The pain you must endure reading these comics.

One at a time once in a while I could see where you'd get some enjoyment...

Thanks for the sales data illustrating the decline of Superman btw...

April 1975



Superman #289: Professor Pepperwinkle loses an invention. Meanwhile, a weird ghost horse and rider appear in Metropolis. Clark turns into Superman in one of the dopiest ways yet - when nobody is looking, he drops to the ground and rolls underneath a van. When he rolls out the other side, he's Superman! Okay, Cary Bates. We get it. Even the people doing the comic bored with this stuff. Anyway, Superman can't figure out how to stop the thing, but then it vanishes. At the same time the Professor's wife turns off her television. Eventually, Superman and the professor figure this out and discover she stole the invention in order to get his attention since he forgot it's their 25th wedding anniversary. Oy. THE END. The Private Life of Clark Kent this week is flat out goofy. Angry over Steve Lombard bad mouthing Billie Jean King, Lois challenges Steve to a men vs. women bowl-off to prove which gender is better at sports. Clark is worried he'll accidentally use his super powers, so he hypnotizes himself into being unable to use his powers for anything while in the bowling alley. He ends up winning anyway, but then the roof suddenly collapses! He's pinned in the rubble and he can't use his powers! So he... somehow instantly hypnotizes Lois, causing her to temporarily develop super strength to rescue him. Um... what? My Grade: C+. That wackadoodle backup story was worth the price of admission.

Action Comics #449: Someone replaces key members of Galaxy Broadcasting / Daily Planet with robot doubles. For some reason Superman does not notice this, even though at the same time, he does see right through one of Jimmy's disguises and confesses it's thanks to his x-ray vision. So... yeah, I don't know what to tell you. because of this inexplicable failure on the part of his powers, Superman briefly suspects Jimmy of being the bad guy, which is patently absurd. It turns out that the bad guy is actually another robot, planted by the secret enemy agent inside Galaxy that we learned about back in #446. Superman stops him and smashes all the robots. THE END! My Grade: C+. The + is from a funny one-page gag where they took old Action covers are replaced the dialogue with joke word balloons. They did this once before, and it's a good bit.

World's Finest #231: Wow, I don't know where to start with this one. Batman and Superman save a crashing jet and are given the keys to the city. But then Clark Jr. and Bruce Jr. show up, protesting, claiming that super-heroes are all grandstanders and that Superman and Batman should go on trial. It's utterly idiotic in every way, but for some reason, Batman and Superman agree - and a jury finds them guilty. So the Super-Sons throw their dads in a superhero concentration camp. The Super-Sons then decide to just go be superheroes anyway, but the difference supposedly is, they don't want to take credit for their deeds. They manage to mess up the case several times, only to be bailed out by Green Arrow, Flash and Aquaman. But the Super-Sons still insist that superheroes are all glory hounds who should be forced to retire, because somehow being popular is such a terrible crime that it's more important than saving lives. Yeah, saving lives is okay, but if the cost is someone getting credit, better to let the world burn. Finally, in the end, the Super-Sons almost doom the planet grandstanding and realize they are being complete meatheads. So they free their dads from prison and we learn that the other superheroes were really Superman and Batman in disguise, trying to both teach their kids a lesson and also, you know, save Earth from their total incompetence. My Grade: H. Not only did this make no sense in any way, but the Super-Sons came off like the biggest jackasses in history. What a couple of completely worthless jerks. Am I supposed to be rooting for these a-holes?

Notes: You'll notice that I have created a new grade: H, which stands for Haney. When a story is so completely nonsensical that you wonder if someone accidentally slipped some psylocybin in your cereal, it gets an H.

Superman #289 sports a photo cover. According to the internet, the people on the cover are Bob Rozakis, Cary Bates, Jack C. Harris, and Carl Gafford. I suspected something like that as soon as I saw it. I had to google Carl Gafford; apparently he is a colorist, which is probably why I didn't recognize the name. Those guys get overlooked too much probably.

