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

[Jim Kelly]

SUPERMAN 102 (January 1956)--2nd story, "The Midget Menace" by Edmond Hamilton, Boring and Kaye:

The lilliputian people from the planet Thura come to Earth to study the Metropolis Marvel and learn the source of his super-powers. Like a modern Gulliver, Superman is shackled to the ground with green K. restraints, as the Thurans tell him their plans to conquer the rival planet Varda, once they have made themselves stronger.



Realizing the secret of his powers is in his atomic structure, the Thurans fashion a ray that alters their atomic structure to that of the Man of Steel. Even though the ray works, Superman convinces them it has failed by secretly using the ray on Lois Lane, who gains temporary super-powers.

[Jim Kelly]

ACTION COMICS 321 (February 1965)--1st story, "Superman--Weakest Man in the World" by Hamilton, Swan and Klein:



When the Four Galatic Thiefmasters--a quartet of the most infamous thieves in the galaxy--airlift the Washington Monument, the Action Ace is in hot pursuit of their space craft. Across the void, he's led toward another yellow sun system. Or so it seems. The F.G.T. have used a solar filter device to alter the wavelengths of light from that star. As their ship blasts through the atmosphere of a planet orbiting that star, they restore the light to red and the Caped Kryptonian plummets to the ground.



He is on the bright side of this planet, permanently facing their sun--on the dark side, there is never any sunlight.

Trapped on this world, with no super-powers, the Strange Visitor from another planet discovers that all the inhabitants are super-powered and they treat him with disdain for being such a weakling. They call themselves Thorones and, when they find out that everyone on Earth has no super-powers, they make plans to fly across the galaxy and plunder our world. Unlike Superman, it doesn't matter what colour the sun, they draw their powers from any solar radiation.

Supes is put in a prison cell. But one Thorone is attracted to him, as he's not like any of the Thorones she's known. This is Lahla and the attraction between the two is immediate. They kiss and Lahla uses her super-strength to free the World's Weakest Man.



On the run, they hide out in the mountains where the lead in the rocks conceals them from the Thorones' x-ray vision. There, Clark enlists Lahla's aid in constructing a robot to imitate him as Superman, using his know-how and her braun. But the Thorones are not fooled by the automaton and its lead content directs them to the mountains where the two star-crossed lovers are in hiding.

[Jim Kelly]

Both Kal-El and Lahla are exiled to the dark side of the planet. There, she loses her powers, as well, in the absence of sunlight.



As they wander the dark side, they discover a crack in the rocky surface where atomic fire bursts up from the planet's core. The two exiles are able to smelt the lead and build a giant robot to propel them inside a plastic bubble far enough into space that Clark can regain his powers.

Superman flies Lahla to the roof of the Planet building, before taking off to put a moon in stationary orbit between the Thorone World and their sun, rendering the Thorones in a permanent eclipse and powerless. Next he rounds up the Thiefmasters. And finally he returns to the roof of the Daily Planet, where Lois and Jimmy have joined Lahla.

Although the Man of Steel is still smitten with his Thorone superwoman, she has fallen out of love with him, because he's not a weakling anymore. It turns out she has a weakness for weak men. And she has found a weak Earthman.

She takes her new boyfriend, in a spacesuit, into the heavens and they leave to explore the cosmos together. Superman remarks ". . . it's silly!" and Lois answers, "All girls are that way . . . me for instance! I'm silly enough to have a crush on a big, boneheaded Superman!"

[Jim Kelly]

ACTION COMICS 260 (January 1960)--1st story, "Mighty Maid" by Otto Binder and Al Plastino:

Once upon a time . . .

there appeared on Earth a woman called Mighty Maid! She said she was from the 4th dimension and, like Superman, she had great powers.



Finding someone so much like himself, the Man of Might fell madly in love. The two carried on like teen-agers, hugging and kissing right in front of Lois Lane, without a care for her feelings.

So in love was the Action Ace, that he planned to marry Mighty Maid and live with her in the 4th dimension.

