Superman in the Silver Age

[TELLE]

Speaking of Superman's evolution, I note a large number of the stories in this volume are written by none other than Jerry Siegel, yet he doesn't appear in the selection of writers and artists mentioned on the back of the book. Maybe he should be at the head of the list.

This is horrible!

He defintiely SHOULD be at the top!

[Osgood Peabody]

Many of the stories in Showcase 2 I'm reading for the first time. The "Mighty Maid" adventure has to be one of the most screwy stories in the book... If you ask me, Supergirl is a little too proficient at super-flirting, and at times has some curious private thoughts about Superman, eg. "His eyes are beautiful." And all that super-smooching... Well, as a plan, it ranks right up there with Superman's most nutty -- and what's with the Man of Steel calling Supergirl "Linda" when they're alone together??

The Superman/Supergirl relationship definitely took some strange turns during the Silver Age, didn't it?  Probably the strangest of all is the story where Superman tells Supergirl that he could only marry a beautiful superwoman like her, but he's out of luck because Kryptonian law forbids marriage between cousins(!)  So Kara searches space and finds her exact adult double (named Luma Lynai, naturally), who Superman falls madly in love with!  Of course, the romance is tragically cut short when Luma finds Earth's yellow sun would kill her.  

This, I kid you not,  is from the Supergirl story entitled "Superman's Super Courtship" from Action #289 (June 1962) by Jerry Siegel and Jim Mooney:

[Avilos]

Isn't it likely that the very idea of that story was Mort Weisinger's? The basic idea of Superman dating a women that looks exactly like an adult Supergirl is setup right on the cover. Often Weisinger came up with cover ideas which he gave to the writers.

[Super Monkey]

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[Aldous]

I know I said something slightly disparaging back there about Superman submitting to authority, but I read "The Jolly Jailhouse" in the same volume, and I quite liked it.

According to the credits at the front of the book, it comes to us from the pen of Jerry Coleman, and it's a good example of how the Silver Age writers used their noggins when creating problems for the Man of Steel -- who was by now a few degrees short of being a god -- when it would seem the easiest thing in the world for him to resolve any situation in the blink of an eye.

The story could have been two panels long.... Superman grabs the ambitious Colonel Stradi in his iron grip and drops him down an active volcano. By now Superman can do anything. But by having Superman submit to authority, as is his "code" (his own words in the Bizarro story), Jerry C. is forced to come up with inventive ways for the Man of Steel to use his powers.

First of all, Kent is going to be searched by the guards. He can't be found to be wearing his super-suit, so he removes it, rolls it into a tiny ball, and claps it between his hands to create what looks like an A4-sized sheet of indestructible paper; this he inserts between the pages of a magazine. Very clever, Kent. I saw him do something similar many years later in a Private Life of Clark Kent story... I don't have the issue to hand, but some of you (Osgood?) will remember it: Kent rolls his costume into a tiny ball and swallows it, as the fastest and surest way to get it out of the picture. I didn't realise that trick had a precedent.

Superman/Kent begins a campaign to make the colonel look like a bumbling fool by using his super powers in secret to sabotage the colonel's attempts to run the perfect prison. It was a common lament a few years ago that Superman had become too powerful, that he was difficult to write for. But as Mr Coleman proves in this story, if Superman has a simple code against defying authority (wouldn't Pa and Ma Kent be proud!), it opens up an opportunity for a clever writer to create a light-hearted story in which Superman can use his brains to stir up a little "super-mischief".

[Osgood Peabody]

I saw him do something similar many years later in a Private Life of Clark Kent story... I don't have the issue to hand, but some of you (Osgood?) will remember it: Kent rolls his costume into a tiny ball and swallows it, as the fastest and surest way to get it out of the picture.

Yes - I do remember getting a good laugh out of that!  Didn't they end that story with Clark's quip "As for my costume...well, I'm sure things will come out all right in the end!"

Unfortunately, I can't pinpoint the issue - sometime in the mid-70s I would guess.   I'll have to try and find it when I get a chance.

[Aldous]

That's the one. I remember the tagline.

And I found the comic.

It's "The Tattoo Switcheroo" (1975), a Martin Pasko story drawn by Garcia Lopez & Colletta.

Clark is forced into a car at gunpoint by Snake-Eyes who wants to swap clothes with him -- Snake-Eyes wants to impersonate Clark. Clark creates a momentary distraction during which he removes his super-suit and rolls it into a tiny ball which he then swallows.

This is another of those stories in which someone happens to be a double of Clark/Superman.

This comic also reminds us that Clark/Superman keeps a diary. The last entry for this story reads: "And as for my super-costume... Well, I'm confident everything will come out all right..."

[Osgood Peabody]

Yep - that's the one!  That line was pretty memorable after all - I had it almost word for word.

It originally appeared in Superman #294 (Dec. 1975).

As far as the diary goes, in the Silver Age, I can remember some instances where he kept a journal in the Fortress, but he wrote it in Kryptonese to preserve his secrets!