---

Posted by India Ink:
Since Brainiac 5 was also a good guy, this good character in the android Brainiac felt right to me. I could never shake it. When I read other stories of Brainiac, I never could quite believe he was really evil. Was shrinking Kandor an evil deed? How? He didn't hurt the people, he just made them smaller. A bit paternalisitic, sure, but evil? And if he hadn't shrunk the Kandorians then they would have died along with the rest of Krypton. And it's not like he had a pencil thin moustache, or other marks of a criminal personality.

---

posted July 05, 2002 05:58 PM    

Okay. I'll answer my own quiz.

The hints above were...

American brother
Knor-El
his brother, Kal-El
a pencil thin moustache,
200th issue,
centennial celebrations
hyper-fun
Montreal,
Expo '67
geodesic dome
the Canadian connection
imaginary flight of fancy.

Brainiac sacrifices himself to save Kryptonopolis and the bottle city ends up on Earth. There's just enough ZN-4 gas to enlarge one Kryptonopolitan. There's a Wonder Woman type contest which concludes with the two brothers fighting each other for the right to become Superman on Earth. Older brother Kal-El, like his father, has an intense interest in science, while his younger brother, Knor-El, is the better athelete. So Knor-El wins, becomes Superman, posing as Clark Kent (glasses and all) at the Daily Planet.

However, Knor gets himself into a spot of trouble. Scientist Kal has managed to synthesize a bit of ZN-4, enough to enlarge himself and save his brother. The final three panels on the last page conclude the 200th issue like so...

caption: And so, shortly, in Montreal, Quebec, a large newspaper gets a new reporter...

editor (holding up a copy of the Montreal [i]Star[i] with the headline--"HYPERMAN CAPTURES HOLDUP MOB...by Charles LeBlanc"): "Another scoop! I don't know how you do it, LeBlanc!"

Kal-El as LeBlanc with a pencil thin moustache, slicked back hair, and a brown suit, thinks: "He'll never guess that I am Hyperman!

next panel shows Knor-El as Superman flying above the Metropolis skyline (we see the Daily Planet building) and the caption reads: And so our Imaginary Tale ends with two Supermen on Earth...A different one in Metropolis...

next panel caption: ...And our Superman enjoying a new super-career...as Hyperman, hero of CANADA!

This panel shows Hyperman (Kal-El) flying above the Expo '67 site, with the geodesic dome and the large letters of "EXPO 67" in the forefront. Below the panel is an editorial caption which reads:

posted July 13, 2002 01:34 PM    

Cover: Curt Swan and George Klein

"Superman's Sacrifice!"
Writer: Leo Dorfman
Artist: Al Plastino

"one day" (as most Silver Age narrators like to begin their tales), a U.S. Army radar station detects an unidentifiable object approaching Earth at fantastic speed. The military quickly launches interceptor rockets to obliterate the intruder, but the alien spacecraft (for such it is) generates a protective force-field that easily withstands their attacks. The call quickly goes out over the airwaves, appealing for help from Superman or Supergirl (nice to see they remembered her, too).

Supergirl being away on a time-travel mission, Clark Kent swiftly changes to Superman in the Daily Planet file room and flies off alone to meet the spacecraft. Superman is suspicious when the spaceship drops its force-field and a door opens to admit him, but the only two occupants of the ship prove to be two lanky, orange-skinned beings with bulgy eyes. (You can tell they must be sinister, since they wear green and purple spacesuits; green, purple and orange being a traditional super-villain color scheme.) This alien duo introduce themselves as Rokk and Sorban.

Superman responds to their greeting by scolding them for causing panic on Earth. Rokk laughs. "Earth's puny inhabitants don't interest us. It's YOU we came to see, Superman! We want you to kill someone on your planet!"

A surprisingly nonchalant Man of Steel asks, "Is this some kind of joke? Whom shall I kill, and WHY?"

"Our reasons don't concern you! Kill anyone you like! For instance, you could choose one of your devoted followers!" Rokk flashes images of Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, Perry White, and Lana Lang on a nearby monitor screen.

"What if I refuse to kill anyone?" demands Superman. "With my super-powers, you can't force me to obey!" Rokk only sneers. "Can't I? Use your telescopic vision to watch this uninhabited planet in sky sector Omega! Observe what will happen to your Earth if you defy us!"

Beams of energy shoot forth from Rokk's eyes, and within seconds the aforementioned planet explodes into cosmic dust. "But you could have planted a super-bomb on it," objects Superman (as if a super-bomb is any less dangerous?!? ) "Let's see you do the same to the barren water-world of AQUOR in the same sector!" The beams flash forth again, and with the second planetary cataclysm, Superman is convinced... and amazed. "Our ancient race has developed astounding brain-power," explains Rokk. "I blasted that planet by merely focusing my mental energy!"

Aghast, the Metropolis Marvel protests that murder is absolutely against his moral code, but Rokk and Sorban again demand that he break this vow, and sometime within the next 24 hours, lest they similarly destroy the entire planet Earth.

As he returns to the planet below, Superman is horrified by the thought of billions dying, and so comes quickly to a grim decision. "I've pledged to defend Earth against all danger, so I'll sacrifice MYSELF for the planet I've grown to love... (Choke!)... But first I'll write farewell letters to all my friends! I'll leave these letters at the Planet office. By the time my friends read them... (Choke!)... it will all be over!"

At dawn, Superman deposits his suicide notes for Lois, Jimmy and the gang, and flies off to a distant mountain range. "Long years ago, after a shower of GREEN KRYPTONITE meteors struck the Earth, I ordered my robots to bury the metoers out here in this mountain of lead ore...(Choke!) But I never thought I'd be digging up that deadly cache someday!"

Superman hurls himself right into the mountainside, and is instantly overcome by the massive exposure to Kryptonite radiation. He writhes in agony, thinking to himself: "Gasp! The pain! It's tying me in knots! But I have to do it, for my friends... for people of Earth! (Groan!) I'll have to suffer like this for about half an hour... then it will all be over!" (And no, I don't know why he's 'gasping' and 'groaning' inside a THOUGHT BALLOON, either.)

Suddenly, Rokk and Sorban arrive nearby, and, although Superman claims to have outwitted them by making the life he takes be his own, Rokk disagrees. "Sorry, but we can't let you save your world THAT easily. You'd be depriving us of all the drama! We'll use our mental powers to alter the atomic structure of the KRYPTONITE and turn it into harmless rock!" And so they do, with but a glance.

Our hero recovers instantly from his radiation poisoning, but flies into a super-rage. "You demon! Your conscience doesn't bother you about forcing me to kill someone! All right! I'll kill YOU! You're worse than the most evil criminal on Earth!"

Superman 'chokes' yet again, but this time he's choking Rokk, squeezing the alien's scrawny throat with one mighty hand. Rokk's eyes bulge even more, his tongue pops out, and everything. "That's it, SUPERMAN!" cheers Sorban as he watches next to them. ""ROKK deserves it! He's ruthlessly wiped out a dozen civilizations! Kill HIM!"

But Superman can't bring himself to do it after all, and flings Rokk aside. He rebukes himself for almost violating his code out of sheer anger. He can't let himself kill anyone, no matter how deserving they may be.

Just then, he remembers that his friends will have discovered and read his suicide notes by now, and streaks off to the Daily Planet to calm their fears. Lois, Lana, Jimmy and Perry are all there, relieved to see him alive.(For once, no one seems to notice that Clark Kent isn't around.) Superman tells them that Earth is still in danger from the aliens, and warns them not to tell anyone to avoid global panic. (Plastino seems to be "swiping" in several panels here; Jimmy looks more like he's drawn by Curt Swan or perhaps John Forte, and Lois is swiped from, or possibly redrawn by, Kurt Schaffenberger at times.)

Superman's bow-tied buddy makes a courageous offer. "Look, as your best pal, I volunteer to let you kill ME! That way the world will be saved from destruction..."

The Man of Steel is touched indeed. "Choke! Jimmy, you're a real hero! But I can't accept such a sacrifice! I couldn't kill ANYONE, much less my best pal!"

Lois is touched, as well, but at the first opportunity, she slips away to Professor Potter's laboratory nearby. She knows he's away at a conference, and she remembers a "suspended animation freezing machine" that didn't work as well as Potter had planned...

posted July 13, 2002 02:29 PM    

Lois calls Jimmy, who calls Superman, who arrives to find Lana already transforming into lifeless crystal within the deadly machine. "Yes, SUPERMAN! It's beginning to happen already! (Choke!) And when I'm dead, you can tell the aliens you killed me... then they won't destroy Earth! Don't mourn for me! It's painless. In a little while I'll go to sleep quietly. I'm doing it for you, SUPERMAN!"

But Superman will have none of it. He uses his x-ray vision to read Professor Potter's notebooks at super-speed, and learns that "the only cure for the crystalline effect is the juice of a weird cactus plant which grows in the remote Andes mountains!" (Say whaa--aaa--aat??) He flies to the Andes, wrings juice from the cacti into a cup carved from rock with his bare hands, and returns to sprinkle the juice on Lana seconds later. The effect is reversed and Lana awakens. (Don't ask me how she froze so easily, since the refrigerating "coffin" doesn't even have a closing lid on top!) Lana is disappointed: "Superman, why did you cure me? I wanted to die for you... for Earth!" Frankly, Lois doesn't look too happy about it either.

With only a few hours left, Superman tries one last desperate plan. At the White Springs atomic testing ground, government technicians are just one minute away from detonating a nuclear bomb in the desert, "to explore the peaceful use of atomic energy!" Yeah right. Peaceful. Anyway, the test will be broadcast live to a worldwide television audience for some reason. Inside the control bunker, one of the technicians suddenly cries out in alarm. "Ye gods! Our monitor cameras reveal that someone is still in the target area!" No, it isn't Rick Jones either. "It's Clark Kent of the DAILY PLANET! He's chained to the steel tower that holds the bomb! It's being triggered by an automatic device... we can't stop the countdown!"

Jimmy and Perry are watching the broadcast in horror. "Save me, please!" yells Clark to an audience of millions. ""SUPERMAN chained me here to die! SUPERMAN did it... SUPERMAN..."

"GREAT CAESAR'S GHOST!" roars Perry. "SUPERMAN said he couldn't break his code, yet he arranged Clark Kent's death, the hypocritical heel!"

Viewers worldwide see the image break up as the horrible nuclear blast washes over Clark in a ball of flame. Soon, two men clad in full-body radiation suits are examining the blast area. "Here's the final proof... Kent's hat, glowing with radiation! That's all that's left of the poor guy! SUPERMAN is a murderer!"

Wha--aaa--? They find an INTACT FEDORA at GROUND ZERO of a nuclear exploson, and don't see anything the slightest bit unusual about this? Yeesh.

Anyway, Superman has returned to Rokk and Sorban's spaceship, demanding that they leave Earth, since he has fulfilled his part of the bargain by killing Clark Kent. The two are somewhat annoyed that Superman has interrupted their chess-like game of "Sharr", but tune in to the terrestrial broadcasts to confirm his story.

"Hmm! So it appears you DID kill someone after all, SUPERMAN! muses Rokk. "Here, SORBAN! You win the bet. Here's my lucky PROTHEY TAIL! I hope it brings you more good fortune than it brought me!" Superman reels in amazement. "Gasp! You mean you wagered the Earth's fate against a good-luck charm? How cold-blooded can you be?"

Sorban obligingly explains that "We're from VENTURA, the Gamblers' Planet. We're the last of a dying race. With our super-science, we have nothing to do but enjoy ourselves. But now all passtimes bore us! Only gambling is exciting!" Rokk chimes in: "This was a fascinating wager! I bet I could make you kill someone, and I lost!"

Superman protests that he did kill someone, but the Venturans only laugh, since his double identity is well-known to them. They promise that Earth is safe, though, since Sorban had bet that Superman would never violate his code against killing, and he won. For the hours of amusement he provided them, Sorban declares he will use his super-mental powers to restore Superman's heroic reputation. As the ship circles the globe, Sorban projects hypnotic beams that wipe out all memory of Clark Kent's "murder" from the minds of everyone on Earth.

