The Future Man of the Future

He's "so different" from the original Superman of Krypton?  He's got a slightly different appearance, but he still has all of Superman's powers, wears the same uniform, does the same kind of superheroic feats, and still works as a reporter.  Yeah, they give him a futuristic sounding name, and his weakness is not to Kryptonite, but to ordinary seawater.

The story begins with Superman being made a lawman for the Federation of Planets.

Now there are some obvious problems with that statement.  First since this story was set 1000 years in the future (when it was published), that implies something like 40-50 generations later.  Presumably our Superman would have many descendants, not just one.  And some of them would no doubt be Superwomen, not Supermen.

This Superman's first task is to stop a rogue planet from destroying the solar system.  Of course, this is just a slight variation on our Superman's continuing battle save the world from asteroids and meteors.  This Superman also has his Fortress of Solitude, although his is so different; it's located out in space.  Some crooks try to get into it to steal some weapons, but Superman catches them.  We get more of the creepy DC scientofascism here:

Doesn't that "click...whirr" inspire confidence in the infallible nature of the computer?  What's the slowdown, you ask?  Well, they have a ray that slows people down to about 1/10th the speed of normal humans, which renders them harmless.  And also defenseless.

The story ends somewhat abruptly with Klar getting an assignment from his robot editor.  Muto, the future Superman's greatest enemy, has been spotted robbing a Neptunian bank.  Klar realizes he must track the alien down.

The tale of the future Superman continued about six months later in Action #338-339.  Muto reveals to three of his henchmen why he wants to kill Superman.  See, his parents were on a trip in space when Superman (actually the father of the 2965 Supes) accidentally ripped open a dimensional warp while saving Earth from yet another comet.  Their rocket went into the dimensional warp where Muto was born and:

He forces Superman to dive into some water to save three children from drowning. Supes discovers too late that they are not real children at all, but androids:

Fortunately Superman is able to reprogram the android kids with his heat vision so they drag him to safety.

That pretty much sets the tone for most of the rest of the final chapter of the story.  Muto tries various tricks to get Superman surrounded by sea water. Oh, and at one point Muto aims a growth ray on everybody in Metropolis, which causes havoc:

Eventually Superman manages to trick Muto into attacking him near a lightning rod.  The lightning opens up another dimensional warp, which sucks Muto into it.

Comments: The decision to make the future Superman's weakness sea water seems kinda silly.  Basically crooks could just carry water pistols around with them to handle him.  Indeed, in a later World's Finest issue, the future Joker is shown on the cover downing Superman with a squirt from the trick flower in his lapel.

Tracking The Intro of Continuing Characters in DC's Former One-Shot Mags

For most of their history up until about 1959, DC's war and science fiction magazines had not featured continuing characters.  Instead the stories had been one-shots, with characters never returning.  Apparently a decision was reached by management to require continuing features, and very quickly they were put in place:

March 1959: All American Men of War #67 introduced Gunner and Sarge.  The team continued in the next issue, before moving over to Our Fighting Forces, beginning with #45, the May 1959 issue.

April 1959: Sgt Rock made his first appearance in Our Army at War #81 (as Sgt Rocky).

May 1959.  Tank Killer makes his first appearance in All American Men of War #69.

May 1959. The Space Museum opens its doors for the first time in Strange Adventures #104.  It would eventually settle into a rotation with Star Hawkins and the Atomic Knights, with each feature appearing every third issue, until Julius Schwartz turned the editorship reins over to Jack Schiff in 1964. 

August 1959: Mademoiselle Marie, a French resistance fighter, debuted in Star Spangled War Stories #84.

August 1959.  Mystery in Space, which had occasionally had regular features but not for awhile at the time, began running the Adam Strange series, starting with #53.

August 1959.  Space Ranger became the regular feature in Tales of the Unexpected #40.

August 1959.  House of Secrets #23 introduced Mark Merlin, a supernatural detective/debunker.

March 1960. Star Hawkins begins in Strange Adventures #114.

April-May, 1960.  Star Spangled War Stories  publishes the first of many zany War that Time Forgot stories, a series which featured US soldiers battling dinosaurs and other oddball creatures (including a memorable white King Kong).

June 1960.  The Atomic Knights make their first appearance in Strange Adventures #117.

Nov-Dec 1960.  Johnny Cloud, Navajo ace pilot of World War II debuts.

May 1961.  GI Combat #87 hosts the first story featuring the Haunted Tank.

It should be noted that several titles held out even longer; My Greatest Adventure and House of Mystery did not have recurring features until May 1963 (Doom Patrol, #80) and June 1964 (Martian Manhunter, #143).  And of course DC's romance titles resisted continuing characters until Heart Throbs and Secret Hearts began running their soap opera series around 1966.

