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

[Jim Kelly]

In THE NEW ADVENTURES OF SUPERBOY 36 (December 1982)--"Menace of the Mind's Eye"--Lana, Bash and Clark are on their way to Mrs. Marple's class when Bashford tries to punk Kent with sneezing powder.



In class they get a surprise test, administered by Mr. William Wright. Later the boys play a friendly game of touch football. Mr. Wright comes onto the field to draft some of the teens for a special purpose. Clark is not selected and goes off on his patrol as the Teen of Steel.





However, Superboy later finds Wright robbing the bank and using Clark's classmates--including Lana, Pete and Bash--to gain unimaginable power. Wright is able to use the collective will of the teens to give him a mental boost. There is nothing he can't do, if he wills it.

[Jim Kelly]

The new adventure continues in issue 37 (January 1983)--"Wright Makes Might":

Time and again, the Caped Kryptonian is stymied by Wright's will power. But after a pep talk from Dad Kent, Clark realizes he needs to use his brain rather than his brawn.



Wright has stopped the Moon in its orbit, he's that powerful. But the Kid from Krypton hopes to weaken Wright's hold on the teens by getting Pete Ross to break the chain. In the end, he must punch Pete unconscious to losen Wright's mental hold on the high school students.

[Jim Kelly]

A bit A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS and a little IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, "A World Without Christmas" in THE NEW ADVENTURES OF SUPERBOY 39 (March 1983), begins with the Kents celebrating Christmas in their home. Lana Lang and Bash Bashford are their guests, but Bash is not feeling the Christmas Spirit--even when Lana tempts him with some mistletoe.

He's had it with the fake commercialism of the holiday season. There's no Peace on Earth in a world where good will toward men is in short supply. Bashford leaves the Kent house to be on his own, but the Boy of Steel seeks him out and, acting as guardian angel, the Smallville Super-Hero transports Bash to a Smallville of an alternate Earth.

[Jim Kelly]

Here, there is no Christmas, but there is even more war, more pollution, more hatred. The Clark Kent of this Earth is like a frightened rabbit, a greater weakling than the one Bash knows back on his Earth. However, the Jonathan Kent is part of an underground resistance movement.



When the Kid from Krypton and his "George Bailey" are separated, Bash is found teaching members of the resistance to sing Christmas carols. As well, the leader of the resistance turns out to be Bashford's counterpart on that Earth.

No longer a Grinch, when he returns to the old familiar Smallville, Bash has gained a new appreciation for what his world has to offer.

[Jim Kelly]

When Lisa Davis enters Clark Kent's life, Bashford's attempts to bash Kent fall flat with her around--as seen in THE NEW ADVENTURES OF SUPERBOY 42 (June 1983), 45 (September 1983) and 48 (December 1983)--see posts #403, #406 and #409.

[Jim Kelly]

The star athlete is all wet in THE NEW ADVENTURES OF SUPERBOY 50 (February 1984).





And "Dial V for Villain" remakes him as the Man Mountain.



As covered in posts #410 and 411.

[Jim Kelly]

Bradley "Bash" Bashford's final appearance is in "The Caveman of Smallville," THE NEW ADVENTURES OF SUPERBOY 52 (April 1984)--previously discussed in posts #413 and 414.

Here, Bashford shows that he's learned compassion for others, when he stands up for Johnny Webber against Tony Baker. Tony tells Johnny that he's not wanted in their friendly game of baseball. Bash suggests that Tony is in the wrong--Johnny has reformed and deserves a second chance.







Note: A character named Bash Bashford appeared on one episode of the animated YOUNG JUSTICE, season 3, episode 10, "Exceptional Human Beings" (air date January 25th, 2019). He was scouting Victor Stone for Metropolis University.

[Jim Kelly]

ADVENTURE COMICS 381 (June 1969)--"The Supergirl Gang" by Bates, Mortimer and Abel; cover art by Swan and Adams:



Mort Weisinger decided to pull the Legion of Super-Heroes out of ADVENTURE COMICS and put them in Supergirl's slot in ACTION COMICS and give Supergirl their place in ADVENTURE. This was disastrous for the Legion with their big cast of characters, as there weren't enough pages to tell the kind of epic stories they had been getting when they had all of ADVENTURE for themselves.

I have read that Mort thought the Legion were taking sales away from Superboy and Supergirl and he thought this move would push up sales for both the Girl and the Boy of Steel. I don't know if that's really true, but it does seem he put more stock in Superboy and Supergirl than he did in the Legion.

For her debut issue, Linda Lee Danvers investigates the Sleuth School, a night school for female detectives, in reality a front for a burglary racket. What Linda doesn't know is that Barbara Gordon is also on the case. As of this adventure, Supergirl and Batgirl still don't know each other's secret identities.

