The Super-Men (and -Women) of All-Planets

[Jim Kelly]

SUPERMAN 255 (August 1972)--"The Sun of Superman" by Bates, Swan and Anderson.

Out of Superman's past arrives a sun--into our solar system. He does not realize that this orange sun is his own Rao that gave him life all those years ago on Krypton. In fact, the Last Son soon learns that inside the sun are the sun-thrivers. For Rao was created by these energy beings--wherein they thrived.







And to keep their energy in perfect harmony, they spun off a planet that was Krypton. Now having lost its planet, Rao has shifted from red to orange and the sun-thrivers are not at peace, their energy erratic. They must have another planet, a new Krypton to restore harmony.

[continued in next post]

[Jim Kelly]

They set the Man of Steel on a quest to find Kryptonite they can't retrieve to remake their planet.





Superman collects the lethal substance and the new planet assumes its orbit around Rao. The sun-thrivers tell the hero that all is well. But the truth is this planet is not likely to survive either.



This story explains why, for awhile, Superman never encounters any Kryptonite in the cosmos. However, given the unstable state of New Krypton, the K metal is sure to return in the near future and menace the Man of Tomorrow once more.

Until next time, season's greetings.

[manwhohaseverything]

That story is damn cool!!

[Jim Kelly]

The Terra-Man (Toby Manning) Timeline

THE NEW ADVENTURES OF SUPERBOY 23 (November 1981)--1st story, "The Superboy Who Never Was" by Cary Bates, Kurt Schaffenberger and Dave Hunt; cover art by Kurt and Dave
SUPERMAN 249 (March 1972)--2nd story, "The Origin of Terra-Man" by Bates, Dick Dillin and Neal Adams
SUPERMAN 249 (March 1972)--1st story, "The Challenge of Terra-Man" by Bates, Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson; cover art by Neal Adams
SUPERMAN 250 (April 1972)--1st story, "Have Horse, Will Fly" by Bates, Swan and Anderson; cover art by Neal
SUPERMAN 259 (December 1972)--"The Kid Who Knocked Out Superman" by Bates, Swan and Anderson; cover art by Nick Cardy
ACTION COMICS 426 (August 1973)--"Master of the Moon Rocks" by Bates, Swan and Anderson; cover art by Nick
SUPERMAN 278 (August 1974)--1st story, "Super-Showdown at Buzzard Gulch" by Bates, Swan and Bob Oksner; cover art by Nick
SUPERMAN 299 (May 1976)--"The Double-or-Nothing Life of Superman" by Bates, Maggin, Swan and Oksner; cover art by Bob Oksner
ACTION COMICS 468 (February 1977)--1st story, "Terra at Nine O'Clock" by Bates, Swan and Tex Blaisdell; cover art by Neal
ACTION COMICS 469 (March 1977)--1st story, "The Night Superman Was Buried in Boot Hill" by Bates, Swan and Blaidell; cover art by José Luis García-López and Bob Oksner
ACTION COMICS 470 (April 1977)--"Even Superman Must Die Sometime" by Bates, Swan and Blaisdell; cover art by José and Bob
WORLD'S FINEST COMICS 261 (February-March 1980)--1st story, "Showdown at Gotham City" by Denny O'Neil, Rich Buckler and Dick Giordano; cover art by Ross Andru and Dick Giordano
ACTION COMICS 511 (September 1980)--"Luthor Fights for Good" by Bates, Swan and Francisco Chiaramonte; cover art by Ross and Dick
SUPERMAN 377 (November 1982)--"Terra Times Two" by Paul Kupperberg, Curt Swan and Dave Hunt; cover art by Gil Kane
ACTION COMICS 557 (July 1984)--1st story, "The Artistic Thefts of Terra-Man" by Kupperberg, Swan and Hunt; cover art by Eduardo Barreto
DC COMICS PRESENTS 96 (August 1986)--"The Duputy" by Dan Mishkin, Gary Kohn, Joe Staton and Kurt Schaffenberger; cover art by Alan Kupperberg

WHO'S WHO: THE DEFINITIVE DIRECTORY OF THE DC UNIVERSE 23 (January 1987)--"Terra-Man" by writer undetermined; art by Curt Swan and Sam de la Rosa



One of the greatest Cary Bates creations was Toby Manning, a.k.a. Terra-Man--a desperado from the Old West, stuck in the present, using futuristic alien tech--so advanced it seemed like magic. A kind of reversal of Thanagar's Katar Hol and Shayera Thal (a.k.a. Carter and Shiera Hall a.k.a. Hawkman and Hawkgirl) futuristic aliens, come to Earth to study police methods here, using weapons from our world's past.

If they had wanted to, I'm sure the publishers could have had Terra-Man carry his own feature. He could have been developed as an anti-hero. Bat Lash and Jonah Hex were both western anti-heroes on the margins of the law. And in the 1980s, questionable characters like Lobo and Deathstroke would rise in popularity. Why not Terra-Man?

Yet the powers that be never saw Toby Manning's potential--and didn't even see fit to bring him back after Crisis--not the Terra-Man from the Old West that we knew leastwise.

