"The PHANTOM SUPERBOY!"

[Super Monkey]

My theory? The metal the box was composed of actually fell to Krypton as a meteor from some other region of the galaxy, and Jor-El found it to use in his experiments.

And the no-prize goes to ..... the Continental Op!  Great detective work, C.O.!

No-Prize.... hey that's Marvel talk!

You are ban...




 

just kidding

[TELLE]

The DC editors would often ridicule the no-prize notion, I know, but what was the response when they couldn't wriggle out of a goof-up?

[Continental Op]

In the Sixties, Weisinger didn't really feel the need to explain his way out, but he would take the opportunity to make some kind of pun... like if someone wrote in, "Superman was drawn with two noses on the last page of the story!" ,the answer might be something like "Obviously, one of those was Clark Kent's nose for news!--Ed."

In the Seventies, E. Nelson Bridwell and later Bob Rozakis took over writing the letter columns. They would usually try to work in a pun AND come up with an explanation for the "mistake".  Something like "Chameleon Boy was impersonating Superman on the last page of the story but gave himself two noses. Because a Legionnaire NOSE two are better than one!--ENB".

Ah, simpler (cornier) times.

[Klar Ken T5477]

And if the boo-boo was "legitimate", Mort & the gang would just "fess up" and mea culpa or plug a like minded story appearing elsewhere that month in the Superman family line o' mags.

[SuperThinnker]

After the Crisis and the MOS, DC Comic come up with "Baldy" to give to people--a postcard that has Post-Crisis Lex Luthor's ugly mug on it.