Returning to Professor Potter's lab, Superman hears that the Prof is upset to have found evidence someone had been tampering recently with his suspended animation machine. Lois and Lana remember nothing of Lana's suicide attempt, of course, thanks to the alien brainwashing, so Superman just tells the Professor not to worry about it, since no harm was done.

Watching Rokk and Sorban's spacecraft depart via super-vision, our hero reflects to himself in typical last-panel style. "Ironic! I saved the world from incredible disaster and yet no one knows about it but me! There go those interplanetary gamblers. I wonder what poor planet will be at their mercy next?"

Well, Superman, it wouldn't take long for you to find out... but that's a story for another day, if they ever create a WORLD'S FINEST message board...

(Choke!)

posted July 13, 2002 03:49 PM    

"The Curse of Magic!"
Writer: Jerry Siegel
Artists: Curt Swan and George Klein

At the Daily Planet offices, Clark Kent and Lois Lane receive their latest assignment from their cigar-loving editor, Perry White: "Clark and Lois... go to SMALLVILLE! See if you can pick up some little known facts about SUPERMAN'S childhood there! It ought to make an interesting story!"

And so, not long thereafter, Clark and Lois are in Smallville. Lois is wearing the usual pillbox hat and blazer ensemble, and Clark is relaxing casually with his hat propped atop one knee, while they sit on the front porch of former-Chief Douglas Parker's house. The decrepit and presumably half-senile old coot regales them with stories of his long-vanished glory days. "Yessiree, I can tell you plenty about SUPERBOY! Years ago, before I retired as police chief, he helped me many times!" "Tell us about it, Mr. Parker!" says Clark, grinning vacuously as he no doubt wonders how he ever could stand this guy.

Later, at a nearby farmhouse, Lois is interviewing a laconic husband and wife doggedly. "Does it ever make you nervous to live in the house that was occupied by master criminal LEX LUTHOR, when he was a boy?", inquires Lois. "Nope", replies the farmer, clearly a Calvin Coolidge-like man of few words.

Just then Clark gets a phone call from Metropolis, informing him that he has won the National Publisher's Prize. (As in National Comics? Does the trophy award have go-go checks on it?) Lois congratulates him as they walk arm-in-arm down a country lane to their car. Clark remarks that he's so honored he feels as if he's "walking on air"... and suddenly, he really is rising up into the air, against his will.

Seeing Lois gawk, he decides to protect his secret identity "by creating a tornado with my super-breath!" That's right... creating a tornado with his super-breath. Good grief.

Lois seems little more than mildly upset once Clark flops back out of the sky. "Goodness! I didn't see that twister coming! For a moment I thought you were FLYING under your own power! It's a good thing that haystack is cushioning your fall! Otherwise, you might've been killed!" Clark happily thinks to himself, "My stratagem worked!"

I don't know which I find weirder... that Lois just stands there calmly watching a tornado descend, or that Clark's brilliant "stratagem" was creating the twister in the first place. I mean, either he made it disperse as fast as it appeared, which should have made Lois incredibly suspicious in itself, or he let it go on its merry way, destroying farms all across Kansas and flinging who knows how many panic-stricken cows into the stratosphere.

In any event, while Superman is flying on his global patrol later that day, a familiar derby-hatted figure hovers into view. "Hi, STUPORMAN!" jeers Mister Mxyzptlk. "Did I pull a funny on you when I entered your dimension earlier today! I afflicted you with the CURSE OF MAGIC! Every time you make some innocent remark or command, the magic I've given you will make it come true! And you can't undo what you cause! Now I'll return myself to my own world by saying my name backwards, but this time my magic won't vanish, too! Ha, ha! KLTPZYXM!"

Mister Mxyzptlk vanishes in the usual puff of smoke, leaving Superman feeling depressed. "(Choke!)Too bad my invulnerability can't protect me from magic or a sorcerer's spell! That imp sure put a STRANGE curse on me!"

Later, as Superman attends a swanky testimonial dinner in his honor, the rather stereotypically cliched chef fishes for compliments. "Thees food I prepare, she ees beautiful, no? Does eet give you an appetite?" Superman charitably replies that it makes him feel hungry as a horse. So naturally, a real live horse appears from out of nowhere, and begins munching away at the banquet.

(I don't get this one. Shouldn't Superman have turned INTO a horse instead of making one appear? Do your job, Weisinger!)

Still later, "in Britain", Superman is visiting a group of schoolchildren. Two old geezers, one in tweeds and one wearing a bowler hat, look on. "Dashed decent of SUPERMAN to sign autographs for those tykes, eh wot, Cecil?" Not to be outdone as a cliched caricature, his chum replies "Righto, Reginald old bean!"

The children beg Superman to play a game with them, so he joins in singing a rousing chorus of "London Bridge is falling down... falling down... falling down..."

Well, you just know what's gonna happen next, even though Superman is too dim to realize it. His super-hearing then detects the sound of tearing and screaming in the distance. The real London Bridge is crumbling into the water below (complete with a half-dozen or so double-decker buses on it). Superman's magic commands can't undo the damage, but he shores the bridge up quickly with his own Kryptonian super-powers. "Moan! I never dreamed the powers of magic could actually be a CURSE!"

The next day, Superman is flying over a movie crew shooting in the pouring rain,on location in India, where his old friend, director Henry Rutledge, is filming scenes for "THE RAINS OF KARUMONGA, starring the baby actress, Darlene Curtis!" Rutledge waves hello to Superman, who calls out "Good morning!"

So naturally, it stops raining and the sun shines brightly as it becomes a "good morning". Rutledge is fit to be tied, since the scene requires rain and the delays could cost a fortune. Supes flies off, constructs a giant "super-atomizer" from materials in the desert, fills it with river water and squirts it on little Darlene to simulate rain, so Rutledge can film the scene. (Of course, little Darlene would probably catch some kind of disease from the river water...)

But that's not the end of Superman's woes. Before long, Darlene gets bored and throws a temper tantrum. Rutledge begs him to "Please do what the kid says, Superman! When she gets upset, she won't act for hours! A fortune in production costs is at stake!" Surprisingly, Superman neither gives the kid a good super-swat to the rear nor informs Rutledge that he's in violation of who knows how many child labor laws. Instead, he agrees to read to the tyke from a book of nursery rhymes.

Superman stupidly begins reading her the poem "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star", and... yeah, you guessed it again. The little girl becomes an actual, glowing "star" and wails even more.

"I don't know what you did to her, SUPERMAN!" grouses the all-heart director. "But undo it or I'll complain to the SCREEN DIRECTORS' GUILD!" (Wow, that should have him shaking in his little red boots.)

"Be quiet! I'm thinking!" snaps the Man of Steel, at his wit's end. Suddenly he has a moment of inspiration (You can tell 'cause Swan draws him raising one eyebrow slightly). He might be able to make the magic curse vanish like Mxyzptlk does, by saying his own name backwards. He shouts out "NAMREPUS!" but nothing happens.

"Wait! I just remembered something! I've got two names! My Kryptonian name was KAL-EL! What've I got to lose?"

Apparently his memory, since he has THREE names last time I checked (Clark Kent, remember?). But since Kal-El was his original, when he shouts out "LE-LAK!" the little actress is restored to her normal fidgety self, and the curse of magic is removed.

"But most amazing of all," thinks Superman as he flies off, "is that once again I've been saved by an 'LL' name... my own! There are two Ls in... LE-LAK!"

Choke! How ironic! And they all lived happily ever after... except little Darlene, whose career dried up before she even hit puberty. Her parents squandered her trust fund, and she was ultimately found fifteen years later, overdosed on heroin in a cheap Santa Monica motel room. Choke!

posted July 13, 2002 04:22 PM    

"The Nightmare Ordeal of Superman!"

Writer: Edmond Hamilton(?)
Artist: Al Plastino

This tale begins with renowned astronomer "Dr. Luring" who, although apparently not quite renowned enough to deserve a first name, detects a strange and unprecedented type of radiation being emitted from a distant yellow star. Since a new "super-speed missile" being developed at a nearby "Space Flight Center" is the only scientific means available for getting his instruments close enough to analyze the star, Luring requests their help. He learns that the missile won't be spaceworthy for a few weeks. Lois Lane, however, happens to be there, and suggests that they ask Superman to fly the recording instruments to a planet revolving the star. (Sure, it's not like he has anything better to do, Lois.)

Clark Kent learns of the project from Lois (who teases him with her usual suspicions of his double identity). "Soon, in the service of science, the MAN OF STEEL launches upon a fateful mission!" Luring provides him with a small glassine box containing some kind of electronic doohickeys that will "record the strange radiations of that sun and telemeter the data back to me by radio!" (By RADIO? Traveling back to Earth from a distant solar system? Yeah, if you don't mind waiting a few CENTURIES, Doc...)

It doesn't take long for Superman to fly there and deposit the box on a desolate world. He notices that "The sun is acting queerly, for now it's showing strange spots and markings! Well, Dr. Luring's instruments will record everything, so I can zip back to earth now!" Or so you'd think. Suddenly, he witnesses "a rare cosmic event" as "parts of the yellow sun have turned RED... as though from some solar explosions inside it! The whole sun is changing..."

Changing to completely red, that is, as Superman is suddenly robbed of his powers and crashes to the ground below. Painfully climbing to his feet, he realizes that "with my super-powers gone, I'm marooned on this primitive world! I've got to do something! Hmmm... maybe I can re-wire those telemeter instruments into a device to communicate with EARTH in MORSE CODE..."

And, apparently mere minutes (!) later, Dr. Luring receives Superman's message while a concerned Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen look on. Jimmy tells the Doc to return a message that they'll rescue Superman with the new space-missile as soon as it's finished.

On the distant world, Superman receives their reply, but knows "It may be weeks, even months before they come! I've got to find food and shelter on this cold, wild planet!"

(Whaaa--? I could believe that the radio messages are traveling through hyperspace or something to travel back and forth so fast. But if the planet is "cold" it must be far from its sun. Which means the light NOW reaching the planet had to have left the star long ago, when it was still yellow. If the sun JUST turned red, Superman should still have his powers on the planet, since he would be bathed in the good old, YELLOW sunlight. And if the sun had turned red long enough ago for red sunlight to be reaching the planet NOW, then Superman would never have been able to fly to the planet at all! Someone should have whacked Mort Weisinger upside the head with a science book.)

Anyway, wandering through the desert hills, Superman soon stumbles across a village consisting of several crude huts, and sees a few scruffy, loincloth-wearing villagers. "This planet is inhabited! They look like wild, hairy savages, but they're humans! Maybe they'll be friendly..."

...Or maybe not. One of the hairy bruisers sneaks up behind him and zonks him on the head with a heavy wooden club. The powerless Superman slumps to the ground unconscious.

Then the savage quickly removes all of Superman's clothing....

To be concluded!

posted July 14, 2002 03:13 PM    

Later, Superman groggily awakens and finds himself lying naked on the ground, with a splitting headache (presumably the Comics Code forbids us from learning whatever else may ache). The savage has stripped him of his super-uniform and left his own animal-skin loincloth behind in "trade". Wearing the loincloth, Superman stumbles toward the village as a dust storm begins howling around him.

He finds the savage, who appears to be the village's chieftain, wearing his uniform. "You... give me back... clothes!" says Superman, hoping to make the chief understand through crude hand gestures. The savage chief understands what he wants, but doesn't care. He hoists Superman right off the ground and flings him away. He lands at the feet of a second savage, who takes his own turn beating up the former Man of Steel. Incidentally, this panel is clearly "swiped" from a panel of the Superman-Luthor boxing match Curt Swan drew for issue #164, the first Lexor story.

