SUPERBOY #153, January 1969; DC Comics; Murray Boltinoff, editor; featuring
"Challenge of the Cosmic Invaders!" Script by Frank Robbins, pencils by Bob
Brown, inks by Wally Wood. On the cover by Neal Adams, Superboy struggles in
vain to hold back his foster parents, the Kents, from being sucked into
nothingness by a pinkish mist that has invaded their living room. (a scene
which, as we shall see, never precisely appears in the story)
Review by Bill Henley
An early harbinger of the end of the Silver Age was Mort Weisinger giving up
the editorship of SUPERBOY to Murray Boltinoff during 1968, a couple of
years before Weisinger retired altogether. Boltinoff made an effort to give the
Boy of Steel's title a fresher look. He assigned newspaper strip veteran Frank
Robbins to the scripts and put more emphasis on action and suspense rather
than the familiar Weisinger plot twists. Art-wise, Boltinoff parted ways with
longtime Superboy artist George Papp, bringing in Bob Brown and-- on some
issues including this one-- the legendary Wally Wood, who could make anyone's
pencils, including those of the competent though unspectacular Brown, look
exciting.
On the splash page, a series of panels shows a peaceful but utterly deserted
town of Smallville. "The houses are hushed....not even the twitter of birds
disturbs the eerie silence...something is wrong....WHAT? WHERE ARE THE
PEOPLE!" The one person who is still around is Superboy, who is flying his
patrol high above the town when he sees a U.S. Mail bi-plane (this is supposed to
be the 1930's, remember) suddenly go into a tailspin. Superboy rights the
plane and guides it to the ground, thinking the pilot has fallen unconscious,,
but he is shocked to find that the cockpit is empty, though he is certain
the pilot neither bailed nor fell out. He is further baffled to find the
airport deserted and an abandoned gas pump filling a plane's tanks to overflowing.
"Day's beautiful enough to make anyone want to goof off and go fishing, but
not like THIS...l! I'm worried!" He's even more worried when he arrives
back at the Kent home and finds it too deserted, with a boiling pot left behind
on the stove. Rushing out into the streets, Superboy realizes that the
entire town of Smallville is deserted. Did they all evacuate in the face of some
sudden danger? Spotting a police car patrolling the outskirts of town,
Superboy accosts the cops and asks them if they have seen people fleeing.
"Superboy, we may have little to do when you're around, but we'd have seen them!"
But when the police drive back past the Smallville city limits sign, their
car goes out of control and crashes-- and Superboy finds that the two officers,
too, have vanished. Fearing that he is somehow responsible, Superboy
wonders, "Have I been cursed by some EVIL POWER? Every human I TOUCH-- or come
into contact with-- VANISHES!"
As Superboy prepares to start another desperate search for Smallville's
inhabitants, he hears voices emanating from various inanimate objects, boasting
that they can tell Superboy where his parents and friends have gone, because
they made them disappear. "Despite your invulnerability and incredible power,
you cannot harm US! WE ARE THE INVISIBLE EMPIRE!" (The Ku Klux Klan used
to describe themselves that way, but no, this isn't an early example of a
"relevant" story with super-racists as villains.) These aliens come originally
from the "dwarf neutron star, Lethos", and they are disembodied beings, an
"elemental force" inhabiting the very molecules of the air, the street, and
everything else in Smallville. And Smallville itself is the site of their
"pilot project" for the conquest of the entire Earth. (For a supposedly
small,peacful, typical American town it's remarkable how many alien invasions, cosmic
disasters,and super-villains Smallville managed to attract over the years. At
least the producers of TV's SMALLVILLE came up with the mutant-creating
Kryptonite meteor storm as an explanation of sorts as to why that little town was
such a magnet for trouble. Actually, a page or so later Superboy deduces
that the aliens chose Smallville specifically because of him, taking his family
and friends hostage in order to neutralize his power and force his
obedience.) Moreover, the aliens demand Superboy's help in their conquest. "No power
on Earth or in the heavens can force me!" Not so fast, the aliens warn; they
hold the entire population of Smallville prisoner in the form of
"disembodied molecules". "Only WE have the secret of the GENETIC CO-LINKAGE LIFE FORCE
which held them together initially! And only we can provide the cosmic
adhesive to bring them back into being! If you do not do our bidding, they will
remain disembodied for ALL TIME!"
