This painting by pulp artist H.J. Ward, best known for his Spicy Detective covers, hung for years in the DC offices.
FREQUENTLY RECURRING CHARACTERS / VILLAINS:
LUTHOR:
- Action Comics #23, 42, 43, 125, 131,146
- Superman #4, 5, 10, 12, 13, 17, 18, 20 (cameo), 31, 34, 38, 48, 57
- World's Finest #28
MR. MXYZPTLK:
- Action Comics #80, 102,112
- Superman #30, 33, 36, 40, 46, 51, 59, 62
THE PRANKSTER:
- Action Comics #51, 57, 69, 77, 95, 104, 109
- Superman #22, 37, 41, 50, 52, 55, 56, 61, 64
TOYMAN:
- Action Comics #85
- Superman #27, 32, 44, 47, 49, 60, 63
- World's Finest #20
WILBUR WOLFINGHAM:
- Action Comics #79, #104 (behind-the-scenes), 107, 116
- Superman #28, 35, 39, 42
- World's Finest #16, 43
HOCUS & POCUS:
- Action Comics #83, 88, 97
- Superman #45
SUSIE:
- Action Comics #59, 68, 110
- Superman #40, 47
ULTRA-HUMANITE: Action Comics #13, 14, 17, 19, 20, 21
TELEPHONE BOOTH MOTIF:
- "Mechanical Monsters" - Max Fleischer cartoon, 1941 (Also, "Bulleteers," 1942)
- Sunday page #165 - first comic strip instance, late 1942
- On radio - ?
- Action Comics #99 - first comic book instance, Aug 1946
- Action Comics #119 - second comic book instance, Apr 1948
- Superman #60 - third comic book instance, Sep 1949
- Superman #69 - fourth comic book instance
Replies
[Superman] came this close to using a robot duplicate of himself for the first time today, but it was actually a dummy which he manipulated so quickly that he himself was rendered invisible.
I didn't realise the question of when Superman began to use robots was on the table. I addressed this once, on another forum. The tale "Superman's Lost Parents", from Action Comics # 247 (Dec., 1958), seems to be the first appearance of the Superman robots, as we generally accept them.
Here was my research on the matter---and my apologies for any previous ground I retread.
Superman stories in Action Comics #70 (Mar., 1944) and World's Finest Comics # 42 (Sep.-Oct., 1949) show the Man of Steel utilising ornately constructed dummies, voiced by his super-ventriloquism, to represent himself.
In "Mrs. Superman", from Superman # 76 (May-Jun., 1952), Our Hero creates a Clark Kent robot in order for Superman and Kent to go on a double date with Lois Lane and her roommate, Lorraine Jennings. However, the Kent robot lacks artificial intelligence. It is controlled by a concealed remote device carried by Superman and voiced by super-ventriloquism.
We get a little closer to the mark in "The Missile of Steel", from Jimmy Olsen # 9 (Dec., 1955). When Superman is called away on an emergency mission in outer space, he constucts a Superman robot to patrol Metropolis in his absence. Again, the robot has no AI; the Man of Steel provides Jimmy Olsen with a control console and monitor, so the Jimster can direct the robot's actions. Hi-jinx ensue.
A console-directed Superman robot appears once again (actually, there's no reason it couldn't the same one from the Jimmy Olsen story) in "The Defeat of Superman", from Superman # 110 (Jan., 1957). This time, the Man of Steel himself pushes the buttons.
Ditto for the robot appearing in "The Death of Superman", from Action Comics # 225 (Feb.,1957)---except that the remote control of the robot is implied and not directly seen.
"Secret of the Superman Sphinx", from Action Comics # 240 (May, 1958) brings us new and improved versions of the Superman and Clark Kent robots. Still no AI, but they're controlled by "impulses" from the Metropolis Marvel's X-ray eyes and they now speak through their own voice boxes.
That brings us to Action Comics # 247 and "Superman's Lost Parents". Though the Superman robots depicted are not shown to be able to operate independently with artificial intelligence, the Man of Steel implied that they can.
The first instance that I've been able to find of a Superman robot definitively acting under artificial intelligence occurs in "The Secret of Tigerman", from World's Finest Comics # 119 (Aug., 1961). Not too long thereafter, in "Superman's Toughest Day", from Action Comics # 282 (Nov., 1961), a Clark Kent robot most certainly demonstrates electronic thought, as it encounters problems fooling Lois Lane.
Hope this helps.
Superman stories in Action Comics #70 (Mar., 1944)...
I feel less stupid about this one. Action Comics #70 was reprinted in Action Comics Archives v5. Concerning #70, on April 28 of this year I posted: "In #70, he uses ventriloqism for the first (?) time." I didn't equate his "ornately constructed dummies" with robots because they were just that. But in World's Finest #42, the dummies were specifically constructed to mimic robots.
Thanks for setting the record straight, Commander, in both instances.
ACTION COMICS #137 - "The Man with the Charmed Life!"
Percival Winters, the chief witness in a criminal trial, becomes convinced that he is protected from all harm by the "ring of Thoth," which leads him to take unnecessary chances. It's a hoax, of course, set in motion by racketeer Flint Martin to keep him from testifying. Martin dare not kill the chief witness against him himself, so he set up the gag in hope Winters would become so foolhardy that he would kill himself. At one point in the story, Lois slips on the ring and Martin's men fire blanks at her (which explains the cover). The story ends with the ring again in Lois's posession, and Lois still convinced that it protects her from harm. D'oh!
SUPERMAN #60:
ACTION COMICS #138 - "Superman Scoop-Parade!"
