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.
Replies
Working from memory, not any collection or reprint volume, I'm pretty sure I bought Action #241 off the spinner rack shortly before my 10th birthday. I know I didn't buy the next issue, which introduced Brainiac. I "met" Brainiac soon after that. The first issue of the Superman title that I'm sure I bought was #127, the introduction of Titano. Some of the other covers around that time are familiar, but I may have read them in annuals.
The idea that the stories changed when The Adventures of Superman was no longer on TV is new to me. I wasn't reading them before that. It makes a lot of sense. Maybe I had seen some of the TV series before I bought the comic.
I had heard that Weisinger became the main editor gradually, with Whitney Ellsworth having the final say for a while.
I had not heard nor guessed that either.
Strange to think that the implication is that George Reeves was playing Earth-One Earth-Two Superman the whole time.
Edited to correct the Earth reference; Captain was, of course, correct in pointing out that it was Earth-Two, not Earth-One.
DC's line was shaken-up coming into the 1960s in multiple ways. It dropped its licensed police/crime titles, Rex the Wonder Dog, and its Westerns. Features were introduced into the War comics, and "Mark Merlin" into House of Secrets. SF features were launched ("Challengers of the Unknown", "Adam Strange", "Space Ranger", "Atomic Knights" etc.)
The new superhero features overseen by Julie Schwartz made extensive use of science fiction. Batman's and Tomahawk's features began to make very extensive use of fantastic elements. The Silver Age Superman Family was paralleled in the Bat-books by the Batman Family.
After Quality ceased publishing DC briefly had a monopoly on superheroes, but they were only part of its line. As DC expanded its superhero line other companies tried them again, but DC didn't face substantial competition in that area before Marvel's new superhero line took off.
On the Super-books there were changes in personnel. Judging by the GCD's credits, Alvin Schwartz left the books at the end of the 1950s. Otto Binder helped initiate the Silver Age approach but was busy for a period editing a magazine in the early 1960s. Bill Finger wrote less for the the Super-books in the 1960s than previously. Jerry Coleman died in 1962.
Jerry Siegel returned to DC in 1959. I don't think he initiated the Super-books' increasing humour: one already finds in the Lois try-out in Showcase #10 (1957) the line "And my cottage... all my furniture... wrecked! I-- I see that matrimonial trickery does not pay!" But he was often goofy and may have helped drive the trend. He and the other writers seem to have enjoyed building on each others' work, and making fun of the franchise's tropes. Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane lent themselves to this humorous approach.
Swan had been working for Weisinger for a while before he began to regularly draw "Superman". He was the initial artist on the version of the "Tommy Tomorrow" feature in Action Comics, and the initial artist on Jimmy Olsen. He was the artist on the Superman newspaper strip from 1956-1960. When he became the lead artist on the comic book feature Wayne Boring replaced him on the newspaper strip.
Two collections, the aforementioned Greatest Superman Stories Ever Told along with Superman in the Sixties, provide a great introduction to the Silver Age Man of Steel. Both are highly recommended.
SUPERMAN #122:
Superman has many important duties in Metropolis and around the Earth, daily! But one day, why does he drop everything and speed into space, gathering amazing souvenirs from other planets? Well, that's what Superman himself would liek to know! Yes, even the Man of Steel is baffled when strange mental commands force him to obey a mysterious master! What is the answer to...
"THE SECRET OF THE SPACE SOUVENIRS"
What would happen if Superman were President of the United States? If your imagination falls short, ask Jimmy Olsen, who one day seems to have a startling peek into the future, when America's chief executive is the President of Steel! An amazing vision unfolds as Superman's young pal becomes the President's pal in...
"SUPERMAN IN THE WHITE HOUSE"
At an Army camp, soldier Jones was just a dogface like all the others... until the day a freakish phenomenon made him a Super G.I.--equipped with every one of Superman's amazing powers! Then, from barracks to barracks, the news of the Soldier of Steel spreads like wildfire! And the army is quick to salute Jones as...