[Jim Kelly]

Unbeknownst to everyone but the Super-Couple, it was all a dumb show for an alien audience observing Superman on Earth. Their spacecraft were once attacked by the Krypton army; however, before they could act on their plans to retaliate, they witnessed the destruction of the doomed planet and the exit of baby Kal-El's rocket.

Tracing the orphan to our world, they planned to revenge themselves on the Last Son of Krypton by destroying the Earth. However, if they were to believe he had left this planet for Mighty Maid's 4th dimensional world, then they could give up on those plans.

Kal-El revealed all this to Mighty Maid, as they lurked in a cave below a body of water, since the aliens were unable to observe them below water.

In fact, Mighty Maid was not who she claimed to be but rather Superman's own cousin, Supergirl. At the time of this story, given the Girl of Steel's existence remained a secret known only to her cousin, no one could guess that she was Mighty Maid and simply pretending to be in love with a man who was her cousin--her kissing cousin!







Note: Superman states that Kara is fifteen years old. The Man of Tomorrow tells his cousin about the bottle city from Krypton that he has in his Fortress of Solitude; this seems to be the first time he's told her about it, even though she's been on Earth for awhile. On sale in the same month as this issue is SUPERMAN 134 (January 1960), which features a full-length story about a Kandorian who takes Superman's place. In that comic, Supergirl does know about the bottle city, which suggests those events happened immediately after "Mighty Maid."

[Jim Kelly]

Before the arrival of the Supergirl from Krypton, there were several girls and and women that had the Super monicker .

The Lives of Supergirls and Superwomen
--prior to Kara Zor-El's arrival on Earth--

(part one)

Superwoman (Lois Lane's dream): ACTION COMICS 60 (May 1943)--1st story, "Lois Lane--Superwoman" by Jerry Siegel and John Sikela



Superwoman (Lois Lane): SUPERMAN 45 (March-April 1947)--1st story, "Lois Lane, Superwoman" by Alvin Schwartz, John Sikela and George Roussos



Supergirl (Queen Lucy of Borgonia, a.k.a. Lucy Regent): SUPERBOY 5 (November-December 1949)--1st story, "Superboy Meets Supergirl" by William Woolfolk, John Sikela and Ed Dobrotka

[Jim Kelly]

The Lives of Supergirls and Superwomen
--prior to Kara Zor-El's arrival on Earth--

(part two)

Superwoman (Lois Lane): ACTION COMICS 156 (May 1951)--1st story, "The Girl of Steel" by Alvin Schwartz (?) and Al Plastino



Superwoman (robot): SUPERMAN 71 (July-August 1951)--2nd story, "The Anti-Superman Club" by Edmond Hamilton and Al Plastino



Super-Girl (Lana Lang): ADVENTURE COMICS 167 (August 1951)--1st story, "Lana Lang, Super-Girl" by Edmond Hamilton, Curt Swan and John Fischetti

[Jim Kelly]

The Lives of Supergirls and Superwomen
--prior to Kara Zor-El's arrival on Earth--

(part three)

Superwoman (Tharka of Zor): SUPERMAN 81 (March-April 1953)--3rd story, "The Superwoman from Space" by William Woolfolk and Al Plastino



Superboy/girl (Lana Lang): SUPERBOY 36 (October 1954)--2nd story, "Superboy's Sister" by William Woolfolk and John Sikela

Super-powered Lois (Lois Lane): SHOWCASE 10 (September-October 1957)--3rd story, "The Forbidden Box from Krypton" by Otto Binder, Wayne Boring and Stan Kaye



Super-Girl (Jimmy Olsen's wish): SUPERMAN 123 (August 1958)--1st story, "The Girl of Steel" by Otto Binder, Dick Sprang and Stan Kaye



Superwoman (Lois Lane): SUPERMAN'S GIRL FRIEND, LOIS LANE 8 (April 1959)--1st story, "The Superwoman of Metropolis" by Alvin Schwartz and Kurt Schaffenberger

Note: Many more times, after Superman's cousin was established as Supergirl, there have been a long line of females ready to infringe on her trademark, so to speak.