The Secret Life of Clark Kent was really wacky. The Battle of the Sexes tennis match between King and Bobby Riggs had happened two years earlier, so I'm not sure why Steve Lombard was writing about it. Actually, I'm not sure why he was writing anything, since he's the TV sportscaster. BUt whatever. The story did give them an excuse to bring back some neglected supporting characters, as Lois's team included Melba and Morgan Edge's secretary, Laura Conway. And on the men's side is Dave Stevens, the guy Lois saved with a blood transfusion in the infamous "I Am Curious Black" story from Lois Lane #106.

Also from Superman #289, Professor Pepperwinkle apparently appeared back in Action Comics #442. It's clear that Superman knows the guy, but I sure didn't remember him and there's no footnote in the story. I had to google it. I also discovered while googling that the police officer in this issue, Inspector Henderson, has appeared in a couple Superman stories (starting with Action #440) and will go on to be a regular part of the DCU in the late 70's and early 80's. He made no impression on me at all and I probably would never have noticed he was a recurring character, thanks in part to the insistence on not having any footnotes. On the other hand, there is a footnote in this month's Action reminding us that the secret agent plot started in #446. So I guess Julie only does footnotes if he think they are essential to understanding the plot? I dunno.

I do know that this issue caused me more googling than the rest of the run combined, though!

professor Pepperwinkle and Inspector Henderson both debuted in media other than the comics. Professor Pepperwinkle (as Ish pointed out) is originally from the Adventures of Superman TV Show, and Inspector Henderson originally appeared in the Adventures of Superman radio show, and later appeared in the TV series before appearing in the comics.

May 1975



Superman #290: A guy overhears a plot to strip Superman of his invulnerability and kill him, but nobody believes the guy because he's a practical joker. He eventually manages to convince Superman he's telling the truth, just in time for Superman to foil the plot and save himself. THE END! In the backup, Mr. Mxyzptlk renacts the Tower of Babel and scramble human language. Superman manages to trick him into disappearing, but not before Supes gets stuck wearing a sombrero and a giant mustache. That's the stuff. My Grade: C+. Just another interchangeable issue of Superman, but at least it had a sombrero.

Action Comics #450: Lois and Clark decide to vacation together separately in Las Vegas, where they go to see a show by Johnny Nevada. However, he gets mugged, and in the process gets brain damage that activates the unused 90% of his mind. That in turn somehow causes a psychic sandstorm to envelop him and turn him into a shambling monster. Superman realizes the monster just wants to make people laugh, so he laughs wicked loud and the thing turns back into Johnny Nevada. Okay. Whatever works, I guess. THE END! In the backup, Green Arrow and Black Canary also go on vacation, to a resort where people are mysteriously being killed. Turns out the killer is the son of the client who sent them on this retreat - and that things may not be what they seem. Dun dun dun! To Be Continued! My Grade: C-. The lead story is bad. At least the backup has some Grell art in it, even if it's early Grell and therefore still kinda awkward at times. 

Superman Family #172: Oh, Lois Lane. You never let me down. This time around, Lois gets engaged to Lex Luthor! Why? Well, recently a bunch of satellites were charged with weird green radiation and sent on a collision course with Earth, where they would kill everything! Luckily, Lex Luthor figured out a way to stop it. For some reason, no superhero in the entire world is around to stop the satellites - this isn't a kvetch on my part, it's actually in the story, they try to contact everyone and everyone is busy or something - so the government frees Lex. Lex and Lois fly into space and Lex uses a device to beam the satellites into the future. He then returns to a hero's welcome. Lois becomes infatuated with the new Lex and they get engaged and decide to get married on Johnny Nevada's TV show. However! Turns out Lois was just playing along with Lex to prove he was lying. It backfires, though, when he uses hypnotizing gas to force her to marry him anyway. Luckily, she had a failsafe - a letter she wrote to Superman explaining her plan. Superman breaks up the wedding on live television and Lex goes back to jail. My Grade: B. So utterly bizarre, it's almost as if Bob Haney were writing it.

Notes: This Action Comics cover has always kind of bugged me. When I was a kid I had a few issues of Action and Superman from this period, and something about this cover just always felt... I dunno, like it's symbolic of a cheesy era on the book. Not long after this we're going to get the "Superman eating a million hambugers" cover and stuff like that. It's hard for me to explain, since it's just a deep-seated feeling from when I was a kid, but I just don't like this cover and what it represents.

