February 1974



Superman #275:  Clark's new co-worker, TV gossip columnist Lola Barnett, stuns Metropolis when she reveals that Superman's secret identity is Mark Hall! Needless to say, Clark is especially surprised to hear this. Come to find out, Lola has no memory of making this announcement, but Mark Hall is actually her twin brother, who has been missing and presumed dead for a year. Superman investigates and discovers Hall was actually a CIA agent whose death was faked. Superman is still stumped, though, until... well, until a giant mechanical dragonfly crashes into a blimp that turns out to be full of enemy agents, as well as Hall. You know, the sort of thing that just happens all the time. Hall was using his special twinsie powers to notify Superman via his sister that he was a captive. Sure. In the backup story, we get a tale from Krypton about a guy who saves a princess because a Kryptonian parrot clues him in on an attack by a thought monster. My Grade: C. The premise of the telepathic, dead brother was kind of interesting, but the mechanical dragonfly thing just made no sense.

Action #435: Superman tries to destroy the Earth in the simplest, most logical way possible: With a giant tuning fork. At the last second hea realizes how asinine that is and snaps out of it. Turns out he is being manipulated by some very telepathic a-holes from another planet. Lot of that going around seems like. He tries twice more to destroy Earth, using even more obtuse means. Finally he realizes that the filling in his tooth from last issue is actually a transmitter sending the villains all the energy he was expending in stopping his own plans. The villains use this power to defeat Superman. Except! At the last second, he grabs a rock, rubs it wicked fast to build up a static charge, and hurls it into then, zapping them like an electric grenade. And that, kids, is how the dumbest Superman story of 1974 ended. The backup story is the Atom, which I find very difficult to even get through despite nice art courtesy of Dick Giordano's inks (over Dick Dillin's pencils). Every one of these Atom stories seems to be another very cookie cutter variation on the "keeping my secret identity from my girlfriend" story. My Grade: D+. The Superman story is epically idiotic.

World's Finest #223: This is a doozy, and a pretty infamous one. Superman and Batman (along with Deadman, which Batman knows but Superman does not) team up to investigate a series of murders. They find that the killer is apparently an escaped inmate from a mental hospital. Superman, though, realizes that Batman has cracked the case already but for some reason is protecting the killer instead of capturing him. When Superman confronts Batman, we learn the shocking truth: the killer is actually Bruce Wayne's own secret brother, who conveniently had never been mentioned before! They go to stop him from performing any more killings, but just as Superman is about to capture the guy, Deadman takes over Superman's body. It lets the killer get away, but messes things up more, because it turns out Bruce's brother was being used as a patsy by another guy who wanted some people dead but needed a dupe to do it for him. In the end, the gang catches the mastermind, but Bruce's murderous brother is still on the loose. Or is he? Turns out Deadman has taken over his body and is off to start a new life! To Be Continued? My Grade: B. Another major WTF story from Bob Haney.

Notes: The story in Superman #275 seems very typical for this period. You can just tell that the writer either had or was given by the editor a simple idea - Superman's identity is revealed, only it's someone else, as Superman has to investigate! And then they had to figure out an actual story for this idea and everything went right to hell. There seem to be a lot of these stories where a good basic premise turns into a launching ground for Grade Z sci-fi nonsense. In Action, that idea (which was explored more last issue) was the incredibly gripping saga of What If Superman Had A Toothache?!

This issue of World's Finest is a 100 page special. It seems to be part of a concerted effort to keep Deadman in the public eye, an effort that began when Jack Kirby was forced to use him in Forever People, which made no sense. Here, besides the Deadman team-up, we also get a reprint of his origin.

But hey, at least there's no Metamorpho in this issue, so that's a step in the right direction.

The story of Batman's secret brother, Thomas Wayne Jr., is apparently continued in World's Finest #227, so we'll see more on that in a bit. Thomas Wayne Jr. is also Owlman in some alternate realities.

Thank you, Scott.  I was really hoping you'd continue this thread.

I'm guessing there were a lot of people saying this at the time, especially in the DC offices.

I mean, Bob Haney. You have to admire him for just not giving even one crap about anything. When he comes up with an idea he just goes for it.

Or the fourth panel where Bats replies..of course I'm serious, I'm Batman, and don't call me Shirley....?
-M

Thanks for doing those!
Lots of earliest childhood reading memories. Those were published in Germany either in the biweekly Superman/Batman comic that was roughly the format of American comics (with glossier paper and few to no ads), or in somewhat oversized graphic novel style, or in severely under-sized digest collections which sometimes only captured 25% of the dialog.



Somehow, all the American output still was not enough to satisfy German hunger for the Kryptonian, so a handful of Superman graphic novels were produced for the German market in the 80s that later got cut up into 2 or 3 chapters to be releases in the regular American issues. 

My dad was cremated and the urn was still buried in his parent's grave.
No-prize? 