[Jim Kelly]

ACTION COMICS 252 (May 1959)--3rd story, "The Girl from Krypton" by Otto Binder and Al Plastino:

When the "Girl from Krypton" arrives on Earth, her story is full of holes. Later rewrites of Kara Zor-El's origin will have to repair all the spotty logic. Here are a few of the head scratchers--

1. This first draft of history tells us that the chunk of Krypton where Zor-El lived just happened to have an air pocket around it. So how does this atmosphere remain when the unnamed piece of Krypton can't possibly have the same gravity as Krypton itself? Indeed, how do the Kryptonians manage to stay grounded on this planetoid?



2. Because of a chain reaction from the exploding planet, all of this floating space-island is transformed into Kryptonite. And the Kryptonians start to suffer from Kryptonite poisoning. They then manage to cover the entire surface of their planetoid with lead foil from Zor-El's lab. This is a contentious issue since other stories have shown that Kryptonians are only susceptible to the effects of Kryptonite when they have their powers. Zor-El's people don't have powers, so they shouldn't be affected.

2a. The lighter gravity raises another sub-question, as at this time all Superman's powers are explained as the result of lighter gravity--and Kryptonians do become super-powerful when they are away from Krypton--therefore Zor-El's people ought to be super-powerful. Yet the Kryptonians are exposed to what should be lethal amounts of Kryptonite, since they must roll out all the lead foil to cover the planetoid surface and that should surely take so much time that they would all be dead. But somehow they are able to complete the job without any casualties.



3. After Kara is born, Zor-El and his unnamed wife just happen to tune in video of Earth and see Superman. They don't know this is Kal-El or that Superman is Kryptonian. But seeing this super-hero gives them the idea to make a costume for their daughter when the time comes to send her in a rocket to Earth, where they hope this stranger will be kind enough to take care of their daughter after they've died horribly. It's only after Supergirl has arrived on Earth and met Superman that they both realize her father is the brother of his father.



4. What imperils all of Zor-El's people is a meteor storm that makes holes in the lead covering the planetoid. And the release of Kryptonite radiation is poisoning the atmosphere. So why didn't they prepare for this by having more lead on hand to cover up those holes? If they had the time to roll out lead over the whole planetoid the first time, why don't they have the time to make repairs? Why are they all doomed? And yet Zor-El has the time to build a rocketship to save his daughter and only her.

5. The Girl from Krypton chooses the name Linda Lee for her secret identity and she wears a wig that looks like it's made out of horse-hair. But given she's never supposed to be seen as Supergirl, why does she need a disguise? She could just be the blonde Linda Lee as this "Supergirl" doesn't actually exist.

5a. As well, whenever she goes on her covert missions, where she has to avoid being seen, she appears in all her red, blue and yellow glory--which hardly helps her to stay hidden. Surely it would be better to have some kind of camouflage outfit so she wouldn't stand out. Why wear a big red "S" on her chest if she's supposed to keep the whole Supergirl thing a secret?

Note: Although "The Girl from Krypton" is featured on the cover, the actual lead story in ACTION COMICS 252 was "The Menace of Metallo" by Robert Bernstein and Al Plastino. This was Metallo's origin story and John Corben's only turn as the villain, since he dies at the end. He would have to wait for a Crisis on Infinite Earths before he could be resurrected again.

[Jim Kelly]

From ACTION COMICS 252 (May 1959) to 285 (February 1962), Supergirl's existence is kept a secret, because her famous cousin insists on keeping it that way--even though he enjoyed notoriety as Superboy.

The Man of Steel seems to enjoy tormenting his female counterpart. Maybe this is why he chooses to intern Linda Lee at the Midvale Orphanage. The institution must have been a total mess before Linda was taken into care. The Super-Orphan is constantly having to come to the rescue at the mismanaged residence. If not for Linda, meals would be ruined, the home would fall to wrack and ruin, children would be in hospital at death's door, those fostered out would either end up with ruthless parents or abandoned because their new parents found them less than ideal.

