Lois Lane Weds Astounding Man
The 1960s run of SUPERMAN’S GIRL FRIEND, LOIS LANE was always full of surprises, with issue No. 18 (July ’60) being no exception. In this comic, Otto Binder and Al Plastino craft quite a whopper with “Lois Lane Weds Astounding Man.”
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Lois is spirited away in a flying saucer where she is romanced by [B]Astounding Man[/B].
Having spent years observing Lois Lane from afar, the handsome suitor confesses his deep love for the girl reporter. Once having arrived on his home planet of Roxnon, Astounding Man shows off the shrine he has built to Lois.
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Tired of rejection from Superman, the newswoman decides to accept Astounding Man’s offer of marriage. However, now that Lois has promised herself to him, there is one more secret that her fiancé must reveal.
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Astounding Man is, in reality, an android under the control of an old man named Oogamooga. It is he who really lusts after Lois and the android is simply the proxy through which he hopes to have her hand in wedded bliss.
Lois, nevertheless, will go through with the ceremony and Superman is invited to witness their bonds of matrimony on Roxnon.
Yet Lois Lane has had the last laugh on Oogamooga, for in her place is a look-alike Lois Lane android that exchanges vows with the Astounding Man android. Unbeknownst to the old man Oogamooga, the android Lois Lane herself is the proxy for an old woman on Roxnon named Geena.
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While it’s easy to look at this yarn as another one of those goofy plots from the Weisinger era, I find this story quite shrewd and fascinating in its foresight.
Otto Binder was a prolific science fiction writer--both on his own and also, with his brother Earl, under the pen-name Eando Binder (E. and O. Binder). It was as Eando Binder that they wrote the stories of the robot hero, Adam Link, in the I, ROBOT series (not to be confused with Isaac Asimov’s I, ROBOT).
The ironic ending, with two old people using technology to have a long distance romance in some kind of virtual reality, never knowing the identity of the other, anticipates our own world as it exists now (and may, on an even greater level, mirror our world in the near future).
In other words, Binder (along with his editor and long time friend, Mort Weisinger) was no dummy.
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The Mystery of the Alien Super-Boy
From WORLD’S FINEST COMICS No. 124 (March ’62), by Jerry Coleman, Curt Swan and John Forte, “The Mystery of the Alien Super-Boy” combines elements of Marsboy and Skyboy.
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On Durim, the young man [B]Logi[/B] and the older scientist Hrothguth are exposed to the rays of a passing asteroid, which gives them super-powers. While Logi resolves to fight crime on Durim, Hrothguth swears to seek power for himself.
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Along with his pet tracking beast, Quisto (who looks like a cross between a horse and a lobster), Logi has followed Hrothguth and his two minions, Sklur and Hansh, to Earth. At first the green-skinned youth is mistaken for an ally of the alien trio on a crime spree outside Gotham City; at the same time, Logi mistakes Superman, Batman and Robin for Hrothguth, Sklur and Hansh in disguise.
When both realize their error, they join forces to stop the alien trio. Hrothguth is bent on obtaining an Earth element to power a device that will sap Logi of his powers. However, in the end, it is he whose powers are drained by the machine.
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The Case of the Second Superman
[B]Regor of Uuz[/B]
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The first Superman from another world than Krypton, in terms of publication history, is [b]Regor[/b] in “The Case of the Second Superman,” SUPERMAN No. 58 (May-June ’49), with art by Wayne Boring and Stan Kaye. Not only that, but it’s the first appearance of the Fortress of Solitude. There were other secret headquarters shown before this, but this was the first time that such was called “Fortress of Solitude”--and in the arctic at that!
The epic adventure begins by showing yet another visual depiction of Krypton’s demise and how an infant was rocketed to Earth to become the Mighty Superman. Then the story shifts to the fate of a different infant, on Earth. The son of scientist James Flint and his wife, living on the island of Barrios, the baby is rocketed from the island when it is destroyed by an erupting volcano. The hope of his parents is that the rocket will deliver him safely to America.