On the other hand, I don't mind the cover of Superman Family at all, even though it's a classic Lois marrying someone else cover, and that someone else is Lex Luthor, even. It should feel ridiculously retrograde, but the way it's executed actually makes it feel pretty modern compared to the other covers from this month.

This month's issue of Superman was written by Jim Shooter. It seems to be a one-off, as the regular rotation of Cary Bates and Elliot S! Maggin resume next issue. They still have a ways to go in their seemingly endless tenure as Superman writers, but we're slowly closing in on the next big sea change in the world of the Superman family books, namely the arrival of Gerry Conway after his departure from Marvel. It's coming. It's just a question of whether we're going to get Good Gerry or Bad Gerry when he arrives.

This month's issue of Action had a couple goofy bits. Superman takes down some muggers and is almost sadistic in how he does it, toying with them and messing with them so that they end up knocking each other out. Meanwhile, in the backup, Ollie proves he's the worst yet and keeping his secret identity secret, as he sits around during a meeting with a client and whittles his arrows. Let's see. Guy that looks exactly like Green Arrow, and whose publicity firm has employed Green Arrow previously, sitting around making arrows. Yep, nothing suspicious about that.

Finally, there was a lot of Johnny Nevada this month for some reason. Given that he still has his TV show, I'm not sure why he was also doing standup in Vegas, but then again, Jay Leno used to do the same thing, so I guess I'll give it a pass.

It's been a while since I've talked about design, so this seems like a good time, as a major design change took place this month, May, 1975: The move to the single bullet banner at the top of DC books.

Actually, there are two designs going on starting this month. For the giant size issues, we have a variation on the double bullet design, only now the two circles are connected by a banner that has the word GIANT in it, along with whatever else.

For the rest of the line, though, the double bullet is done away with in favor of a single bullet which contains the DC logo. This is centered in front of a thick banner jammed with all sorts of other information, including but not limited to the issue number, month and price, as well as things like a little picture of the main character and sometimes even a second, tiny logo.

This is basically DC's version of Marvel adding the "Marvel Comics Group" strip across the top of their books. It's driven by the same need: display space. Since comics were often displayed in a way where you could only see either the very top of the book (like in a spinner rack) or the extreme left side of the cover (on a traditional newsstand, with other periodicals fanned out), the companies wanted to make sure their books stood out and were easily identifiable.

Marvel's initial solution, the corner box, was a bit of genius. This latest redesign by DC< however, is an atrocity.

Technically speaking, they satisfy their goals by sticking the character image and miniature logo in the left part of the banner, while also having the DC logo in the middle. SO if you're looking at the book on a spinner rack, you will see both, while if it's on a newsstand, you'll at least see the character/logo.

But my gosh, it looks so terrible. It's cluttered and ugly, especially compared with the simplicity of Marvel's design. Furthermore, and worse, having this big banner acorss the top (which is at least twice as tall as Marvel's "MCG" banner and maybe more) forces them to drop the actual logo down. Previously, it could be nestled in between the two bullets - though that wasn't always done - but now it's forced to drop, so that in many cases, a full 40% of the cover is taken up by logos, banners and all sorts of clutter, leaving very little space for a powerful cover image.

One reaction to this will be seen next month, as Action Comics becomes a free floating logo for the first time ever with #451. Previously, the logo was always inside a box, either a full-sized or smaller logo depending on the time period. That's gone with #451 as there's no longer any room for design elements like a logo box thanks to this hideous banner.

That change accomplishes almost nothing, though. It gives the illusion of more space without actually providing more space, as the image itself is still limited to the bottom 60% of the cover.

I can't say enough about how much I hate this design era. It doesn't help that DC was in the already midst of some of its most uninspired cover designs ever, with some particularly boring coloring and an emphasis on background-free simplicity. Now we get all that, only in less space, with a horrible over-cluttered banner on top of it. Terrible.

We're going to get even more clutter, somehow, with Action #454, but I'll rant about that when I get to it.



Here's an example of the design genius we got from DC in 1975. What could be simpler and cleaner than this?