Anyone hoping the letter column might have their comments on any previous Legion ADVENTURE were to be disappointed. Those would all appear in ACTION COMICS, while the comments on Supergirl's previous ACTION was spotlighted in this issue's column.

[Jim Kelly]

The Robot Teacher's Class Schedule

1. ADVENTURE COMICS 240 (September 1957)--1st story, "The Super-Teacher from Krypton" by Hamilton and Sikela; r. SUPERMAN ANNUAL 5 (Summer 1962), DC SUPER STARS 12 (February 1977); cover art by Swan and Kaye
2. THE NEW ADVENTURES OF SUPERBOY 17 (May 1981)--1st story, "To Fight the Unbeatable Foe" by Bates, Schaffenberger and Hunt
3. THE NEW ADVENTURES OF SUPERBOY 18 (June 1981)--1st story, "Superboy's Do-It-Yourself Doom" by Bates, Schaffenberger and Hunt
4. DC SUPER STARS 12 (February 1977)--1st story, "Don't Call Me Superboy" by Bates, Swan and Anderson; cover art by Swan and Anderson
5. ADVENTURE COMICS 382 (July 1969)--"The Super-Team's Split-Up" by Bates and Schaffenberger; cover art by Swan and Adams

[Jim Kelly]

The Robot Teacher from Krypton first arrives on Earth in the days when Superman is a boy. When they meet, the teacher gives the Boy of Steel a quick overview of past history. On Krypton, robots with super-brains like its taught advanced classes; however, he was specially built by Jor-El and Lara to teach Kal-El. When the doomed planet was blown apart, the well-constructed robot survived the blast and made its way through the cosmos, only to arrive at this moment in time.



The teacher gives Clark several different challenges and the Kid from Krypton does what he can to solve them, although he's not sure if his performance meets the high standards of the robot and the teacher isn't telling.

The Robot Teacher then presents Clark Kent with a problem that will require some ingenuity. He is to do every super-feat he finds necessary in Smallville without changing into Superboy. The robot will hover above the town observing Clark from a distance.

Soon, Lana asks Clark to remove an old tree and when he complies, she accuses him of being Superboy. He answers, "I admit or deny nothing!" Soon people gather around the Kent boy, wondering if he is the Champion of Justice and asking him to do other super-stunts. He pushes over the old condemned factory chimney, erects the new pioneer statue in the park and hauls away the old statue to the junk yard.

At the junk heap, Clark has the idea to make wire out of old metal and then throw his Superboy uniform up into the sky where it wraps around the Robot Teacher. He then attaches the wires to the large objects he had moved. So high up in the sky, the people assume the figure in the super costume is Superboy and that he used these wires to perform all the super-stunts, only making it seem that it was Clark Kent.

In the end, the teacher tells the young student that he has failed and reminds him that Jor-El set these tests so that if he failed he would be duty-bound never to use his powers and endanger others. Clark agrees--if he is a danger to others then he must drop out of the super-hero game. The Robot Teacher then says that this was the final test--to see if he would sacrifice his own wishes for the good of others. So Kal-El has passed all the tests. The robot then leaves Earth to deliver his pedagogy to other worlds.

[Jim Kelly]

Note: When DC SUPER STARS 12 reprinted "The Super-Teacher from Krypton," they changed the panels with Martha and Jonathan Kent to make them look younger.



Chronologically speaking, this adventure happens before the Kents are rejuvenated by Jolax of Thraxx, so they shouldn't have got the facelift. But the editor was probably worried the readers would be too confused by the Ma and Pa Kent in the back pages being older than them at the front of the book.

[Jim Kelly]

In "To Fight the Unbeatable Foe," it is Carl "Moosie" Draper who points out that Superboy gets off too easy since there are no other super-people around to pose a real challenge. That motivates Clark to invent a metal man that will test his mettle.

In his efforts to build a better robot, Clark uses the Mind-Prober Ray to remember when Jor-El built the Robot Teacher.



With that knowledge Clark builds Kator. Later, the surrogate super-villain attacks the Teen of Steel at a Smallville celebration. And they have a knock-down, drag-out slug-fest. The Wonder Boy from Krypton is well-pleased with the success of his new robot.



Jonathan Kent is not pleased, believing that his son is taking too great a chance with this unpredictable automaton. However, Clark gives his dad a black box that will shut down Kator should things go too far.

However, as Kal-El's creation has been given superior reasoning powers, the renegade robot has plotted multiple moves to check the Smallville Samaritan.

One of Kator's ploys is enlisting Moosie Draper as an ace in the hole.

