Right: Action Comics #304 (September 1963), pencils by Curt Swan, inks by Sheldon Moldoff
(Click picture to 100-foot-puppet-of-Lex-Luthor-size)
Yep, you read the header right: this is a Different Story, But Pretty Much the Same Cover! We've gotten used to Silver Age comic stories being reprinted ad infinitum on a cycle of a decade or so, keeping with the universal truth that no one past the age of 15 ever reads comic books. However, this isn't one of those cases! Although the story in Action #304 takes its title and initial premise from the story in #220—Superman performs poorly against mighty galactic athletes in the Interplanetary Olympics—each takes a different approach. #220 is a fairly straightforward story where Superman discovers one of his competitors is cheating by concealing Kryptonite in the Olympic Area. #304 ups the stakes by not only including Lana Lang (huh?), but by eliminating the possibility of Kryptonite in the area fairly early on in the story. The eventual outcome: Superman has been "throwing" the competition by performing poorly, to prevent aliens from stealing his superpower when he performs amazing deeds (huh?). The baddies escape on their rocket-powered planetoid (huh?) but luckily are apprehended by the Intergalactic Police ("To Protect and Serve...In Spaaaaaaaaaace!"). Stick around over the next couple weeks for each day's Official Comic Book Panel of the Day of the 2012 Olympics...I'll be presenting panels and sequences from both stories!
In the meantime, here's the cover of Superman #284, which does reprint the story from Action Comics #304. Who says this ism't the age of generous five-ringed Bully-bloggering?
Cover of Superman v.1 #284 (February 1975), pencils and inks by Nick Cardy
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQenrY-T9_-EUVG2XBTW-ZiSnvw_V3JFU-8tiFlhrdgKCUBaE56ekbiILucymY9gA-xa4zdGy_z1Njojw78Z-YnlUiN4PIRRurK7GzqoEg3B-PmXl2RJaS1ZaVKVCEHP-m-WVr2xjqailLu1jlzylysiBGc3sVXLXNMFDzAURyrHhKBfcqyO4/s1600/button-libertybellmarch.jpg" "It's...")
3 comments:
Comparing the two covers at the top makes for an interesting exercise since both have the challenge of conveying "Olympic" and "Alien" at the same time.
220 lays on us right away that we are IN SPPPPAAAAACCCCCEEEEEE! (That never gets old) What with the planet Earth in the background. Unfortunately, distance throwing is not a good sport to be portrayed in a vertical space like this. Sure, it supports that Superman can't throw very far, but his competitors don't look like they did that much better either. Not to mention its more than a little absurd that the ball landed perfectly upright so that we could read the "1000 Lbs" label.
304 is better at conveying the feats of strength. Right away we see (and are told of) Superman's suffering. Plus we get to see his opponents strength as well rather just be told about it. The crowd is nice touch to establish this as an "event" rather than just some guys goofing around in someone's backyard.
Had this cover been made today I'm sure they'd have stuck in a huge neighboring planet in the sky to established the alien environs, but I just a lemonade tinted sky will just have to due. Fits right in with the mustard and lime colored athletes.
I was just thinking I should have photoshopped in Mike and the bots and have Crow saying that speed bubble on #304.
Adding robots to the crowd certainly wouldn't have hurt any. Variety would do this crowd a lot of good.
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