Superboy 79, "Life On Krypton"

Superboy 79, "Life On Krypton"

  March 1960
Originally posted 8/13/2001
by Jerry Siegel and George Papp
In January 1960, when this book probably came out, I was barely 7 years old, 5 months into second grade, walking the 5 (long) blocks to school by myself (though there usually was some parent at the corner of Willow and Cedar Hill to make sure nobody got killed trying to cross this incredibly busy street), and dealing with my very first teacher from Hell. (Not sure I knew that word then.)
Mrs. Wilson was pleasant enough, I suppose, as long as you did everything exactly her way and agreed with her every notion on how life was supposed to run, but throw any sand in the gears and boy, did she let you have it. Mrs. Wilson was a firm believer in discipline via public ridicule. By the end of my two year stint in her regiment (she arranged to teach me in third grade too, somehow) I'd learned never to open my mouth in class unless I was forced to.
Because of this, many future teachers decided I was shy. I wasn't shy, I just wasn't going to give any satisfaction to the enemy. If they wanted my name, rank and serial number they could look it up.
Anyhow, on this particular occasion (no matter how I spell that word it looks wrong- at least it doesn't have a red line under it.) Mom had given my a quarter for school. I was supposed to turn that quarter over to the dreaded martinet for something or other. But I couldn't turn it over unless she announced she was gonna collect them. Which she didn't - for a week! Finally, this damn quarter burning a hole in my pocket, I raised my hand out of turn and asked her about it.
After being made to feel like a complete moron in front of everybody for throwing off her train of thought, I went home with the quarter still in my pocket. Now I'm in a really bad mood. I got yelled at for nothing. I got a quarter in my pocket that nobody wants.....
Well what would you have done with it?
I went down to Vinnie's Soda Shop and bought two comic books! (and probably a candy bar). One was Superboy 79 and the other was Detective 276 (The Return of Bat-Mite)!
Unfortunately I was a lousy sneak, and an even worse liar. I managed to finish the Superboy before my mother caught me, but the Detective was history before I got to it. I got yelled at again, for (in my opinion) no reason at all, was incarcerated in my room (no problem, I was sulking anyway) and decided that all adults were crazy and from now on I wasn't talking to any of them ever again.
Sadly, I still don't have a copy of Detective 276, though I'm sure I've read it at some point, but the miracle of E-bay has restored little baby Kal-El to my hot little hands, so I can decide whether it was worth all that long ago angst and aggravation.
We start off with one of those great Mort Weisinger covers, showing baby Kal-El in his mother's arms, as his evil father, blasts his poor doggy into outer space! Jor-El looks grim, Krypto looks pitiful, Lara looks ready to kill, Jor-El's dressed in green, the rocket is yellow, Kal is blue. There are tears all over the place. A marketing dream of a cover. Probably sold over a quarter million copies. (Eat your heart out Paul Levitz.)
The story begins, like almost all Superbaby stories, in the "present". (1932? Superboy's timeframe was never really clear back then) Superboy has invented a mind-prober ray, designed to drag his youngest baby memories from deep in his subconscious, so that he can dictate them to Mom and Dad Kent and reconstruct his "Life on Krypton". Later it would be stated that he needed this because repeated exposure to Kryptonite had made it hard for him to remember what happened to him as a baby. This change must have been in response to some know-it-all fan letter that questioned this flaw in Superman's invincible "super memory." But for now, it was just a frame work to get us into the baby story, and it provided a neat visual of Superboy with his head stuck into a cosmic hair dryer while Ma and Pa looked on with wrapt astonishment.
We begin with some random Kryptonian vignettes, designed to show how wonderful life was in paradise, before the fall. Kal-El's baby crib has a mechanical arm that will automatically catch him if he falls out. His Kryptonian bubble pipe can blow any shaped bubbles: pyramids, cubes, dumbbells, etc. He watches 3 dimensional TV, the home weather machine projects a waterproof dome over the house, so Kal can play in the rain. He has a rocket ride that looks like it belongs in an amusement park in the backyard.
