MYTHCOMICS: "THE CURSE OF THE SUPERBOY MUMMY" (SUPERBOY #123, 1965)

By 1965, many of the Mort Weisinger-edited comics of the SUPERMAN line had gone beyond the fustiness of their Golden Age precursors. If one goes beyond my specific connotations of "mythicity," and speaks only of how each of the titles nurtured its own mythology, then both of the SUPERMAN books, the SUPERGIRL backup, LOIS LANE and JIMMY OLSEN all showed unprecedented inventiveness in creating new characters and concepts, or in causing old ones to interact. (I'm leaving the LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES feature outside these considerations because it sported a very different conceptual format.) But of the features set in the 20th century, SUPERBOY was the least distinguished in sheer creativity. 

I've only read bits and pieces of the late forties/early fifties SUPERBOY, I've found them extremely jejune compared to the SUPERMAN scripts of the same period, even allowing for SUPERBOY's simpler, kid-focused plots. Only one event in the feature's late Golden Age era is still remembered by fans today, the creation of Lana Lang, which as I argued here began as a recapitulation of Lois Lane's character. Then two more "myth-events" followed in the first five years of the Silver Age. First came the introduction of Krypto in 1955. Then in 1960 came one of the feature's few mythic stories, "How Luthor Met Superboy," which debuted the appealing idea that Luthor and Superboy grew up together in Smallville long before they became implacable foes in adulthood. The "retcon" of Luthor was followed other tales which borrowed from the SUPERMAN comic books (or, in one case, from the SUPERMAN comic strip), so that the Boy of Steel began meeting Phantom Zone villains and the like. But even by 1965, his writers showed little sign of evolving any new myth-material original to Superboy's universe-- again, not counting the Legion.

I suspect that the premise of "The Curse of the Superboy Mummy" might have begun from an idea for an arresting cover image-- Lana Lang and Superboy finding archaic doppelgangers of themselves in an Egyptian tomb. Given that idea, writer Leo Dorfman and artist Curt Swan then probably had to "work backward" to find some way to justify the image. But this time Dorfman rooted his makework story in one of the key myths of the Superman cosmos-- the War Between Men and Women.

The three-way relationship of heroic Superboy, admiring Lana Lang, and apparently-timid Clark Kent had of course been borrowed from the SUPERMAN comics, but a few interesting divergences arose. For one thing, Lana became at some point the daughter of an esteemed archaeologist, so she could sometimes be tied to arcane or unusual discoveries. 

Now, the cover does not specify the nature of the "curse," but the opening caption does, implying that somehow Lana's presence is going to bring doom to the hero-- even though she doesn't show any of her more annoying traits here or in the issue's other two stories. Nevertheless, when Dorfman takes us back to 3,000 B.C. in Egypt, the writer changes the Smallville setup-- "young girl only thinks the guy she knows is weak"-- to a literal reality. Seth, weakling son of royal magician Ahton, is humiliated when the taunting Neferti demonstrates that even she's stronger than he is. Doting father that Ahton is, he goes for the quick fix, asking Isis for help.

Isis shows Ahton the futuristic feats of Superboy-- proving that even archaic gods are big fans of the Kryptonian franchise-- and Ahton learns how to duplicate Superboy's powers with a magic potion. There is of course no internal reason for Ahton or Seth to duplicate the Superboy costume too, except to make the cover-image work out. But I give Dorfman extra points for coming up with a rationale for the insignia, since the Egyptians didn't have the European letter "S."

During Seth's short super-career, his major accomplishment is really to blow off Neferti when she tries womanly wiles to attract his attention. But Neferti shares the snoopiness of her later doppelganger, so she not only learns Seth's true identity, she even sees images of Superboy and Lana in Ahton's magic oracle-shield.

Then, just as the nosiness of Lois and Lana sometimes put their romantic idol in one kind of peril or another, Neferti has a "Deianeira moment," where she trusts in an unscrupulous adviser to give her a love-charm. The jade scarab she wears to attract Seth kills him, and her as well, when she tries to rescue him from the sea. (The story has an unusual amount of death for a mid-sixties SUPERBOY tale.) 