As he takes a powerful punch to the stomach, Superman's thoughts are miserable. "All these people are stronger than any people on Earth... growing up on this primitive, cold world has toughened them up! It's ironic! On EARTH, I was the STRONGEST of all men. But HERE, I'm the WEAKEST!"

(This raises another problem. Superman is still supposed to retain at least some of his super-strength and invulnerability under a red sun, as long as the GRAVITY of the planet is still less than Krypton's. As we see later, that must be the case on this world. But both the writer and Weisinger seem to have forgotten this.)

Things get even worse, as the savage chief discovers the hidden pocket inside Superman's cape, and his Clark Kent clothes inside. He gives them to his mate to wear as exotic ornamentation. Soon, the dust storm grows so powerful that the savages retreat inside their huts, leaving Superman to fend for himself with nothing but his loincloth. He manages to find his Clark Kent spectacles by groping along the ground, and uses them to shield his stinging eyes somewhat. Then he seeks shelter inside a cave, after placing rock markers to direct his rescuers to him inside, whenever they arrive.

That night Superman tries desperately to start a fire by striking some stones together. "How strange it seems to be doing this, " he thinks, "when, in the past, I've easily struck WORLDS together!" And he recalls a time when he flung one entire planet into another. ("Hurling those two lifeless worlds together is creating a new sun that will give light and warmth to the third planet of this system, which is dying!") So yes, the old cliche of Superman casually tossing planets around in the Silver Age was, sometimes, true. But usually just for the occasional panel like this.

Over the next few days, Superman is forced to dig for water and forage for wild berries, even as he recalls bringing food and water to millions of needy people back on Earth. By the time he has grown noticeable beard stubble, he has also contracted a raging fever, and grows weaker by the day.

Becoming delirious, he imagines that he still has super-powers, and injures himself by trying to punch through stone. Eventually, he passes out. When he awakens, he hallucinates that he is back "home" on Krypton, and wonders why it's so dark...

Finally, the experimental space-missile arrives on a rescue mission, with Dr. Luring, Jimmy and Lois as its crew. They disembark wearing helmetless space-suits to search for the powerless Superman. (And they have no trouble walking around, so the planet's gravity must be similar to Earth's.) At first, they fear he may have died after so long without contact, but the stone markers he left for them lead them into the cave, where they can hear him breathing in the darkness.

Superman hears them, but is now afraid to be found. "Oh, oh... I'm sunk! Without my SUPERMAN costume, they'll recognize me at once as... Clark Kent! After all these years of guarding my secret identity... I'm exposed! What a rotten break! My secret identity has finally been discovered! Well, I may as well be a good sport..." And so he calls out to Lois and Jimmy.

They locate him with their flashlight, but he's in for a pleasant surprise, for once. "What luck! I forgot that under a RED SUN my hair grows normally, and in my delirium, I must have knocked my Clark Kent glasses off my face! My secret identity is safe!"

Superman stumbles from the cave and is led to the space-missile so he can shave and cut his hair. (But not shower, unfortunately...Phew! He must smell like Koko's armpits by now, and it's a LONG ride back to Earth...)

Jimmy goes to retieve Superman's uniform from the savage chief. Lois is terrified that the savages will tear him to pieces, and it sure looks that way at first. But by pointing to his red hair, Jimmy is able to frighten the dark-haired savages into submission. It seems they associate his hair with the glow of the red sun in the sky, and think he was sent by the gods. (Uuhh..okay. "Red" hair isn't really RED, of course, so I'm not sure how this works, but it does.)When he returns the uniform to Superman shortly, Jimmy just acts macho. "How did I get the costume? Why, I just went in there and took it away from them, of course!"

During the trip back to Earth, Superman reflects on his sufferings. "It was a terrible ordeal, but maybe it was worth it... to teach me what it's like to be weak and helpless! I'll never forget it!" Apparently he doesn't remember the zillion or so previous times he was made weak and helpless thanks to Kryptonite, magic, red suns, and so forth.

I just wish I could have seen the look on their faces when he asked why they didn't just send Green Lantern to fly out there and go get him right away...

The End!

****

A few interesting tidbits from this issue's Metropolis Mailbag letter column:

Fay Chastain of Elberton, Georgia raves about the two Sally Selwyn stories recently published and demands that Clark Kent be allowed to marry Sally. "Don't let their love be hopeless!" The answer promises that "Sally has proven such a hit with our readers, we WILL continue her romance with Clark. And it won't be hopeless!" Yet Sally Selwyn never did appear again. I wonder why Weisinger changed his mind? Anyway, you just know that someone with a name like "Fay Chastain" must have grown up to write romance novels!

And Janet Lafargue of Waltham, Mass. asks that National Comics "collect all your stories featuring our late, beloved President, John F. Kennedy, and reprint them as special classics." The editor responds that "We're glad you think so highly of these stories. However, we feel it's too soon after Mr. Kennedy's tragic death to reprint them."
Well, I say it's been long enough now! Let's see that SUPERMAN AND JFK IN THE SIXTIES or GREATEST KENNEDY STORIES EVER TOLD trade paperback already! Including the never-before published tale, "Mr. Mxyzptlk's Magic Bullet!"

posted July 18, 2002 04:50 PM    

I just reread the reprint of SUPERMAN #167's "The Team of Luthor and Brainiac!" in the giant-size #245 and then compared the two. Bridwell has made some changes to dialogue in the reprint, to revise the story for newer additions to continuity. In the reprint, Luthor still protests that Brainiac saved Kandor by shrinking it, but Nor-Kann's rebuttal is relettered. "Not so! A SPACE ARK and the SUPER-ROBOT that built it were in the city! We could have made a whole fleet to save everyone on KRYPTON, if BRAINIAC had not stolen and imprisoned us!"

Bridwell also reletters the name of Luthor's future wife from "Tharla" to the later "Ardora".

And speaking of such Stalinist revisionism (only kidding!), the letter column of this isuue touches on more of it.

Alex Hochstraser of San Francisco points out that,in the Hercules story reprinted in the previous Giant issue, the Greek names of the Olympian Gods don't match the Roman version of Herakles used, Hercules. Bridwell replies "Originally, ALL the names were Roman, but this- and LUTHOR's statements that he had learned LATIN in order to talk with HERCULES- didn't sit well with us. Why? HERAKLES was a Greek hero who lived centuries before the founding of Rome. Therefore,we changed the names to the original Greek forms, except for two which are, in the Roman versions, fairly close to the Greek- HERCULES and ACHILLES. Which brings up a mistake of yours- ACHILLES is not the Greek form- the original is ACHILLEUS.-ENB"

posted July 18, 2002 06:52 PM    

Some folks on these boards seem to feel that tampering with old stories in the reprints is wrong without exception. But I share the feelings of Morrissey and Bridwell. A kind of desire to go back and make corrections to the originals (within reason).

posted August 19, 2002 04:52 PM    

It's high time I told you about what was probably my childhood favourite Imaginary Story. I have other Imaginary Stories I love, and for some strange reason they're usually Lois Lane stories.

Anyhow...

Superman's Girl Friend Lois Lane #91. I have the two-parter "Love is Blind!" in black & white in an old Australian DC comic book called Super Adventure Comic featuring Jimmy Olsen ("Superman's Saddest Day"), Supergirl ("The Supergirl Best-Seller", "Linda Danvers -- Movie Star" featuring a sexy Supergirl... no credits, but definitely the Schaffenberger touch), and Lois Lane ("Love is Blind!").

This was a really depressing, haunting tale for me as a kid, which means it's a great story, and it still holds up perfectly well today. No credits. Art is by Swan & Esposito. This team makes a nice combination. Here we have a very good-looking Lois.

I wish I knew who the writer was.

The story is told partly in flashback. It opens in the present day, in the melancholy environs of a Metropolis graveyard, as a mysterious veiled woman in black approaches Superman's grave. There is a bunch of reporters awaiting her arrival. "Every month she visits Superman's grave! Rain or shine! Winter and summer!" The reporters would love to be able to identify the woman in black.

The veiled woman thinks about Superman, about how she will never forget him, that he will always have her undying love. Suddenly a nutter bursts forward and tosses a smoking bomb at the grave of Superman in revenge for Superman jailing him years before. The woman in black gets between the bomb and Superman's monument. She will sacrifice her life to protect his gravesite.

A red-and-blue streak flies at the bomb. The reporters start pressing camera shutters with great excitement. "It's Superlass -- the terrific teen!"

With some hip dialogue, the super-suited teen girl tosses the bomb high into the air where it detonates harmlessly. The bomb-thrower now pulls an automatic and starts blasting away at Superlass. The reporters get amazing pictures of Superlass deflecting the madman's bullets as she protects both the gravesite and the woman in black.

The reporters dash off, glad to have a story as a substitute for failing to identify the veiled woman. Now Superlass and the veiled woman are alone in the cemetery.

Superlass: "We're alone, mother! No one's here!"

The woman in black: "Then -- it's safe to lift my veil..."

The woman lifts the veil and runs her fingers clumsily over the chiseled letters of Superman's name on the gravestone. It is quickly revealed that this is Lois Lane, who is now blind, and who had married Superman in secret. Lois had promised Superman she would never reveal publicly that they were married. Now she is his widow and Superlass is their daughter.

Lois is overcome with emotion but Superlass tells her not to cry. "We have to carry on... for Daddy..."

"Mother," says Superlass, "tell me again... about you and Daddy..."

posted August 19, 2002 11:29 PM    

While he's doing this, gunmen steal the carnival's charity proceeds. The Man of Steel arrives back from the cloud layer in time to kayo four of the gunmen, but the fifth has a pistol he lifted from somewhere called Argus Lab. Evidently he believes this ray gun can stop Superman. In the instant the hood fires the special gun, Lois has leaped into the path of the ray blast, yelling a warning to Superman.

In the next moment Superman deals with the gunman, but the flash of the ray blast has left Lois completely blind. She calls for Superman in her darkness, and he is there to embrace her. "Superman! Superman... Where are you?"

Superman's heart melts before Lois's blind, staring eyes vainly searching for his face. Superman tells Lois they'll get the best doctors in the world to cure her blindness, but in the meantime they should both do what they should've done long ago: marry.

Lois pulls away from him, convinced, understandably, that Superman has suggested they marry out of pity for her. And she won't accept his pity. Superman can't stand to see Lois this way. He thinks, "I must convince her I really love her!"

The hood's ray gun is still in his hand, and he begins to crush it in his mighty grip. He manipulates the mangled metal, shaping it, till he holds in his fingers an amazing facsimile of an engagement ring. He slips the ring onto Lois's finger, pretending he had the ring all along, and had been planning to propose at the carnival. Lois believes him and cries with happiness.

But the best doctors in the world cannot cure the incurable. Lois is told repeatedly she will never see again, that medical science has no cure for her total blindness. The couple still intend to go ahead with their plans, with Superman asking Lois to keep their marriage a secret for the time being. (He doesn't want his enemies to target her.)

In a very odd scene, Superman, dressed as Kent, marries Lois in an out of the way hamlet in another state, with Lois believing all the while it is Superman standing with her getting married.

In a remote setting, Superman builds a super-house for his blind bride, a custom-built home complete with automated kitchen.

A year later Superman is passing out cigars on behalf of a "nervous Kent" in the maternity hospital as Lois is giving birth to their baby. The nurse calls Superman in to see the newborn, who is jumping up and down in her crib! Superman, fully expecting a son, stammers, "He's a girl?"

They name their daughter Lisa and make her a super-suit like her father's. The young girl performs super-feats while her adoring parents picnic. Years pass happily. But tragedy is just around the corner.

Superman is rescuing the crew of the ill-fated government ship, Atlantis, a vessel carrying nuclear materials for secret experiments, when a fire in the hold touches off a huge explosion. Two survivors, floating in the water some distance off, clinging to pieces of wreckage, are fearful for Superman's life. "He couldn't have survived... There was Red and Green Kryptonite in the nuclear warheads! It's deadly to him!"

That evening Lois and Lisa find out about the incident while listening to the news on television. "Superman was killed today while rescuing crewmen from a government ship! His body has not been recovered..."