"THE SUPER-SERGEANT"
It is as if these three stories were holdovers from the previous era. Granted, the "special effects" could never have been achieved on TV, but the stories are somewhat pedestrian (and childish) nonetheless. the story is built around the gimmick that Superman is collecting "space souvenirs" from planets in the solar system (and their satellites), spelling out his name in order: Saturn, Uranus, Pluto, etc. No one other than Lois Lane is able to figure this out. Items collected include the buried fossil of a six-legged horse that once existed on Uranus and, from Earth, a flying saucer ship made of pure gold from Atlantis. ("That life-size statue proves the people of Atlantis were tiny, only six-inches high!" thinks Superman.) I probably would have liked this story when I was a kid because a list of planets and their satellites was provided to help some of the slower children among the readership figure out the solution before it was revealed. I have known "The Nine Wanderers" since the third grade, but the list of 23 named (and eight numbered) moons would have been appreciated.
"Superman in the White House" is not a hoax, not an imaginary tale, but a dream (one of Jimmy Olsen's, specifically). It has been said that Marvel's comics were like stories told by your big brother, but DC's were like stories told by your parents. This story is an example of that. Jimmy dreams that Superman appoints Clark Kent as his Vice President, and a caption helpfully explains (again, presumably for the slower readers), "Of course, this part of Jimmy's dream is impossible, for Clark Kent and Superman are one and the same--a fact which Jimmy's subconscious mind does not know!" (Actually, there are a lot of parts of Jimmy's dream that are impossible, but I'll chalk them up to "dream logic" and let it go at that.) \
Jimmy mumbles in his sleep, so Clark (Superman) Kent is able to discern what he's dreaming about and declares it impossible. "Can you guess why Clark is so positive that Jimmy's dream could never be fulfilled?" asked a caption. HINT: It's the same reason my third grade teacher, Mrs. Darst, once explained why Bob Hope could never be President. that's the second time this issue I have been reminded of being in the third grade, and I suspect that's Superman and Action Comics' main audience at this time.
"The Super-Sergeant" begins with Superman testing a "powerful new helmet radio" when a lightning bolt "caused a freakish phenomenon so that the electrical pattern duplicating me and my superpowers is being 'broadcast' below." (How Superman made this incredible deduction is anyone's guess.) Two known spies have infiltrated the base and, not only does Superman not apprehend them, he does nothing to remove the "super-sergeant's" powers. "Reader," asks a caption, "Can you guess why Superman is putting up with this super-headache?" Not in a million years.
As I indicated earlier, these stories seem (to me) to be a holdover from the Adventures of Superman TV era. It's like the "New Look" Batman era in that respect. Detective Comics #327 (May 1964) gets credit for introducing the new direction (by virtue of it's having been published first), but I think Batman #164 (June 1964) is much more of an "introductory" story (new Batmobile, new route out of the Batcave, etc.). Superman will get fully on board with the new direction in #123.
NEXT in Action Comics: Brainiac
"The Super-Sergeant" begins with Superman testing a "powerful new helmet radio" when a lightning bolt "caused a freakish phenomenon so that the electrical pattern duplicating me and my superpowers is being 'broadcast' below." (How Superman made this incredible deduction is anyone's guess.)
He made the deduction because the story only had eight pages and they were certain only young kids were reading it.
ACTION COMICS #242:
This is the issue that introduces Brainiac and the Bottle City of Kandor. If you think Brainiac is a super-intelligent humanoid computer from the planet Colu and the ancestor of the Legion of Super-Heroes' Brainiac-5, this story may surprise you. In this first story, Brainiac is a super-scientific pirate, but instead of a parrot he has a little albino primate (with antennae) named Koko. As to him being an android or not, he monologues: "I will take a dozen cities-in-the-bottle back to repopulate my home world, where a plaque wiped out my people! Then I will restore all the cities to their original size and have a new empire to rule, as before." He has a forcefield (around his body and around his ship) which superman cannot penetrate, but he does not possess faster-then-light travel because he and Koko travel in suspended animation (and why would he do that if he were an android?).