This half of the story is the most resonant for its use of a trope one might call, "Hero Killed by Woman's Egotism." Astute readers are expected to notice that Lana appropriates the very jade scarab that killed Seth, and so there's no great mystery to those readers when modern-day Superboy begins experiencing non-romantic heartaches when he gets near Lana. The Big Reveal of the next three pages is pretty routine and not worth recapitulating here; those interested in the denouement may read it here. The only mythic element of the modern-day section of the narrative is that, even though Lana isn't intentionally endangering Superboy, the hero's dimestore self-analysis is never actually invalidated. According to the way Lana normatively functions in the SUPERBOY canon, she does at least endanger the hero's peace of mind with her frequent identity-hunting. And if one chooses to amplify the potential feelings of these purely fictional characters, Lana also could incur a lot of resentment by her frequent complaints about Clark Kent's meekness-- though to my knowledge she never went so far as to embarrass Clark in a contest of strength/skill. So if Superboy does harbor secret resentments of his potential girlfriend, it's not because he's swayed by any ancient superstition. He just resents nosy, nagging women.

MYTHCOMICS: "THE PLANET OF OUTCASTS" (ACTION COMICS #322-3, 1965)

I've chosen to designate this two-part story by the title of the tale's first part, the other being the less evocative "The Kryptonian Killer." It's a story that probably even a lot of Silver Age enthusiasts barely remember, but it rises to a level of strong mythicity by describing an "ethic of evil" not unlike the one seen in the 1947 JUSTICE SOCIETY adventure "The Injustice Society of the World." Whereas the evildoers in the JSA story were cobbled together from other DC Comics features, "Outcasts" presents the reader with a world full of criminals, the Sisterhood of Evil (no relation to the DOOM PATROL's Brotherhood of Evil).

From this setup, one might expect something along one of the many Amazonian societies seen in popular culture. But the Sisterhood of Evil is the only one I've come across in which the female society is not formed with motives of resentment against the male gender. Oddly, this peculiarity may have come about because the story's author, Leo Dorfman, was following a narrative pattern established by the introduction of one of DC's most famous co-ed hero-groups, the Legion of Super-Heroes.

As all well-informed comics-fans know, the Legion first appeared in the SUPERBOY feature, one of the many "Superman Family" franchises under the editorial aegis of Mort Weisinger. The 1958 story, written by Otto Binder, focuses on three costumed figures, all of whom belong to a club of teen heroes in Earth's 30th century, who travel back to Superboy's time to invite him to join their organization. The story seems to have been a toss-off rather than an attempt to create a new franchise, but fans of the time wrote DC, demanding more Legion-adventures.

Writers under Weisinger's aegis were encouraged to recycle story-motifs frequently, partly in response to the editor's belief that the youthful comics-readership shifted every five years, as the kids got too old for funny-books. Thus it should be no great surprise that two years later, a Supergirl story, written by Jerry Siegel, reproduced the essence of the Binder story, only with the "Maid of Steel" in the role of club-applicant. One year later, Siegel wrote another Supergirl-Legion story, but instead of the heroine meeting the same three heroes she had before, she met three super-powered heroines like herself. (Technically, she'd met Saturn Girl before, but this was the first appearance for new Legion-members Phantom Girl and Triplicate Girl.) The story, titled "Supergirl's Three Super-Girlfriends," starts off implying that the future-teens are going to become Supergirl's new BFFs, though this idea gets quickly dropped as the heroine meets a new potential boyfriend, Brainiac 5.

I suggest that Leo Dorfman, given that he was as obliged as any other writer to recycle established motifs, was at least aware of the Legion stories. The opening of "Outcasts" starts out much like "Super-Girlfriends." Three costumed women-- each demonstrating a super-power, and each with a Legion-like code-name-- seek out Supergirl. But instead of representing a "foreign legion" of the future, the three super-women claim to come from the planet Feminax, "peopled only by girls, each of whom has one super-power." Supergirl never troubles to ask how this state of affairs came about, possibly because she's flattered to be invited to the planet's "first Supergirl festival."

However, the only thing the Feminaxians want to celebrate is Supergirl's capture. They resemble the Legion only in that the "thousands" of inhabitants have all come from disparate planets throughout the cosmos. However, they're all villains who have become "outcasts" because of their crimes. None of them have super-powers, and the three ladies who invited Supergirl-- whose real names are Ran-Kor, Tempra, and Lattora-- merely used trickery to fake their supposed abilities.. Ravenne, the perpetually veiled queen of Feminax, invited all the female super-crooks to her world to join a society "pledged to spread crime and wrong-doing throughout the universe." Ravenne also has recourse to technology able to distort the heroine's Kryptonian powers, so that she cannot escape Feminax or fight its criminal inhabitants.