Lois and Lisa are devastated. Lisa begins her career as Superlass and Lois becomes the mysterious woman in black who visits Superman's grave.

Lois's story ends, and we are once again in the present.

At the beach near her secluded super-home, Lois spends lonely hours. She is knitting when the ball of yarn rolls from her grasp down the beach to the surf.

A hand reaches for the yarn and picks up the ball. Lois is aware someone is there, and she calls out, making it obvious she is blind. A deformed beast of a man, misshapen and ugly, dressed in tattered clothing, stumbles hesitantly towards Lois with the ball of yarn. The beast thinks, "Thank heaven she is blind! At least she won't run away screaming like every woman who has seen me!"

posted August 20, 2002 05:37 AM    

Lois is grateful, and greatly reassured by the speaker's gentle voice. The creature explains how he has been at sea with no one to talk to for a long time. He asks if he may sit near the woman, and that he will leave if she does not want him around. Lois, far from being afraid, is glad of the company. She asks the owner of the gentle voice to sit near her.

The hideous brute longs to touch the woman. He tries to think of a way to touch her without frightening her. He tells the woman that a moth has become entangled in her hair, and asks if he may remove it. Lois thinks he is thoughtful. The brute strokes her hair gently, overcome at how soft she is.

The hours pass. The blind Lois feels very comfortable with the creature. The creature is enraptured by Lois, and just gazes at her, almost overcome. "My heart is so full," he thinks. "It's bursting."

The afternoon draws to a close and Lois explains to her bizarre companion that she is a widow and she must return home or her daughter will be worried. Lois asks the brute if he will meet her on the beach tomorrow at the same time. The creature says he will try to. Suddenly Lois stumbles and the creature catches her in his arms. For an agonising instant they are practically embracing, with the creature in heaven. (This bloke really is terribly ugly, deformed face, twisted hunchback and all...) Lois, who cannot see him, actually smiles at the contact.

As Lois walks away towards the house, the creature remonstrates with himself: he should not have held her so closely lest she realise how "inhuman" he is.

In the darkness, the pitifully lonely monster watches through the window of the house where the woman and her daughter are spending their evening. "How I wish I could be inside with them... But that's impossible for the likes of me!"

As the deformed man-creature watches the house, a jeep speeds along the beach carrying a bunch of hoods. They are on the run from the law and decide to hole up in the remote beach house (which just happens to belong to Lois and Lisa). Suddenly their jeep is carried aloft by the brute and he tosses the vehicle, men and all, out into the sea, where they are all promptly arrested by a law enforcement officer from the beach patrol. (Neither the hoods nor the patrolman see the brute.) The hoods are freaking out, and are actually glad to be arrested.

The monster watches the arrest and is glad no one was hurt. "But to think of them threatening... her... nearly drove me mad!"

Only in her dreams can the blind Lois try to visualise her companion from the beach. She decides the stranger must be like his voice: young, handsome... strong yet gentle... In her mind's eye she imagines all sorts of incredibly handsome, masculine faces.

They meet the next day on the beach, each glad to see the other. The creature tells Lois, "I -- I can't tell you how glad I am to hear your voice!" Yet he thinks: "But if she could see my face, she'd run away in horror! And I'll stay like this... unless the change comes!"

The quiet hours pass slowly with the creature and the woman sitting together, embracing on the beach. Lois thanks the stranger for making her days so peaceful, for helping her forget her worries. She sleeps in his arms. The creature thinks, "She feels so soft... and warm... against me! I wonder... can I kiss her without waking her -- ?" He puts his hideous face closer and gently steals a kiss.

Next: Superlass and the blindness cure.

posted August 20, 2002 05:50 AM    

quote:

---

They meet the next day on the beach, each glad to see the other. The creature tells Lois, "I -- I can't tell you how glad I am to hear your voice!"

---

In this sequence, I've noticed it's quite possible it shouldn't be the monster saying, "I -- I can't tell you how glad I am to hear your voice!"

The creature and the woman come into each other's arms. In the comic, Lois says, "I'm here... waiting for you!" Then the creature says, "I -- I can't tell you how glad I am to hear your voice!"

Their dialogue seems to be transposed. It should more likely be the monster who says, "I'm here... waiting for you!" And then perhaps Lois would say, being blind, "I -- I can't tell you how glad I am to hear your voice!"

Anyway, it's of little consequence, and will certainly not have any detrimental effect on this terrific story.

posted August 21, 2002 01:25 AM    

From the inner recesses of the strange space craft, the leader of the beings from Galaxy X-1 brings her a "Cosmic-Ray Oculizer," which is used to restore damaged eye tissue. The leader explains that the device has only one charge left, and unfortunately there is no guarantee it will help the young girl's mother.

Superlass bids farewell to the alien beings, and she races back to her home with a pounding heart to kneel before her mother.

Lois is seated, and wants to know why Lisa is so excited. Lisa tells Lois to stay right where she is. "Don't move! Don't even breathe!"

In a beautifully-drawn, genuinely moving four-panel sequence, we see Lisa activate the alien device, shining its ray into the eyes of her mother. At first there is just the familiar darkness for Lois... And then, slowly, the black depths seem to part...

We see Lisa from Lois's point of view, shimmering, still partly obscured, as the mists of blindness seem to dissolve away. The last panel of the page has an overwhelmed Lois, tears in her eyes, holding her daughter's face in her hands. "I -- I can't believe it! I can see! I can see you for the first time! And -- and -- you're as beautiful as your poor, dear, wonderful father was handsome!"

The next day, Lois goes to the beach as usual to meet her friend.

The deformed monstrosity approaches from behind Lois, eager to see her. He calls out to her and she turns. Unfortunately, Lois recoils in horror. The monster is devastated: "Y-you can see! And now you know what a freak I am!"

Lois is quick to placate the brute, assuring him she was surprised, but that his looks are not important, that she cares for his other qualities. The creature doesn't believe her, such is his disgust at his own appearance, and he demands that she kiss him to prove she cares for him. Lois does so, but the monster is unconvinced: "Your lips were like cold marble! Your heart was pounding... and not with love! Your hands were wet with icy sweat!"

The creature dashes away, with Lois pleading with him to listen to her. (Her feelings are undoubtedly genuine, but man, that bloke is ugly.)

Like an "elemental fury gone beserk", the creature displays more incredible strength growing from his anger, uprooting a tree as Lois looks on, telling himself as much as her that he cannot fool himself any longer, that the "spell" will never wear off, that he will always look like a freak, that people will shun him till he dies!

Then the deformed brute turns his fury against the huge rocks of the breakwater, pounding the rock with his bare fists, shattering it as Lois watches in horror. The creature snarls: "Look at me! My hands are so strong... they can't even bleed!"

The creature is in total despair by this time. "How can I escape from the torment in my mind? What can I do? Where can I go?"

Suddenly, "like some monstrous bird," the brute hurls himself into the sky. He thinks: "I must leave Earth! There's no life here for me... Not any more!"

Below, on the beach, as Superlass arrives on the scene to land beside her mother, Lois watches the creature's flight with shock. "He's flying!" she cries. "Oh, heavens! He's flying!"

Superlass: "Who, mother? Who is that?"

Next: The monster's incredible secret.

posted August 21, 2002 05:19 PM    

And I don't have this issue, but I'd bet good money it was written by Robert Kanigher. It just sounds like him...

posted August 22, 2002 04:06 AM    

Superlass is shocked to watch the ugly brute fly to the Arctic, to Superman's Fortress of Solitude. Lisa remarks that since the death of her father, only she and Supergirl have visited it. Now we see the monster actually lifting the giant key, inserting the key into the gigantic lock...

What is the hulking half-human creature doing stalking through Superman's secret sanctuary, past the old statues of Superman's loved ones like Lois and Lisa, Batman and Lana Lang? Let's listen in on the creature's thoughts:

"My closest friends...and my family! These statues are the last I'll see of them! They belong to the past now!"

The misshapen brute lifts the base of a memorial statue of Superman, and beneath it is a compartment. From this compartment he pulls out a Superman costume. In fact, it is the genuine, original Superman costume. The brute starts to put on the costume while standing before a mirror.

"I'll need my indestructible suit for my flight into space! Ugh! I can hardly bear to look at my own face!"

Back on the beach, half a world away, Lisa is still watching all of this with her super-vision. She asks out loud why the creature is putting on a Superman costume.

Lois grasps her daughter's shoulders. "Don't you see, darling? He is Superman! ...He is your father!"

Lois has already guessed what happened. The Atlantis was carrying both Red and Green Kryptonite in a volatile state. It is revealed to us that Superman, caught in the terrible explosion aboard the ship, was affected by both the Red and Green Kryptonite. The Red K had the weird effect of turning Superman into a monster. But the Green K caused the change to be permanent, not temporary, as Red K usually is.

Next: Conclusion

(I would like to finish this now, but I have to go. I'll post soon.)

posted August 22, 2002 06:12 AM    

Lisa wants to race to Superman, to bring him back to them, but Lois restrains her. Superman is in no mood to listen to anyone now.

In the remote Arctic, a hideous shape streaks upwards from the Fortress of Solitude. Superman thinks: "I'll find an uninhabited planet, where no one will see my face... and live out the rest of my life there! If even Lois can't stand the sight of me, I want to get as far away from Earth as possible!"

Superlass flies up from the beach, tearfully deciding to secretly trail her father, to see where he goes. "Maybe some day we'll find an antidote for the K effect!"

Lois is left on the beach, crying. "Oh, Superman... darling... I'd gladly give my eyes to have you back! Will I ever see you again?"

posted August 22, 2002 06:20 AM    

quote:

---

Originally posted by Continental Op:
I think I'd HAVE to be blind not to see the end to this one coming... 8)

And I don't have this issue, but I'd bet good money it was written by Robert Kanigher. It just sounds like him...

---

Thank you for not spilling the beans. I must have first read this story when I was a really young child, and I sure can't remember whether or not I figured out the brute's real identity before the end of the story -- but I doubt it. I've read the story many many times over the years, and it never loses its interest or its power for me. It's definitely one of the best comics in my collection, and is probably my favourite Silver Age tale.

Whoever the writer is (I hope someone knows for sure), I take my hat off to him. This is a great story, and a good example of why I love Silver Age Superman.

In addition to great writing, the artistic team is also to be admired for a bang-up job.

This has gotta be the most genuinely horrible and depressing Superman tale I have.

posted August 24, 2002 01:10 AM    

Characters of today appear to go through what the writers would have us believe is emotional upheaval or emotional hardship, but as a reader do you find you've been moved? I don't. On the surface it seems as if they are doing everything right, but it is just not convincing.

It seems an incredible thing for a 34-year-old man to say, but I have old Lois Lane comics in my collection that still have enough emotional power to move me. I'm sure any reader picking up one of the old books would feel the same. Some stories, particularly the old "Imaginary" stories, are as deliberately manipulative as any romantic tragedy... but it works. You, as a reader, actually care about the characters, and you care about the outcome. If you care about the outcome, the writer has succeeded, I think. If you are moved, maybe you're a sensitive person, but the writer (and, of course, the artists) deserve a lot of credit.

There are a zillion stories out there in superhero comic land, and let's face it: you go through the motions of reading most stories, and if you are entertained, that's good. But that's all you generally expect: to be entertained. You expect nothing more than a twenty minute diversion. A little slice of escapism. Do you CARE who got the girl or whether or not the hero won the fistfight? I mean, are you emotionally moved by what happens to the characters?

posted August 24, 2002 02:47 PM    

Reading the richly detailed summary by Aldous--the blindness, the transformation into a hideous beast, the maudlin sentiment-- I immediately thought of Frank Robbins. This has all the aspects of something he would write.

posted August 24, 2002 04:08 PM    

In those days, on my Saturday pilgrimages to Ryan's with my sister, I could only buy two comics with my 25c allowance (or one Giant). I would first look for a comic with Batman on the cover--I had to go by covers, since Mrs. Ryan was watching like a hawk, and you couldn't go looking inside the comic, so your purchase had to be based purely on the cover--and then I would go looking for Superman on the cover, or Superboy. If I could only find comics with neither of these two on the cover (as sometimes happened, since it was unpredictable what would be in Ryan's on any given Saturday), I would look for something else--maybe a Tarzan comic if it was to be had--which accounts for some of the odd comics that made it into my reading at that time.

