Superman #293: A guy at STAR Labs messes up an experiment, which happens a lot. I'm starting to think those guys at STAR labs aren't all that great at this science stuff. Anyway, the upshot is that everyone in Metropolis develops a sudden pathological fear of water. They all become wicked thirsty as a result. Superman decides the only way to save everyone is to put the whole city to sleep with sleeping gas. When everyone wakes up the next day, the fear is gone, as the effects have worn off. All of this is observed by a bunch of time travelers from the future who have come back in time to figure out the mystery of "Thirsty Thursday." They go back to their own time periods, all still stumped. THE END! My Grade: B-. The water plot was dopey, but the time traveler stuff led to some funny bits.

Superman #295: I hate to say this, because it sounds completely absurd, but... this issue was actually interesting. A guy calling himself "Father Time" attacks Superman. But what he really wants is... superman's costume! He manages to get it. Superman then tracks the costume, only to find that it's somehow in the 30th century! And it isn't the 30th century he knows, with the Legion of Super-Heroes and everything, but rather a desolate, ruined Earth. Superman travels there and discovers a guy named Jaxon wearing his stolen costume. They fight each other, and we realize that Jaxon a) has most of Superman's powers and b) didn't get the costume from Father Time, but rather from... the animal people who previously ruled the world! Yes, Superman is in Kamandi's timeline! Only, he's in Kamandi's future, a future where humanity has risen again thanks to Jaxon. The two of them keep fighting, but as they do, the barriers of time break down. Jaxon and the others disappear and Father Time shows up again. He explains that he's actually the Green Lantern of Sector 2814 - from the 30th century. And he's set this up in order to escape a plot by the LSH villain Time Trapper, who was trying to erase the LSH by shifting Earth to Kamandi's timeline instead, where the LSH doesn't exist. THE END! My Grade: B+. The continuity juggling in this issue is impressive, picking up the "Superman's costume" thread from Kamandi #29 and interweaving it with LSH stuff. Very interesting!

Superman #297: Finally! This is the story I've been waiting for all along! After foiling an Intergang plot, Superman decides he can't keep on like this, so he decides to try being Clark Kent for a full week without turning into Superman. His resolve is sorely tested when there's a disaster in the subway, but the quick response of the fire and police departments assure him that he can stay as Clark - and maybe people don't really need him as much as he thought anyway. This is a different Clark, though: Without the need to protect his secret identity, he can stop pretending to be a milksop. Things change immediately. First he decks Steve Lombard, then he tells off Morgan Edge, resulting in Clark getting a raise! Lois is taken by the confident new Clark - and two embark on a whirlwind love affair! And Metropolis does just fine; even a near riot is calmed when Gregory Reed, the actor who sometimes doubles for Superman, shows up as Superman and calms everyone down. Clark realizes he still has unfinished business with Intergang, though, so he has Professor Pepperwinkle whip up some high tech gadgets. Clark uses them to infiltrate an Intergang hideout, take out the bad guys and steal evidence proving their latest plot against Superman. Everything is going perfectly... except the alien agent uses this down time to steal some alien artifacts from Clark's apartment. Artifacts that will allow the alien to destroy the world! To Be Continued!! My Grade: A++.



World's Finest #236: Bear with me, guys. A dude falls ill, then a girl does. Superman uses his supervision to discover they are infected with infinitesimal humanoid monsters, which are attacking their cells! The only hope: Shrink down, jump into the blood stream and dump poison on them. Obviously. Duh. Science. For some reason, Superman says he can't be shrunk down small enough to deliver the poison, so he gets the Atom to do it. Even the Atom can't shrink as small as they need to, so they come up with an ingenious plan: Superman will smash him so hard he breaks down to a molecular level, then they will inject him, and somehow a centrifuge will put him back together again. Or something. You know what, don't ask. Atom doesn't ask until it's too late - they give him a big explanation about how Superman's super clap will create a force field that will protect him, blah blah blah. Either that... "or obliterate you." Atom's like, wait, what? Than Superman obliterates him! But through apparently random chance, he survives. They inject him into the body and he does his Fantastic Voyage thing. But when he comes to the mite-monsters, they trap him and defeat him! Meanwhile, the world's greatest detective gets bored, so he decides to try and find how these people got sick. Turns out it's from a space rock - which seems to happen an awful lot in the DCU. When he traces it back, though, he realizes the carrier is actually the disease and the mite-monsters are actually alien antibodies trying to save the victims! He fights the carrier - who somehow has become Miss Gotham City - and she falls onto the third rail, transforming back into a giant alien cockroach thing. He rushes back, gives the news to the others and they rescue Atom. Then allt he sick people just get better. THE END!!! My Grade: H+. This is pure Haney at his Haniest.

February, 1976

Superman #299: This gets confusing, so I'll try to keep it as simple as possible. Clark's neighbor/alien has set it up so that Superman has become a living bomb, and when he exerts enough energy, he'll blow up the whole planet. To get him to exert that much energy, the alien teleports his 9 deadliest villains into his apartment, then beams them around the world. Superman chases them down and defeats them all so easily you have to wonder what the big problem usually is. He figures out the alien's plot, too, and realizes that the whole "powerless as Clark Kent" thing is just because all of his business suits have been treated with an alien chemical. Well, that's pretty pedestrian. Superman captures the alien, and with the powerless thing no longer an issue, he decides to keep living his double life, because he is both Clark Kent - and Superman! THE END! My Grade: C. Kind of a boilerplate Superman adventure, which is a letdown, but not a surprise.

Notes: The ending to this big three part Superman story was depressingly status quo. It started with so much promise, but they had to just go back to standard operating procedure. And the defeat of his 9 biggest enemies in about four minutes flat really made them all look like incompetent saps. And, by extension, Superman, given his usual struggles against each of them. I don't think this served anyone well.

Also... so, Clark's neighbor teleports 9 of Superman's deadliest archenemies, including Brainiac and Lex Luthor, into Clark Kent's apartment. And none of them are curious enough about this sudden kidnapping to even explore the room? And thereby learn Superman's secret identity? Is Terra Man really that enthralling of a conversationalist?

Starting around issue 300 is when I would pick up the occasional Superman issues when flipping through comics at the rack. When I had a few extra nickels or had already purchased my regular go to series, Superman and Batman and Wonder Woman were my 3 DC alternatives from my regular Marvel haul. It would depend upon several things for me buying an issue, mostly from flipping through and seeing if the story had enough occurring for me to invest my money and second was the artist inside. Occasionally a cover might be the initial attention grabber but it was usually the one and done stories combined with the always superb Curt Swan or Jose Gonzales-Lopez art inside which had me buy them. Superman was always a bit of a mixed bag during this time, sometimes really fun, others boring, many just plain dumb and others silly. Cannot imagine this version of Superman comics being able to survive in today's market. Back then, it was always a nice diversion, a feel good kind of a comic, like visiting your grandparents feeling: something good to enjoy and remember but not what you wanted to read every day.