But mostly he seems to wander around alone (except for his doggy) looking for someone to pay attention to him. He wanders into Jor- El's lab and listens to his father dictate into a computer, using voice recognition software. Jor-El predicts Krypton will soon blow up, ending all life. Then Jor-El takes Krypto away from baby Kal and blasts the little mutt into space, (right in front of his bawling son) and as usual, screws up so that Krypto doesn't come back down. Traumatize the kid for life why don't you? No wonder he's incapable of forming a normal relationship!
Lara is so pissed, she takes Kal and returns to Mother's. Mom isn't home though, so they visit a robot show to pass the time, and Kal gets himself locked inside one of the demonstration models. (On Earth, Mom would be in jail for child neglect). Then they go to an amusement park where Kal watches an underwater battle between Lightning fish and cannonball clams. At another exhibit, he visits the planet of 100 moons and then- wonder of wonders!- there's an exhibit showing a typical small town on Earth, which Kryptonian scientists have viewed through their telescopes. (Sort of like a diorama of life in primitive Africa or caveman times you might find at Yale's Peabody Museum) The small town is (wait for it) Smallville!
To make sure they can see it up close, children are outfitted with rocket tubes so they can fly around the exhibit. To protect them from the rocket exhaust they wear fireproof capes. (What protects them from crashing into the ground and breaking their necks I have no idea.) After flying right over Ma and Pa Kent's house (Oh, the irony!), Kal moves on to see the atomic clock. There, scientists ridicule the notions of the mad-scientist, Jor-El, that Krypton will soon blow up. Forgetting that she's left the jerk, Lara rushes to Jor-El's defense. Abandoned again, Kal sneaks away and interferes with an exhibit showing another space rocket being launched. The new rocket, knocked off course by Kal's meddling, hits Krypto's ship in space and sends it careening out of orbit.
After Lara's tearful reunion back home with Jor-El, he explains that Krypto was never supposed to have been launched into space, but the rocket's anchoring chain broke. The ever-gullible Lara forgives him, despite the transparentness of the lie. But all's well that ends well, as Krypto's rocket mysteriously lands back on Krypton. Kal tries to claim credit for rescuing his dog, but of course no one believes him. That's it kid, learn to keep your mouth shut. No one's interested in your opinions anyway.
So the story ends, with a boy and his dog together again. Even if Mom and Dad are complete gits.
But wait a minute? Didn't Krypto actually get sent to Earth? Was Jor-El really stupid enough to try the same trick again?
Keep reading future issues and maybe ol' Uncle Mort will tell you!!!
So what did this seven-year-old think? Well I had mixed feelings. First I was mad because it wasn't a three-part novel. I had thought Life on Krypton worthy of at least that many pages. And the other two stories were awful. (I still think they're awful). Second, the story appeared to be continued. How was I ever going to get the next issue? Especially since that one had already been destroyed? This was too much psychic trauma for a kid to handle. (I was sort of mollified, and mystified, when the story wasn't continued in the next issue. In fact, Life on Krypton stories dribbled out very slowly over the next ten years. I think there were only six of them all together).
But the story itself fascinated me, all those Kryptonian gadgets, and that baby wandering all over the place by itself, getting into all kinds of mischief without being punished. Heck, he even got his dog back! What a life! Let's all move to Krypton, where it doesn't make any difference that all the adults are crazy.
This was, I'm pretty sure, only Kal-El's second appearance as a speaking toddler on Krypton. Up until now, it had been pretty much assumed that ol' Supes had been a babe in arms when he was blasted into space. Now he definitely appeared to be at least two years old.
This finally explained something that had been puzzling readers since the early fifties. How did Superboy know he was from Krypton? There had been that famous story in Superman 61 wherein Superman first encounters Kryptonite and follows the meteor's trail back to Krypton and discovers his origin for the first time, but this story in no way explained how Superboy would know anything about the planet. Yet he clearly did, mentioning Krypton at least as far back as Adventure 170.
Fortunately a seven-year-old who had only been reading comics for 4 years didn't have to worry about stuff like that. I was just glad Superbaby got his doggy back.
(Update: I finally got a copy of Detective 276 and can finish my train of thought...)

