Superman is widely considered to have entered the Silver Age with Action Comics #241 (June 1958) and Superman #122 (July 1958). Unlike the Flash and Green Lantern (for example), Superman was published continuously from the Golden Age into the Silver Age. Whereas it's easy to differentiate the Golden Age Flash and Green Lantern from their Silver Age counterparts, what is it that sets Action comics #241 apart from #240 and Superman #122 from #121? What happened in 1958 which led to such a change? You probably know already, but I'm going to tell you anyway: the cancellation of the Adventures of Superman television show.
According to Mark Waid: "[Mort] Weisinger inherited the editorial mantle of the Superman books in the 1950s. At first, his goal was simply to ensure that the Man of steel's comic-book adventures were tonally consistent with the successful Adventures of Superman TV series. Once production on Adventures came to an end, however, Weisinger was given a little more latitude to make Superman's tales more fantastic and to play up the kind of science-fiction story elements and mythology that the budgetarily challenged TV series could never have pulled off. During the coming decade, Weisinger and his writers would examine and exploit Superman's world and his Kryptonian heritage in a hundred different exciting ways. They'd surround him with dozens of new props and toys, each rife with story possibilities. But, like all of us, before he started accumulating possessions, Superman would first need a place to... well... put his stuff."
All of which leads to "The Super-Key to Fort Superman" in...
ACTION COMICS #241:
The first thing you'll probably notice is that the key itself doesn't look anything at all like the one in the story, which was used for decades thereafter. Waid explains that, "while the interior stories were drawn by a variety of artists, the covers for all Weisinger's books were then and for many years drawn by a legend in the making named Curt Swan. Weisinger knew that Swan, who would eventually become the most prolific and familiar comic-book artist of all time, could always be counted on to see the well-deserving wonder and spectacle of Superman's world to any child eager to invest ten cents in exploration."
"THE SUPER-KEY TO FORT SUPERMAN"
I encountered this story for the first time in 1987 within the pages of The Greatest Superman Stories Ever Told hardcover collection. the concept of a "Fortress of Solitude" was originally borrowed from Doc Savage, although I think it's safe to say that most people today associate it with Superman. It's the kind of story that can surprise you only the first time you read it, but it certainly introduces a classic element of Superman lore.
I don't have a particular goal in mind for this discussion (such as trying to justify the expense of an omnibus edition by reading it) and I don't know how much I'll have to say about these stories. Nor am I in any particular hurry to get through them, but I plan to maintain a modest pace of one comic each day, perhaps more if the mood strikes.
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ACTION COMICS #269:
For years, despite her great efforts, inquisitive reporter Lois Lane has been unable to discover the secret of Superman's real identity. Then, one day, she has proOf positive that Superman and Clark Kent are one and the same! And the Man of Steel faces the toughest problem of his career when his most precious secret is revealed to Lois by... THE TRUTH MIRROR!
On the splash page, Lois recoils from her reflection in a full-length mittor as Superman smirks, "What's the matter, Lois? Don't you like what you see when you look at yourself in the Truth Mirror?" Already I am intrigued. As the story opens, Superman prevents a truck carrying TNT through Metropolis from crashing into a train when its brakes fail. (Obviously the truck is following the same safety protocol for transporting hazardous materials as the truck carrying radioactive isotopes which blinded young Matt Murdock.) Holding the truck aloft with one hand and fixing the brakes with the other, Superman admonished the driver, "In the future, better make sure your brakes are always in tip-top shape!"
This has nothing to do with the main story other than that the train's mail car is carrying a crate from Lois Lane's Uncle Ned, from England. "He's a famous authority on the legends of King Arthur's court!" she expostulates when the package is delivered. Inside the crate is a mirror which apparently once belonged to Merlin the magician. Before too long, a man introducing himself as Fred Caldwell of Bright Hope Charities pays a visit and asks Lois to handle publicity for his fund-raising. But the mirror reflects and "evil, scar-faced convict." I don't know what's particularly evil about a scar, but she puts him off and does her due dilligence, discovering he's actually "Flash" Dugan, a swindler (who had his scar removed through plastic surgery). Lois tells Clark and "Clark tells Superman," who finds Dugan hiding in a safe in his office.
Lois's next visitor is Hazel, a friend of hers who has just won a beauty contest. When Hazel stands in front of the mirror, it reflects that she is completely bald. "Just then, a sudden gust of wind blows in through an open window" and blows the wig from her head. Hazel admits that her hair fell out after she "visited the tropics and became ill with a jungle sickness." Lois promises to keep her secret.
