Superman robots seemed to be common knowledge during the Silver Age, or at least enough people knew about them for their existence not to be a secret.
However, what about his other robots? I know he had a Clark Kent robot or two, and I'm guessing he had a handful of others as well. Who knew about those robots besides Superman himself?
Replies
There are at the very least three such robots.
Powerman from World's Finest #94 (1958) was very visible as a temporary replacement partner for Superman. Batman and Robin knew of its existence and robotic nature, and given how Batman did not see any particular need to hide that fact when he mistook the Earth-2 Atoman for Powerman, odds are that it became public knowledge shortly after.
Jimmy Olsen #60 (1962) introduces Super-Mite. a diminutive Superman robot that is subbed for by one of the members of the Superman Emergency Squad. Its existence may have been secrective, but I don't think it was.
In Superman #163 (1963) one of Superman's robots, Ajax, goes rogue for a while and take the new identity of Wonder-Man. He is eventually destroyed and buried, so we know that he, too, is publicly know (albeit only after his death).
Most of Superman's close associates knew of the existence of regular Superman robots, and I assume that soon enough so did everyone else. Jimmy Olsen controlled one in Jimmy Olsen #9 (1955), for instance.
Pictured on the cover is an example of a post-Crisis Superman robot.
Superman had a battalion of super-powered Robots going back to when he was Superboy. He also had robot doubles of all his friends and family. And if he didn't, he could easily build one.
Everyone knew that Superman used robots. Heck Lois and Lana could test for that in trying to uncover his secret identity.
Supergirl had a Linda Lee robot at her disposal too.
Their use faded over time as pollution caused them to become inoperative. Superman would donate some to an alien world to oversee war games in DC Comics Presents #25.
The world knew about Superboy's robots as well!
Since the original reason for the robots was so that Superman/boy and Clark could appear together, didn't public knowledge make them less useful?
Probably. But that cat would be out of the bag at some point.
Besides, adult Superman had a whole catalog of look-alikes available anyway. And the robots had other useful roles, such as taking Superman's place for brief periods when he had to be away without tipping off criminals.
Action Comics #309 is an interesting read here. In it Superman has to appear alongside Clark Kent for a public ceremony. Lana Lang and Lois Lane actually decide to use a gizmo from Professor Potter to detect a Superman robot in order to expose his secret identity if he goes that route.
But wait, there is more! Superman goes through several alternate ways of protecting his secret id, and they all turn out to be unavailable for some reason or another. Kandorians, Chameleon Boy, Batman. His eventual choice is unsettling for more than one reason, but somehow fits the tone Superman histories of the time.
A nice review is available at https://comicsarcheology.com/index.php/2021/03/08/action-comics-309/
It is kind of funny that silver age Superman had such an embarrassment of riches available. In Kandor alone he had two look alikes for no clear reason. As a mattter of fact, the "Look-Alike Squad of Kandor" was a thing, and so was the Superman Emergency Squad.
http://supermanica.superman.nu/index.php/Look-Alike_Squad
Richard Willis said:
If I recall correctly, Superman actually had three look alikes/"Identical Cousins" in Kandor: Don-El, the son of Jor-El's older brother Nim-El, Van-Zee (who I believe was descended from Jor-El's sister, whose name escapes me at the moment), and Van-Zee's rarely seen identical twin brother, Dik-Zee. I remain surprised that, given that Don-El was the head of Kandor's police force, and Van-Zee was Nightwing, no one ever did a story revolving around the fact that in Kandor, their version of Commissioner Gordon and Batman were sporting the same face.
There was also Kandorian resident Vol-Don, who débuted in "The Secret of Silver Kryptonite", from Jimmy Olsen # 70 (Jul., 1963) and appeared in seven more Silver-Age tales. Vol-Don was a member of the Kandorian "Look-Alike Squad" because he was an identical double for Clark Kent.
A dead ringer for Clark; ergo, a double of Superman.
Dik-Zee and Van-Zee were actually triplets, the third brother being the rarely-seen Dyke-Zee. Their wives were, respectively, Mary-Zee, Tyler-Zee and Moore-Zee.
Dik-Zee had some issues that he really needed therapy for!
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