So, when Superman visited Kandor, he lost his powers immediately, correct? If that's the case, how'd he get down to the city and how did he get back to the top when he left? Also, how was the cork opened from inside?
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Group effort...they all had jet packs and pushed together, as I recall. (I'm not joking.)
Oops . . . there goes my Silver-Age emergency signal. Right in the middle of dinner, too. Oh, drat!
Fortunately, these are easy ones to address, Randy.
For most of the Silver Age, Superman or Supergirl or Jimmy Olsen or whomever wished to enter Kandor first exposed himself to the shrinking-ray device which Superman had patterned after that of the space-pirate Brainiac. In order to descend to the city proper, the visitor used a parachute. This was seen often in Kandor-oriented tales in the Superman family of magazines. Perhaps it was most notably viewed in Superman # 158 (Jan., 1963), when Superman and Jimmy entered Kandor to investigate a Krypton-related mystery on Earth; and in World's Finest Comics # 146 (Aug., 1964), when Superman, Jimmy, and Batman and Robin dropped down for a visit.
As to the matter of the cork in the bottle, several stories made it clear that the cork was wedged solidly in the neck. In both of the stories I cited in the paragraph above, Superman urges those going with him to hurry up and lift the cork before the effects of the shrinking ray made them too small to be able to lift it. (I'm also guessing, from the Man of Steel's urgency about the matter that, once the cork was lifted, the influence of the Krypton-like environment of the bottle was sufficient to impair his super-powers.)
The cork had to be replaced, upon entry; otherwise, the atmosphere inside the bottle would escape. Presumably, this was done by simply dropping the cork back in place, once Superman and whomever else was inside. But, of course, as you pointed out, Randy, the cork created certain difficulties in getting out of the bottle, too. For one thing, it was beyond the strength of a single Kandorian-sized person to lift alone, and most likely, too much for two miniature people, as well.
We gather this from "The Mystery of the Tiny Supermen", from Jimmy Olsen # 48 (Oct., 1960). Events of this tale depict the Superman Emergency Squad leaving Kandor to come to the aid of the ol' Jimster on Earth. The panels of the Squad leaving the bottle show that it took approximately ten of them, shoving together, to raise the cork.
In theory, if Superman or Supergirl or someone else was visiting Kandor alone, then when it was time to leave, a bunch of strong-backed Kandorians went up to the bottle's neck with him to help lift the cork. While I'm at this point, I'll mention that the trip back up to the cork was made either in a Kandorian airship or by means of small belt jets, such as those worn by Superman and Jimmy in their identities of Nightwing and Flamebird.
But, by and large, the stories played it rather fast and loose with just how Superman (or whomever) left the bottle. They usually skipped that part and shifted to the next panel, showing him back in the Fortress, perhaps with a caption stating something to the effect of "After leaving the bottled city . . . ."
Finally, though, somebody got smart. Probably Otto Binder, who wrote "The Menace of Gold Kryptonite", which appeared in Superman # 179 (Aug., 1965). This story established that a modification had been made to the bottled-city's cork. A tiny hatch had been installed in the cork, permitting persons to enter and leave Kandor without having to remove the cork itself.
You got all that? Great! Too bad it was all undone toward the end of the Silver Age.
"Slave of the Super-Serum", from Lois Lane # 85 (Aug., 1968), unveiled a new device of Superman's invention---the micro-wave tunnel. The micro-wave tunnel was a multi-tasker, in that it miniaturised Earth-sized folks for entry into the bottle and then teleported them into the city proper. When it came time to leave, a remote-control device caused the micro-wave tunnel to transport the traveller out of the bottle, back into the Fortress, and then restore him to his normal size.
From this story on, the micro-wave tunnel was routinely seen as the method by which someone on Earth entered or departed Kandor. Gone were the parachutes, the jet belts, the cork-hatch, and all the other contrivances.
Hope this helps. Now, back to my lasagna before it gets cold.
Was it ever established 'zactly why Superman couldn't return the bottle city citizens to normal height? Couldn't the Atom assist in some way?
I feel very vinicated that my "shoot from the hip" answer has been proven correct.
Thank you , Mr. S.A. (I'll expect that reward in the mail shortly, once the micro-wave boomtube is perfected for human use.)
I'm not sure what the problem was, but he worked on it for years. Eventually, in the early 80s, he finally solved the problem in Superman 338. Here are some details on the storyline.
Dandy Forsdyke said:
Though it wasn't mentioned that often in the series, the notion was that restoring Kandor to its original size was keyed to Brainiac's particular shrinking-ray device. It required a reversal of that specific shrinking ray to return Kandor to normal; the city and its victims were resistant to any other form of enlargement. The technology used in Brainiac's shrinking ray device was outside of Superman's knowledge base.