One wonders what would ever happen to Midvale Orphanage and those living and working there, if Linda Lee were adopted and left that house of horrors. Most likely, the government would have to launch an investigation, after more tragic accidents occurred with Linda not there to prevent disaster.

But Supergirl's older cousin is determined to keep her in this prison. He doesn't want anyone else to adopt her and he's not willing to adopt her himself. So she's forced to avoid getting adopted, to keep her Supergirl existence a secret. If the Man of Might was so conflicted about Kara's existence, he could have just sent her to Kandor where a Kryptonian couple would have adopted her. His attitude is maddening.

Beyond the Super-Cousins' dysfunctional relationship, its simply a bad editorial decision to constrain Supergirl's adventures. Otto Binder and Jim Mooney have to keep finding ways for the Girl of Steel to use her super-powers covertly. She tunnels underground through the Earth so often, it's a wonder the planet isn't falling apart.

Perhaps Mort Weisinger was hedging his bets on Supergirl as a fixture in the Superman family. If she proved unpopular, well she was never known to have existed by anyone other than Superman. I wonder what Mort would have done with her if she was unpopular. Put her in the Phantom Zone? Have her exposed to Gold K. and lose her memory like Quex-Ul? Just ignore her existence? Send her into the future to join the Legion? Send her to live on another planet? Put her in the bottle city?

After Al Plastino did one stilted pose of Linda Lee changing into Supergirl in her debut story, the regular artist, Jim Mooney, seemed required to repeat that stock pose in subsequent stories. The wig in that pose just looks so stiff and unnatural.



Tommy Tomorrow had been a long running feature in ACTION COMICS, with Binder and Mooney stories, before being replaced with Supergirl. Tommy then went over to WORLD'S FINEST COMICS. However, in ACTION COMICS 255, Supergirl travels to the 21st century to meet a young Tommy (before he was adopted by the Tomorrow family).



In 256 (September 1959), a boy at the orphanage, named Dick Wilson, tries to prove that Linda is a Super-Girl, but she convinces him otherwise. This is not the last we'll see of this Dick.



To take her place at the orphanage when she's on her covert missions, Linda Lee has a robot double. This double hides inside a hollowed out tree, when she's not needed. Yet the robot has her own private thoughts, so she must be sentient. Hers might be the saddest tale of all.

[Jim Kelly]

SUPERMAN'S PAL, JIMMY OLSEN 40 (October 1959)--2nd story, "Jimmy Olsen, Supergirl's Pal" by Binder, Swan and Forte:

After Jimmy threatens to expose Colonel Colby's sideshow, the young reporter is temporarily blinded. Colby takes him for a ride and throw hims off a bridge.



Olsen uses his signal watch, but Superman can't hear it because he's at the Earth's core. However, Linda Lee does hear the signal and saves Jimmy's life.



Since he's Superman's pal, Supergirl takes him into her confidence and reveals that she is a girl from Krypton, but the blind Olsen doesn't believe her and thinks it's all a scam by Colby to make the cub reporter look like a fool, so no one will believe his story about the sideshow being fake.



The Girl of Steel is never able to prove her existence to the blind Jimmy, so she still remains a mystery to everyone but the Man of Steel.

Note: Jimmy Olsen trying to expose a sideshow as fake seems hardly news-worthy. By then, the attractions at sideshows were known to be fabricated for entertainment purposes--just see the 1947 movie NIGHTMARE ALLEY. It doesn't appear likely that Colby would feel threatened by Jimmy's hot scoop. The plot might be borrowed from two previous Superman adventures where the Man of Steel had to convince a blind girl he was real--Ann Carson in "Around the World with Superman," THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN, season 2, episode 26 (aired March 13th, 1954); and Alice Norton in "The Girl Who Didn't Believe in Superman," SUPERMAN 96 (March 1955).