The "Checkov's gun" on page three is: "Air hoses are all connected... the bottles are ready! One is already filled! Now we'll fill the others, eh, Koko? Ha, ha!" He then proceeds to steal the Earth cities of Paris, Rome, London and New York. He destroys the George Washington Bridge with a pair of tweezers by taking it out of the bottle to examine it. He also removes the Eiffel Tower from the Paris bottle. Superman can see inside Brainiac's ship but is unable to break through the force field. He beats a strategic retreat to Metropolis, reasoning that that city will be taken next and it is his only way into the ship. His plan works, and he gains access to the interior of Brainiac's ship.
Unfortunately, Koko begins pursuing him with a flyswatter. Seeking refuge from the monkey's attack, he ducks into the bottle of the "mystery city" which turns out to be Kandor, the capital city of his home planet Krypton! Superman immediately loses his powers due to the "gravity-conditions" inside the bottle. This is a carry-over from the Golden Age in which Superman's great powers came from Earth's lesser gravity rather than its yellow sun. [NOTE to Kelvin: Does the Fleischer book indicate when the concept of Krypton's red sun was introduced? I never really thought about it before.] Inside he meets the scientist Kimda, his father Jor-El's college roommate (!). Then Superman relates his origin in a montage panel.
Kimda has been observing Brainiac for "half a lifetime" and knows how to restore the cities, but can't get out of the bottle. Having nothing else to do, Kimda give Superman a tour of the city, including the zoo, the robot farmhands who raise their food, and an "artificial sun" which crosses over the city regularly on huge tracks. Meanwhile, Brainiac and Koko have gone into suspended animation for the return trip to his [unnamed] planet. Superman has an idea of how to escape, but he needs to borrow a racket and a "certain animal" from the zoo. Just then, the annoying narrator interrupts to ask, "Can you guess what animal Superman takes along in the rocket?" Well, it's not too difficult to guess because readers were shown only one animal during his visit to the zoo.\
To cut to the chase, Superman restores the Earth cites, but then discovers that the cosmic-power batteries have been drained to the extent that there are only enough "hyper-forces" left to restore either Kandor or Superman but not both. Superman selflessly decides that the needs of the many must outweigh the needs of the one but, before he can act, Kimda pilots a rocket ship into the button which restores Superman so that Earth is not "deprived of its great hero!" Allowing Brainiac to return to his planet in suspended animation, he take the Bottle City of Kandor to his fortress for safekeeping until such a time as he is able to restore it to normal size.
I didn't bother pointing out the lapses of logic in Jimmy Olsen's dream sequence from Superman #122, but let's look at this one. I don't know whether it's been established yet that Superman is "29 years old," but let's assume he's about that. That means that Brainiac would have had to reduce an capture Krypton at least 30 years ago, before Krypton's destruction. So, Brainiac sets out to repopulate his home world, captures one city, then waits three decades to capture another five cities in a row from the same planet? Maybe he needed to travel (in suspended animation, presumably) to a more populated part of the galaxy? But why not steal multiple cities from Krypton while he was there? And how did Kimba learn how Brainiac "operates his hyper-forces" if he didn't abduct any citire between Kandor and Paris? Also, if Superman had followed through with his plan, Earth would have potentially had a million super-men. I wonder how the other Kandorians felt about Kimda's unilateral decision?
Anyway, here we are only two issues in to the new direction and Action Comics has already introduced the Fortress of Solitude, Brainiac and the Bottle City of Kandor.
NEXT: "A Great 3-Part Novel"
Note that Swan drew Brainiac with those circle-things on his head and in his standard costume on the cover. He doesn't have either inside.
His motivation in this story was recapitulated in a Superbaby story in Superboy #106, "The Lair of Brainiac!" An editor's note says "Brainiac looks the same as when Superman will encounter him years later, because Brainiac has a 200-year life-span!"