I can almost see Carmine Infantino scrawling in red ink across the proofs: "NEEDS MORE LOGOS!!!!"

How did people 39 years ago celebrate our nation's birth? No doubt by reading this batch of comics. Which I am sure they immediately regretted.

July 1975



Superman #292: Ah, a nice yellow cover. The story inside is interesting as well. Lex escapes from prison and battles Superman. Superman wins, of course. While he's rebuilding everything that was wrecked during their fight, Superman reminisces about the friendship he and Lex used to have when he was Superboy. Essentially, this issue is an extended origin story for Lex, as told by Superman. We find out they used to be pals, but then Lex lost his hair in an accident and turned heel, vowing to kill Superboy. Seems like an overreaction. Actually, seems like he suffered brain damage in the explosion, honestly. And... that's it! More on this in my notes below. THE END! In the Private Life of Clark Kent backup, Clark seriously violates his journalisitc ethics in order to protect his secret identity. He goes to a bar to meet an informant about a scoop. At the bar, a thug challenges him to a fight. Clark recognizes the thug as the guy his informant sold out and sent to prison. So he hems and haws until the informant shows up, then he rigs it so they fight each other while he ducks out. Talk about a jackass move. The thug beats the crap out of his informant as well; the informant has to be taken into protective custody to save him, meaning Clark doesn't even get the story out of it. All he does is save his own stupid hide. What a jackass. My Grade: B-. The lead was actually better than the backup for once.

Action Comics #452: Clark Kent gets fired as news anchor. Upset over this, Superman is distracted when he fights a guy with a really ulikely super power: He gains the strength and abilities of whoever beat him up last. So he lets Superman beat him up so he can gain Superman's powers. One falw, though: Since Superman is distracted and half-assing it, he only gains half-assed Superman powers. They fight again and Superman cleans the floor with him. Superman also wins his job back with some trickery involving an "exclusive" interview with Superman. Ya don't say. THE END! In the backup, Ollie and DInah free themselves, but are faced by a horde of minions from "The Organization," which I guess is not actually the League of Assassins. Which is just as well for Batman fans, because when the two run away, their companion Davy rushes in and detonates a bomb, destroying the Organization and ending hundreds of years of planning before the plan even starts. That's embarrassing. My Grade: C+.

Superman Family #173: Jimmy goes to the Fortress of Solitude. while there, Superman gets a distress call from Kandor, so the two go into the bottle city - accidentally bringing with them a space germ that is gigantic in size once inside the bottle. The distress call is from a scientist guy whose daughter Sarna has become an insurrectionist. Superman and Jimmy adopt their Nightwing and Flamebird guises and go on the hunt in the Nightmobile. The find her, but the germ causes a sudden plague that knocks just about everyone out, including Superman. Sarna captures Jimmy, but he tricks her into thinking he's on her side. His case is incredibly unconvincing in every way, so I must conclude Sarna is a total moron. It doesn't matter anyway, because she gets knocked out by the germ plague. Jimmy decides the only way to save Kandor is to blow up the bottle. He does, and once everyone is exposed to Earth's atmosphere, they gain superpowers and all recover instantly. Superman then seals them back up inside the bottle. THE END! My Grade: B-.

World's Finest #233: Road-tripping around America, which I guess was a popular pastime for superheroes in the 70's, the Super-Sons wander into a town populated entirely by militant women. The Super-Sons get themselves thrown in jail, where all the other men are being held. The Super-Sons break out and follow the women into the swamp, where they find a big monolith. After a series of nonsensical chases (more on this below), they discover that the monolith is a space ship hiding an alien creature who, ashamed by its ugliness, is transforming all the beautiful women it can find into hideous monsters. The only antidote is the touch of a man. The Super-Sons defeat the beast and go back to town, where Bruce starts making out with all the women to save them. My Grade: I can't even. F--. See below.

Notes: Okay, so, wait a minute. I was under the apparently mistaken impression that the Kandorans were inside that bottle for, you know... a reason. But they're actually inside there because they don't want to have super powers? Why the heck would they want that? As we see in this issue, there are a lot of benefits to having super powers, like being invulnerable. How many Kandorans have needlessly died while stuck in that bottle that wouldn't have died if they had powers? I do not understand this at all. It's asinine. Someone tell me wtf that bottle is for!