Another great idea landed on the junk heap of comic book history.

[Jim Kelly]

In NEW ADVENTURES OF SUPERBOY 23 (November 1981), the Boy of Steel is troubled by all the problems he's caused of late (see previous issues) and decides he's too much of a menace, so he exiles himself. But he feels that going to another planet would solve nothing--he'd just be a magnet for trouble there. The same if he flew into the future. However, if he flies into the past, Clark reasons that he can't do any harm, because in his experience of time travel he can never change the past. Whatever happens happens, the timeline is fixed and unchangeable.

He ends up in Cripple Creek, circa 1888, where Clark dresses as a dude and gets a job working for Rufus Matlock, the editor of the local paper --The Cripple Creek Courier. Matlock has a sweet, blonde daughter Gail, who helps out running the press. She and Clark are the same age and are stepping out.

[Jim Kelly]

Meanwhile, a highwayman in the area, Jess Manning, is winged by the sheriff and put in a cell. His young son, Toby, is determined to break his pa out of jail. And at the same time, a flying saucer, piloted by an alien called the Collector, searches for fuel sources and appears over the small town.

When Mr. Matlock's life is in danger, Clark flies into action without thinking. Given that he has saved the editor's life, this seems to indicate that the Boy of Tomorrow's action is part of the timeline. With a newfound sense of freedom, Clark becomes Superboy and takes off after the flying saucer.

[Jim Kelly]

These events intertwine with those in SUPERMAN 249 (March 1972), the second story, where Jess and Toby hold up a stagecoach, but as they do so, the Collector in the flying saucer steals what they've just stolen. When Jess shoots back at the saucer, the alien punishes him--intending just to stun him, not realizing that his attack would kill the desperado.



Feeling responsible for the now orphaned boy, the Collector takes him with him on the saucer--wiping his memory so he wouldn't remember that the alien had killed his pa.

Superboy comes after the saucer and flings it into outer space, not realizing that the young Toby is also onboard the spacecraft.

And the Boy of Steel decides to return to Smallville and the parents he abandoned in his own time period.

Toby Manning is mentored by the Collector and takes the name "Terra-Man" for the planet he came from. While the Collector thinks that his student is ignorant of the crime committed against his father--Toby does remember the clue that his father traced in the dirt as the life left his body. The crude circle with a bullet in the middle, a fixed memory, reminds Terra-Man that the Collector killed his pa. And so the stellar side-winder takes his revenge, killing the Collector, before lighting out for Earth across the cosmos, riding his flying steed, Nova.

[Jim Kelly]

Supposedly because of relativity, while only some twenty years has passed for Terra-Man, about a hundred years have transpired on Earth. This is the same conceit that's used for the Alpha Centurion later--I think the idea for Terra-Man was deliberately appropriated for Alpha Centurion.

It's bad timing for the Man of Tomorrow, when the Cowboy from Yesteryear appears on the scene--as Superman is going through a syndrome that every Kryptonian suffers every sixth cycle of his birthday.





This results in an arse over tea-kettle duel between Smallville's Favourite Son and the Intergalactic Gunslinger, but the Action Ace is able to take out the Cowboy from Space.



More Terra-Man Chronicles coming soon. Joyeux Noël!

[kalai]

cool list, I think I have really just read the comic with Hyper-man sacrificing himself.
I think Superman should put together a Superman league. It's like Legion but all Supermen.

[Thor-Ul]

cool list, I think I have really just read the comic with Hyper-man sacrificing himself.
I think Superman should put together a Superman league. It's like Legion but all Supermen.

Then check the Green Lantern. Maybe someone can make a miniseries about the Superwatch.

[Jim Kelly]

Next issue (SUPERMAN 250) finds Toby in the pokey, serving time with other hardened criminals. the Terra-Man is legitimately displeased with the prison conditions--reflecting on the injustices of 20th century Earth.



Lucky for Manning, he doesn't have to serve time for long, as his loyal four-hooved compadre, Nova, breaks him out of the hoosegow. Terra gets back at his Kryptonian nemesis by super-advancing the hero's age. However, the Rogue Roughrider is felled by a flaw in his internal breathing mechanism (what allows him to breathe even in space).

[Jim Kelly]

Terra-Man engineers yet another break-out from prison in SUPERMAN 259, when he manages to transport the whole prison except his cell out of its snowy location to a desert. Nova then retrieves the convict, who hatches another plot against the Man of Steel.



But to give this story context, we first have to talk about Billy. So let's go back some issues of SUPERMAN . . .

After his Sand Superman, Denny O'Neil introduced another power challenge for the Action Ace in the form of this little boy named Billy--not Billy Batson but Billy Anders. This kid lives in the same building as Clark Kent, at 344 Clinton Street. One day--as revealed in "The Kid Who Saved Superman," SUPERMAN 253 (June 1972), by O'Neil, Swan and Anderson--Billy Anders is in a freak accident as he collides with a guy riding a motorcycle down the stairs in the building, with a pet lynx on his shoulder, and with another guy in alien armour.