"That evening, Lois gives a party for a few friends, which Clark cannot attend because writer's fiat an assignment out-of-town." The mirror (which apparently no one else looks at) reveals that Perry White has a "heart of gold" and Jimmy Olsen a "swelled head." The next day, a little boy knocks on Lois's door asking for a drink of water, but the mirror reveals him to be an "evil-faced midget."
"Get out, you midget burglar," declares Lois, "before I call the police!" but the midget whips out a gun, ties her up and begins to loot the place. While he is out of the room, Lois knocks the telephone receiver off the hook and dials Clark Kent (now conveniently returned from his "out-of-town assignment") by means of a pencil held between her teeth. The midget finds her using the phone and shoots, "but as leaden death streaks at Lois" Superman arrives and turns the midget over to the police.
Then Lois starts thinking: "If I can get Superman in front of that mirror, it will reveal his secret other-identity!" Now we're getting somewhere! Maneuvering Superman in front of the magic mirror, it does indeed reveal him to be Clark Kent. D-oh! Lois plays it cool: "Ha, ha! It certainly was silly of me to keep suspecting throughout the years that Clark Kent was really you, wasn't it?" which is perfectly normal thing to say. (Shut up! It is!) "Ha, ha... well, I guess we all make mistakes, don't we Lois?" says Superman, but he's really thinking, "If she only knew!"
The conversation continues: "Wouldn't it... ha, ha... be embarrassing for you if my Uncle Ned sent me Merlin's magic mirror which reveals the true nature of anyone standing before it?" Uh, oh. Superman suddenly realizes that that is exactly what has happened! Just then, as Superman frets, the radio reports a news bulletin: "Calling Superman! An anonymous tip has revealed a bomb is hidden aboard a chartered airliner flying passengers to a practical jokers' convention! The plane may explode before it lands! The bomb must have been planted by some irresponsible crank!"
The words "practical jokers' convention" set off all kinds of bells and whistles in my mind, but Superman can't afford to take the chance. He intercepts the plane and finds that there is a bomb, hidden inside a pocket watch carried by one of the practical jokers. "Hey! Give it back!" the man protests. "I found it on my desk earlier today! It's valuable!" Superman lets the bomb explode harmlessly in his mouth to avoid a panic, then flies off to his Fortress of Solitude, where he constructs an ugly Lois Lane robot and a "scarecrow" robot version of himself. Then the trio fly to Lois's apartment, where, at super speed, Superman replaces the magic mirror with a sheet of transparent glass. After that, he "engraves a message on the back of the mirror-frame with his fingernail, then blows on the script with his super-breath." The "force of his super-breath," you see, "will create an artificail aging effect, so the writing will appear centuries old."
Soon, when Lois and Superman step in front of the "mirror," the two robots streak behind it at super-speed. When they see their false "reflections," Superman "discovers" a verse written on the reverse side: "This magic mirror tells what's true, but it may also lie to you." In a fit of pique, Lois kicks the "mirror," smashing it to pieces. Then Superman drops the real mirror into a fiery volcano and dismantles the robots. Not only are we to believe that Lois cannot tell the difference between a mirror and regular pane of glass, but also that the two robots were able to streak out from behind the mirror without being seen as Lois's attention was "drawn to the wrinting" on the frame.
Plus there's the matter of whoever planted the bomb on the plane, still on the loose.
And making Lois forget all about the true reflections and just concentrate on the one "false" one!
"Yes! It is!"
I lauighed through your entire post, Jeff. I was probably entertained by that idiotic story when I was 6 or so, but now I've been entertained better by a master.
This has nothing to do with the main story other than that the train’s mail car is carrying a crate from Lois Lane's Uncle Ned, from England. "He's a famous authority on the legends of King Arthur's court!" she expostulates, when the package is delivered. Inside the crate is a mirror which apparently once belonged to Merlin the magician.
Uncle Ned must have been blissfully unaware that (as of 2026) nobody has found any evidence that King Arthur, Merlin or Camelot ever existed.* “Oh, this mirror is extremely valuable and needs to be studied by professionals. I’ll just ship it in a crate to my dingbat niece.”
*My bad. Mort’s characters probably visited there last month.
"Calling Superman! An anonymous tip has revealed a bomb is hidden aboard a chartered airliner flying passengers to a practical jokers' convention! The plane may explode before it lands! The bomb must have been planted by some irresponsible crank!"
If the irresponsible crank/terrorist wanted to blow up the plane, he could have just waited for one of more of the practical jokers to accidentally do it for him.
Superman lets the bomb explode harmlessly in his mouth to avoid a panic….
The Code probably challenged this. “If little Johnny will jump off the roof thinking he can fly, might he not think putting a bomb in his mouth was not a big deal?”
