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Let's Read: Silver Age Superman

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ZerbanDaGreat said:
While I'm already aware I'm the only person that was still paying attention by that point in Man of Steel, all others numbed to near-death by the endless grey nightmare, Movie-Faora's defining trait is pretty much that she's good at martial arts and Supes trying to take her on by just hurling himself violently at her like a Kryptonian gorrilla leads to an embarrassing stomp.
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This could well be true.

She's still basically an expy of Ursa from Superman II. Granted, Ursa was sort-of an expy of Faora.
 


This is one of those covers that is just... legendary. The mournful expression. The grand gestures. The look of absolute horror on Lois's face. The stilted dialogue. The fact that it's Superman with a lion head. Otto Binder, Wayne Boring, and Stan Kaye are going to be inviting us on an odyssey of the strange.



The issue opens up with a lot of questions being raised, like why Superman's taking the time out of his day to do circus tricks for schoolchildren. Maybe he just has a soft spot for orphans? He receives a plaque from the orphanage, which invites him to come over again the next day. He happily says that he's proud to be "a social lion" for the kids. Dun dun dun.

...That would probably be a cleverer turn of phrase, were "social lion" a phrase that anyone uses.



Superman heads to the Fortress (hey, third time it's shown up in three issues! it's almost like they're planning on a new status quo or something) and stores the plaque in a massive room full of trophies. He reflects on his accomplishments, then pauses to look at Kandor and be sad for a bit.

Unfortunately, his reverie is interrupted by hearing an earthquake somewhere on Earth.



Superman saves the girl, at which he then sees the words "TEMPLE OF CIRCE" written on the building he just kept from falling on her. The girl explains that she's Circe, and a distant descendant of the original, who was actually... an alien... who used super science evolution serums to transform people. Huh.

Evidently not knowing his mythology all that well, Superman takes the proffered mineral water and drinks it - and nearly chokes it out when Circe proposes marriage. When he turns her down, she reveals the obvious.



Evidently he didn't weigh the odds all that well on that one. Seconds later, Clark Kent is now Lion Head Superman.



Perry takes a furry with Superman's powers and costume walking into the Daily Planet office and lifting him off the ground extremely well. In fact, he even refuses to publish a story about this while Superman goes to look for the antidote. What a guy.



Unfortunately, when Superman returns to the island to look for the antidote, Circe turns out to have just packed up, left, and gone back to space.

Three things I love: "HA, HA!", an actual acknowledgement that "in space" could mean "literally anywhere", and the fact that Superman says "omigosh."



Man, this issue's just full of great moments. You have to appreciate how Jimmy is completely unperturbed by a bara furry in a Superman costume bursting through his floor. Even if he did had forewarning, the guy has got to be jaded as hell. (Then again, he is Jimmy Olsen.) While Jimmy attempts to console him, Superman considers how Lois is going to react to all this.

Seconds later, Lois walks in with two review tickets to a play, thinking happily about seeing it with the handsomest man in the world.



Honestly, the absolute melodrama here may be thicker than ever, but it's weirdly effective. Look at those two. It's okay! You're gonna make it through this together! She loves you for who you are!

Hey, take three guesses what the play turns out to be and the first two don't count.



As Lois reflects on how she was kind of an idiot for not checking what play it was, Superman just sort of sadly listens to the ridiculously apt dialogue and becomes the first person to ever find the play relatable but in a not-creepy way. Lois eventually decides she's got to cheer him up somehow...



Honestly, this may be so cheesy you could cut it but it kinda works. And believe it or not, this is where the issue gets silly.



Superman finds an alternate way to entertain the orphans. Evidently, this sticks, as many of his later acts in this issue also involve lion-related problem-solving.



The next thing he does is fill in for a sick lion at the circus. By an astonishing coincidence, the lion he fills in for was also wearing a Superman costume. But it isn't wearing one in one of the panels, so presumably Wayne Boring realized halfway through drawing it that Superman would be a naked bara furry and even the 1950s were not sexually naive enough to pass off that one.



Then... this happens. Superman becomes the new pride leader. Somebody didn't tell Otto Binder that male lions don't hunt, but the laws of physics are out to lunch; I figure so is traditional lion social hierarchy.



Little did Superman know that if he'd waited fifty years, he would have people willing to draw pornography of him.



But after searching the stars, Superman discovers by chance that he is actually a glow-in-the-dark bara furry. I think I've seen that one a few times.

...Wait, Otto Binder, why didn't Superman glow in the dark while sitting in the back of a dark theater?