I can only assume that it was the presence of Superman on the cover of this Lois Lane that prompted me to buy it on that Saturday (if I in fact bought it and it wasn't a reward for a trip to the dentist). But the cover is truly disturbing. It has a menacing Lois Lane (wearing an orange jumper) whipping a Superman dummy shackled to a wall with a cat-o-nine tails, while a suffering real Superman looks on, held down on an examination table by green K shackles--"shock story of the year!" the cover declares, as if proud of that fact. The kinky absurdity of this cover could not possibly have prompted me to buy this comic, surely? Afterall, I was just a little boy.

It turns out that the cover story really isn't all that freaky as one might assume from the cover. Anyway, I was much more entertained by the second story, then as I am today.

Called "Lois Lane's Fairy Godmother!" this one like all the other Lois stories of those days has the name |Schaffenberger lightly scripted on a part of the splash pic (the | & the S making a K & S in one) (GCD tells me the story was by Dorfman). The splash shows Superman on bended knee, while a decked out Lois looks at him in surprise. And her fairy godmother whispers from hiding to Lois, "accept Superman's proposal."

The fairy godmother looks like "Bewitched"--I mean Samantha Stevens, I mean Elizabeth Montgomery. I knew that Bewitched was a witch, so I wasn't surprised to see Bewitched in a story doing magic stuff--but it was funny that she would be Lois Lane's fairy godmother.

The story proper opens with Lois working as a volunteer nurse in a hospital. She brings a guitar to one of her patients, and days later he's all better and playing his guitar like a real swinging hep cat as Lois wiggles her caboose, saying, "What a beat! I can't resist doing the watusi!" Volunteer nurse Lane is a real sweet heart, reading to the kids in the children's ward, who beg for stories of Superman. But then the volunteer nurse is confronted by an angry bandaged patient in a wheel chair, who points an accusing finger and tells Lois she should be out on dates yet she sacrifices herself to help the sick--that should be rewarded! And in an instant, the bandaged patient appears as Lois Lane's fairy godmother--"Dody." Lois doesn't believe a wordy of it, but Elizabeth Montgomery, I mean Dody practices some magic with her magic wand (hey she's Bewitched, why doesn't she wiggle her nose?) to convince Lois. Lois can't take it all in, and when she comes home that night she puts it all down to working too hard--a hallucination.

But when she walks into her apartment there's Samantha Stevens, I mean Dody, floating in the air. Next the fairy godmother uses her magic wand to make a grand feast appear. But the best is yet to come. Another flash of the wand and >POP!< Lois is dressed up in tiara, chinchilla wrap, jewels, and a glamorous gown. Then Dody tells Lois to answer the door as the doorbell rings. And at the door is Superman.

But it's not Superman in his usual garb. Superman, holding a box of candy and a bouquet of roses, appears at the door in black tails, with a white vest, white bow-tie, black tophat, and a red sash going across his white shirt--on the red sash is a gold 'S' shield. As drawn by Kurt Schaffenberger, Superman never looked more sophisticated.

Superman can't account for it--one moment he was lecturing at the space institute and now he's here "in this get-up!" He looks at Lois dumbfounded, and she can't begin to explain. He has no time for excuses and must fly off--terribly embarassed by it all, how will he explain himself to his audience at the lecture hall...

Lois scolds her fairy godmother, but Bewitched, I mean Dody, says she has decided to make Superman Lois Lane's husband.

The next day, at the dedication of the new Metrodome Stadium, when Superman engraves a special plaque it reads "Superman Loves Lois Lane." The mayor is none too pleased by this valentine prank. Lana Lang covering the event for TV news, breaks into tears and falls into Superman's arms--"Superman, how could you? If you had to choose Lois instead of me, why did you make a public spectacle of it?" "But Lana," Superman replies while fixing his accusing stare on Lois, "that's not what I meant to inscribe! Something...or someone...made me do it!"

Lois knows it's really Dody's work, and getting in her car with the fairy godmother she gives her heck, but Dody will not be stopped in her mission to wed Lois.

The following afternoon at a police convention, as Superman displays manacles made from a metal bird's talons, Dody fixes it so that Lois and Superman end up handcuffed together. They go over to Jimmy Olsen's apartment, and Lois drinks some Elastic Lad serum so that she can slip her hand out of the talon-manacles--but Superman who is immune to the serum has to fly around with those darned talons on his wrist.

Lois arrives back at her apartment and sees the cute nymph-like Dody slumbering on the couch in front of the TV. And Lois has an idea--

Later, after the fairy godmother awakens, the two play a game of scrabble. Then Dody gets up from the table and exclaims, "ZNSLTPZG? What kind of word is that?"

And Lois answers, "Don't you recognize it? It's your name backward, Miss Gzptlsnz! Good-bye to you and your 5th-dimensional monkey-shines!

The pretty fairy transforms from Elizabeth Montgomery into a homely aged imp, and pops back to the 5th dimension. The next day Lois explains to Superman that the imp used her magic to make herself into a "fairy godmother," but when Lois found her sleeping she picked up the magic wand and tried to use it to make her go away. However, the wand didn't work, which is when Lois realized that Dody was magical not the wand (well yeah, I'm thinking, because she's Bewitched right? Samantha Stevens doesn't need no stinking wand). But Lois Lane made the leap to thinking this must be "Miss Gzptlnz, the girl friend of that imp, Mr. Mxyzptlk."

A diary that Gzp (if you think I'm gonna try and spell that again you're nuts), that Miss G. left behind, tells the rest of the story. It was all part of her plan to get Mr. Mxy to marry her. Mxy won't marry Gzp because "it would interfere with [his] career of creating zany jests to annoy Superman and his friends in the 3rd dimension." Figuring that if Superman treated Lois differently and married her, Gzp could make Mxy do the same, she embarked on this elaborate scheme.

Superman asks Lois to forgive him for misjudging her and Lois says, "Hmm...if this wand really worked, I'd get a kiss out of the deal!" Superman answers, "Lois when the time comes, you won't need a magic wand to win me!" And Lois says, "Superman, I can't wait that long! Pucker up!"

Meanwhile, Gzp and Mxy watch Superman and Lois smooching on the interdimensional TV, and Gzp says, "Pay attention! That's how they do it in the 3rd dimension!"

A disgruntled Mxy answers, "Bah! Quit trying to brainwash me!"

***

posted August 26, 2002 11:03 PM    

quote:

---

Posted by Lee Semmens:
Has anyone ever compiled a checklist of all Curt Swan's pre-1970 Superman stories?

---

Someone is bound to know where to find such a comprehensive list on the Net. India?

posted September 13, 2002 11:30 PM    

I shall try to turn around the mood a bit with yet another glimpse of one of those funny books from a long ago but very near time.

As I've posted countless times on countless threads, the period between 1966-1967 figures prominently in my fanciful memories as that was the first time when I really fell in love with comics--you never forget your first love. And as I've also posted, each week I was financially limited to two or less comics. This meant that there were far more comics than I could ever afford to have--and once I finished pouring over the covers, the stories, and the lettercolumns in my two or less comics, I would look over the house ads and Direct Currents (I'd later get round to reading all the other ads which provided their own entertainment).

Like an Innuit hunter who uses every last part of the seal he captures--I would entirely exhaust every dimension of the comics I bought each weekend--sucking the marrow even as the clock ticked toward nine pm and I had to slip under the covers on a Sunday night, anticipating school the next day, with that knot in my stomach.

I would also try to construct in my own imagination just what the stories might be like, that I had only gotten hints of from the covershots and blurbs in the house ads and Direct Currents. In some cases, I didn't just wonder about these comics for a weekend or a week. I spent years thinking about them, going back to those ads and those blurbs trying to decipher the story that I never read.

Recently I've made it a sort of mission to hunt down these comics (for the right price) and finally satisfy my curiosity. It has to be said that no comic could really live up to what I've imagined, but still the comics I've found so far often have provided unguessed delights.

One of these was an issue of World's Finest pictured in a house ad. I believe the house ad showed a big thumb pointing down and went on about how it's thumbs down for Batman in the latest WF. The cover shown had Superman standing holding a trident over Batman kneeling caught in a net, in an arena, with the alien spectators all pointing their thumbs down at the gladiatorial spectacle.

It was like an episode of Star Trek, or so I figured and I more or less constructed some such storyline in my mind.

I finally got this comic not so along ago at a swap meet, but I never found time to read it until today.

It's World's Finest Comics no. 163 (Dec. '66) and it really is sort of like a Star Trek episode (an amalgam of Star Trek episodes) in some respects. The title for the story on the inside is "The Duel of the Super-Duo!" (whereas the cover--as often happened--provides the title "The Court of No Hope!"). The art on the cover and inside is by Swan and Klein. (Jim Shooter is a good guess for the writer.)

After the required set-up that gets Batman and Superman together again (actually Batman happens to meet up with Clark Kent), a Boom Tube appears in the middle of the road as Clark rides along with Bats in the Batmobile. It's called a Space-Warp-Tunnel, but it looks exactly like the Boom Tubes that Kirby would draw a few years later in his Fourth World books, and it works just like a Boom Tube, too!

At first--like Kirk and Spock--Batman and Superman are not suspicious of this warp tunnel or the alien whose voice invites them to visit his world (Superman wants "to see what this is all about"). Like a Star Trek alien host on a mysterious planet, their host seems like a good enough chap. And his planet is wierd! Swan is great at drawing realistic settings and creatures, but this time he has to draw a truly surreal environment, where a super town floats high in the sky above the surreal natural landscape.

Their host, Jemphis, shows them his collection of duplicate secret hideaways of famous intergalactic heroes: Aeroman's skyscraper HQ, the floating globe hideaway of Solarman, the pit of Serpento, the iceberg fortress of Dr. Chill. As well as the Fortress of Solitude and the Batcave.

Jemphis invites his guests to go in and inspect their duplicate HQs and then come back and tell him if he got anything wrong. In the Batcave, Batman finds a big eyeball device that hypnotizes him. In the Fortress, Superman finds another such eyeball device, this one armed with Kryptonite, but reacts quickly enough to destroy the device with his heat vision before it can hypnotize him.

The Man of Steel then crashes through the duplicate Fortress and grabs hold of Jemphis, asking what he's up to? "You'll see in a minute after I press this remote-control button to activate Plan B!" Jemphis states, to which Superman gives a glib response, "What happens when you run out of the alphabet!"

[you just gotta love that line--]

But Jemphis turns the yellow sun of his planet into a red one and Superman is now without his powers. Then he is confronted by the mesmerized Batman (in part II "The Super-ComBat!"--Super/Bat get it?)--and after three pages of struggles, both heroes end up knocked out. Later in the castle of Jemphis, Superman awakens to find that he is scheduled to battle Batman to the death the next day in the arena.

Jemphis may be a maniacal overlord but he provides well for his "guests," as Superman finds his guest suite has its own conservatory garden, in which are many of the strange plants of this "paradise planet." From these plants, the ingenius Man of Might constructs his own utility belt of devices with which to battle the Caped Crusader.

In the arena, Superman often gets the advantage over Batman by surprising him with these strange utility belt items, but in the end it is Batman who fells Superman. However, when Jemphis commands Batman to kill the Metropolis Marvel this breaks the hypnotic spell because hypnotism cannot make someone do what their conscience would not allow them to do.

Next Jemphis commands an army of super-heroes (brought there from other planets, all hypnotized into believing that Batman and Superman are villains) to attack the World's Finest Duo, but using his Bat-flash, the Masked Manhunter breaks the hypnotic spell that Jemphis holds over the cosmic champions.

