SUPERBOY #179
On sale in September, 1971
Cover by Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson
Apparently, I was up for a second helping of Superboy. It had done the best job of satisfying my monster itch last month, and this issue’s horrific cover scene promised even more! I think people melting into something else probably triggered some very specific fright in me (remember I was still haunted by the recollection of seeing The Ancient One “melt” into a standing stone in an issue of STRANGE TALES I’d spied a few years earlier). At this stage of the game, I still assumed that the cover images would accurately reflect what happened inside the comic. As it turned out, this issue did nothing to disabuse me of that naïve belief; if anything, Swan and Anderson
toned down what I was going to find in the lead story…
“Death Is My Dominion”
Written by Leo Dorfman
Art by Bob Brown and Murphy Anderson
Superboy awakens amidst the ruins of a large city, and when he investigates, the survivors call him a “killer”, and attempt to drive him off with gunfire. Superboy is baffled, having no memory of any of this. When he flies down to save some of the people from a falling billboard, the terrified people suffer from the “liquidation effect” caused by nearness to Superboy: they melt into the earth beneath them. Only Elissa, a young girl, is able to escape, since she is farther from the crowd.
Superboy confirms what he saw: “A minute ago they were people…living flesh and bone…and now—they’re just puddles of quivering protoplasm!”
A mysterious mastermind is observing from a camera as Superboy chases Elissa, who hides behind a protective glass window and explains the situation: Superboy fought a spacecraft of alien invaders over Lincoln City. The aliens fired a bomb that bounced off of Superboy and landed in the city, destroying it!
Superboy is blamed for not stopping the bomb from dropping, but that’s not the worst of it: his approach means a melting death for the people of Lincoln City:
(See what I mean? Bob Brown shows us a much more disturbing scene than Curt Swan did on the cover. The Comics Code Authority approved this?!)
Superboy doesn’t remember any of this, and when he tries to leave the city, he cannot, due to an impenetrable invisible dome, outside of which, he spots
another Superboy, using superpowers to deal with emergencies?!
Following the phoney with his X-ray/telescopic vision, he sees his doppelganger assuming the Clark Kent identity—is this an agent of the aliens taking over Superboy’s life?
We’re about to get answers, as the young Lex Luthor lands his own spacecraft outside the dome to taunt the trapped Superboy. Luthor enters the dome, but Superboy finds unexplainably unable to lay hands on his enemy. He’s under Luthor’s mental domination, now, and proceeds to begin destroying what remains of Lincoln City. He even comes too close to Elissa, who melts like all the rest!
All becomes clear when the Superboy from outside the dome—the
real Superboy—arrives. The guy we’ve been following is an android, and this has all been an elaborate trap to bring Superboy into the path of Luthor’s Kryptonite-powered freeze ray (and, although it goes unsaid, this was clearly a means of playing out a sadistic fantasy of watching “Superboy” kill innocents in a grisly manner).
We get the explanation of how Luthor used his electronics to leech powers from Superboy in a fly-by to power his android, which was programmed with Superboy’s personality, but also with the “laws of androidonics”: “No android may harm its creator!” (I think
Arthur C. Clarke Isaac Asimov--thanks Rob Allen!--was cool with others adopting his Laws of Robotics, so there was no need to disguise it, Leo Dorfman!)
“Lincoln City” was a mock-up used for nuclear bomb tests, and the “citizens” were also androids, programmed to melt in “Superboy”’s presence.
Now the plan is to power up an army of android Superboys to be Luthor’s slaves during his conquest of the universe. For this, all he needs is his android copy, so it’s time to kill off the genuine Boy of Steel, but the android gets in the way of Luthor’s Kryptonite grenade, sacrificing himself.
The android Superboy melts away in the same manner as his android “victims”, Superboy recovers (since the bomb short-circuited his freeze ray), and Luthor ends the tale behind bars.
Well, this was a humdinger of a tale! Plenty of gross melting, a complicated plot, and my introduction to Lex Luthor, “the world’s greatest juvenile criminal scientist!” It delivered 100% on the cover promises, although it turned out to be a fake Superboy and fake people. From an adult perspective, Superboy’s salute to the android seems insufficient—“A collection of chemicals and artificial protoplasm…but he was a hero!”—especially on a page that ends with a grinning Superboy taunting his enemy in jail.
Next comes this issue’s reprint…
“Superboy Meets Ben Hur” (from SUPERBOY #92, 1961)
Art by Curt Swan and Stan Kaye
Lana Lang’s father, the preeminent archeologist at the Smallville Museum, has been fired for buying a bronze bust of Ben Hur. Not only is the bust disfigured to look like a “Bizarro-version of some Roman” (I didn’t know about the Bizarros at this point), but Ben Hur is “a
fictional hero in a novel by Lew Wallace!” Prof. Lang is a sucker for spending $30,000 of the museum’s funds to the shady characters who found it “near an ancient ruin!”
Prof. Lang is convinced the bust is legit, and Superboy decides to help out by traveling into the past, using his super-speed to pierce the time barrier.
Superboy recaps some of the key background from Wallace’s novel, then arranges to be picked up as a galley slave, where he is shackled behind…Ben Hur!
So Ben Hur was real, but he looks nothing like the bust, so Prof. Lang
was swindled, after all.
Superboy uses his super rowing powers to give the slaves a break, expediting the voyage. Ben Hur and Superboy escape, and before you know it, Ben Hur is recruited for the chariot races, just like in the book.