Brainiac was revealed to be a machine in Superman #167. He was called a computer in human form rather than an android in this period.
Brainiac 5 was introduced in Action Comics #276 as "the great-great-great-great-grandson" of Brainiac. Subsequent to Superman #167 in "The Legionnaire Who Killed!" from Adventure Comics #342 he says Brainiac was the foster-father of Brainiac 2, his direct ancestor.
When that Superbaby story was reprinted in Superman Family #167 the note was changed to "Brainiac is using a faked tape to fool his henchmen. They do not know he is really a computer in human form, and comes from the planet Colu, hoping to conquer all humans.
Jeff of Earth-J said:
The lapse in logic that bothers me is the idea that the "hyper-forces" can restore either a city of millions or a single man. So what would have happened if Kandor was enlarged while Superman was in the city? Best of both worlds, surely?
SUPERMAN #123:
Here's another example of the Curt Swan cover differing from the story inside. On the cover, the "Girl of Steel" looks more like a Super-Woman than a Super-Girl. Her adult hairstyle on the cover makes her look about ten years older than she does inside, where she's all bangs and curls. NOTE to self: Post this cover to the "A Cover a Day" thread in august when the theme will be "railways."
At least two chapters of this "three-part novel" are classics in their own right. Jimmy Olsen was given a magic totem as a souvenir from an archeological site (!) which granted three wishes every 100 years. His first wish is for a Super-Girl (hyphenated) to "appear and become his companion." She mostly gets in his way before saving him from Kryptonite poisoning. Before succumbing herself, Jimmy wishes her back to nonexistence.
This Super-Girl, often referred to as "The First Super-Girl," is likely the inspiration for the Supergirl who would later debut in Action Comics #252. There was, however, an earlier "Supergirl" who appeared in "Superboy Meets Supergirl" (Superboy #5, Nov/Dec '49). This Supergirl was the Lucy Regent, the teenaged Queen of Borgonia. She wore an orange, sleeveless shift with matching boots and a brown cape. The hemline of her skirt and her armscye was trimmed in white fur. Earlier still was "Lois Lane, Superwoman (Superman #45, Mar/Apr '47). Lois's costume was identical to Superman's (including blue leggings), except instead of red trunks she wore a red skirt. Both of these characters' power were faked (by Superman/boy), however.
After the Daily Planet printed the story "How Jimmy Olsen Conjured Up Super-Girl with Magic Totem," the totem was stolen by a pair of crooks who wished Superman's powers away. In this story, the depowered Superman is able to handle Kryptonite safely (as discussed recently apropos the post-Crisis Superman #22). I'm not sure I would accept this as canon, however, due too magic being involved.
In part three, Jimmy recklessly types his next wish (due to "writer's fiat"), but misspells "meet" as "mate" (as in: "I wish for Superman to mate his parents on Krypton). Considering how this wish could have turned out, this proves that Jimmy is not only stupid but dangerously inept. Also apropos post-Crisis Superman #22, Superman "tricks" Kryptonian traitor Kil-Lor into "duplicating the very same chain reaction that blew up Krypton and created Kryptonite," killing him. I'm not sure this can be considered canon, either, because, as far as I know, "Superman's Return to Krypton" is a pre-Mopee Mopee. I don't know whether this "Dark Shadows-like" time travel changed the timeline or not, but it certainly demonstrated Superman's willingness to kill.
CAPTION: "Superman watches from as safe distance, as the dictator succumbs!"
KIL-LOR: "I'm going fast... ahhhh... (fade)"
Also, this story reiterates the concept that Kryptonians gain super powers on planets (or asteroids, in this case) with lesser gravity than Krypton. Superman, Jor-El, Lara and Kil-Lor all gain superpowers as soon as they leave Krypton and land on an asteroid orbiting Krypton.
This story can be found in The Greatest Superman Stories Ever Told collection. I don't know if it's too early to make this generalization, but the "three-part novels" are usually pretty good.
-
1
-
2
-
3
-
4
-
5
of 36 Next