Escaping into the duplicate Batcave, Jemphis happens to trip and is subdued and mesmerized by the eyeball hypnotic device--commanded to only obey his master Jemphis. And so he ends up cowtowing before himself in front of a mirror, driven insane by his own machine.

As the adventure concludes, Superman and Batman meet up with several of their intergalactic compatriots--Zardin the Boy Marvel (a Robin look-alike who provides them with a new Batmobile--the old one being wrecked during their previous struggles--to get them home through the Boom Tube/Warp Tunnel), Dr. Chill, Aeroman and his bride-to-be, Windlass. Plus a few unnamed background figures.

As the World's Finest Duo drive off into the tunnel, Dr. Chill says, "We'll have to do this again...and bring your Justice League friends next time!"

Batman answers, "We will! Good luck on your journeys to your own worlds!"

***

posted September 20, 2002 12:15 PM       

The plot is to say the least, a convoluted Weisingeresque doozy. You've got to see it to believe it:
http://web.archive.org/web/20050219003449/http://www.comicbookresources.com/columns/oddball/index.cgi?date=2002-09-13

posted September 22, 2002 08:48 PM    

Some years ago, watching a bunch of Dougles Sirk movies at a local art-house I was irked by the fact that most cineastes who came to these movies just seemed to want to laugh at
the movies and not appreciate their humanity.

The main object of fun seemed to be Rock Hudson who starred in a lot of those Sirk movies and was clearly taken as a serious actor by the director (while it's kind of obvious that Sirk knew about Hudson's alternate lifestyle and deliberately put some subtext in the movies to cast Hudson in a queer light). I looked at those movies as complex constructions, whereas most movie fans seemed to regard them as simplistic fifties kitch.

Of course, maybe I'm a bit hesitant to gafaw at Pat Boone because he was such an icon in our house when I was growing up. My parents both respected him and were happy whenever he showed up on TV--like doing a cameo on a Beverly Hillbillies episode. If they were happy, then I was happy. But I also began to appreciate old Pat Boone movies for their own charms, regardless of my parents's sentiments. "April Love" remains a very happy memory for me--even though I first saw it on TV about a decade after it was in the movie theatres.

I also think poor old Pat has been made to bear the white man's burden for copying black music, when he was only one of many (but the many have either died, sunk into obscurity, or become so radical in later life that the copying angle doesn't quite fit). And it's not really right to pigeon-hole Boone in this way since he started out as a crooner in the early fifties, following in the tradition of other crooners like Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Mel Torme, Dean Martin, Perry Como, and Tony Bennett. If you hate crooners, or you think he was a bad crooner in comparison to the greats--that's one thing, but to put him down just because he wasn't a real rock and roller or he wasn't black, I just don't accept that kind of attack.

I might not share Pat Boone's conservative moral majority values, but I still like the old tunes and it gets my back up when people attack someone for not being what they think they should be.

All that's probably a bit too serious for this thread, but it's analogous to how I feel about the classic Lois Lanes and a lot of old Superman comics. While I do smile at the absurdities, I'm not apt to dismiss these stories as silly romps and nothing more. They did mainly try to entertain and should be appreciated on that level, but nine times out of ten there's some greater complexity at work in the stories.

I think a lot of the complexity just comes from unconscious intentions on the part of the writers. But maybe writers did put in some stuff just for their own amusement.

Then there's Schaffenberger. Kurt draws things in such a way that you can't just dismiss them as silly, there's always some third angle going on in his stories.

But this Lois Lane story seems to be by Ross Andru, who is a more straight forward artist. That approach to the art probably leaves the story open to derision, whereas if Schaffenberger had drawn it one would get the feeling that Kurt was having a laugh himself.

L7 >sigh<

posted September 23, 2002 12:05 AM    

What "black music" was he supposed to have copied? Are you talking about Rock 'n Roll? "Black music" was but one element in the synthesis that became Rock 'n Roll. There would be no Rock 'n Roll without "white music". Is this what you're talking about? Maybe Pat could share the "blame"... with Elvis and Bill Haley.

quote:

---

They did mainly try to entertain and should be appreciated on that level, but nine times out of ten there's some greater complexity at work in the stories.

I think a lot of the complexity just comes from unconscious intentions on the part of the writers. But maybe writers did put in some stuff just for their own amusement.

---

posted September 23, 2002 12:34 PM       

But I'm always fascinated by the almost painful gyrations Weisinger put his characters through - presumably to fit the cover concept as I think they did the cover first in those years. It would seemingly have been easier for Clark to just own up to an ego trip while he was writing the lyrics (I couldn't resist enscribing my name in the song, Lois!) than trying to suppress its release! But where would the fun have been in that, right?

It seemed like these Weisinger zingers were more twisted in the Lois Lane comic. Do you remember another story from around this time where Lois has to execute "Plan L" to save Superman by kissing members of the Justice League? Ah, those were the days!

posted September 23, 2002 05:26 PM    

quote:

---

Do you remember another story from around this time where Lois has to execute "Plan L" to save Superman by kissing members of the Justice League?

---

posted September 23, 2002 07:13 PM    

While it does seem like the cover ideas forced the Superman family to do absurd things, this just seems too easy as an explanation (although it's an important part of the explanation). My feeling is that Lois Lane is in Hell--or at least in some realm like that of Job where both God and Satan toy with her. In Weisinger's mind I expect he thought himself a god, and in the minds of his employees he was probably looked on as Satan.

To be more scholarly and less flipant: I find a lot of correlations between Film Noir movies and Lois Lane stories. In Film Noir, characters go into a kind of Underworld (usually at night) and meet up with certain stock characters--like the Spider-Woman who is a temptress (Superman may be the converse representation of this character in a Lois Lane story). The weak central character (sometimes thought of as an anti-hero) goes through certain trials and doesn't always emerge victorious--often he winds up defeated and even dead.

Film theorists have proposed an alternative genre to the Film Noir and label it as Film Blanc. "Insomnia" is one of the most recent examples of this loose genre. I say loose because there are lots of different elements that might describe a Film Blanc--although taking place during the day seems to be the most obvious. I would submit Eric Roehmer's "The Aviator's Wife" is a true Film Blanc, because it is light in tone whereas true Film Noir is dark in tone. This movie concerns a postal worker who works the graveyard shift, and after work (in the early morning) gets dragged along into one misadventure after the other (mainly because of a pretty young lady he happens to meet), when really he should be getting to bed because he's so tired. Woody Allen's "Broadway Danny Rose" is another (more well-known) movie that I would put in the Film Blanc category.

posted November 25, 2002 12:24 AM    

The cover introduces the Future Superman of 2965. And this is why I bought it. But in fact that story is the back-up. The lead story is not cover featured, but it's pretty entertaining. The cover and both stories in this issue are by the incomparable Swan & Klein.

The lead story is in two parts, with the first part being "The Super-Scoops of Morna Vine!" and the second part called "The Secret of the New Supergirl!"

Morna Vine has set her sights on capturing the affections of Superman and aims to do so by being the best "girl" reporter on the Planet.

In turn she shows up Jimmy, Lois, and Clark--scooping all of them. And so, naturally enough, they all suspect she must have super-powers--maybe she's from Krypton--because they can't believe that someone could so handily outdo them.

It all ends in tears, though, as Morna sobs on her pillow, "Superman! >sob< I thought you'd learn to love me if I became a famous reporter. I'm so ashamed!"

And the ever paternal Superman says, "I'm glad you admit your mistake, Morna! Super-powers must never be used selfishly!"

So there. That's telling her.

Of course, a woman should never try to be the best reporter she could (thanks to some advanced technology)--and to do so is just outright criminal! But Superman showed her. But all women are just children of course--they need men to give them direction or else they'll do the stupidest things!

"The Superman of 2965" (written by Edmond Hamilton) is only eight pages, but it sets up the sequels that followed (in a circle on the splash page it says "No. 1 of a New Series").

posted November 25, 2002 12:36 AM    

When this story was reprinted in the early seventies, some things were changed (probably by ENB)--most importantly the date--the story was retitled "The Superman of 2465!" and it was now a story set 500 years in the future instead of 1000. Bridwell clearly understood the confusion that is represented by having a Superman 1000 years in the future--at the exact same time as the Legion. Why Weisinger allowed this contradiction must wait for a future discussion.

Also on the splash one can just make out the date of Superman I's birth--1920!

posted November 26, 2002 07:51 PM    

quote:

---

Originally posted by Aldous:
My favourite take on the "future Superman" idea is "The Superman of the Future" story from Action #256 (1959). That was a one-off, when the "Ultra-Superman" warned of four terrible disasters about to occur in our immediate future which he would try to prevent, even though he would be attempting to change history.

---

Aldous--good to see you're still around--there's no way my collection of Actions goes back that far. GCD doesn't show that this was ever reprinted. I certainly don't remember it. So I'll have to take your word for its charms.

posted November 26, 2002 07:55 PM    

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lee Semmens:
Does anyone out there know of any website listing reprints of all Superman stories from between 1938 and about 1970?

---

That would be nice to have, hey Lee? But I don't know of any such website. In the All-Star Companion, Roy Thomas was good enough to list all reprints of the stories referenced in the contents (at press time). A Superman Companion of some kind would be swell--but a monumental task. Still, maybe someone has compiled all this data and I just don't know of it.

posted November 26, 2002 08:08 PM    

The grave markers on the splash page for "Superman of 2965" show memorials for seven Supermen. IF there were just seven generations of Supermen prior to the one in that story, then five hundred years makes more sense than one thousand. But Weisinger and Hamilton didn't work out the math for Braniac 5 (the fifth generation Brainiac, yet one thousand years in the future), so they probably didn't pay attention to the generations of Supermen.

posted November 26, 2002 08:17 PM    

quote:

---

Originally posted by India Ink:
Those sequels were published in 1966 originally--and thus the Future Superman was called the Superman of 2965. But as with the first story, ENB changed the dates when the stories were reprinted so as to have the Future Superman five hundred years in the future.

---

That should read "Those sequels were published in 1966 originally--and thus the Future Superman was called the Superman of 2966. But as with the first story, ENB changed the dates when the stories were reprinted so as to have the Future Superman five hundred years in the future."

posted November 26, 2002 08:36 PM    

On the face of it, since the story was originally published in 1965, this makes Superman 45 years old. Surely too elderly for Superman, right? But not quite.

There's a sense in many Weisinger edited tales that all the Superman stories happened when they happened stretching back all the way to the first issue of Action. The Superboy stories (since their inception practically) remained grounded in a long ago time around the 1920s or 1930s--and this continued to be the case all through the sixties, and even at the beginning of the seventies.

1920 gives us an eighteen year old Superman with that first Action ish. A little on the young side, but just a little. And this means that the Superboy stories all work out just about right if Superman was a teenager in the thirties.

The strange case of Superman and his entire cast is that they don't age. Time does go by, but they don't age.

In the lead story of 181, when Perry gives Morna Vine a $10 raise after she scoops Jimmy, Olsen thinks to himself--"Grrr! Can you beat that? It's two years since Perry gave me a raise!"

But just how old is Jimmy? 18? 25?

Somehow time does pass by for Jimmy yet he never clearly advances in age. And so it is for all the cast.

This might seem strange to readers of current comics, but the DCU is just as surreal in its concept of time. For the current comics, while they remain recent time passes in a fairly realistic manner. But as events recede into the past, the timeline compacts. And while the timeline compacts it also at the same time moves forward. So that events that happened months apart in the eighties, now have happened weeks or days apart in the late nineties.

None of the characters in the current DCU seem to be aware of this metaphysical warping of time around them--just as characters in the sixties Superman world never seem to understand the wierd stasis of their existence as the years go by and they grow no older.

posted November 26, 2002 10:26 PM    

And the Fortress of Solitude Super-Network can be found here...
http://web.archive.org/web/20050219003449/http://superman.ws/fos/

posted November 27, 2002 05:58 AM    

quote:

---

Originally posted by India Ink:
That would be nice to have, hey Lee? But I don't know of any such website. In the All-Star Companion, Roy Thomas was good enough to list all reprints of the stories referenced in the contents (at press time). A Superman Companion of some kind would be swell--but a monumental task. Still, maybe someone has compiled all this data and I just don't know of it.

