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

[Jim Kelly]

LIMITED COLLECTORS' EDITION C-38 (October-November 1975) "presents Superman"--cover art by Bob Oksner; on sale July 3rd, 1975:





From the awesome Bob Oksner cover that shows a kid riding on Superman's back as they fly past the Statue of Liberty to the stories inside this Super-Collection, children are the focus.

Kids--good, bad and indifferent--take centre stage in performances that first debuted in--

▪ SUPERMAN 48 (September-October 1947)--2nd story, "Autograph, Please" by Siegel and Sikela--Superman breaks through the time barrier for the first time--see post to follow.

▪ ACTION COMICS 315 (August 1964)--1st story, "The Juvenile Delinquents from Space" by Dorfman and Mooney--see post #197.
▪ ACTION COMICS 316 (September 1964)--1st story, "Zigi and Zagi's Trap for Superman" by Dorfman and Mooney--see post #197.
▪ SUPERMAN 40 (May-June 1946)--story, "The Mxyztplk-Susie Alliance" by Cameron, Yarbrough and Kaye--mentioned in post #76.
▪ SUPERMAN 157 (November 1962)--story, "Superman's Day Of Doom" by Siegel, Swan and Klein--see post #470.

[Jim Kelly]

SUPERMAN 48 (September-October 1947)--1st story, "The Man Who Stole the Sun" by Jerry Siegel, John Sikela and George Roussos; 2nd story, "Autograph, Please" by Siegel and Sikela; 3rd story, "The Rarest Secret in the World" by Siegel, Sikela and Roussos:

"Autograph, Please"

When the copy boy at the Planet--Jimmy Olsen--wants to get some signatures for his autograph book, Clark Kent suggests to Perry White they should hold an autograph collection contest.

Two boys emerge as having the largest collections. One is wheelchair bound Johnny Terrill. His autographs include Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, Walter Winchell, Danny Kaye, Eddie Cantor, Ray Milland, Marguerite Chapman, Mahatma Ghandi, Clement Atlee, Josef Stalin and Charles de Gaulle--thanks to Superman's assistance. I guess Olsen doesn't mind, given he wouldn't be eligible for the contest, being on the Planet's staff. The other boy is Alexander Breckenridge, III, heir to Breckenridge Enterprises. Alexander's money and the nefarious actions of his body guards put his collection ahead of Terrill's.



However, Superman has the idea to find some very rare signatures for Johnny's collection. For this the Man of Tomorrow tries out a new power that he's never used before--the power to travel through time*. By doing some super-speed gymnastics, the Metropolis Marvel visits many eras of the past to gain the autographs of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt van Rijn, Robert Fulton, Isaac Newton, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Graham Bell, among others.



In the end, young Breckenridge turns out to be a good egg and helps Johnny win the contest.



The way that the Red and Blue Blur travels through time seems pretty darn cool to me--he whips about "at super-speed following a weird mathematical design." This makes for a visually dynamic demonstration of time travel.

*Note: While this power is new, it's not Superman first experience with time travel. There was that Whirlaway Watch he invented for his pal, Tim--see post to follow.

***

"The Rarest Secret in the World" has a window washer observe Superman changing into his Clark Kent clothes; however, in the end it turns out this man was suffering from amnesia at the time and, when he recovers his memories, he has forgotten what he saw as a window washer. "The Man Who Stole the Sun" is one of three stories that were chosen for THREE-DIMENSION ADVENTURES 1 (1953)--see post to follow.

This was the last issue of SUPERMAN scripted by Jerry Siegel for a very long time to come. One final Jerry Siegel story appeared in WORLD'S FINEST COMICS 32 (January-February 1948)--"The Seventh Wonder of the World" by Siegel, Yarbrough and Kaye. Jerry would next return (uncredited) in SUPERMAN 133 (November 1959).

[Jim Kelly]

In Paul Kupperberg's book, DIRECT COMMENTS: COMIC CREATORS IN THEIR OWN WORDS (2021) [transcribed from Direct Currents interviews, 1989 - 1995], Denny O'Neil says--

I guess I was in fourth grade when I joined the Superman-Tim Club, sponsored by a local department store. For fifteen cents, you got this newsletter, a little pamphlet with features and puzzles about Superman and his made-up friend, Tim. I won a short story contest sponsored by the Superman-Tim Club. I wonder if that didn’t doom me to a life of comic book writing.

What was Superman-Tim?

Tim was an advertising mascot created by Herman "Kay" Kamen in 1922, for the purpose of advertising boy's clothing. The boy Tim and his dog, Pup, appeared in ads for retail shops across the U.S.A. The TIM OFFICIAL MAGAZINE was a store giveaway in the 1930s.