Superboy introduces the Romans to the joys of popcorn, rangles some fine steeds to replace the ones stolen from Ben Hur, and claims to have been gifted with flight from the god Mercury.
When you’re copping from Ben Hur, the only thing anyone cares about is the chariot race, and as you might expect, Superboy’s powers rig the race in Ben Hur’s favor:
In honor of his victory, the emperor has a statue of Ben Hur erected, a hollow statue filled with gold. When that little fact leaks out, thieves topple the monument and chip away at the head, trying to get at the gold. And thus is all explained! Superboy returns to the present, retrieves the bottom half of the statue, and proves that Prof. Lang was right. Or, as Prof. Lang puts it, “As usual, Superboy has seen to it that justice is done!”
A fun enough story for a new reader, even one that didn’t know or care about Ben Hur as much as readers would have in 1961, when the Charlton Heston-starring blockbuster film was still fresh in readers’ minds. Thanks to reprints like this, I would soon learn that Superman/boy would often travel to other times or other worlds to prove trivial assertions for his friends, and that although Smallville was a small town, one still might find world-class museums, atomic research plants, major race-tracks, mountains, plains, waterfalls, caverns, whatever a story called for. I didn’t notice and wouldn’t really care.
Next up is another new story:
“Revolt of the Outcasts”
Written by Leo Dorfman
Art by Bob Brown and Murphy Anderson
In the swank suburb of Fairdale, near Smallville (see what I mean? It even has swank suburbs!), sanitation workers have been ordered to destroy a rustic flower stand operated by an old man whose only defense is a crutch…that is, until Superboy comes to said defense!
Seems Fairdale is preparing for its Centennial Celebration, and the unlicensed Mr. Casey’s primitive two-bit operation is not welcome. The law is the law, according to Superboy, but at least he can transport the flower stand to a more acceptable location—at the edge of town where there are no customers!
Mr. Casey abandons his livelihood and heads back to Hungry Hill, the “undesirable” neighborhood outside of Fairdale, where the poor can be satisfied among their own kind…at least when the boys in blue aren’t hassling them:
Superboy steps in to assist again, but you can’t fight city hall, as they say: Hungry Hill is scheduled to be demolished entirely, including the local blacksmith, printer, pottery maker, fabric weavers…
It gets personal for Superboy when he meets Pete Ross, whose father went bankrupt and had to move out of Smallville to Hungry Hill:
Pete complains about the unjust harassment of Hungry Hill, but Superboy doubts the authorities are really that heartless. But he’s about to get a lesson in hard cold reality, when the Mayor leads in the demolition crew, impatient to let the people have their day in court. The crew cuts off water, gas, electricity, in hopes of getting them to abandon the community.
Superboy to the rescue! He digs a moat to protect the area, bores underground to find water, and the people have their oil lamps for light!
Superboy reports back to his folks, who are sorry to hear that the Ross family has fallen on hard times, and Pete gives a flashback I’ll soon see again and again—he learned Clark’s secret identity on a camping trip.
Next day, the demo crew comes to do their dirty work, and Superboy’s there to defend Hungry Hill…until he is distracted by a staged emergency in Fairdale! By the time he’s done cleaning up an overturned gas truck, the destruction of Hungry Hill has begun…what to do?
Superboy’s got a plan…and it starts with filling in the moat! Is he betraying the poor folks of Hungry Hill? Nope, he just wants the mayor to see Hungry Hill as the hidden treasure it is:
Rather than something to be ashamed of, Hungry Hill is something to celebrate as part of the Centennial: “a living museum of the crafts and skills that built our town of Fairdale!” (Wait, why is this all about Fairdale? These snobs are co-opting the charm and interest generated by their poorer outcasts!)
OK, an undeniably hokey story, with a happy ending spoiled by a paternalistic tone that keeps the wealthy secure by gussying up the hard-scrabble Hungry Hill as a tourist attraction. But some of the points raised here resonate with the adult Mike. I just so happen to be a Google Street View addict, and I’ve spent hours virtually wandering through places like
Bangladesh, marveling at the vibrant economic activity. It’s universal: humans work their individual crafts, they trade, they commune in the markets, the life blood of society. In the poorest of societies, the marketplace always takes its place at the center.
MONSTER APPEAL: Looking back, I thought maybe this was inspired by the film
The Incredible Melting Man, which was featured in FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND, but no, that film came out later. The lead story was pretty graphic and horrific, enough to make up for the tamer backing material.
3 out of 5!
COLLECTING INSPIRATION: One of my first repeat purchases. I was pretty comfortable with Superboy, and I would continue to buy this title for quite a while.
3 out of 5!
ART-SCHOOLING: More of the same from Bob Brown and Murphy Anderson. While a burgeoning comics fan needs to be exposed to multiple artists to begin to appreciate the craft, that fan also needs repeat exposure to the same artists to pick up on their characteristic techniques. Bob Brown would never be a favorite of mine, or a big fan favorite, and in fact wouldn’t be around much longer, but I’d be seeing more of his work. Murphy Anderson would be a mainstay, and seeing what he brought to these stories would be important in coming to understand the inker’s role in establishing the look of a comics page.
3 out of 5!
LORE: My introduction to Luthor, albeit the young version, and my introduction to Pete Ross, who I’d have on a Slurpee cup not long after this.
2 out of 5!