Superman figures that if the original Circe had the knowledge of a kryptonite serum, maybe she came from Krypton, or at least had been there. If that were the case, and it were the result of science, then it would have had its antidote reported in science texts. And where does he have Kryptonian science texts?



Hey, turns out the bottle-city wasn't just showing up to establish status quo!

Wait a minute. The actual Circe was a Kryptonian scientist hanging out on Earth? Does she have any relation to the Wonder Woman villain, who is an actual straight-up witch? Did they hang out or team up? Honestly, I'd read that. But Circe doesn't sound like a Kryptonian name. Is it Cir-Ce or something? Did the name convention change? Also, Krypton has science records going back over 3000 years, but honestly I'm pretty sure that's normal over there.



Uninterested in answering that question, Otto Binder ends the issue with a kiss. Aw.

Superman didn't think about this incident again, until years later on their honeymoon, when Lois pulled a lion mask out of the closet and asked him to put it on.

Continuity Notes

As mentioned, this issue's treatment of Circe is a bit out-of-sorts with the standard DCU. But considering there's been, like, five different King Arthurs and ten different Herculi, I'll let it slide. The cover of this issue gets homaged a fair bit, and it even got an action figure dedicated to it (which eschewed the raggamuffin look of the comics design in favor of something more like an actual lion, causing it to look even more like bara furry art).

Superdickery Rating: 1.5/5

I'm not sure if tricking little boys into putting their heads in your mouth is dickish or just weird, but it deserves some kind of point.

Overall Review

I love schmaltz. I love it when Superman does stupid shit. Therefore, I love this issue. What's not to love, really? It's considered one of the greats of the "weird transformation" subgenre of Superman stories, and it's that way for a reason. Part of the reason it works so well is that Superman is genuinely miserable about the whole thing, which makes him both a great straight-man to the complete lunacy surrounding him and manages to almost sell the tragedy of the situation. Kinda like a sad clown, or Patrick Stewart in a dumber TNG episode. Also, the issue could have very easily made Lois act horrible about the whole thing, but instead she ends up providing a lot of the "daw" moments. Even if it falls apart a bit near the end (I guess otherwise there wouldn't be any real action scenes), it manages to provide exactly what the cover promised.
 
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Mister Bad Guy said:
As mentioned, this issue's treatment of Circe is a bit out-of-sorts with the standard DCU.
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This is the Silver Age. There is no "DCU", there's just individual comics, albeit Superman and his cast are characters in the Bat-Books, and vice versa.

But beyond that, there is no inter-comic consistency. Heck, half the time there's no intra-comic consistency. I'm pretty sure you'll have like, fifteen different, mutually exclusive versions of Martians show up for example.
 
krinsbez said:
This is the Silver Age. There is no "DCU", there's just individual comics, albeit Superman and his cast are characters in the Bat-Books, and vice versa.

But beyond that, there is no inter-comic consistency. Heck, half the time there's no intra-comic consistency. I'm pretty sure you'll have like, fifteen different, mutually exclusive versions of Martians show up for example.
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Ayup. It's listed under "continuity notes" only because it has kinda-weird implications if one does consider it to take place in the same universe as Wonder Woman's stuff. It is funny, though.
 
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Mister Bad Guy said:
But Circe doesn't sound like a Kryptonian name. Is it Cir-Ce or something? Did the name convention change?
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Could be a different Kryptonian culture. Like the ancient rome to their modern europe. Like Kryptons usually portrayed as having a single government and culture, but surely it couldnt have ALWAYS been that way, right?
 
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Adventure Comics #251 - Superboy's Last Day
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    • Otto Binder and George Papp are going to lead us through today's little flashback. It's a bit weird; Curt Swan has done every single cover so far, and only one of the interiors. Shame, since he's pretty clearly one of the best workers here.

    Incidentally, it's a bit presumptuous to call this story "Superboy's Last Day" when, like all Superboy stories, it's a flashback.



    And not only a flashback, but a flashback within a flashback. It opens with Clark doing some spring cleaning of his old storeroom, and refusing to throw out any of the robot duplicates he's built of himself. His reasoning? Well, they've all been built with different functions. Number 2 can do a dummy-explosion trick, Number 3 has an enhanced electronic brain, Number 4 has radar vision to see in total darkness, Number 5 can pick up radio signals, and Number 6 has a super-strong rope which it can use to... tow things, and stuff.

    I get the feeling he was running out of ideas by then.

    Pa Kent lets the latter five fly, but Number 1 is less excusable. On top of being in the worst shape of the group, it's the most primitive, made of lead instead of alloys, and it doesn't even have X-ray vision. However, Clark turns this down, saying that while Number 1 may be the worst of the bunch as a robot, it's like an early model car, and he holds onto it because it's a memento of an old time...