Detective Comics 276, "The Return of Bat-Mite"

Detective 276, "The Return of Bat-Mite"

  February 1960
by Bill Finger, Sheldon Moldoff and Charles Paris
Batwoman riding the Bat-Cycle leads the way, followed by Batman and Robin in the Batmobile. Bat-Mite hovers over Batwoman's shoulder. He appears to be sitting on her cape as it flaps in the wind. She has one of those bright "Pepsodent" smiles that nobody in the House of Bat is allowed to wear any more. But stoic Batman warns Robin of ominous doings once Bat-Mite starts "helping" Batwoman.
On the splash Batwoman asks Robin "What's going on here?" and well she might, as Batman as just used a pair of giant tweezers as a springboard to launch himself into the air after three crooks who are riding a giant postage stamp like a magic carpet. Batman's giant penny looms in the background although they're not in the Bat Cave. And Bat-Mite does cartwheels in the air. "OBOYOBOYOBOY! What Fun!"
OK, the stamps and the coin are because Batman, Robin and Batwoman are chasing the Hobby Robbers. Batman figures they'll be attacking the Coliseum's rare stamps and coins exhibit. (And since I've never seen an eight foot tall penny, I would guess they would be pretty rare.) Batwoman goes to the Gotham Library to guard an exhibit of rare books. (Batman figures the books are worthless because they haven't been slabbed.)
"Flailing fists hammer their targets until..." Bill Finger often think hands move of their own volition. It would be a short fight but the giant coin suddenly cuts the Dynamic Duo off and a giant postage stamp scoops up the gangsters and carries them out of Batman's reach. Batman jumps to the immediate conclusion that Bat-Mite must be around, then jumps on the giant tweezers and launches himself into space. Amazed by the antics of the "Acro-Batman" (another unique Finger touch) the gang immediately surrenders. Then Batman attempts to convince the crooks they were hypnotized and hadn't really gone flying in the air at all.
After the police have carted the gang away, Batman summons Bat-Mite to show himself and proceeds to dress him down. "Crime Fighting is serious business!" he scowls. (See, Batman was always a grump. Nowadays he's a legendary grump.)
Rebuffed by Batman, Bat-Mite decides to play Batwoman a visit in her secret lair. (Does every home in Gotham City have a cave in the basement?) Bat-Mite lays on the soft soap and soon Batwoman is putty in his hands. Batman, the close mouthed loner that he is, has never bothered to warn Batwoman about the little imp.)
She soon finds out however. After she has quickly subdued the gang the Hobby Robber has sent to steal a famous musical instrument collection (it only takes her two panels) Bat-Mite decides to liven things up a little. He uses a bass fiddle as a crossbow and tangles Batwoman up, but Batwoman catches up to the gang when they climb a pipe organ to reach the skylight. A few well-placed notes and soon they're bouncing a beat on a giant bass drum trampoline! Batwoman too, now turns on Bat-Mite and the little scamp is beginning to feel extremely unappreciated. But back at the Bat Cave, the Mite of Mischief overhears a secret plan that the Bat boys don't plan to share with their lady friend. Quickly returning to Batwoman's Lair, he spills the beans and he and KK are bosom buddies again!
A good thing, too, because Batman's plan backfires and he and Robin are caught. The Hobby Robber trusses them up, dumps them in his swimming pool and attacks them with his model battleship collection. The radio controlled boats, unlike the ones at your local amusement park, fire real ammunition!
When Batwoman breaks up that piece de resistance, though, the Hobby Robber falls back on a real full-sized machine gun, only to have Bat-Mite launch an army of toy soldiers in response! For once Batman is grateful for the Imp of Imposition's help. Batwoman even plants a big kiss on him, which causes an embarrassed Bat-Mite to scamper off to his home dimension. (Where is that anyway?)
13 pages of dizzying wonderment, strange happenings, weird settings, and acro-batic action. Pretty satisfying read, I think.
So what did I think as an eight-year-old? Well, I had been reading Batman for about a year at this point, so I already knew who Batman, Robin, and Batwoman were. Bat-Mite was a new character. I wasn't to read his first appearance until it was reprinted in an Annual some time later. I had read about Mr. Mxyzptlk however, and even as an eight-year-old, I knew a rip off when I saw it. Bat-Mite never quite jelled for me. His on-again off-again sometime menace didn't really impress me. I don't think he really came into his own until he and Mxy "teamed up" in World's Finest sometime later on. The thing I like most about Batman at the time was the weird art, the strange looking villains (The Hobby Robber was a grossly over weight fellow with pig ears. I think he escaped from a Carl Barks story.), the giant props which appeared in almost every story, and the incredible collection of minutiae that Batman spouted at the drop of a clue. I have no idea how many of the facts the Caped Crusader whipped out were true and how many Finger and Company made up at the spur of the moment. But I believed all of them.