The Sisterhood of Evil doesn't just want to humiliate Supergirl, though; they want to use her in their campaign to spread evil. Ran-Kor-- the only Feminaxian whose name suggests her malign nature-- gives Supergirl a story about how Ran-Kor wants to "quit the Sisterhood," and to that end will help the heroine escape. Supergirl just happens to be imprisoned in a building holding three comatorse super-heroines, whom Supergirl still may be able to revive.

It's a trick, of course. And as if to testify to the superior evil of Earth-women, the supposed super-heroines are actually three famous villainesses from Earth-history, whom Ravenne has plucked from their proper time-frames in order to serve the society of Feminax: Mata Hari, Lady Macbeth, and Lucretia Borgia. (I surmise Dorfman was less concerned with history here than the reader's ease of recognition.)

However, Ravenne, having used Supergirl to resurrect three female fiends, does so only with the aim of causing the trio to "infect" the Maid of Steel with their evil.

Supergirl is entirely dominated by Ravenne's hypnotic control, to the extent that she makes a Kryptonite cocktail with the skills of Lucretia Borgia. Ravenne's main target is Superman himself, but first the arch-villain has the heroine test the potion on two other subjects: Comet the Super-Horse and a villain from the Phantom Zone, name of Py-Ron. Both subjects appear to die horribly. and Ravenne gives the go-ahead for Supergirl to administer the poison to her cousin, and then, to herself.

Ravenne and her fellow conspirators celebrate the demise of the superheroes, though the three historical villains don't get to share the joy, since Ravenne hurls them back to their own eras, complete with mind-wipes. However, the celebration is premature. Dorfman's ace in the hole, his own creation Comet, wasn't slain by the poison, and he uses his telepathic powers to suss out what was going on. He alters the effects of the poison, so that Superman, Supergirl and Py-Ron all survive. Then Feminax pays the ultimate price for almost killing a fellow villain, While the heroes debate their next action, the villain with a fiery name-- who now possesses a Kryptonian's super-powers-- flies over the planet and creates a deluge that wipes out the thousands of nasty ladies. The story ends with a reaffirmation of goodness, as Supergirl says, "Let wrong-doers remember that evil is repaid by evil."

For a story that excoriates criminality, though, "Outcasts" lets evil come awfully close to winning. Maybe that's the main reason that the female villains are not seen as having turned evil due to male mistreatment, because that might have inculcated reader-sympathy. Rather, the Feminaxians live their lives by the motto of Milton's Satan-- "Evil, be thou my good"-- which justifies Dorfman's mass execution of the whole group (one lady-crook's deed is explicitly compared by Supergirl to the assassination of President Kennedy).

There are some myth-motifs that get lost in the wash. Toward the end, Ravenne reveals that she's an old hag beneath her veil, but Dorfman didn't give readers any reason to think she was some stunning young beauty.

More interesting is that as soon as the first trio of evil women fades from importance in the story, another threesome takes its place. I've stated that Dorfman probably started out with three super-girls because of earlier stories in the same vein. But there's no particular reason that there have to be three female villains from the past, and indeed, both Mata Hari and Lady Macbeth are not as fundamental to the story as is Lucretia Borgia.

Neopaganism asserts the existence of a "Triple Goddess" with three phases of "Maiden, Mother, and Crone." Dorfman isn't specifically invoking this trope, but he does have a "Maid of Steel" and a "Crone," at least. No one in the story is the mother to anyone else, though Mata Hari's reputation, unlike that of Supergirl, suggests some level of worldly experience. This, like the secret of Ravenne, would seem to be a motif that Dorfman tossed in without development.

Finally, it's interesting that Dorfman brought in Comet as Supergirl's savior. He is, as I noted here, a quasi-sexual figure for Supergirl even before she finds out that he's a sentient centaur. By herself Supergirl is not able to resist the power of Feminine Evil, but with the help of what Jung would call her *animus* figure, she enjoys the final victory. It is also amusing that, when she believes herself dying at Superman's side, Dorfman tosses in an amusing line that seems calculated to bring back memories of the death-scene in ROMEO AND JULIET:

"I'll lie down by Superman's side. Some day they'll find us here-- The world will know how we died together!"

NEAR MYTHS: "THE SUPER STEED OF STEEL" (ACTION COMICS #292, 1962)

This week's mythcomic will be a Silver Age Supergirl story in which the heroine's ass gets saved by supporting character Comet the Super-Horse. So I decided that before printing that one, I would touch on this quirky, unique 1960s character.