    In Superboy's first year of fighting crime, he figured he was basically invincible. Nothing he'd encountered could hurt him, after all. Unrelatedly, he was also looking for rare rocks for a class project.



    Oops.

    Pa Kent puts the rock with Clark's collection, but when Clark comes home, he suddenly gets really sick. He ends up bedridden, but with the collection being in his room, he just keeps getting worse.



    Taking his leave, Clark tells his dad to activate a remote-controlled robot. He quickly christens the robot "Friday", and allows Pa Kent to take the wheel.



    It takes Pa Kent a while to learn the controls. In fairness, this is pretty much exactly what happens when my dad tries to play videogames.



    He quickly improves, especially with Clark's advice. Before long, though, Clark's fever starts getting even worse, and Pa moves the screen to the other room to give his son some space.



    Suddenly, Clark finds himself rejuvenating. He doesn't know why, but he doesn't give any time to waste, as he spies some kids about to be crushed by a boulder. He becomes Superboy, and flies off to resolve it. Unfortunately, Pa's screen detects the same disaster.



    However, melting the boulder didn't stop its momentum, so the kids were hit by a ball of magma the size of a car and they all died graphically.

    Pa Kent sees the boulder melt, and he figures that Friday really is an amazing robot; he didn't even press anything to activate that function. Flying home, Superboy prepares to put Friday back into storage... but when he reaches his room, he gets sick once again. When he tries to explain what happened to Pa, Pa just figures that his son is going delirious from the sickness; after all, he saw Friday stop that boulder, and Clark's temperature has only gotten worse. They send for a doctor.



    The prognosis ain't great. The doctor gives Clark one day to live. Pa resigns himself to trying to improve his son's last few hours, but showing him that cool rock he found doesn't seem to improve his mood.



    I like to imagine Friday just repeatedly stepping in front of Clark and then stepping away. "Clark gets better. Clark gets worse. Clark gets better. Clark gets worse. Clark gets better. Clark gets worse."



    Honestly, this'd probably make for a pretty fun AU, too. You'd think Pa Kent and Prototype Superboy Robot fighting crime in his son's memory would be a concept at least one writer would revisit. Sure as hell beats the 90th attempt to try and make Dark Knight Returns canon.



    In the last few minutes on the clock, Clark finally pieces together why he always feels better when Friday is around. Unfortunately, by that point, he's so weak he can barely talk. Pa prepares to put the final upgrades in the robot, when...



    Before long, Pa pieces together the truth, and realizes that Clark really did get better. And therefore, something in the room cured him. Something like, say, that lead-lined robot standing in the path of the glowing green rock.

    With no time to waste, he shoves the Kryptonite inside the robot, at which Clark immediately starts improving his condition.



    "Super-calculations" are a fancy word for "I'm pretty much just guessing here", isn't it, Clark? (Hopefully, they're right this time, too.)

    Pa apologizes for the whole thing, but Clark's actually grateful; after all, better Pa be the one to discover the stuff in a fairly safe environment than some criminal. Back to the current day (which is itself a flashback, one supposes), with his reverie ending, Clark explains that, yeah, Number 1 is old, but he also saved his life, and helped him discover that lead blocks kryptonite. With the idea resolved, he decides to send one of the robots to patrol Smallville.



    The one he picks is fairly unsurprising.

    Superdickery Rating: 0.5/5

    Superboy spends pretty much the whole thing dying of radiation poisoning, so this isn't going to be a very high rating.

    Overall Review

    Superman robots are one of my favorite elements of Superman's canon, given just how crazy they are as a shining expression of the Silver Age version's hypercompetence. They're also weirdly likeable, with how utterly sincere they are in their primitive heroism and in how Superman seems to go out of his way to help them out. This is one of the better stories involving them that I've read, even if it is kinda fueled by everyone being a bit stupid. Pa, that rock is glowing green. Nothing that glows green is harmless.
     
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    • So it's no doubt evident at this point that I've been kinda gone for a week by now. Honestly, I wish I had a better explanation than just "I was kinda out of it and kinda bluh", but there you go. Wish I could say I was gonna improve from here on out, but today, I began a new job training program for the summer, and it's proven quite draining, and I've been taking evening summer classes even before that. My hope is that I can still do weekend updates, so look forward to that, I suppose. My deepest apologies for all the inconvenience; this was the thing I mentioned back in the OP when I said I probably wouldn't be able to maintain a daily schedule.
     
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