[Jim Kelly]

SUPERMAN'S PAL, JIMMY OLSEN 29 (June 1958)--2nd story, "Jimmy Olsen's Super-Pet" by Binder, Swan and Burnley
SUPERMAN 130 (July 1959)--1st story, "The Curse of Kryptonite" by Binder and Plastino; r. THE BEST OF DC [Blue Ribbon Digest] 36 (May 1983)
ACTION COMICS 258 (December 1959)--3rd story, "Supergirl's Farewell to Earth" by Binder and Mooney; r. ACTION COMICS 373 [G-57] (March-April 1969):

In ACTION COMICS 258, when the Man of Tomorrow sees Supergirl and Krypto playing together--both having just met each other for the first time--he's angry at his cousin for revealing herself to anyone else than him, even the Super-Dog. Nor does he seem to trust Krypto very much either.

But then maybe Clark feels alienated from his former best friend, as this is only the third appearance of Krypto in Superman's adult years--not counting an imaginary story in SUPERMAN 132. The Super-Dog had been a fixture of Superboy stories since "The Super-Dog from Krypton," in ADVENTURE COMICS 210 (March 1955), but not in Superman's adventures.

Whatever happened to the Canine of Tomorrow? Well, the answers are in "Jimmy Olsen's Super-Pet"--which is Krypto's first appearance in Superman's time period.



In answer to Jimmy's signal watch, the Super-Powered Pooch arrives on Earth, after years spent exploring the cosmos. Olsen is happy to see the Dog Knight return and wants him for his very own; however, Krypto's heroic feats don't meet Superman's high standards.



It looks like they're going to have to send the dog to a farm upstate, if he doesn't get his act together. When they have to appear before a judge, Jimmy pleads his case and recounts past adventures of the Super-Companion, but the Man of Steel promises to send Krypto away from Earth.

He only sends him to a distant valley, surrounded by Kryptonite radiation that weakens the hound and stops him from flying away. However, in this valley is a lake that has rejuvenating powers, because of the green K. rays. The Mighty Mutt gets his mojo back and figures out that he can escape the valley by burrowing underground.



At the end of "Super-Pet," the now younger Dog Knight of Steel flies off into outer space again, but Superman promises Jimmy that, if Krypto ever returns, the Last Canine of Krypton will be Jim's pal.

Note: In the early 1970s, Krypto was again a no-show in the Superman adventures. And when he finally did return, just like in this story, it wasn't Superman who first found him. That time around, it was Oliver Queen and Dinah Lance--in ACTION COMICS 440 (October 1974) and 441 (November 1974), before the Super-Dog finally returned to Clark in "Who Was That Dog I Saw You With Last Night?" SUPERMAN 287 (May 1975)--the reason for Krypto's long absence at that time was an encounter with the Mindbreaker Beast that left the dog dazed and confused.

[Jim Kelly]

As so often happens in the life of the Super-Folk, in SUPERMAN 130, the Man of Steel happens upon a big Kryptonite rock and soon is lying supine on the ground, unable to save himself. Well, he was laying down an oil pipeline--so serves him right, taking jobs from others in the fossil fuel industry.

Of course, "The Curse of Kryptonite" never seems to kill Kryptonians right away--except when the plot demands it--and the Big Red "S" has lots of time to relax and review his history with the K-Metal from Krypton. It's only after all these flashbacks that the story ends with Krypto arriving to blow on one end of the pipe that Superman has laid to push away the green K. at the other end.

The Couple of Caped Kryptonians embrace and Superman notes that Krypto has been in outer space for years visiting other worlds. The Super-Dog answers him in yips, which are actually the code he used to communicate with Superboy and now with Superman.

[Jim Kelly]

So those two present day encounters with Krypto are the only ones seen in the recent continuity, before the Super-Dog meets Kara. And this is the thanks he gets from the one person he loves more than life itself. Shame on you Super-Dope!