During the period when Mort Weisinger edited the "Superman Family" titles, no writer had any exclusive hold on the characters they created for DC Comics. Still, Leo Dorfman wrote all or most of the stories in which "Super-Horse" is involved with the main action, rather than being a supporting figure. From the beginning, Dorfman seems to have had a rough arc regarding where he wanted the Super-Horse stories to go, even if there was not really a proper conclusion to Comet's story. Dorfman probably never planned an end as such-- I feel sure Comet was mainly a story-device to keep food on the table, and when tastes moved away from the Weisinger-type story in the 1970s, the ultra-equine effectively went into comic-book limbo.

The opening image of the first Super-Horse story shows Supergirl happily astride her Super-Horse as they flee kryptonite rays from alien ships. In the story proper, this occurs only in one of the heroine's dreams, though the real event takes place one issue later.

First, however, Linda "Supergirl" Danvers suddenly gets horse-crazy while watching a western movie. Notice that though she's in high school at this time, she's supposedly more interested in the horse than in the cowboy.

Anna Freud, writing in 1926, carried on Big Sigmund's tradition by claiming that young girls liked horses due to "penis envy." There's no telling what Freudianisms were known to Leo Dorfman, but at the least I suspect he knew that juvenile books about horses-- BLACK BEAUTY, NATIONAL VELVET-- had proved enormously popular with young girls. He seems to have concluded that there was something erotic at the base of it, to judge from Linda's bedtime thoughts about getting "goose flesh" at the idea of sharing adventures with her own horse.

In the space of the story, Supergirl has three dreams about a super-horse helping her in some way. She names him Comet because he has a comet-like birthmark, though as a story-motif the birthmark won't become important until a few issues later. Then Supergirl encounters an identical horse at a real-life dude ranch, and the first story ends on an enigmatic note.

In the next story, Supergirl finds out that Comet is not just a horse, but a telepath, who proceeds to relate his origin via a mental voice. His lineage goes back to ancient Greece, when he was a centaur named Biron. (This seems to be a reference to one of the most famous centaurs in Greek mythology, Chiron.)

It's later revealed that Maldor, the sorcerer who tried to poison Circe, caused Biron to drink the wrong potion. Circe tries to make up for the blunder by using a magic potion that turns Biron the ordinary horse into a super-being. But Maldor has another scheme, using his magic to cause the super-horse to become imprisoned on an asteroid in (appropriately) the constellation Sagittarius. Biron languishes on the desolate asteroid for centuries, until 1959, when a rocket from Argo City happens by with its precious cargo.

Thus Biron becomes fascinated with the teenager aboard the rocket, and follows it to Earth. It's not clear why Biron waits a few years to contact the heroine, but he tells Supergirl that he read the minds of the alien scouts that were preparing for invasion. It's not clear why that would prompt Biron to invade Supergirl's dreams and construct an exact replica of what was going to happen when she attacked the aliens and the newly christened Comet came to her rescue. In this same issue, the aliens invade for real and things play out in reality just as they did in the dream, suggesting that Dorfman's Super-Horse had a little clairvoyance going for him, when it was convenient for the writer.


The rest of the Dorfman stories featuring the relationship of the heroine and her horse focus on the "romance with a secret identity" that had been DC's bread-and-butter since the debut of Superman. A couple of times Comet is temporarily transformed into a human being, in keeping with the original boon he wanted from Circe, and in one story, the transformation happens in werewolf-fashion, whenever a comet passes in the heavens. Because of this development, I hazard that Dorfman had always planned to have his super-equine transform in this fashion, but had to work his way up to that point. Otherwise, there doesn't seem to be any particular reason for the writer to presage the transformation with the comet-birthmark.

Whenever Comet does get the chance to become human, however temporarily, he immediately finds some reason to get into a lip-lock with Supergirl and/or Linda. I don't find this as transgressive as many comics-fans do, because he really isn't a horse, but a liminal being between human and horse.

However, I'll admit it's more than a little peculiar when Supergirl becomes jealous of Comet's attentions to another female. Granted, by this time she knows that he's not a real horse, but a transformed centaur. Yet in all the stories post-dating the big revelation, she doesn't really think of Comet as "a guy." So maybe what she's really jealous about is that another woman is getting the jollies that Supergirl usually gets.

As to the origin of those jollies, deponent saith not, except to observe that at no point in his career do you see cousin Superman fantasizing about riding a horse, regardless of gender.

ADDENDUM: I noted above that at fifteen, Linda/Supergirl seems a little old to form a crush on a horse rather than on a boy. However, I should also note that no one would have thought that the girl-readers of the feature would be that old, and THEY might indeed be of an age to have horse-crushes-- not that it's automatic with every young XX, but middle-school seems to be a little more likely for the crush to form.