Today in Comics History, Father's Day: Bully's Father's Day Gift Suggestion #73: Really, anything at all, Clark, ya load

Guess who forgot it was Father's Day! Golly, that computer-like brain of yours is great for categorizing super-criminals and which girls on the Legion of Super-Heroes you'd like to see in their underwear, Kid Kal...not so good for remembering dates.


from "Father's Day on Planet Krypton!" Adventure Comics #313 (DC/National, October 1963), script by Leo Dorfman and Mort Weisinger, pencils and inks by George Papp, letters by Joe Letterese
It's a story cleverly called "Father's Day on Planet Krypton!" because it's about...Father's Day on Planet Krypton. Not Earth, so you can shove it, Pa Kent.





"Oh, thank you, Clark...a homemade gift from the boy who can dig up gold and can squeeze Kingsford Charcoal Briquettes into diamonds. Thanks, son. Spared absolutely zero expense, didn't you? No thoughts about flying your pop in a brand new John Deere tractor? No?"


Say, Superboy, shouldn't your amazing powers of total recall) (not that one) have reminded you that it was Father's Day in good old Smallville, No State Given Until 1978? Ohhh, so that's your game! Well isn't that conveeeeenient. "Sorry, Ma, I forgot Mother's Day because of Kryptonite." "That's...that's okay, Clark dear. I'm sure ALL OF YOUR OTHER BROTHERS AND SISTERS HAVE GOTTEN ME GIFTS."


Turns out Pre-Crisis Kal (who, I remind you, was not hatched on Earth) has some vague memories of being a toddler with his dad showing him a family crypt of all the great ancestor minds in the El lineage. That goes a long way to explaining why the Fortress of Solitude is filled with all those wird-ass statues of Jor-El and Lara and Lois and Jimmy and Kal's second cousin twice removed who invented disinfectants, Pur-El.


Criminals from the Phantom Zone cruelly taunt Clark in his dreams that he doesn't have Ancestor Statues to salute their mighty deeds! Geez, Clark, why aren't you like any normal teenage boy, and dream about Lana in Ma Kent's old housedress?

By the way, each of these statues is made from delicious milk chocolate.


On the very next page Clark, not having read the "space is big, really big" part of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, just coincidentally happens to run across the El family statues floating intact, randomly in the unimaginable hugeness of deep space. Geez, the whole of Krypton exploded into tiny pieces except for that bit? Actually, that would explain why there were so many other Kryptonians in pre-Crisis Superman mags...they just held on real tight to those statues. And yes, the statues are all made of Kryptonite now, so Clark has to...heh heh heh...build himself a giant Flit gun...hee hee hee...and spray the statues..,HA-HA-HA-HA!...with molten lead...BWAH-HA-HA-HA-HA!...so he can BWAH-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!


Oh, see, the statues were some sort of galactic puzzle to be completed, and it doesn't work until you put all the colored pieces into the right slots. Golly, this is probably why my set of ancestor statues doesn't work...lost all the accessories out in the back yard years ago.


Funny, I never knew Terry Gammill was one of Clark's relatives.

Later, young Clark explains why he's been gone for three weeks in deep space to his worried-sick parents: making giant molten lead sprayers and putting things on top of other things.


Then, they all had delicious Tootsie Roll Fudge, and...oh wait, that's an ad instead of the last 1/3 of a page, because Mort Weisinger wanted to cheap out on us with only 66% story on the final page.


Happy Father's Day, Pre-Crisis Clark, ya dink.