Ugh. Anyway.

The Superman story, with the origin of Lex Luthor, was interesting for a couple of reasons. First, not being all that familiar with Superboy, it was impossible for me to tell which parts of the origin were from previous issues and which parts were new additions. Some bits, like the hair part, obviously had appeared before, and I suspect that's true of some of the other brief scenes of youthful Lex getting in trouble and battling Superboy. Other parts I'm sure were new, but which, I just can't say.

More interesting for me is just why they published this story. Lex has really not been a major presence in the Superman family of comics over the last 5 years. He's only appeared like twice in Action and maybe three or four times in Superman, plus a couple memorable appearances in Sekowsky's Supergirl series in Adventure. He really hasn't had much of a profile. However, in his last appearance, he got quite a bit of a spotlight, including acquiring his classic Bronze Age purple and green battle costume. Now they follow up with this extended look at his history. I have to think they are setting lex up to be a much bigger player in the Superman world of comics going forward. We'll see if I'm right, but that's how it feels on first read.

In this month's issue of Action, the bad guy shows in a flashback that he previously tested his powers by attacking Wonder Woman, who of course pummeled him in about one second. Seems like a pretty risky test. There's also an extended internal monologue from Superman about how and why he needs his Clark Kent secret identity, which here boils down to him wanting to fit in with society and find human companionship. This subplot about being fired was more interesting than the main plot, which... happens a lot in these issues. Almost as if the writers are forced to try and squeeze in the interesting bits after being given some boring formulaic superhero plot to write up. But that's crazy talk, of course.

It also struck me, by the way, that this is the second month in a row where we've gotten a story about someone stealing Superman's power. Last month, Superman solved this by simply deciding to stay away form the guy, which hardly seems like a solution. This month, he ends up sticking the guy in Kandor, where the guy won't have any powers - stupid as that is. Which is more effective, but I do wonder about the legality of Superman unilaterally deciding to seize and American citizen and imprison him indefinitely.

Just a few more issues left before Mike Grell takes Green Arrow and Black Canary out of Action and into the pages of the relaunched Green Lantern/Green Arrow series. Not looking forward to that. These stories haven't been great, but they've been a hell of a lot more interesting than the other backups running in Action. The last thing the world needs is more Atom stories.

Finally... finally... I used to have this issue of World's Finest when I was a kid, but I didn't remember anything about it other than the cover. Which is just as well. This issue, beyond the nutso, highly offensive commentary on feminism which I am about to rant about, contains one of the dumbest lines yet. The Super-Sons are being tracked by bloodhounds and Clark says they must be on to Bruce's scenet because, "Being half Kryptonian, I don't have a scent!"

W. T. F.

Then there's the crazy anti-feminist theme of this issue. Okay, so it turns out that this town's extreme "feminism" is actually a fake hatred of men caused by low self-esteem because the alien is ugly, and the cure is the touch of a man. Honestly. HONESTLY. Just think about that for a second. I love Bob Haney, but that message is so offensive I have a hard time even wrapping my head around it. Feminism is caused by self hating ugly women, who probably just need a good rogering to get over it.

Not coincidentally, this issue is also filled with the Super-Sons saying stuff like "I ought to slap some sense into your pretty faces!" And when the town's mayor comes out to talk to them - the mayor, mind you - Bruce calls her "doll" and "baby." Clark isn't nearly so bad, but Bruce basically acts like a smug, condescending, sexist jerk throughout the issue with every woman he meets.

Then, at the end. Okay, so the mayor and one of the other girls rebel against the alien. The alien changes them into monsters and they stumble into a quicksand bog and die. Once the Super-Sons defeat the alien, they go back to town to "help" the rest of the women. The women are in shock over their freinds being mutated and murdered. How do the Super-Sons comfort these women who have been psychologically and emotionally manipulated by an alien and seen their friends die horribly?

Why, naturally Bruce takes this opportunity to leeringly suggest that they can only avoid the same fate themselves if they make out with him, then he grabs them and starts kissing them. Good timing, you total asshole!



This comic is wrong on every possible level.