That's why so many tales involving Brainiac either had him escape at the end or showed the Man of Steel being denied entry to the space pirate's ship by its force field. To capture Brainiac and his ship would invite the question of why Superman didn't subsequently use the villain's ray to reverse Kandor's miniaturisation.
Now, Superman did enjoy a partial success in developing his own successful shrinking ray. This was the device he used to miniaturise himself and other normal-sized people so they could enter Kandor. However, many of the Silver-Age tales stressed the point that there was only a small amount of the vital element which allowed Superman's shrinking ray to return folks to their normal size. There wasn't enough of that vital element to restore the inhabitants of Kandor---who numbered in the hundreds of thousands, if not the millions---or the city structures.
As for getting help from the Atom, it took awhile, but the Metropolis Marvel finally thought of doing just that, in "Junkman---the Recycled Superstar", from Action Comics # 455 (Jan., 1976). At the start of the tale, the Tiny Titan arrived in Kandor, his sleeves rolled up and ready to get to work. Unfortunately, he didn't get very far into his experiments when the plot's menace got in the way. However, after all the dust settled, the plot line of the Atom helping the Kandorians ended right there, with no conclusive results or explanation for why the Atom didn't go on with his efforts.
Perhaps the script by Elliot Maggin was meant to leave it that way. After all, according to the Atom's own established continuity, anything he miniaturised using his white-dwarf-star technique---except for the Tiny Titan himself---exploded into thousands of tiny pieces-parts when he attempted to re-enlarge it. Ray Palmer's failure to overcome that side-effect was a long-running trope of the Atom's series.
So the folks in Kandor were probably better off that Palmer dropped the idea of giving them a hand.
Not too long after the Junkman story Superman succeeded in enlarging Kandor, in Superman #338 (1979). Subsequently (spoiler warning for this story) the Kandorians lived on a planet that moved in and out of our dimension, and were only seen a couple more times (in the Krypton Chronicles mini and Superman #414, a Crisis tie-in depicting after-effects of the death of Supergirl). A second bottle city inhabited by non-Kryptonians was introduced in Superman #371 (1982). I think the race moved into a replica of the original Kandor, but I'm not certain.
The Superman #338 story owed a debt to a book-length story from Superman #158 (on sale 1962) in which Kandor was temporarily enlarged and the Kandorians turned against Superman. This was the first story in which Superman and Jimmy became Nightwing and Flamebird, the Batman and Robin of Kandor.
In the Silver Age an exchange ray was sometimes used to swap a Kandorian with someone outside the bottle. My recollection is the Superman and Supergirl Emergency Squads used a rare element that they inhaled to enlarge themselves, but due to its scarcity they could only enlarge themselves to action-figure size. I think in the first Lookalike Squad story (the cover story in Jimmy Olsen #83 - a nice cover) the members of the squad, which consisted of Kandorians who were doubles of Superman's friends, used an exchange ray, but the Commander might correct me. I have no idea how Sylvia and Ti-Arra enlarged themselves in Lois Lane #78; they can't have swapped with their counterparts, Lois and Lana, as they were in the bottle at the time.
Incidentally, in some Silver Age stories being under a red sun only caused Superman to lose his powers other than his super-strength, as the last was a result of Krypton's super-gravity. This was the case, for example, in the first Lexor story; Lexor was depicted as a super-gravity planet as well as a red sun world, and Luthor had to wear special shoes to counteract its gravity. Kandor was likewise sometimes depicted as having super-gravity as well as an artificial red sun, with the result that Earthlings visiting it, such as Jimmy, had to wear special shoes. In other stories the point was ignored, and in later Silver Age and post-Silver Age stories red sun radiation usually took away all Superman's powers. (Action Comics #545 [1983] was an exception, but in its period the notion that Superman didn't lose his strength due to red sun radiation was revisionist.) In Superman Family #190 (1978) Lois had to wear gravity boots while in Kandor and was in danger of being killed by Kandor's gravity when they were wrecked. So one might ask why, if red sun radiation could take away all Kryptonian powers, Kandor's gravity didn't kill Superman and the Kandorians.
I want to mention that the second Nightwing and Flamebird story appeared in Jimmy Olsen #69 (1963), and was by the same creative team as had handled Superman #158, Edmond Hamilton and Curt Swan.
...Rather moving away from/finding it harder to get comics at that time , I recall getting and REALLY liking that #338 story ! :-)
Luke Blanchard said:
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