The Bossy Brute of Blue and Red denies Supergirl contact with Krypto and sends her off in a transparent rocket to an alien asteroid, where she must live for a full year like a girl Robinson Crusoe (this predates SPACE FAMILY ROBINSON and LOST IN SPACE). The Girl from Krypton uses the local flora and fauna on the space island to build a hut and feed herself.

After about a week, Stupidman sends the Dog Knight to the asteroid with a note calling the Girl of Steel back to Earth for 24 hours, while a Kryptonite dust cloud passes through the asteroid belt.

Linda Lee then arrives back in Midvale, pretending to have been lost in Dismal Swamp. There's been a massive search for the orphan girl during the week she's been gone. One reporter grills Linda, questioning her outlandish tale of survival. The nasty newsman grabs her by the arm and accuses her of being a "Girl of Steel."



Rather than making up more excuses, Linda reveals herself as Supergirl, the cousin of Superman. The journalist is shocked--he being Clark Kent--and turns his back on his cousin, dejected that she has failed him. However, the Maid of Might has another surprise in store for Mr. Kent as she tells him she knows he's really Superman--which is why she didn't bother to cover up who she really is. When she used her x-ray vision to fog up his glasses, she realized he had super-lenses that wouldn't fog up.

In turn, the Metropolis Marvel makes another stunning revelation. He was scamming Supergirl the whole time. He deliberately sent Krypto to tempt her, just so he could send her away for a week and test her. And he was all set to tell her his secret identity, but she got the jump on him.

Note: This yarn can give you whiplash with all the turnabouts in it. But the most shocking thing is realizing that up to this point Linda Lee didn't know that Superman was Clark Kent. I assumed that would be one of the first things he would tell her, given she's his secret weapon.

[Jim Kelly]

ACTION COMICS 262 (March 1960)--2nd story, "Supergirl's Greatest Victory" by Binder and Mooney; r. THE SUPERMAN FAMILY 167 (October-November 1974):

In issue 262, despite it being less than a year since Supergirl first appeared, they rehash a lot of the origin story. Most details haven't changed.



There's no explanation for why the air bubble doesn't float away (it seems like it could be a dome but this isn't stated), the city isn't named, it's still the regular kind of Kryptonite that endangers the people, Kara's mother isn't named--however, they figure out that Superman is from Krypton and he's the son of Jor-El, which is now the reason for sending Kara to Earth and putting her in a super costume.



When she arrives on Earth, she asks her cousin why her people didn't become super-powered when they were freed from Krypton's gravity. Superman tells her that their powers come partly from gravity and partly from the Sun's yellow rays. This is a new explanation of the powers that replaces the explanation up to that point in time. In fact, this issue had just established Superman's loses his powers under a red sun--in the 1st story, "When Superman Lost His Powers" by Bernstein, Boring and Kaye. All of this is presented without much fanfare, even though it radically changes Superman and all Kryptonians from this time forward!

See Brian Cronin's article "When Did We Learn That Superman's Powers Came From Earth's Yellow Sun?"

Because they were still under a red sun, Argo City's surviving Kryptonians didn't gain any powers (but that should mean the Kryptonite would not affect them, hm). The Action Ace also explains how Kryptonite works.

Supergirl further on in the story decides to try and gain an immunity to Kryptonite by exposing herself to the green stuff in stages. Superman already tried this as man and boy in SUPERMAN 84 (September-October 1953), "A Doghouse for Superman," and in SUPERBOY 58 (July 1957), "The Great Kryptonite Mystery."

He could have saved her the trouble as it didn't work for him and it doesn't work for her, although for a time she thinks it has.

At the Fortress of Solitude, the Man of Tomorrow shows his cousin some of the alien creatures he keeps in his zoo, including metal-eaters who feast on metallic substances and love to eat K-Metal most of all.



When both the Super-Kin are rendered helpless by a big boulder of Kryptonite, they escape by melting gold over the rock and then using their x-ray vision to change the atomic weight of the gold to lead.

Note: Seems like, if they can alter the atomic weight of elements with their vision, the Supers could be doing a lot more with that power.