---

posted November 28, 2002 04:17 AM    

Life has been a little tumultuous lately. Very busy -- no time to read the board, let alone post anything.

That story certainly has its charms. I think you would like it.

posted December 10, 2002 05:34 AM    

quote:

---

Originally posted by Aldous:
At some stage I'd like to have a bit of a discussion about Edmond Hamilton. He was a clever and prolific writer who wrote some of my favourite stories.

---

In my view also, Edmond Hamilton seems to have written a large proportion of my favorite Superman stories from the 1960s, usually in collaboration with Curt Swan.
Often they had a science fiction theme, sometimes with a bit of tragedy thrown in.
I prefer his work of this period to that of Jerry Siegel's, for instance, with the latter's often stilted dialogue, where characters often seem to be explaining what the reader is seeing for themselves, or making firm (but usually correct) statements where they cannot possibly have full knowledge of all the facts.
Having said that, I do very much like two or three of Siegel's Superman stories of this period, at least, "The Death of Superman" (possibly the best-ever "imaginary" story in my opinion - and I am not a great fan of these by any means), and the Sally Selwyn stories, when Clark Kent suffers amnesia.

posted December 10, 2002 11:41 PM    

BORN: 21 October 1904 in Ohio

WIFE: Leigh Brackett

FIRST PUBLISHED STORY: "The Monster-God of Mamurth" in "Weird Tales", August 1926.

NICKNAMES: The "World-Wrecker" and the "World-Saver".

ONE OF THE FIRST: To attempt a living at writing Science Fiction.

PEN NAMES: Alexander Blade, Robert Castle, Hugh Davidson, and Robert Wentworth, among others. Also, pen names shared with "house" writers include Will Garth, S.M. Tenneshaw and Brent Sterling,.

A MAJOR CONTRIBUTOR TO: The formative years of Science Fiction.

CREATED: "Captain Future" for the pulps around 1939-1940, which still enjoys a following today. Appears in Japanese anime and European comics.

MARRIED: Legendary SF writer Leigh Brackett on New Year's Eve in 1946. Leigh was born in 1915 in Los Angeles. Her early efforts at writing fantastic adventures brought her into contact with other SF personalities then living in California, such as Robert A. Heinlein, Julius Schwartz, Jack Williamson, aspiring writer Ray Bradbury, and... Edmond Hamilton.

HIS WIFE: Collaborated with William Faulkner on the screenplay of "The Big Sleep".

HIS WIFE ALSO: Wrote the screenplays for "Rio Bravo", "El Dorado", and "The Long Good-Bye". Shortly before she died, Leigh submitted the first draft sceenplay for "The Empire Strikes Back", and this film is dedicated to her.

EDMOND and LEIGH: Loved to travel, and Edmond was skilled in photography. Each would edit the other's major Science Fiction and Fantasy literary collections. Guests of honour at the 1954 and 1959 World Science Fiction Conventions.

FROM WHAT I'VE READ: It appears the Hamiltons were very fond of animals.

HIS POPULARITY PEAK: May have been in the 1920s and 1930s when he proved as popular with the readers of "Weird Tales" as authors like Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft.

MOST POPULAR STORY: Is possibly his serious look at the colonisation of space, originally written in the 1930s as "Colonists of Mars" but rejected by editors as "too grim". After advice from his wife, Leigh Brackett, he revised this story into "What's It Like Out There?" which appeared in the December 1952 issue of "Thrilling Wonder Stories". This story demonstrated that Edmond could write solid, serious Science Fiction.

HIS ORIGINALITY: Reportedly declined in the 1930s, prompting H.P. Lovecraft to call him "One-Plot Hamilton".

INSPIRED: A pre-World War II-era teenage fandom that bought his works religiously.

HE WAS INCREDIBLY PROLIFIC: Fans may never find all of his stories. It has been asserted that no pulp writer sold more stories than Edmond Hamilton.

FOR SILVER-AGE GREEN LANTERN FANS (like Aldous here): Edmond's tales of the "Interstellar Patrol" are credited as being the first depiction of a galactic peacekeeping force.

posted December 11, 2002 12:06 PM    

quote:

---

Lee Semmens:

It would be interesting to see a checklist of Edmond Hamilton's comic book work, Aldous.

---

It would. A way to do this, or a way to begin it at any rate, would be for a few of us to list favourite stories in DC Comics written by Hamilton.

I don't have time to start a list at the moment, but I'll come back to it. There are other guys on this board who are probably carrying around in their heads a lot of data on creators like Hamilton. They know who they are!

For me, it's just really interesting to put a real human face to the name Edmond Hamilton (or to any creator of those much-loved comic books).

I know India Ink has that Curt Swan book that came out not so long ago, and it would be interesting to hear points of interest about Swan's life or career... I don't think exhaustive details are necessary, but the odd bit of human information adds so much to an understanding of where such-and-such a creator was coming from.

posted December 11, 2002 03:32 PM    

He probably considered his comics work little more than an amusing sideline, and he probably didn't like working for Mort Weisinger any more than any of the other Superman writers did, but it seemed like he always put just a little extra effort into his stories. Of course, he recycled story elements and even entire plots as much as anyone did back then,and he was working under the same Weisinger-imposed restrictions of style, but I would bet that the lion's share of acknowledged "classics" from the era came from Hamilton's typewriter.

In addition to Lovecraft's "Single-Plot Hamilton" tag (HPL very much admired Hamilton's early pulp stories, though, and insisted he was whoring his talent to the pulp editors who wanted hackwork... which Hamilton would probably cheerfully admit), I believe he was nicknamed "Planet-Destroyer Hamilton" for the epic cosmic scale of his pulp science fiction. That was later amended to "the Universe-Smasher" when he got even more cosmic. All this way before CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS of course.

I don't have time now to post about a lot of Hamilton stories, but I'm going to try and recollect some of my favorites soon... it'll save me the trouble of having to write up full reviews for 'em which I've kept putting off.

As for a checklist of his comics work... I assume India Ink came across this already,but the rest of you might like to see this:
http://web.archive.org/web/20050219003718/http://pulpgen.com/pulp/edmond_hamilton/biblio_comics.html

Assuming the darn link works, you'll find as complete a listing of Big Ed's comics work there as you're ever likely to find.

posted December 12, 2002 03:25 PM    

quote:

---

Continental Op:

...but I would bet that the lion's share of acknowledged "classics" from the era came from Hamilton's typewriter.

---

"Classics" such as "Superman Under the Red Sun" come to mind, which is a real stinker as far as I'm concerned. One of the poorest Silver Age comics I ever read.

Sometimes I wonder how certain stories become "classics".

quote:

---

As for a checklist of his comics work...

---

posted December 14, 2002 04:22 PM    

When I started reading Superman comics, they didn't usually have writer credits. So it wasn't until Superman 239 (Giant G-84), June-July 1971, that I actually "discovered" Edmond Hamilton. By then they were starting to give credits on the reprints, so I realized that "The Showdown Between Luthor and Superman" reprinted in that issue was written by Hamilton.

That was the first time I read that story (which originally appeared in Superman 164, October 1963--an issue I now proudly own), and it remained for me the single greatest Superman story ever!

And after that Giant, there were lots more reprints, and that name Edmond Hamilton kept coming up.

Over the years I'm continuously surprised to find how many other stories he wrote, stories I read as a kid not knowing who the writers were. For instance I loved to get World's Finest Giants in the sixties, and I now find (as reprinted in the World's Finest Comics Archives vols. 1 & 2) that Hamilton wrote almost all these stories.

For me Hamilton is one of the greatest Superman writers byfar (not to mention his work on other members of the Superman family, the Legion, and Batman). He may have had his share of clunkers, but at their best his stories could take you places.

As a side-note, I wonder how much Hamilton's better half contributed to his comicbook stories? Not to take anything away from Hamilton himself, but I expect Leigh Brackett would give him feedback on anything he was working on, even Superman.

posted December 14, 2002 04:47 PM    

The people of the mainstream bleat on about how the audience, particularly the young audience, of today is "more sophisticated" than in past eras. It may seem that way, but it probably isn't. In a lot of ways, pertaining to real life and the real issues of life, the latest generation is probably one of the more unenlightened.

I notice, and these threads are a constant reminder, that very intelligent, sophisticated people, who have excellent command of the English language, seem to have a special appreciation for simplicity and innocence in fiction... Silver-Age Superman springs to mind. The attraction of material that appears "unsophisticated" doesn't put its fans into the "simple & innocent" category... Rather, I think it says something much more subtle and intriguing about the Silver-Age fan.

posted December 15, 2002 03:27 PM    

quote:

---

Lee Semmens:

As far as I am aware this is her only comics' work. Just thought you might be interested, Aldous and India.

---

Thanks, Lee. And, in relation to that...

quote:

---

India Ink:

As a side-note, I wonder how much Hamilton's better half contributed to his comicbook stories?

---

Well, yes, that's the question.

*****

Leigh and Edmond at the breakfast table sometime in 1963...

EDMOND: I've been toying with the idea of an "Imaginary" story. I'm going to show what might have happened if Kal-El, instead of coming to Earth and becoming Superman, had actually taken on the roles of The Flash, or The Atom, or Batman...

LEIGH: Sounds intriguing, dear. But wouldn't Superman always be Superman, just by virtue of coming to Earth? He might have called himself "Batman", but he would still have the super powers.

EDMOND: Er... yes, you're right. Well, I'll send him to other planets then. And when he gets to those other planets, instead of the super-powers we're used to, the baby Kal-El grows up having to adapt in different ways, so that he becomes "Aquaman" or "Green Arrow".

LEIGH: You could have a series of little vignettes, showing how on each different planet he became The Flash, or Batman, or whoever...

EDMOND: Great idea! I'll do it! But... why are you frowning, dear?

LEIGH: There's no plot. There's nothing tying the vignettes together. You have to have a plot, Edmond.

EDMOND: Well, yes, I realise that. How about if I have a third party tell the story, and I could set that third party in "real" time, in the normal continuity?

LEIGH: Good. And your storyteller should be someone who would have a genuine curiosity in wondering what baby Kal-El would have turned out like if he'd been sent to different planets.

EDMOND: I could just have Superman tell the story. You know, like if he was day-dreaming... "What would have happened to me if..."

LEIGH: Oh, Edmond, please! Stay with the third party idea. No, it has to be a person with a genuine concern over the fate of that baby in the rocketship.

EDMOND: Someone like Jor-El!

posted December 25, 2002 05:50 PM    

I was surfing around and saw that this topic I created was still active. Amazing! Coincidentally, because it looks like I�m getting out of comics (after 41 years!,) I compiled a list of my thirty favorite comics/stories of all time. Since there�s year-end lists coming out now, I might as well post this here! These are not what I consider the best comics, but simply my favorites without regard to popular or anybody else�s opinion. These are simply the comics I like the most.

It took me five drafts and a month to get to this final list after 41 years of collecting! (BTW, I�m only keeping 100 comics total.) There are no Marvels here. After quitting collecting Marvel in mid-80s, even their classics no longer hold charm for me. My fave series (Legion, Silver Age Superman, and Thunder Agents) dominate this list. [I hope the spacing comes out okay on this list.]

Can you compile a ranked thirty favorites list? It�s not that easy if you�ve been collecting for awhile!

MY THIRTY FAVORITE COMICS OF ALL TIME!