….he constructs an ugly Lois Lane robot and a "scarecrow" robot version of himself. Then the trio fly to Lois's apartment, where, at super speed, Superman replaces the magic mirror with a sheet of transparent glass. After that, he "engraves a message on the back of the mirror-frame with his fingernail, then blows on the script with his super-breath." The "force of his super-breath," you see, "will create an artificial aging effect, so the writing will appear centuries old."
This has to be a story that started out to fit the already-drawn cover. A painful task for the writer.
I laughed through your entire post, Jeff.
That's gratifying to know because I thought I might've gone into too much detail. I'm embarrassed by the number of typos and grammatical errors I made, but I thuink I've corrected them all. Moving on...
SUPERMAN #141 - "Superman's Return to Krypton!"
In part one, while investigating a space organism beyond our solar system, Superman is accidentally thrown through the time barrier to the planet Krypton. After losing his powers, he gets a job as an extra on the set of an "emotion-movie" where he meets actress Lyla Lerrol. On a break from the movie, he bears witness to his parents, Jor-El and Lara, being married. ["Kyrptonian married couples... don marriage bracelets of a color variation all their own, which no other couple is allowed to duplicate."] Introducing himself as "Kal-El" ("El" being a common name on Krypton), he passes off his costume as a publicity stunt for the movie. [Obviously, this is before it was established that the "S" insignia is the symbol of the "House of El."] He takes a second job as Jor-El's assistant.
Lyla Lerrol happens to be a friend of the newlyweds, and in part two, she and Superman fall in love, despite his intentions not to. Superman discovers that his father is monitoring Jonathan Kent and Martha Hudson of Smallville on Earth (for some reason), and helps them get together from afar, even though they were fated do do so anyway. Superman then gets it into his head that perhaps the past can be changed, and sets out to help Jor-El build a giant space ark. Unfortunately, they build the ark in Kandor, which is stolen by Braniac before it is able to be launched.
Resigning himself to his fate, Superman returns to work on the emotion movie where, through a very unlikely series of events, the prop rocket becomes an actual rocket, and flies to Earth with him inside. With the rocket destroyed and his powers restored (he cannot return to Krypton under his own power lest he lose his powers under the planet's red sun and die before he can land), he returns to the present day.
I first read this story in 1999, reprinted in the Superman in the Sixties tpb.
I didn't go into too much detail this time because a facsimile edition of Superman #141 was released last week on the same day as the omnibus.
GIANT SUPERMAN ANNUAL #2:
The second Superman Annual reprints "The Invulnerable Enemy," "The Menace of Metallo," "Titano, the Super-Ape," "The Thing From 40,000 A.D.," "The Thing of Steel" (Bizarro origin), "The Runaway Super-Creature," "The Battle With Bizarro" and "The Super-Duel in Space" (Brainiac origin), although none of them are reprinted in the omnibus. New text features on "Superman's Super Vision" and a "Glossary of Kryptonian Names" as well as a full page illustration of "How the Super-Family Came to Earth from Krypton" are included.
ACTION COMICS #270:
"Superbaby... Superboy... Superman! These three stages of life for the Man of Steel are familiar to all of us. But have you wondered about his next phase... OLD AGE? What will be the fate of the World's Mightiest Man then? Even Superman wonders about that and gets a seeming glimpse into the future that will startle you, as well as him, in... THE OLD MAN OF METROPOLIS!"
As the story opens, Perry White sends Clark Kent on assignment to Medvale Orphanage to "write up the talents of gifted children" in an effort to get them adopted. He gives glowing reviews to every child there, except of course Linda Lee, his own cousin (because he's a well-known dick). She slips him an "eyes only" essay she has written titled "My Career as Superwoman" about the future life she envisions for hesrelf. At home later, Clark reads it. Then, weakened by an "off screen" exposure to Kryptonite earlier in the day, he settles in for a nap.
That's right... this story is not a hoax, not an imaginary tale, not a what if?... but it is a dream. I don't generally spend too much time thinking about "dream" stories (such as the fact that Supergirl has aged ten or 15 years whereas Superman had aged decades) because they just don't matter. It ends with Superman sending a bouquet of roses to Lois Lane because she ended up an "old maid" waiting for him in his dream. Maybe he's not such a dick after all.
Superbaby... Superboy... Superman!
Suppergeezer!
Since Superman is invulnerable, so are all of the cells in his body. Once he (and Supergirl) have reached physical maturity and stay under a yellow sun (and away from kryptonite), I can’t imagine them going downhill or, for that matter, dying.
I can see cell deterioration taking place even in someone invulnerable to outside attacks. Though the 21st century take seems to be that yes, they are eternal.
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