However, the rocket zooms off course and heads out into the void until it finally reaches the icey planet Uuz, far beyond the orbit of Pluto, where the child is discovered by a kindly couple. With the lighter gravity of Uuz, the Flint baby is a mighty mite. Leaping about the planet, the growing super-hero can see through the world’s glass structures, which are opaque to the natives of Uuz.
When the Earth-born son reaches maturity, he adopts the costume and identity of Regor, champion of Uuz. Meanwhile, he maintains the alias of Winki Lamm, a TV interviewer. As with Clark Kent and Lois Lane, Winki’s co-worker is a pretty blonde who despises him but admires Regor.
A new crime boss, Bantor, uses his wits against Regor--conditioning himself and a band of super-men with powers as great as Regor himself. Defeated, Regor skulks off to the rocketship that brought him to Uuz and departs the planet in ignominy.
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His rocket speeds out of control through Earth’s atmosphere and Regor is rescued by the Man of Tomorrow. Hearing his tale of failure, Superman decides to assist Regor against Bantor by training him in his arctic Fortress of Solitude, under Earth’s heavier gravity.
Once Regor has finished the rigorous training regime, the Man of Steel disguises himself as Regor’s exact double and the two fly off to Uuz. The real Regor waits in hiding in his mountain citadel, while Superman poses as the champion of Uuz--limiting himself, given Regor is not nearly as powerful as Superman.
However, Bantor gets the best of the ersatz Regor by trapping him in a plastic prison, which the real Regor is powerless against. Superman could escape, but he doesn’t want to blow his cover.
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When the actual Regor sees the predicament on TV, he leaps to Superman’s assistance and as the two move at super-speed it seems as though there’s only one Regor not two.
Once the Bantor gang is mopped up, Superman heads out into space and creates mutliple atomic explosions by colliding the two moons of Uuz until he has fashioned a mini-sun to heat up the planet. You would think this would destroy the enviroment of Uuz or at the very least make its inhabitants uncomfortable given they’re used to -90 degree temperatures. But everybody’s fine.
When the two Super-Men make their farewells, there’s the hint that the Man of Steel could return if Regor ever needs his help again.
Thare is also a fan fiction blog by Dan Swanson--[URL="http://www.5earths.info/earth-2/showcase-e2-regor-tp1969-0/"]The 5 Earths Project[/URL]--with some of Swanson's own embellishments to Regor's story.
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The Second Superman (1957)
[B]Kell Orr[/B] appears in a three-part novel length adventure--a rare thing at the time--as Superman goes on an epic quest to save Krypton’s sister planet, Xenon. Edmond Hamilton, Wayne Boring and Stan Kaye tell the story of “The Second Superman” in SUPERMAN No. 119 (February ’58), on sale December 17th, 1957.
An astronomer has discovered a distant planet that seems like Krypton and, when Superman investigates, he finds that the planet, Xenon, is an escaped moon of Krypton. On Xenon is a scientist Zoll Orr who looks just like Jor-El, while Zoll’s son, Kell Orr, bares a striking resemblance to Superman.
Because Xenon is smaller than Krypton, Superman still has super-powers there. However, as Xenon is larger than Earth, Xenonians would still have super-powers on Earth--just not so great as Superman’s. Remember that at this time gravity was still being used to explain Superman's powers--it would be a few more years before the colour of the sun was added as another reason.
And so Kell Orr and Superman trade places, as the Xenonian doppelganger plays the part of Clark Kent and Superman on Earth, while the Man of Tomorrow tries to find the answer to why Xenon is experiencing violent quakes and volcanic eruptions.
Superman discovers that the planet has a uranium core just like Krypton, which threatens to cause the same doom that struck his birth world.
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However, should enough Kryptonite be injected into the core it would neutralize the nuclear reaction and save the planet. And as Xenonians are immune to Kryptonite’s effects, Superman enlists Kell Orr’s aid as the two return to the debris field where Krypton exploded all those years ago.
There they gather sufficient Kryptonite to neutralize Xenon’s core.
However, because of the presence of Kryptonite now in the planet’s make-up, Superman can never return to Xenon again.
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The Journey of the Second Superboy
[B]Kral[/B] of Titan’s story comes from Bill Finger, Curt Swan and Sy Barry.