In 1939, Harry Donenfeld and Jack Liebowitz established Superman, Inc., as a way to license out the character. One of these enterprises was "Superman Day" at Macy's and other department stores. In December of 1940, there was also the one-shot giveaway SUPERMAN'S CHRISTMAS ADVENTURE, available at Macy's.

This led to an ongoing promotional campaign with Tim to advertise clothing for boys--the Superman-Tim Club launched in 1942. Ira Schnapp designed the Superman-Tim logo.



Membership in the club came with an official membership card, a button pin, and a monthly subscription to the SUPERMAN-TIM giveaway booklet, the first issue dated August 1942. All issues were 16 pages, except those months when a comic book story was added, increasing the total page count up to as much as 36 pages.



The club lasted until 1950, with the final few issues of SUPERMAN-TIM only being eight pages, the last dated October 1950. Tim decided to hitch his wagon to another star, Gene Autry--which was probably a good idea.

[Jim Kelly]

The SUPERMAN-TIM giveaway booklet began featuring actual comic book stories of Superman and Tim in 1946. In these stories, Tim is able to use a watch invented by the Man of Tomorrow, the Whirlaway Watch, to travel through time to different eras. Each of these stories was 16 pages long and took Tim to such places as Ancient Rome, Ancient Egypt, old Bagdad, 1492 Peru, 1447 Arizona, and 1650 Barbary Coast.

Tim's last time travel adventure, using the Whirlaway Watch, appears to be in the August 1947 issue--

SUPERMAN-TIM [61/4708] (August 1947)--"The Adventure of the Sea of the Serpent" by unknown; available August 2nd, 1947:



Arriving on a viking ship in time to warn them against a water spout, Tim finds they are on their way to Vineland, but wary of the Sea of the Serpent. There, the boy is swept overboard; however one of the vikings, Ragnar, dives in to save Tim.



The pair are now adrift in the Sea of the Serpent, when they have a dangerous encounter with a whale. But Tim wisely brought along his father's fishing tackle on this time trip, and the two castaways use the fishing line to snag the whale, who unwittingly hauls them through the surf back to their ship.



In the end, the Whirlaway Watch takes Tim back home to his own era, where Superman is waiting.

[Jim Kelly]

THREE-DIMENSION ADVENTURES (1953)--cover art by Swan and Kaye; on sale circa September 16th, 1953.



In 1953, creative partners Joe Kubert and Norman Maurer, at St. John, were inspired to make three dimension comics. Norm’s brother, Leonard Maurer, knew how to do it with what they called "3-D Illustereo.". They took the idea to their publisher, Archer St. John, and he rented two floors of office space on Third Avenue just for production of three dimensional funnies. And so the big fad began as many comic book publishers rushed to get their own "3-D." comics onto the newsstands.

THREE-DIMENSION ADVENTURES was one of these comics riding the trend. National Comics' other stereoscopic edition at the time was 3-D BATMAN (1953), on sale circa October 30th, 1953. This was a minor output when compared with some of the other-dimensional publishers at the time.



The Superman comic's three stories chosen for the "three-dimension" treatment--applied by production wizard Jack Adler--were adapted from--

▪ SUPERMAN 48 (September-October 1947)--1st story, "The Man Who Stole the Sun" by Siegel, Sikela and Roussos--with new art by Swan and Plastino.

▪ SUPERMAN 53 (July-August 1948)--1st story, "The Origin of Superman" by Finger, Boring and Kaye.
▪ SUPERMAN 51 (March-April 1948)--3rd story, "The Man Who Bossed Superman" by writer unknown, art by Swan and Brodie (re-inked by Kaye?).

The behind-the-scenes drama of the three dimensional comics craze deserves its own book or movie--it's a true tragedy of man against man, where fortunes were made and lost.

[Jim Kelly]

In "The Man Who Stole the Sun," Luthor has seemingly stolen the Sun, rendering the world in total darkness, meaning imminent doom for all. The evil genius bets the lives of everyone on Earth in a gambit to become world dictator. The enormity of Luthor's evil is too great to contemplate.





The Man of Tomorrow constructs a giant city underground in case, should worse come to worse, humanity must seek shelter beneath the Earth's mantel.

However, the renegade scientist uses a heat ray to destroy the Action Ace's creation and threatens to use the deadly ray to wipe Metropolis from existence if the United States doesn't surrender to his demands.

In the end, Superman figures out that there is an invisible barrier blotting out the Sun, as well as giant lenses on board Luthor's space craft, focusing the solar beams into a heat ray. Lois has, in the meanwhile, stowed away on board Luthor's ship and is held captive by the mad mountebank.

