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.