The guy in alien armour is Ferlin Nyxly who got the armour from a space museum in the salt flats of Utah--Nyxly previously showed up in "Sinister Scream of the Devil's Harp," SUPERMAN 235 (March 1971). The clash of the boy, Nyxly, the motorcyclist and the lynx transfers Billy's consciousness into the lynx.

Anders goes to hospital and Superman defeats Nyxly. Billy regains his consciousness from the lynx--and apparently adopts the animal as a pet. Nothing more about the motorcyclist that owned the unnamed feline.

The space museum in the salt flats is actually being broadcast from New Mars, where J'Onn J'Onzz has followed the exodus of his Martian comrades--that story is further developed when the Martian Manhunter and Superman meet up in WORLD'S FINEST COMICS 212 (June 1972).

[Jim Kelly]

Meanwhile, the story of Billy Anders continues in "The Kid Who Stole Superman's Powers," SUPERMAN 254 (July 1972) by O'Neil, Swan, Anderson--cover art by Nick Cardy.



The yarn begins with the Man of Tomorrow greeting an alien spacecraft just beyond the Earth's atmosphere. The extraterrestrials are the Kleth from the planet Belmont in the Betelgeuse star system and they seem friendly enough--their "five year mission is to explore new worlds, to greet new civilizations . . . to boldly go where none has gone before!"



But the Kleth are not to be trusted. The Man of Steel gets a jolt from a chair on board the ship, but has no time to investigate as he must be on his way to see Billy Anders who is being discharged from the hospital. The boy is on crutches, with one leg in a cast, but the Action Ace picks him up and flies him over Metropolis, then puts on a display of strength for Billy at a construction site. However, his super strength has a boomerang effect.

Superman figures this is a trick of the Kleth, but when he flies back into space, the ship has gone with only the ship's doctor set adrift, abandoned in space by the captain, L'Drr. At the Fortress of Solitude, with Billy Anders, the doctor explains that the renegade captain rendered Superman's strength useless so L'Drr could continue accumulating radioactive materials from other worlds. However, the doctor has a way for the Caped Kryptonian to regain his strength, building a device which transfers Superman's power to Billy who then channels that back to Superman, through a mental link, by thinking of and saying "lynx."

As L'Drr's ship hovers above Metropolis, the captain demands the Earth surrender all its radioactive materials or suffer the consequences, but Superman swoops in and stops the Kleth, sending them packing.

Sadly for Billy Anders, O'Neil did not return to SUPERMAN's pages to wrap up the lynx power connection. And thus Billy becomes bed-ridden, bruised and ailing for all the time that Superman has been channeling his strength through this mere mortal. Finally, out of sympathy for the boy, Cary Bates saw fit to conclude the Anders predicament five issues later in "The Kid Who Knocked Out Superman," SUPERMAN 259 (December 1972), with special guest villain Terra-Man.

One must imagine that all these months of SUPERMAN, ACTION COMICS, WORLD'S FINEST COMICS, JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA, SUPERMAN'S PAL, JIMMY OLSEN and SUPERMAN'S GIRL FRIEND, LOIS LANE--the Man of Steel has been secretly imagining a lynx every time he used his super-strength--and Billy Anders has been silently suffering at 344 Clinton Street. Brave and loyal little fellow.

When Terra-Man breaks out of prison and tangles with the Super Hombre from Krypton, he picks up the telepathic image of a lynx. The Cripple Creek Cayote sets his cosmic cayuse on the trail of the lynx and Nova soon finds the feline at 344 Clinton Street. Sussing out the connection between the battered Billy and the Man of Tomorrow, Terra-Man abducts the child to set a trap for the Man of Steel.



continued in next post following

[Jim Kelly]

Not unlike Schrödinger's cat, the lynx is enveloped in a psychic box that removes the state of his existence from memory by all; there is now no way for Superman to gain his strength from Billy.



Imprisoned in an ancient boulder, escape is impossible for the Action Ace. However, with all the scratches on his body from the lynx, Billy is able to break through the psychic barrier and recall the lynx, which dissipates the memory block and allows Superman to channel his strength.

Given all the futuristic technology that Terra-Man has, the Man of Steel restores his super-strength and frees Billy from the power link they shared.

Facing down Toby Manning, Superman bends back the barrel of his gun so Terra-Man shoots himself, sending the Desperado to some unknown dimension. As for Billy Anders, he soon will transfer his loyalties to Captain Strong--a fandom that proves less painful.



More Tales from the Crypt of Terra, coming soon. Happy Boxing Day--make sure any cats or lynxes don't get trapped in those boxes, you might forget about them.

[Johnny Thunders!]

I’m a big fan of Terra Man. I see shades of him in Lobo, Bloodsport, Nimrod, and oddly, Jack Hawksmoor of the Authority. I did not know there was a Superboy story. I really like the Neal Adams Dick Dillin origin. I wonder who the design is based on? Lee Van Cleef, Eastwood, Burt Reynolds? There are times he looks to me about 47 years old and like the Mexican legend/ singer Vicente Fernandez. He is one of my favorite foes. Just the idea of Space Cowboy says it all to me! He’s kind of like Superman’s Abra Kadabra!