When Superboy expresses skepticism as to the invaders' abilities, they
demonstrate by bringing Ma Kent back into corporate existence briefly-- still busy
at her cookstove-- only to have her vanish again out of Superboy's arms. The
Boy of Steel concedes defeat and asks what the aliens expect him to do. The
answer is, since they are limited in their mobility, they want Superboy to
bring to them in Smallville the "leaders of the Earth's great nations", so
that they can "iinfiltrate their brain cells and thereby destroy their leaders!
Then...the WORLD IS OURS!"
As Superboy flies off to gather the world leaders, the aliens warn, "No
tricks!", but a trick is just what our hero has in mind. He speeds first to
Madame Tussaud's famous Wax Museum in London, where he finds and absconds with
utterly lifelife wax figures of leaders such as Hitler, Mussolini, and Winston
Churchill (Remember, again, this is the 1930's. Or is it the 40's? It's
not clear if World War II is already supposed to be in progress, but before the
war started, Churchill wasn't a "world leader", just an out-of-office
British politician.) Seeking to make these fake leaders "convincing enough to fool
the most brilliant assemblage of brain-power in the universe", Superboy
provides them with robot brains and simulated internal organs, and then imbues
them with pseudo-life by means of a Frankensteinish "nuclear-energizing power
source" that shoots the wax figures with lightning-like bolts. His first
creation, "Benito Mussolini", gives a lifelike fascist salute and shouts, "I am
Il Duce...VIVA IL DUCE! I build a new Roman Empire...I am the new Caesar!
HAIL CAESAR!" to which Superboy replies, "Don't take yourself too seriously,
Musso! You're just WAX!"
Assembling his creations back at Smallville town hall, Superboy announces to
the alien invaders that he has fulfilled his mission. The aliens want to
insure that the leaders are not merely "clever replicas", but their suspicions
are lulled when each leader stands and (with the aid of Superboy's
super-ventriloquism) gives a tupical spiel; "I am HIROHITO, emperor and supreme ruler
of Nippon, land of the rising sun!" "I am Stalin! Arise, workers, and cast
off your chains!" "I am Der Fuehrer! Today we conquer all Europe...tomorrow
the world!" As his creations do their act, Superboy muses, "I'm not sure the
world wouldn't be better off if the cosmic invaders did take over from the
REAL dictators!" (Though Mort Weisinger established early in the Silver Age
that Superboy's exploits took place during the 1930's, he rarely if ever made
any reference in the stories to real world events of that time.... perhaps to
forestall readers wondering why, if Superboy grew up during the rise of
Hitler, he didn't take a more direct hand in stopping that ultimate
super-villain. Apparently Boltinoff and Robbins here, in their attempt to give Superboy's
adventures a new look, decided to try to tie his exploits more into the
history of this time. Later in Boltinoff's run on SUPERBOY, however, in
collusion with new Superman editor Julius Schwartz, he jumped Superboy's time period
two decades ahead into the mid 1950's, so that the Superman of the 1970's
would not be approaching Social Security age.)
Before he will allow the aliens to take over the brains of the world
leaders, Superboy insists that they keep their word and restore the population of
Smallville to corporate existence. And so they do, as Ma Kent reappears at her
stove. And then the aliens enter their new bodies, and at first are quite
satisfied with the deal they have made, not realizing they inhabit bodies of
wax, not flesh; "Hail Il Duce! I feel at home here!" "Da! Also is
comfortable in here!" But then "Hitler" wonders just who another figure on hand, not
identifiable as any world leader, is. "He's unknown to you! But he will
determine your DESTINIES! Meet Professor MESMER...the worlds first and
greatest hypnotist!" As the waxen Professor begins to fix his gaze on the other wax
figures and swing his watch chain, Superboy directs, "Okay, Professor, do
your stuff! MESMERIZE!" And "Mesmer"'s spell causes each of the other wax
being, inhabited by the aliens, to fall into a deep, unbreakable sleep. But as
a satisfied Superboy prepares to return the wax figures-- with their new
"guests"-- to the confines of the wax museum, a single alien, inhabiting the
eagle-head top of a flagpole, declares, "You may have betrayed the OTHERS, but I
was too QUICK!" "For want of a nail, a kingdom was lost! Will this one
slip-up cost Superboy the world he loves?"