The Red and Blue Blur smashes the lenses and "as the space ship is about to crash into the barrier, Superman rips the control room from the vessel!" Safe in the Man of Steel's arms, Lois takes the opportunity to kiss him--to his consternation.

[Jim Kelly]

THE AMAZING WORLD OF DC COMICS 7 (July-August 1975) "Special Superman Issue"--cover art by Curt Swan; back cover art by Neal Adams; on sale July 15th, 1975





National Periodical Publications' in-house fanzine was THE AMAZING WORLD OF DC COMICS--a title of which every fan should be ashamed. Any sincere follower of the publisher would know D.C. is an abbreviation for Detective Comics (not just the title of that anthology comic but also one of the colophons used by Harry Donenfeld and associates)--so "DC Comics" is equivalent to "Detective Comics Comics."

The fans turned pro, working for National, called themselves the "Junior Woodchucks" and they were the ones who put together this fanzine--technically a prozine. Issue 7 was a special Superman issue, but every issue was special in some way--issues of AMAZING WORLD were always full of surprises. Thankfully, I had a subscription that got me every issue (well, almost). And while we readers had no access to a lot of rare Supermanica, luckily the Woodchucks did!



The contents of this issue included--

▪ "Mort Weisinger: The Man Who Wouldn’t Be Superman" by Guy H. Lillian III--an in depth interview with the former Superman editor.
▪ "Amazing World of Letters" by Bob Rozakis.
▪ "It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s… Dick Milgroom?" by Bob Rozakis and Jack Adler--Milgroom, the office manager, dresses up as Superman.
▪ "Beginnings" by Jack C. Harris --a look back at the contents from early issues of SUPERBOY; SUPERMAN'S PAL, JIMMY OLSEN; and SUPERMAN'S GIRL FRIEND, LOIS LANE.
▪ "Direct Currents" by Paul Levitz & Bob Rozakis.
▪ Curt Swan's draft of an unused LOIS LANE cover, used here for the centrefold.
▪ "Remembering with Curt Swan" by Jack C. Harris (photos by Jack Adler)--an interview with the Superman Artist.
▪ "The Superman We’d All Like to See" by Allan Asherman--a look back on Kirk Alyn's Superman.
▪ "The Reviewing Stand" by Jack C. Harris--reviews of SUPERMAN FROM THE 30'S TO THE 70'S and A JOB FOR SUPERMAN (a Kirk Alyn biography).
▪ "The Story Behind the Cover" by Carl Gafford, Sergio Curbelo and Jack Adler--behind the scenes making of the photo cover for SUPERMAN 289.
▪ "Duel in Space" by writer unknown, art by Curt Swan and Stan Kaye--a black & white reprint of the 1955 Kellogg’s promotional mini comic--see post to follow.

[Jim Kelly]

SUPERMAN 1A [Kellogg's mini comic giveaway] (1955)--"Duel in Space" by writer unknown, art by Swan and Kaye; released circa January, 1955; r. THE AMAZING WORLD OF DC COMICS 7 (July-August 1975):



When Superman is asked to try out an experimental rocket ship, his craft is waylaid by a gang of aliens from the planet Xantus, who have taken up residence on a planetoid in preparation for an invasion of Earth. Believing the Caped Kryptonian to be a typical specimen of Earth, they test out his powers. The Man of Tomorrow plays along, so the aliens will think twice before invading, if they believe all inhabitants are like him.



All goes smoothly until Lois Lane makes an unwanted appearance--having stowed away on board the experimental craft. Lois must now prove that she is just as exceptional, which she manages to do with some trickery.

[Jim Kelly]

There were two other such mini comics released in 1955--

▪ SUPERMAN 1B [Kellogg's mini comic giveaway] (1955)--"The Superman Time Capsule" by Coleman (?) and Mortimer; r. SUPERMAN 250 (April 1972)--see post to follow.

▪ SUPERMAN 1 [Kellogg's mini comic giveaway] (1955)--"The Supershow of Metropolis" by writer unknown, art by Swan and Kaye; r. THE AMAZING WORLD OF DC COMICS SPECIAL EDITION 1 (February 1976) available at the "Super DC Con '76," February 27th - 29th, Hotel Commodore, New York, New York--see post to follow.

[Jim Kelly]

SUPERMAN 250 (April 1972)--2nd story, "The Superman Time Capsule" by Coleman (?) and Mortimer (new splash page by Swan and Anderson):

The Man of Tomorrow encounters a meteor shower in space that includes a Kryptonite meteor. When he returns to Earth, the K. metal has made him blind to anything green.



