DC Finest - Superman Family

[Jeff of Earth-J]

I haven't been looking forward to this collection quite as much as the upcoming Superboy one, but still I'll likely get around to reading it sooner rather than later, hence the stub. (If anyone else wants to delve into it ahead of me, please feel free to do so.) This one includes Action Comics #266 & #277-278, Adventure Comics #287, Superman #142-143 & #147, Superboy #87, #90 & #92, Lois Lane #19-28 and Jimmy Olsen #47-56. I don't know why these issue in particular, but at least their choice demonstrates that someone has put some thought into it.

I used to like those b&w DC Showcase and Marvel Essential collections... at least I liked the idea of them. Although I would have preferred color, I bought the ones I didn't have and didn't expect to see reprinted in color any time soon, including the DC Showcase edition  of Superman Family. I am pleased to report there there is very little duplication between the  DCF volume and the four Showcase editions:

• Vol. 1 - Jimmy Olsen #1-22 and Showcase #9
• Vol. 2 - Jimmy Olsen #23-34, Showcase #10 and Lois Lane #1-7
• Vol. 3 - Jimmy Olsen #35- 44 and Lois Lane #8-16
• Vol. 4 - Jimmy Olsen #45-53 and Lois Lane #17-26

That's only 15 issues of duplication, and only with Showcase volume four.

(All covers illustrated by Curt Swan and Stan Kaye unless otherwise noted.)

[JD DeLuzio]

[Jeff of Earth-J]

I was surprised (and pleased) to see Sebastian Cabot as "Pip" in "A Nice Place to Visit" (Twilight Zone, S1 E28), one of the few episodes I had not seen before but saw for the first time only recently.

[Philip Portelli]

There are episodes of Checkmate! on YouTube. I just saw the first episode, guest-starring Anne Baxter.

I admit that I never heard of this series. I knew about Family Affair but I seldom watched it in syndication.

I enjoyed his Twight Zone episode and read that it was a very big deal for him to dye his hair and especially his beard white as he had to shave it off afterwards!

[Don Mankowski]

"I enjoyed his Twight Zone episode and read that it was a very big deal for him to dye his hair and especially his beard white as he had to shave it off afterwards!"

I remember that white (blond?) beard that he wore.

A sacrifice for Cabot to look angelic rather than satanic, so as not to blow the twist.

[Captain Comics]

I forgot to mention something about the Super-Perry story.

To the best of my recollection, it was Mort Weisinger comics that taught me to reflexively read all strange names backwards, in case they mean anything. In the Super-Perry syory, one of the plant men is named Y'trom -- "Morty" backwards. I can never know for sure, but I want to believe it's a reference to Weisinger himself.

[Don Mankowski]

I used to use "Perry White Gets Super-Powers" as a snide fake-title when discussing the DC/Superman editors digging deep for a new plot.  Let's see, Jimmy and Lois have become super approximately five, six times already.  Hey, what about what's'is name ... Perry!

I'd usually identify that as a typical DC title, stating that Stan Lee would have used something like "And Men Shall Not Call Him 'Chief.'"

 

[Jeff of Earth-J]

...it was Mort Weisinger comics that taught me to reflexively read all strange names backwards

It was Chester Gould for me. "Junky Doolb" was an early Dick Trracy villain, and Edward Nuremoh," a baseball player, an early rival for Tess Trueheart's affections.

 

[JD DeLuzio]

Tracy also took on a dwarf criminal named "Jeremy Trohs."

It's all so very klptzyxm.

[Jeff of Earth-J]

SUPERMAN'S GIRLFRIEND, LOIS LANE #27:

• "Lois Lane's Super-Brain!" - by Robert Bernstein and Kurt Schaffenberger (cover story) - Professor Holt of "an electronics laboratory" has invented a machine which"absorbs electrical brain wave impulses from the minds of brilliant people and stores them up!" It is the professor's theory that "if I reversed the switch, the contents of the bank would flow by electrical impulse into one person's head!" When the professor steps out of the room, Lois asks Lucy (who has accompanied her due to writer's fiat) to snap a picture of her strapped to the device. "Gosh, Lois! M-maybe you shouldn't..." warns Lucy, to which Lois replies, "Don't be silly, Lucy! What can go wrong?" (I think you can figure out the rest.)
• "The Battle of the Sisters!" - by Jerry Siegel and Curt Swan - This story is built around a single premise: "What if Superman and Lucy Lane fell in love?" Well, Lois would be upset, Jimmy would be uspet, and Lana would be upset. They even have lunch together to discuss what thet're going to do about it. Lucy denies that she is in love with Supeman (or vice versa), but her behavior and other events seem to indicate otherwise. I must admit I missed a couple of clues as to what was really going on (the loud rock 'n' roll music, the turning of the picture on the nightstand), but it turns out the [SPOILER] "Superman" is really Bor-Jak (whose name sounds like a laundry detergent) from the Bottle City of Kandor. The biggest clue (which I also missed) is that his cape was torn throughout the story. [END SPOILER] I don't know which airline Lucy works for, but I suspect their planes are manufactured by Boeing.
• "The Last Days of Lois Lane!" - by Robert Bernstein and Kurt Schaffenberger - Clark Kent and Lois Lane witness a nuclear detonation by the "Atoms for Peacetime Project." (I know, I know...) After the test, both reporters are required to undergo a routine check-up for possible radiation contamination. In the lab, Lois asks if she can feed some candy to the doctor's Guinea pigs. This scene is so out of left field that it must be the crux to the story. (I'm getting better at this.) Several days later Lois begins undertaking a series of increasingly dangerous assignments. It's almost as if she has a death wish. Soon it is revealed that she stopped by the doctor's office when he had stepped away for a moment, read her own file and discovered that she was dying of radiation poisoning and had only a week to live. More unlikely events happen until Superman discovers that "Lois Lane" was the name of one of the Guinea pigs! (Others included "Superman," "Jack Paar," "Bob Hope" and "Jerry Lewis." What's odd is that all of these cages are clearly labeled, and she would have been looking right at them when she tried to feed them candy. 

[Commander Benson]

STOP THE PRESSES!

I have important news about "Baby Jimmy Olsen", from Jimmy Olsen # 54 (Jul., 1961)!

In response to this exchange between Jeff and Cap:

"It's happened before! A few years ago, Superman went into the past through a time warp which effected an amazing switch in time! Superman wound up in the past in Smallville while Super-Baby entered the present in Metropolis!"

Is this an actual story that we’ve seen before? It doesn’t sound familiar.

It has the ring of truth to me, but I don't know. Perhaps Commander Benson can tell us if he's reading this.

 . . . I responded that I could not recall and did not know of such a story.

I was wrong.

There was such a story---but it wasn't me who uncovered it.  I want to give credit to whom credit is due, in a coïncidence that couldn't have been better timed.

My other regular comics writing occurs on the site "DC Archives Message Board".  A fellow who signs himself Osgood Peabody posts a monthly thread called the DC Time Capsule (month) (year).  The point of the thread is for posters to review DC comics that came out fifty years ago from the current month and year.  In 2011, Osgood sought me out on the strength of my Deck Log here and invited me to participate.  I did so, and wound up reviewing every issue of Justice League of America from # 7 (Nov., 1961) to the issue in which Denny O'Neil ridiculously showed Snapper Carr betraying the JLA---# 77 (Dec., 1969).  That took me 'way past my Silver-Age cut-off, but I continued to contribute through certain arcs of stories, such as the New Teen Titans, when they went civilian for awhile, and the Sand-Superman sequence, after Julius Schwartz took over editorship of Superman.  Currently, I am reviewing the "twelve labours of Wonder Woman" stories to qualify her for reädmittance to the League.

One of the regular posters and commenters to those Time Capsule threads is a fellow called DennisDaLazarus, who often makes keen observations on DC's Silver-Age history.  Now, you can see where this is going . . . 

On occasion, Osgood runs a special Time Capsule that goes farther back than fifty years.  This month, he posted a DC Time Capsule for  May, 1958, and Dennis reviewed Lois Lane # 3 (Aug., 1958).  I've never read that one---Lois Lane mostly escaped my notice, particularly in the early years.  One of the stories in that issue is "Lois Lane and the Babe of Steel".

That is the story to which "Baby Jimmy Olsen" referred!  The plot of "Lois Lane and the Babe of Steel" shows has Superman taking a trip into the past, to the time just after his arrival on Earth, when he lived at the Smallville Orphanage briefly before the Kents returned and adopted him.  Mort Weisinger had not yet set in stone his Time-Travel Rule № 2, that whenever Superman travelled within his own lifetime, he became an invisible, intangible phantom.  So, in this tale, when the Man of Steel visits the time of his toddlerhood, little Kal-El is thrust into the (then-) present of 1958.  Lois Lane realises what's happened and takes Superbaby into her custody.  Hi-jinx ensue.  When Superman returns to 1958, his younger self automatically bounces back to his own time.

It is such a fortunate circumstance that Dennis reviewed that story---in fact, he posted it to-day.  I'd never seen it or heard of it.  So he gets all the well-deserved credit for answering your questions.