Next up was Roy Raymond in "The Great Space Hoax" by Jack Miller and Ruben Moreira (signed!- How come Moreira got to sign his stuff when nobody else did?) Roy Raymond is the host of the fabulous TV show, "Impossible, But True". Why it's called that, I don't know, because he spent the entire 10-year length of his series exposing every one of them as a hoax. He's so convinced every body is a liar he must be related to Terry Thirteen in some way.
So- he and his lovely assistant Karen are both being flown away in a space ship in the splash panel, and her knee jerk reaction is that it must be a rear screen projection. Roy wants to know what's the point of such "obvious" special effects. (I think I sat behind these two at the Spider-Man movie.)
The story starts when a bald headed man approaches Roy at the end of his show and challenges him to expose the hoax he's going to present him with. Roy thinks this is a refreshing switch and he and Karen accompany the man off into the deep woods where they find a space ship. Inside the three are immediately whisked into space and soon land on a alien planet. Karen is convinced it's a movie set but Roy suddenly whirls and rips the bald guy's mask off. Jinkies! He's a REAL alien!!!!!! He's really upset that Roy has seen through his trick, and thus an aerial space chase ensues that could be really exciting if the story had been more than 6 pages long. It all turns out that the people on this alien planet watch Roy's show every week and this guy had a bet he could fool Roy. It seems sore losers are universal though. The aliens apologize and send Roy back to Earth so that they can continue to watch his fabulous show.
I could never stand Roy. Usually I didn't bother to read him at all. Ruben Moreira's art never really moved me either. Not sure why, as I drooled over Leonard Starr's work in On Stage and the styles are almost identical. Perhaps it just worked better in black and white.
Rounding out the book was "The Crimes of John Jones," by Jack Miller and Joe Certa.
"The Martian Marvel amazingly reverses his manhunting role as he joins the underworld!"
When Detective John Jones spots "Big Boy" Benson and his bad boys breaking a bank he "undergoes a startling transformation" (meaning he turns green and bald and starts running around in his underwear. - Manhunter's and Hawkman's barechested approach to crime fighting never appealed to me. I had to wear a coat when reading their adventures.) The Sleuth from Space pursues the crooks at a speed that makes him invisible and quickly up ends their vehicle dumping them out on the street. ("Yipes!") Then he abruptly sits down in a daze. The criminals theorize a cosmic cloud passing between Earth and Mars has given the Manhunter amnesia, so they try to convince him he's part of their gang. Soon ol' JJ is moving train tracks for them, so they can commit train robberies in peace. He even reveals his "Earth identity" to them. (Why do they assume he has one I wonder?) To top everything, he steals an ocean liner for them! They can't think of anything else to do with it, so they bring it to Big Boy's secret hideout, where JJ promptly arrests the gang leader. The cosmic cloud has moved and his memory is restored. Or was it all a trap to catch the gang leader all along? The Sleuth from Space isn't spilling the beans.
Oh- and that picture they took of his "Earth Identity"? "Ridiculous", says the Manhunter, "If I had amnesia, how would I remember what my Earth guise looked like?"
6 pages over and out. This was probably the first Manhunter story I ever read. Not sure what I thought of him. I sort of liked his quirky weirdness, but his ability to just yank super powers out of nowhere irked me and I could tell even then that fire was a stupid weakness. I liked Certa's art though. He made J'Onzz float through the air as if he didn't care whether he was touching the ground or not. Ghostly and ethereal, nothing like him anywhere (until Marvel came up with the Vision- and the Spectre was revived years later). I never really thought of him as being a Superman clone. His main problem was that he never seemed to develop a supporting cast or a roster of villains- two things that are really necessary to make a strip successful.
So of the two books that I owned for a very short time in 1960, my impulse purchases with money that was supposed to go for a school insurance policy, the Detective was definitely the better selection. The Batman of that era suited me just fine. It never occurred to me that he needed a new look. He probably needed to pay more attention to that Batwoman though.