In between parts 2 and 3 of this Superboy saga, we have house ads for ANGEL
AND THE APE and BINKY'S BUDDIES (a sign that humor, along with other genres,
was overtaking superheroes in popularity) and a "Wonderful World of Comics"
text page written by Mark Hanerfled aka the "Inquiring Fanatic". The page
contains a short bio of Jay Scott Pike, the artist mainly known for romance
comics who produced the one-shot career of Dolphin in SHOWCASE #79, and a fan
letter (actually a compilation "from various letters" inquiring, "Whatever
happened to....Metamorpho, Dial H for Hero, Plastic Man, Rip Hunter Time Master,
Secret Origins, House of Secrets, Sea Devils, etc., etc., etc? Mark advised,
"All of the above titles and strips have been discontinued, for one reason or
another." He went on to explain the various reasons for cancelling series,
starting with low sales but also allegedly including the unavailability of a
particular writer-artist team, shortages of production staff or "press time",
etc. Yet another fan question on the page was "whether or not today's
Superman and Batman are the same Superman and Batman that appeared in the Golden
Age". Mark replied, "Both the Superman and Batman strips have changed and
developed in the 30 years of their existence and most of the fans I know consider
the first few years of each strip to be about the Superman and Batman of
"Earth-Two". It helps explain the little inconsistencies, such as the fact that
Clark Kent worked for the Daily Star in the first few strips, and that
Luthor was originally depicted as having red hair."
As we return to Superboy's plight, it seems he has utterly failed to save
his town or his world, for even though only one alien escaped his "mesmerism"
trap, that one can "split like an earlhly amoeba...inhabit many bodies!" And
unless Superboy carries out his original mission of bringing the real Earth
leaders, "I will turn Smallville into a human wasteland for all time! You
have one hour to comply!" But as Superboy bitterly muses over his failure,
while returning the wax "leaders" to their museum, a figure of the midget Tom
Thumb standing inside a glass bottle gives him an idea for a new plan. Sneaking
back into Smallville, he asks Ma Kent (who is blissfully unaware of having
been disassembled) what is the most powerful dye she owns. "RED! It's a very
powerful, aniline dye!" In his cellar lab, he creates "temperatures higher
than any known on Earth" I(I'll bet that violates Smallville fire codes and
the terms of the Kents' homeowners insurance) in order to create out of red
dye and one of the Krypton-glass portholes of his childhood spaceship a
"vitreious compound as invulnerable as my own skin!" Warning the populace of
Smallville to evacuate, he confronts the invisible and intangible alien alone.
Chugging down his jug full of reddish compound and then, with an "explosive
burst of super-breath", spewing it forth over the entire town of Smallville,
Superboy spots the alien, a sluglike, tentacled creature now made visible by
the red dye. (Oddly enough, nothing else in town is tinted red, just the
creature.) The exposed alien boasts, "You forget, Superboy....that I can change
my shape and substance into ANYTHING! So...I become a SPREADING RED MIST!
Something you cannot TOUCH...or FIGHT!" But Superboy exults, "Just what I'd
HOPED you'd do!" as, "drawing in his mighty breath with massive suction, " our
hero inhales the misty alien completely into his invulnerable lungs, from
which it cannot escape. (If this story were to be printed for the benefit of
today's youth, it would probably inspire a lot of schoolyard jokes about how
"Superboy really sucks".) Back in his cellar lab, Superboy creates an
indestructible Krypton-glass bulb and exhales the gaseous alien into it, sealing it
off. "Hermetically sealed! Now you'll remain in there....like an evil
genie...for ALL TIME!" But though he has saved Smallville from alien conquest,
Superboy's duty to his hometown is not quite done, as he groans, "And now I've
got to face the prospect of a massive cleanup of Smallville's square!" (Could
it be that scripter Robbins intended that Superboy's super-breath dye job
did indeed "paint the town red", and that the colorist didn't follow his
instructions?)
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