His story appears in ADVENTURE COMICS No. 205 (October ’54), as well as in 80 PAGE GIANT No. 10 (May ’65) which reprinted “The Journey of the Second Superboy” from that issue. Kral arrives on Earth in a rocket which is discovered by the Boy of Steel and the Kents, who take him in.
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Kral says that he escaped from Titan, sent by his parents, before the moon exploded internally. He also says that Titan is a moon of giant Jupiter--which it is not, it's a moon of Saturn. But since he's new to Earth, maybe his command of English isn't perfect. In the GIANT reprint this is corrected to Saturn.
A lot of Kral's story is not right. The boy has actually been sent by the evil people of Titan on a spy mission, in advance of an invasion. Kral later confesses to Superboy, but this is also just a ruse to get Superboy to come with him to Titan so that they might kill him with Kryptonite. At the last minute, the Second Superboy has an epiphany and sides with his new friend over the inhabitants of his home planet.
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The powers of the Second Superboy include flight, heat radiation and telepathy. Since Saturn Girl is also from Titan, I wonder if the story of Kral didn't serve as a prototype for Imra Ardeen. Given that Kral returned to Titan to teach others the same lessons of friendship and kindness that might explain why in the 30th century the people there are less belligerent (Saturn Queen being an exception).
The Kents’ Second Super-Son
[B]Vidal[/B] made his bow in ADVENTURE COMICS No. 260 (May ’59), in the “The Kents’ Second Super-Son” by Jerry Coleman and John Sikela.
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While Superboy is away on a mission in outer space, in Smallville the Kents adopt an orphan boy named Allen Greene, on a temporay basis for a month. The shy boy reveals to his adoptive parents that he is in reality Vidal, an alien from an unidentified planet in another solar system. He has powers similar to Superboy but not super-vision and super-hearing.
For reasons known only to himself, whenever Vidal is called away on a mission, he disguises himself as Superboy.
In fact, Vidal is not an orphan, but he belongs to an Inter-Galactic Patrol, with other super-powered people in his solar system. They, feeling sad for the orphaned Superboy, have sent Vidal to Earth in search of the right parents to adopt Superboy. They are unaware that Superboy has already been adopted by the Kents. Vidal has used his telepathy to manipulate the Kents into adopting him, so he might test them, but he never guesses that their son Clark Kent is in fact the Boy of Steel.
The Mystery of Mighty Boy
Otto Binder returned to familiar territoy when he revealed “The Mystery of Mighty Boy,” with art by George Papp, in SUPERBOY No. 85 (December ’60).
The story of [B]Mighty Boy[/B] combines some of Power-Boy’s history with that of Regor.
Charles Keith was living with his wife and infant son, Thomas, on a small island when they faced imminent destruction from a tsunami. Keith put the baby in a rocket ship and fired it toward the U.S.A. However, the boy’s pet puppy, Rovo, had got into the rocket and his extra weight set it off course so it arrived on Zumoor, a planet with a lighter gravity than Earth’s.
Adopted by Chad and Vela Kazzan and named Zarl, the boy gains super-powers thanks to the lighter gravity and the golden energy rays from the planet’s moon.
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Once Superboy arrives on the planet, he becomes fast friends with Mighty Boy, whose life resembles his in many peculiar ways. However the moon’s golden energy rays cause Superboy to have an effect on Zarl like that of red Kryptonite. And so the Boy of Steel leaves never to return.
The Super-Weakling from Space
From SUPERBOY No. 65 (June ’58), “The Super-Weakling from Space” is by Jerry Coleman and George Papp.
[B]Dworn[/B] is the last survivor from a planet where he had super-powers, yet Earth’s greater gravity makes him a weakling. On Earth, Dworn demonstrates that the advance science of his homeworld allows him to change any substance into gold.
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He stays with the Kents for a short period, assuming the name of Alan, Clark’s pen-pal. But once exposed to Kryptonite, it has the reverse effect on him, granting him super-powers once more.
Dworn elects to leave Earth, in search of another planet to live on. Superboy hopes they will meet again.
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For someone who has lost his entire planet and everyone he loved, Dworn is quite the upbeat guy. Too bad he never met the Legion of Super-Heroes--he would have fit right in.