April 1974



Superman #277: An ex-reporter turned big game hunter shows up in Metropolis seeking the biggest game of them all: Superman's secret identity. It takes him about one page to figure out that Clark Kent is actually Superman, but he can't prove it. So he leaves. THE END! Meanwhile, in the backup story, we get a new installment of the Private Life of Clark Kent. Oh, man. So, Steve Lombard crashes Clark's apartment. Turns out his aunt, a mystery novelist, is visiting town and Steve didn't want her to see that he is constantly hosting louche bacchanalias at his own apartment. Clark reluctantly plays along and orders out for pizza. When the pizza is delivered, though, they discover that on the pizza is a secret message spelled out in mozzarella cheese! It reads: "Help! Call police! Held captive by escaped convicts!" which means this is either an exceptionally large pizza to fit in that much text, or else this guy is an expert at cheese calligraphy. Rather than call the police, though, Steve's Aunt devises a daring rescue plan to save the delivery boy. Naturally, it goes terribly wrong, but Clark manages to take down all three crooks by pretending to be incredibly clumsy. My Grade: B-, mainly because the backup story is so awesome.

Action Comics #437: Green Arrow gets a mystic message to warn Superman that there are problems in Valhalla. Superman explains to Ollie about Valhalla, which appeared in Superman #260 and #270. More continuity! Seems to be a bit of that going around recently for some reason. And there's more: When they investigate, they discover this is a scheme by the a-hole wizard they fought in World's Finest #210. He convinces Superman to become his slave - or else the vikings are doomed! - and uses this power just to amuse himself by summoning Flash and Green Lantern to fight Supes. Superman easily trashes both of them. Then GA shows up with what seems like the viking city in a bottle. Startled, the wizard stupidly exclaims out loud where the actual vikings are being hidden and Superman saves everybody. Turns out the "bottle city" was, you know, Kandor, and it was a trick to get the wizard to tell them where the vikings are. Good thing the villains Superman fights are all so incredibly stupid. My Grade: C.

World's Finest #224: BOB HANEY! So, the Super-Sons are back and they are having issues with their dads yet again. So they decide to all go to a special therapy camp. Once there, they do stuff like dance together in the woods. For real. Eventually the head counselor has them switch families so they can better appreciate their own. It's like Wife Swap, only with Super-Sons. Meanwhile, a government cyborg is on the loose. The gang tries to stop him and... totally fails in spectacular fashion, as the agent steals a convoy of deadly gas right out fron under their noses, and then releases it on a town of innocents. And then, at the last second, he remembers who he is and sacrifices himself to save the townsfolk. Then, after all this, the heroes show up and are like, "wow! Good thing this problem completely took care of itself, because frankly, we suck!" They do, however, kinda sorta gain more appreciation for each other, but mainly because they end up thinking the other pair sucks even worse. My Grade: H for Haney. Okay, B, I guess. The therapy stuff was hilarious.


Notes: Superman this month is a fairly entertaining story, but the basic concept - a guy tries to prove Superman is Clark Kent! - is so, so old hat at this point that it's frankly depressing that they would do it again regardless of the new bells and whistles. The story even ends with the guy doodling a pair of glasses on a photo of Superman and being shocked at what he sees. Pointing out the inherent idiocy in your own central narrative conceits is not a great storytelling move.

On an unrelated note, the cover also struck me as being oddly typical of Superman stories, in that it has a guy falling. How many Superman covers over the first few decades of his existence were people falling? Most of them? Two issues from now we're going to get a very similar cover, only with Batgirl falling instead of random guy. Someone is always falling! It's like everyone in Metropolis has vertigo.

We're on the second month of the 100 Page era now. Even though I am not a fan of dirty reprints, I might have had a hard time passing this one up given the strength of the lineup. There are some unusual choices for reprints here, including stories featuring Sea Devils, Matt Savage and Doll Man. In retrospect it's a bit odd that DC did nothing with the Quality lineup of superheroes for so long before finally re-introducing them in JLoA #107. Seeing Doll Man in Action Comics gives me a bit of cognitive dissonance.

The inclusion of a Matt Savage story is also interesting, though probably much more interesting now than it was then. The story is just a western about Matt Savage: Trail Boss. A few years later, though, the character Scalphunter was created, and it was eventually revealed that Scalphunter was Matt Savage's son. It was further revealed much, much later (in James Robinson's Starman of all places) that Scalphunter's son is Steve Savage: Balloon Buster, the WWI ace who had his own strip in All-American Men of War. None of that continuity existed at the time this Matt Savage story was reprinted, but it gives the story a lot of extra texture now.

The lead story in Action had an interesting bit where Green Lantern used his ring to simulate the effects of Kryptonite. All Kryptonite, of course, was destroyed in Superman #233, but they are slowly working it back into the mythos, one tiny bit at a time. Just as they pretty much reverted all the other changes put in place by the "revamp," keeping only cosmetic changes like Clark being a TV anchor.

Also, at one point, Green Arrow flies on a commercial jet from Star City to Metropolis and complains about the $22 he had to spend on a ticket. That's like six blocks cab fare in New York these days.

And finally, the lettercolumn in World's Finest is filled with people praising the Super-Sons, so I think we're almost to the point where that becomes the regular strip.