from "The Night of March 31st!" from Superman #145 (DC, May 1961), script by Jerry Siegel, pencils by Curt Swan, inks by Sheldon Moldoff
You know, what is it that Supergirl has or hasn't done between this story back to her arrival on Earth in Action #252 (May 1959) to deserve being still hidden under a Kryptonite curtain? I'm guessing Kal-El needed that extra time in order to clear all the legal ownerships on that "S" shield so Kara can never make any money off her likeness. Wow, that clever, clever Clark! Also: that dirty, rotten Clark!
Superman hurries to the Planet and does his best impersonation of Kool-Aid:
Apparently Lori Lemaris has grown a pair...of legs! Say, I wonder if that singing crab is anywhere around here?
Ha ha ha! It's just as I predicted...Supergirl reveals herself! She's had it up to there...no, there...wait...here, with Kal-El! You can tell he's mad because he took some time to change into his comfortable Sears casual slacks.
Then, ownership of Super-Pets is transferred! This might be a weird, weird, day. Still, any appearance of Streaky the Super-Cat is welcome as far as I'm concerned. And it isn't even Caturday!
It's a madhouse, I tell you! A MADHOUSE!
Anticipating that issue of John Byrne's Superman where Lois dates Mr. Mxyzptlk, Lois...um...dates Mr. Mxyzptlk! Yep, it's true...chicks dig the fifth dimension.
Consternation, uproar! Supes and Mxy square off! Hey, judge...he's got a foreign object in the ring...a ball o' Red Kryptonite! Oh no! Superman will turn into a clock or a grand piano or Senator Estes Kefauver! You just can never predict what Red Kryptonite will do to Superman unless you look at the cover of the comic book.
Oh, there's a poster in it! I wonder what that poster will be!
No, no, no. Not that poster, this poster:
Now, let's visit Lana Lang, who is now acting like a complete jerk. So, regular ordinary Lana Lang, then.
Superman's pals arrive to save the day! Notably absent: Jimmy Olsen, fair-weather friend that he is.
Thus: THE GREATEST PANEL IN COMIC BOOK HISTORY:
Yes, folks, it's the only Superman story* that ends with a "plop!" *Aside from some copies of "For the Man Who Has Everything."
Now, 'round about this time
No, actually, to save you the trouble of turning your computer monitor upside-down (I tried it and I do not recommend it), here's the editorial explanation: those Superman creators just gone plain insane!
Why, it's an April Fool's gag with lots of deliferate mistales. Can you spot them all? Well, I did notice Lois said "sorry" to Clark...now that's out of character!
I wonder how much of this story was inspired by DC's letter columns at the time, which mostly seemed to consist of readers complaining that they'd spotted a mistake in the comic book. It only costs a dime, you ingrates!
Yep, here's the editors baiting the readers. "G'wan, ya comic book-readin' ninnies! We dare you to spot the mistakes!"
A few issues later (in Supes #148), the fans react!
Now here's the round-up and the winners. Say, Linda Strickland, we sure hope you still have that gorgeous Curt Swan original art! I'll take it off your hands for a couple bucks.
This still is not in any way the complete list of mistakes in the story. I highly recommend hunting down the full story and finding the mistakes yourself! (It was republished in Adventure Comics #339, The Greatest Superman Stories Ever Told, and Showcase Presents: Superman v.2. It's well worth checking out...it's a fun story, and that's what we here at Comics Oughta Be Fun! love the best. And that's no April Fool!
I think that panel with "Him smash bottle with city of Kandor!" is the greatest panel in comic book history.
ReplyDeleteJust look at the three villains, lines up nicely, watching Superman faint backwards, Bizarro expositioning.
ReplyDeleteA great recap of a classic story, Bully!
The funniest part about that diary entry to me is that Superman was just listing the same-old same-old, making "Supergirl isn't ready yet to have her existence revealed to the world" just hilariously obnoxious.
April 1st: "Had a crazy day... Red K gave me visions of Earth-Prime, where I saw a comic-book story about me with all kinds of goofy boners like wearing my Clark Kent glasses as Superman and falling onto the bottle city of Kandor thus crushing thousands of miniature people. (Good thing their invulnerability under Earth's yellow sun hadn't kicked in yet or it would've been like falling on thousands of little bullets that could actually hurt me!) Supergirl isn't ready yet to have her existence revealed to the world."
April 2nd: "I could really go for some boeuf bourguignon. Supergirl isn't ready yet to have her existence revealed to the world."
April 3rd: "The Justice League and I went to Rann. When I came back, some animals had escaped from the interplanetary zoo at the Fortress. I decided to relax by reading the library's entire collection of Shakespeare from my armchair via telescopic and X-ray vision. Supergirl isn't ready yet to have her existence revealed to the world."