Manic Monday Triple Overtime--Violating Every Law of Physics!!

For reasons too silly to reveal--let's just say FAKE NEWS--Superboy has to perform 100 "feats of strength" that he's never performed before.

He saves the best for last...

Wait for it...wait for it...

Oh, dear.

If you read Superboy's thought balloon too quickly, you might read it as "using THE [F]orce to lift the world," which would make a little more sense.

Remind me someday, and we'll discuss the other 99 feats of strength...

From Adventure Comics #329 (1965)

Manic Monday Triple Overtime--Maybe The D Stands For "Hope"?!?

If it's a day that ends in a "y," there most be another new Kryptonian hanging around Smallville:

Wow!! I guess that means watch out, the trouble's just beginning if you live in Hawaii or Guatemala!

No, but seriously, this isn't really a Kryptonian. It's part of an over-elaborate hoax to trick Superboy into freeing the prisoners from the Phantom Zone. Who's behind it?

Duh.

But that's a good question, Luthor--how did Superboy suss you out?

But...but...but...

OK, OK, this is before the "the S symbol is the crest of the House Of El" thing was thought up, and the "S" Superboy wears was put there by Ma Kent. Maybe Luthor should have said, "It's not a D...on Krypton it stands for oh, I don't know, faith?!?"

Still, it was pretty damned stupid for young genius Lex Luthor to put Dak-El's initial there. After all, he was in contact with the Phantom Zone villains, and none of them wore monogrammed clothing.

From Superboy #115 (1964)

Manic Monday Bonus--Take That, Justin Turdeau!!

From the letters column in Superboy #115 (1964):

Silver Age DC fans: Hey, characters violating obscure, never-enforced laws ruins our enjoyment of this super-powered fantasy!

Silver Age DC editors: It's OK to mutilate Canadian currency!!

Still perhaps that's preferable to...

Some modern DC fans: To hell with laws, Superman should straight up murder bad guys.

Modern DC editors and movie makers: We're with you.

Wow, this got real dark real fast...

Manic Monday--The True Cause Of Global Warming!

Brace yourself...

SCIENCE!!!

OK, in fairness, it was still canon at this point that Superboy grew up in the 1930s, so these scientists might not have been as clued in as they should be on "nuclear blasts."

But their next idea suggests that yes, they are stupid:

So, off to the moon, where...

Geez!! Take some Gas-X, Superboy!!

And...there's a side effect:

And in Kal-El's gut?

Rather than just taking a couple of Prilosec, Superboy tries going underwater and into the vacuum of space to extinguish his fire breath. But no luck.

Next plan?!?

!!!!

Folks, DC writers realized this 54 years ago. So maybe it's not a Chinese hoax?!?

It needs to be said, though, that the DC writers didn't quite realize the scope of the problem...

One village, saved with a sea-wall. Maybe it's really not that big of a threat?!?

Anyway, since his flame-breath won't go away, Superboy goes to live on the "fire planet," and:

YOW!!!!

The moral of the story? Don't let Superboy give you mouth-to-mouth. God knows what he's been breathing!!

(And before anyone asks, this was 1 1/2 years after Fire Lad was introduced with the Legion Of Substitute Heroes, and he didn't come from a planet like this. He inhaled odd meteorite vapors to get his power...still, if I were allowed to write comics, maybe there's a story here...)

From Superboy #115 (1964)

The Hidden Downside Of Super-Speed!!

Superboy just save a Pacific island from an exploding volcano...but it's made him late for class!

And even worse, he hasn't finished his homework yet!

Fortunately, that's no problem for someone with super-speed, right?

Think again!

Super-speed ruins your penmanship!!

OK, that's a 20th century problem...but it would probably screw up his texting, too!!

From Superman Family #191 (1978)

Manic Monday--Smallville--Tourist Trap!!

Last week we were discussing some of the difference between Earth-1 and Earth-2.

In that story, set on 1950s Earth-2, Clark Kent and Lana Lang met for the first time--as adults!!

How is that possible?

Oh?

You see...

Well, that makes sense, doesn't it? On Earth-1, once Superboy debuted (and probably once tales of Superbaby began to spread), Smallville no doubt became a tourist destination, a regular spot for the media to visit, a vacation spot for aliens time traveling teenagers and super-villains and...Of course the small town would boom--boom enough to make it feasible for farmers to give up their farm and open up a general store.

However, Lana's story doesn't make sense. Professor Lang of Earth-2 moved to Smallville before Lana was born. But on Earth-1, Lana and Clark were roughly the same age, and any Superboy related boom wouldn't have begun until years after Lana was born. So Smallville-1 would have still been "such a little town" at the same point in Professor Lang's life!! Why did Lang-2 leave Smallville while Lang-1 stayed?!?!?

I like to think that the Professor Lang of Earth-2 killed a man in Smallville--just to watch him die--and left before the law caught up with him...

From Superman Family #203 (1980)

Admit It--You Miss The Hell Out Of Red Kryptonite!!

If there's one thing that DC needs to restore from their pre-Crisis, pre-nu52, pre-Rebirth universe, it's crazy red kryptonite transformations.

Take, for example, just these that happened to Superboy...

That was good enough for a Star Trek episode!! And really, is Red K any more unlikely than a malfunctioning transporter?

Again, good enough for Star Trek Deep Space Nine. A "subspace compression anomaly"?!?! Come on, just say kryptonite, dudes!!

Yes, but 300 pounds under Earth's weaker gravity and yellow sun!!

The Amazing Colossal Superboy!!

This really needed to be a Batman crossover...

Oh so weird and creepy...

Iron Man does this, we call it a classic story. DC and red kryptonite, we dismiss it as silly...

All right, you win, this one was just dumb.

But what about your toes, Superboy? What. About. Your. Toes?!?!?

The opposite of the "mullet."

"I'm not hitting myself!!"

Here's the key to where these stories appeared, if you're interested.

All I'm saying is, DC could use a little more levity these days, and red kryptonite stories were a great way to let off steam. Bring 'em back, DC!

From Superboy #146 (1968)

Manic Monday Bonus--Superboy Already Did It!!

Remember that episode of the Simpsons where Lisa discovers that beloved town founder Jedidiah Springfield had really been vile pirate Hans Sprungfeld, mortal enemy of George Washington?

Well, Superboy already did it. Decades earlier.

OK, Superboy actually did the opposite, sort of, but they were clearly in that territory first! Hang on for a wild ride!

It's time for a special class at Springfield High!

Lana, it turns out, has a pretty swanky pedigree. But Clark Kent...?

OMG!!

Well, sure, kids will talk and gossip. But surely the adults of Smallville are more mature, and above such pettiness, right?

Of course not!

Well, Smallville is actually Jerk Town, USA. And it ain't blowin' over any time soon!

It gets so bad, that...

...oops, wrong story.

No Pa Kent is bummed, but his solution: flee the cruel, cruel people of Smallville!

Well, Superboy goes back in time, has some piratey adventures, and discovers that...

So the person we thought was an evil pirate really was a hero!!

But there's still one dilemma:

Remember how Lisa was able to prove the truth of her Springfield/Sprungfeld theory because of a message scrawled on the back of a piece of a portrait of George Washington? Well...

36 years before Lisa The Iconoclast, Superboy did the exact same story (except the Simpsons flipped the "evil guy found to be really good" idea). Revolutionary-era pirate, portrait of Washington hiding secret letters, jerky townsfolk...

So remember, when people say, "The Simpsons Already Did It," well, Superboy did it even earlier!

From Superboy #79 (1960), as reprinted in Superboy #146 (1968)