[Jim Kelly]

The next time Kator attacks the Red and Blue Blur, he pushes the battle beyond our planet and into the cosmos. Superboy is happy to take this fight outside, since it will spare Earth from any collateral damage. But the robot is banking on something else to give him the winning hand--a comet that has passed through a red sun weakens the Kid from Krypton and he nearly bites the space-dust, but manages to weather the effects of the red comet-tail. However, Kator is not so lucky as he has been kicked into the sun by his creator--and unlike Superboy he is not invulnerable to the heat of a sun.



The Kents now believe that the sentient super-robot no longer poses a threat--and Jonathan throws the black box in the garbage--but they are wrong. It was always Kator's contingency plan that Moosie would replace him as Kator-Two. A gizmo that the robot super-villain gave him alerts Carl Draper to Kator's demise and leads him to some machinery in a cave on the outside of town. The far-out hardware automatically activates to power up Draper.

Moosie then abducts his big crush, Lana Lang, and takes her to the athletic field at Smallville High. The Caped Kryptonian follows and the two spar before Clark realizes the one way to shut down Kator-Two is to use the black box. He flies to the Kent house with Moosie hot on his trail, but the black box is not in the garbage. Jonathan had retrieved it, as a keepsake, and it's he who shuts down Draper. Reversing the polarity of the Mind-Prober, Clark removes Moosie's memories of being Kator-Two and his knowledge of Superboy's secret identity.



Note: The Robot Teacher had the ability to improve on its programming and develop new powers. This must have been a feature of Jor-El's robotics and thus included by Kal-El in his programming for Kator.

As the ending of the story points out, this was not the end for Draper's career as a super-villain--he would become the Master Jailer later in life.

The name Kator could be a play on Cato from the Pink Panther movies, since Inspector Clouseau's man-servant Cato would surprise attack him similar to how Kator surprise attacks Superboy and for the same reason, i.e. to keep the hero sharp. And reversing the polarity, of course, is a reference to an old Doctor Who trope.

[Jim Kelly]

In 1976, flying home from a European assignment, Clark Kent and Jimmy Olsen's flight passes over Smallville. As Olsen catches a glimpse of the beautiful flight attendant and flips out over her, Kent looks down at his old hometown and remembers something that happened in an earlier time and we flash back many years to one morning at the Kent home.



A flying saucer visits Smallville that day attracting the attention of the Smallville Champion. When the saucer ship falls to pieces in outer space, its pilot remains intact--this being the Robot Teacher from Krypton. Now that Clark is verging on manhood, there are more tests he must pass.



Later that day, Clark attends the dance at the high school gym, hoping to meet the new girl in town that he has a crush on. Lana Lang passed Misty a note from C.K., asking her to the shin dig, but the red-head cautions her friend not to get his hopes up. However, when Misty arrives, she wants only to dance with him.



During their dance, Clark fights the Robot Teacher, but it's all in his head.

[Jim Kelly]

After the dance, Misty proves herself to be just as intelligent as she is beautiful, having worked out all the clues to Clark Kent's true identity. The Last Son of Krypton is not upset that Misty has sussed out his secret. She is his dream girl.



In the days that follow, Clark and Misty spend hours together. Then one day, on the bucolic boulevards of Smallville, three hairy hominids create a panic and Superboy rounds up the wendigos. The owner of the largest travelling circus in the Midwest, J. J. Farnum, lays claim to the skookum family. The Teen of Steel realizes his mistake in capturing these sasquatches and liberates them in the forests outside of Smallville.

Just then Misty arrives in search of her lover. The youngest in the Big Foot family is frightened by her sudden arrival and throws a rock at her. Misty drops dead. Clark is in shock, believing that his love has been murdered, and he wants to kill the young forest dweller. Nevertheless, the Teen Super-Star restrains himself from slaying the stsomu'lamux.

This was the final test. In fact, Misty is not dead, she's not even Misty--just some random girl the Robot Teacher found in another town and then mesmerized to play out her part for Kal-El's final test. She will have no memory of this fugue and will be returned to the town from whence she came.





The flashback ends. Clark is still seated on the airplane and now we see the flight attendant is the person that he knew as Misty, but she doesn't know him.

Note: This flashback likely takes place shortly before the death of the Kents and Clark going off to college, as the Robot Teacher says Kal-El is on the verge of manhood--and there's the title, "Don't Call Me Superboy." Referencing the previous tests (reprinted in the same issue), the robot states that Kal-El was 12 years old at that time. After that first lesson, the Robot Teacher travels through the galaxies and improves its programming and in this story it's clear that it has developed new teaching techniques.