Note: In the reprint, this meteor is red K., but in the original it was green K. The reprint editor must have thought it would retroactively make more sense if it was red, although in 1955 red Kryptonite hadn't really been established in the mythology.



Two crooks hope to take advantage of this colour blindness by getting Supes to use x-rays on their green lead ingots, which should turn them to gold. As Superman repeats some of his past super-feats for the sake of a time capsule, the rogues have placed their ingots where he will be using his x-ray vision.

However, each x-ray treatment isn't sufficient to turn the lead to pure gold. It turns out the Kryptonite meteor affected the strength of Superman's x-ray power.



The ailment is temporary as evidenced by Clark being able to see the green dress Lois is wearing at the end of the story.

[Jim Kelly]

SUPER DC CALENDAR 1976--February:



In the January 1976 cover-dated issues there was a special announcement of a birthday celebration for Superman. As every Super-Fan would have known--especially if one had SUPER DC CALENDAR 1976--the Man of Steel observes his birthday every leap year on February 29th. So what better occasion for a big comic book convention than the weekend of February 29th, 1976?

But for me, living in Vancouver and attending high school, New York City might as well have been the Moon. I could not go, much as I wished to.

[Jim Kelly]

THE AMAZING WORLD OF DC COMICS SPECIAL EDITION 1 (February 1976)--cover art by Curt Swan; available at the "Super DC Con '76," February 27th - 29th, Hotel Commodore, New York, New York:



One extra treat, that I never knew about at the time was this special edition of AMAZING WORLD prepared for the convention. I had a subscription to the fanzine, yet that apparently didn't entitle me to this special issue. Which never seemed fair--especially since toward the end of the run they were sending me double copies of the book (maybe because they were going to run out of issues before my subscription ran out).





The contents of this special edition included--

▪ "DC Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow" by Anthony Tollin
▪ "Interview with 2 Supermen" by E. Nelson Bridwell--E.N.B. talks to Kal-El and Kal-L
▪ "Happy anniversary, Hero" by Carl Gafford and Franklin W. Maynard
▪ "Siegel, Shuster & Superman" by E. Nelson Bridwell
▪ Superman: 1940s "How Superman Would End the War" by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster--from LOOK magazine
▪ "Super-Heroes in Miniature" by Fred Schneider
▪ "Comic Collecting Hints for a New Hobbyist" by Paul Kupperberg
▪ Superman: 1960s "The Supershow of Metropolis" illustrated by Curt Swan and Stan Kaye [actually1955]
▪ "Costume Party Capers" by Jack C. Harris
▪ "Superman's Photo Album"
▪ Superman: 1970s by Len Wein and Neal Adams--an unpublished story

[Jim Kelly]

"The Supershow of Metropolis"

Superman tries to teach Jimmy a lesson by having him forced to take a vacation from the paper and leave town. However, Olsen disguises himself as Johnny Bolton and gets a temp job on the Planet, replacing himself.



"Johnny" helps out Superman in his performance at the big Supershow and is gutted when it turns out that the Man of Might wants Bolton to be his new pal, taking the place of Olsen.



However, the Action Ace has known all along that it was Jimmy in disguise. In fact, his reason for having Jimmy sent out of town was because some gangsters had threatened the cub reporters life.

[Jim Kelly]

The convention SPECIAL EDITION also included a new story by Len Wein and Neal Adams. It might have been an unused story for a public service publication, as the story is of that type, teaching an important social lesson. The Adams art seems to have been shot from the pencils, without an inker's embellishments and with just rough lettering.

The Man of Tomorrow comes to the aid of two youngsters named Jack and Amy. A robot called a Pollutoid is fouling up their local stream. The Pollutoid is controlled by the Grime-Master, who has taken over an amusement park, which he is using for a pollution production plant.

[Jim Kelly]

"Justice For All Includes Children"--art by Neal Adams and Continuity Associates*
(1st in a series, writer unknown)



This public service ad appeared in March 1976 and/or April 1976 dated issues.

*Continuity Associates was an art studio founded by Neal Adams and Dick Giordano in 1971, also known as the Crusty Bunkers. Besides Adams and Giordano, the studio had several members at one time or another, including Jack Abel, Terry Austin, Pat Broderick, Joe Brozowski, Howie Chaykin, Larry Hama, Bob Layton, Bob McLeod, Al Milgrom, Steve Mitchell, Win Mortimer, Mike Netzer, Carl Potts, Marshall Rogers, Joe Rubinstein, Walt Simonson, Jim Starlin and Bob Wiacek--among others.