[Rank - Comic & # - Date - Story Note - Creators]

1 ADVENTURE 352,353 - - - 1,2/67 - - - SUNEATER - - - SHOOTER/SWAN
2 ADVENTURE 312 - - - 9/63 - - - LIGHTNING LAD REVIVAL - - - HAMILTON/FORTE
3 SUPERBOY 241,242 - - - 7,8/78 - - - EARTHWAR - - - LEVITZ/SHERMAN
4 SUPERMAN ANN 11 - - - 1985 - - - MONGUL - - - MOORE/GIBBONS
5 THUNDER AGENTS 1,2 - - - 11/65 -1/66 - - - THE WARLORD - - - WOOD

6 SUPERMAN ANN 4 - - - 1961 - - - TIME & SPACE - - - MISC
7 ADVENTURE 344,345 - - - 5,6/66 - - - STALAG OF SPACE- - - HAMILTON/SWAN
8 SUPERMAN 164 - - - 10/63 - - - BATTLE ON LEXOR - - - HAMILTON/SWAN
9 SUPERMAN 149 - - - 11/61 - - - DEATH OF SUPERMAN - - - HAMILTON/SWAN
10 SUPERBOY�S LEGION 1,2 - - - 2001 - - - FATAL FIVE, LUTHOR - - - FARMER/DAVIS

11 GOLDEN AGE 1-4 - - - 1993 - - - DYNAMAN - - - ROBINSON/P.SMITH
12 SUPERMAN 141 - - - 11/60 - - - RETURN TO KRYPTON - - - SIEGAL/BORING
13 SUPERMAN 167 - - - 2/64 - - - LUTHOR/BRAINIAC TEAM- - - HAMILTON/SWAN
14 SUPERBOY 239 - - - 5/78 - - - ULTRA BOY FRAMED - - - LEVITZ/STARLIN
15 ADVENTURE 316 - - - 1/64 - - - RENEGADE ULTRA BOY - - - HAMILTON/FORTE

16 FLEX MENTALLO 1-4 - - - 1996 - - - THE FACT - - - MORRISON/QUITELY
17 ADVENTURE 359,360 - - - 8,9/67 - - - UNIVERSO - - - SHOOTER/SWAN
18 ADVENTURE 365,366 - - - 2,3/68 - - - FATAL FIVE - - - SHOOTER/SWAN
19 DYNAMO 1 - - - 8/66 - - - MOON, ANDOR - - - WOOD
20 WATCHMEN 1-12 - - - 9/86 -10/87 - - - WHO KILLED COMEDIAN?- - - MOORE/GIBBONS

21 ANDROMEDA 3 - - - 9/78 - - - EXILE OF AEONS - - - NICHOLS/RIVOCHE
22 THUNDER AGENTS 7,8 - - - 8,9/66 - - - SUBTERRANEANS - - - WOOD
23 SUPERMAN 158 - - - 1/63 - - - KANDOR - - - HAMILTON/SWAN
24 ADVENTURE 314 - - - 11/63 - - - ALAKTOR - - - HAMILTON/FORTE
25 ADVENTURE 310 - - - 7/63 - - - MASK MAN - - - HAMILTON/FORTE

posted January 02, 2003 04:24 PM    

Getting out of comics could mean one of several things. I can see myself getting out of buying new comics--my buy list keeps decreasing and one day I may eventually only concentrate on vintage comics.

But I can't see myself getting out of comics in any time soon, however, as the size of my collection is substantial and it would take years of effort to sell it all off. As long as I still have one box of vintage comics (and some archives on my shelves) I will still consider myself to be "in comics."

Yesterday I was at the annual New Year's Day comic sale. And flush with the consuming fever I bought a copy of Detective 211 (which features "The Jungle Cat Queen"--and HEY while typing this post I just checked the GCD index for this issue and found that it credits Edmond Hamilton as writer--a fact I never knew before this instant--wow!). That's now the oldest comic (barring things like Famous First Editions and Millennium Editions) that I have.

'Tec 211 has to be up there in my list of all time favourite comics given it features "The Jungle Cat Queen." The art by Sprang and Paris is holy. I was looking at it again last night--in the original comic--and welling up with emotion. It's one of the most beautiful works of art I've ever seen in my life.

Most of the other issues that would make it onto my list of favourites have already been mentioned on this thread or the Superman in the Seventies thread. Superman 164 for certain. And a few issues of Detective from the New Look period--as much for the Elongated Man stories as the lead Batman stories by the likes of Fox, Infantino, and Greene.

At the New Year's Day sale I saw one guy buying up Daredevil back issues. And I guess that's the thing to do right now for any speculators out there, but thinking about this I realized I have little attachment to my Marvels. I should probably be selling them off right now, given that the speculators will likely pay top dollar for them--whereas a couple years from now they might not be so hot.

If I was to begin the process of getting out of comics, I would probably start by unloading my 70s, 80s, and 90s Marvels. As artifacts they have little meaning for me and I'm just as happy with the trade paperback collections.

But as artifacts, DC comics have much more meaning for me. My next stage in getting out of comics would require me to sell off my DCs from 1987 onward.

After that though it would get a lot harder, but the third stage would require selling off 70s and early 80s DC--everything but Superman and Batman.

Fourth stage, selling off 70s to early 80s Supermans and Batmans.

posted February 02, 2003 05:58 AM    

quote:

---

Originally posted by Osgood Peabody:
By way of bumping this thread, here's a great site I stumbled into the other day that has some classic Superman stories, including "Superman under the Green Sun" ...
That story, incidentally, was a nice read - by Edmond Hamilton and Wayne Boring, I believe. Another variation on Mort's "powerless Superman" repertoire, with some clever twists.

---

A couple of sources I have checked credit this story to Bill Finger (Hamilton wrote "Superman Under the Red Sun"), with inks by Stan Kaye.
As soon as I picked up a copy of this story (in Superman #155, August 1962), about three years ago, I was immediately impressed and still think it is one of my favorite Superman stories of the 1960s.

posted March 08, 2003 03:11 PM       

The recent Dynamic Duo collection has sold me on the merits of combining the Action and Superman titles into one Silver Age Superman archive line.
So - how would it look? I took a gander at the first dozen volumes, and they're not too shabby. In fact, I may be so bold to suggest that this is a line that cries out for the fast-track treatment!

You be the judge:

Volume 1 - Action 241-247, Superman 122-126 (226 pages of content)
Highlights:
1st appearance Fortress of Solitude
1st appearance of Brainiac & Kandor
1st Kandorian villain - Zak-kul
"Clark Kent's College Days" - How Superboy became Superman
Superman masquerades as "Alfred E. Neuman" in "The 2 Faces of Superman"

Volume 2 - Action 248-255, Superman 127-131 (240 pages of content - oversized to accommodate Bizarro 2-parter)
Highlights:
1st appearance of Titano
Luthor creates "The Kryptonite Man"
1st use of Red K in a Superman story
1st appearance of Lori Lemaris
1st appearance of Metallo
1st Bizarro appearance in a Superman story
1st Bizarro-Lois in "The Bride of Bizarro"

Volume 3 - Action 256-262, Superman 132-136 (226 pages of content)
Highlights:
1st imaginary story - "Superman's Other Life"
[what would've happened had Krypton not exploded]
"How Perry White Hired Clark Kent"
Superman & Supergirl battle "The Super-Outlaw from Krypton"
"Superman�s Mermaid Sweetheart" [2nd Lori Lemaris appearance - intro. of Ronal, her future husband]
"The Secret of Kryptonite" [how the world first learned of Kryptonite's existence]

Volume 4 - Action 263-269, Superman 137-140, Annual 1 (206 pages of content)
Highlights:
1st appearance of the Bizarro-World in a 2-parter
Return of Titano
Lori & Lois meet as Superman becomes "Super-Merman"?
2-page map of Krypton from 1st Annual
Superman vs. Hercules in 2-parter
1st appearance of Blue K in "The Son of Bizarro"

Volume 5 - Action 270-275, Superman 141-145, Annual 2 (217 pages of content)
Highlights:
"Superman�s Return to Krypton"
"Superman Meets Al Capone"
Glossary of Krypton names; map of how the Super-Family came to earth from 2nd Annual
"Superman's Rival, Mental Man" with a surprise guest-star
"Bizarro Meets Frankenstein"
"Superboy's First Public Appearance" [untold tale of Superman]
Brainiac returns in "The Menace of Red-Green Kryptonite"
"The Night of March 31st"
Heat vision becomes distinct from x-ray vision

Volume 6 - Action 276-283, Superman 146-149, Annual 3 (216 pages of content)
Highlights:
1st appearance of "Luthor's Lair"
"The Story of Superman�s Life" [re-telling of origin]
1st appearance of White K in a Superman story
Krypto vs. Titano
Secrets of the Fortress feature + Superman pin-up from 3rd Annual
"Brainiac's Super-Revenge" guest-starring Congo Bill and Congorilla
"Superman Owes a Billion Dollars" [the IRS vs. Superman!]
"The Death of Superman" [an imaginary classic]

Volume 7 - Action 284-289, Superman 150-154, Annual 4 (219 pages of content)
Highlights:
1st reference to Phantom Zone in a Superman story "The One Minute of Doom"
Superman reveals Supergirl to the world
1st appearance of Superman Revenge Squad in 2-part story
Superman's 1st battle with Phantom Zone escapees in "The Town of Supermen"

Volume 8 - Action 290-296, Superman 155-158, Annuals 5,6 (209 pages of content)
Highlights:
Another glossary of Krypton names and feature on the flag of Krypton from 5th Annual
"Superman under the Green Sun"
Superman defends Luthor from murder charges on the robot planet Roxar
"The Last Days of Superman" [1st appearance of "Virus X"]
1st appearance of Gold K in a Superman story "The Super-Revenge of the Phantom Zone Prisoner
Luthor escapes from Roxar and creates "The Kryptonite Killer"
Perry White executes "Plan P" to save Superman
1st Nightwing & Flamebird (Superman & Jimmy alter-egos in Kandor)
Superman Family pin-up from 6th Annual

Volume 9 - Action 297-302, Superman 159-163, Annual 7 (211 pages of content)
Highlights:
"Lois Lane, Super-Maid of Krypton" - [imaginary story with Lois being sent to Krypton upon Earth's destruction!]
"The Last Days of Ma and Pa Kent"
"Superman under the Red Sun"
"The Amazing Story of Superman-Red and Superman-Blue" [imaginary classic]

Volume 10 - Action 303-309, Superman 164-167, Annual 8 (206 pages of content)
Highlights:
"The Showdown Between Luthor and Superman" [1st appearance of the planet Lexor, where Luthor is a hero]
"Why Superman Needs a Secret Identity" [semi-imaginary story]
"The Sweetheart Superman Forgot" [The Sally Selwyn - amnesiac Superman romance]
"The Fantastic Story of Superman's Sons" [imaginary story]
"The Team of Luthor and Brainiac" [1st Luthor/Brainiac team-up in which Brainiac is revealed to be a computer]
"The Superman Super-Spectacular" [Tour-de-Force with guest stars galore, including JFK!]

Volume 11 - Action 310-316, Superman 168-171 (206 pages of content)
Highlights:
1st appearance of Jewel K in "The Secret of Kryptonite Six"
2nd Lexor story "Luthor, Super-Hero"
2-part Red K story "Superman, King of Earth" [pits good Clark vs. evil Superman]
"If Lex Luthor Were Superman's Father" [imaginary story]
"The Day Superman Became the Flash", including an appearance by the JLA

Volume 12 - Action 317-322, Superman 172-176 (209 pages of content)
Highlights:
Red K gives Superman a "Rainbow Face"
"Tales of Green K" begin [stories told from the viewpoint of a piece of kryptonite!]
2-part "Death of Luthor", in which Superman is put on trial for his murder on Lexor
Superman battles Atlas, Hercules, and Samson in "The 3 Super-Enemies"
Luthor is "Clark Kent's Brother" in an imaginary story
"Superman's Day of Truth"

posted March 08, 2003 10:07 PM    

But you're talking about $1700 worth of Archives in my country.

I am so totally in favour of black and white, cheap newsprint editions of all of this wonderful material. Otherwise, I'll never get to see any of it.