Superman helps Herbert Binkle, a tyro reporter, get scoops. Lois does something selfless, although doing so causes her to lose a bet which lands her on the "Miss Lonely Heart" column for a month.
WORLD'S FINEST #43 - "When Metropolis Went Mad !"
10th appearance of Wilbur Wolfingham.
ACTION COMICS #139 - "Clark Kent... Daredevil!" -
Daily Planet published J. Wimmer (or "J.W.") asserts that the staff is too soft and insists that one of them be fired. Among the candidates are clark Kent, Lois Lane, Sam Refferty, Mike Boyle and Jerry Allston (and no, we've never seen any of them before). when Perry white lets slip that Clark Kent is timid, Wimmer insists that he be given two weeks' notice, but Clark's super-hearing clues him in. The next day is Lois' birthday, and Clark arrives with a bouquet of roses for her. Raffery trips him and gives the roses to Lois himself. Lois has witnessed the entire scene play out, however, and is not impressed. Then, surprisingly, Clark Kent gets up and socks Rafferty on the jaw!
At lunch that day, Clark apprehends escaped murderer Lew Banion who is dining in the same restaurant in disguise. He gets shot in the process, but Lois cannot find any bullet hole in his suit and assumes Banion missed. (Clark ate the bullets, but I don't know why his suit didn't have bullet holes in it.) Back at the Planet, Clark grabs White by the lapels, demands a raise, and gets one. In the days to come, Clark performs one daring exploit after another, but his plan to keep his job backfires when Lois begins to suspect (or I should say "resumes suspecting") that Clark and Superman are one-and-the-same. A wax figure of Clark Kent is even added to the Metropolis Waxworks' "Hall of Fame."
Finally, Lois confronts him with the scoop she plans to run in the next day's paper, that Clark Kent is Superman. Meanwhile, Wimmer has decided that Kent should not be fired, but that Perry White should, and Kent promoted to editor. Clark then goes to the xax museum, asks that his figure be removed, and the museum owner sells it to him at cost. For the time being, the real Clark slips the dummy Clark into a closet at the Planet until he can dispose of it, but Lois finds it. Later, Superman comes flying in the window carrying an unconscious Clark with the explanation that he fainted at the sight of an oncoming bus. Superman leaves and Lois claims that Clark is a dummy, but suddenly Clark wakes up!
Clark admits that he performed all of those extraordinary feats with the help of superman, and begs to keep his job. Wimmer allows it, and reinstates White as editor. Later it is revealed that the "Superman" which carried Clark into the Planet office was actually a gas balloon, manipulated by Superman and made to tal via ventriloquism. Rafferty goes back to tormenting Clark, but Lois prefers Clark the way he is.
Trivia: The publisher of the Daily Planet is J. Wimmer.
SUPERMAN #61:
"The Origin of Superman," perhaps the single most important "Superman" story since Action Comics #1, appeared in Superman #53. I was curious to see if maybe the tone of Superman stories would change after that, but not really, no. My first clue should have been that "Superman Returns to Krypton!" immediately follows "The Origin of Superman" in the Superman in the Forties tpb. Personally, I'm getting a bit tired of the gag covers of this era, and this one is a prime example. While not a "gag" per se, if I had been editor I would have put "Superman Returns to Krypton!" on the cover.
In the story, Superman apparently succumbs to a "hex" put on him by the phony fortume teller "Swami Riva" (a.k.a. Dan Rivers). Superman's investigation leads him from the police, to Rivers' former partner, to the jewelry shop where he bought the fake "jewel" he wears in his turban, to the "rock prospector" who supplied it. The prospector tells Superman that he suspects the stones (there were tow of them) are meteorites, so Superman travels backward in time and space under his own powers by "rac[ing] at cosmic velocity, passing the speed of light years in instants."
His method of time travel raises the question (again) as to whether of not he is actually traveling through real space. The text says he is, but I suspect he's actually traveling through hyperspace, because when he "arrives" on Krypton, "Superman is invisible to these people because he is not of their time and doesn't exist for them. he can only view them as he wold a silent movie, but he can read lips." YMMV. "So at last, after all these years, Superman is at last aware of his birthplace, and why he is the strongest man on Earth!"
When Superman next confronts "swami Riva," he blows the turban off his head into the river. He later disposes of the second piece of Kryptonite (the one owned by the jeweler, described as "the one remaining particle of Kryptonite on Earth!") in a similar manner. The story ends with Superman musing, "Somewhere out in trackless space, there must be more particles of Kryptonite! I hope none falls to Earth again! Perhaps it may never happen... but perhaps it may..."
The lore is still very much being worked out at this point. For one thing, the Kryptonite is red. Also, at one point in the story, Krptonians themseves are referred to as "Kryptonites." It will be interesting to discover just how frequently Kryptonite is used going forward.
We won't have to wait quite as long for the next "important" Superman story.
"Swami Riva" is a pun on "Swanee River", of course. Superman was a bimonthly at this point, so #61's retelling of the origin appeared over a year after #53's.
ACTION COMICS #140 - " Superman Becomes a Hermit!"
The story begins with Superman missing three sceduled appointments. He is soon spotted sitting atop a secluded mountain. People start arriving in hordes to find out what the story is, but Superman builds a fence and dome to keep them out. Later, Lois Lane jumps from a plane to get his attention. He tells her a a meteor which fell from space from which grew a vine he calls "the creeping death." Try as he might, he cannot get rid of it. (NOTE: He tried throwing it into space, but it came right back; he did not try flying it into space.) Eventually he hits upon the idea to build a device which amplifies his x-ray vision, and that works. Trivia: In Superman #61 we learned that Lois Lane has a weekly broadcast on WCOD radio; in this issue, Superman has a radio show on WMET.
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