It Could Only Happen in the Silver Age

Gotta love this panel from World's Finest 113:

That's using your head, Supes!

My New Comics Reading Device

Report to follow soon:

Report: I bought myself a Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 10.1 inch from Amazon. My comments here will focus on the comics-reading experience on the tablet. The good: Just about everything. The colors are bright and sharp. The screen is back-lit, so you don't even need a light to read by; handy if you're reading in bed and your significant other wants to sleep.

The size of the page is not too far off of an original comic book especially when you account for the gutters. When you get to a two-page spread you can just turn the device sideways and the picture rotates.

The bad: The only negatives I noticed are operating system and software-related. Android ignores folders; it would be easier to navigate between issues if they showed up. On the software side, for some reason Gallery displays the last (alphabetical) picture in every folder; if it showed the first it would be much easier to figure out which comic it was.

Update: I downloaded from the Google store a free program called Perfect Viewer which solves the above two problems; it shows the folders and the files in correct order.  Not bad!

The Anti-Superman Gang

One of the continuing sagas in the Silver Age Superman was the Anti-Superman Gang.  Actually that's probably overstating things a bit; in reality they were just a convenient plot point for Weisinger and his writers.

The Anti-Superman Gang first appeared (as far as I can tell) in Jimmy Olsen #39, and in that story they're something of a sidelight to the main plot.  See, Jimmy is so obsessed with making sure that he doesn't lose his signal watch that he hides it someplace while sleepwalking, can't find it the next day, and wears a spare wristwatch.  Of course, he ends up having to signal Superman that day several times, and each time he has to come up with a creative means of doing so.  At least twice the Anti-Superman Gang tries to steal the (wrong) watch, and in the climax, Jimmy spots the leader of the group, Ace Manton, improbably hiding out at a drive-in movie theater.  Oh, and Jimmy finds his wristwatch hidden around his ankle.

The gang apparently didn;t give up after that, as they popped up in Lois Lane #13 a few months later.  Lois is wearing a blonde wig in an effort to get a photo of a movie star and his new bride, when two members of the gang spot her.  Hey, aside from that blonde hair, she's a dead ringer for Lois Lane and we can use her to get Superman.

Their next appearance was in Action #261.  Two visitors to the Fortress of Solitude (which has been transported to Metropolis as an attraction to raise funds for charity) are members of the gang planning to blow up Superman's HQ.  The plot is foiled in a typically convoluted fashion.  See, the Kandorians had been trying to radio Superman to warn him (they were in deadly danger themselves).  But a jewel in the fortress was interfering with the radio signals.  Fortunately, the crooks had brought one part of the bomb in a lead-lined container (so Superman couldn't see what was really inside) and when one of the crooks discarded the container it conveniently covered the jewel so the radio waves could get to Superman.

They try their luck against the Fortress of Solitude again in Lois Lane #21.  The plot again is absurdly convoluted.  An inventor comes up with a Lois Lane doll (possibly inspired by the Barbie phenomenon) that sells like hotcakes.  For the 10,000th doll, the inventor plans to make a life-sized Lois doll which will contain a nuclear bomb.  See, the inventor is a member of the Anti-Superman Gang, and he correctly reasons that Lois will give the doll to Superman for his memento collection at the Fortress.  I'd explain what goes wrong, but it's even more convoluted.  We do get to learn the gang's motto:

The gang returns in Action #276.  A wealthy philanthropist is dying and he summons Clark Kent to his deathbed.  He's a great admirer of Superman and believes that Clark is secretly the Man of Steel.  After checking the man's pulse (feeble), Clark figures what the heck and divulges that he is indeed Superman, doing a couple of super-feats to establish it convincingly.  A few moments later, the old man passes away.  But... it turns out that the wealthy philanthropist is secretly the head of the Anti-Superman gang, and had been inhaled a drug that briefly caused him to appear to be dying,  However, the doctor who had given him the drug warned that it might cause hallucinations, and becoming aware of the hoax, Superman sets up an elaborate plan to convince the gang boss that Clark's revelation was in fact a side effect of the drug.

There were quite a few more appearances of the Anti-Superman Gang--Superman #145 and #152, Jimmy Olsen #75, etc.  In Lois Lane #60 we learned the gang had a standing bounty out on Supes and his friends:

Jimmy only worth half as much as Lois?  But that's actually an increase over the amount offered a couple months earlier in Jimmy Olsen #85:

In Jimmy Olsen #87, we learned that the Anti-Superman Gang included some of his more famous foes:

But aside from that story, the A-S G is made up of ordinary crooks.

I Can't Believe I Missed This

It was not in my collection back in the 1960s, and although I am a Batman fanatic, I somehow missed reading this story even when I got the issue:

But it ends up being an amazing issue for me.  For starters, there is a Riddler clue:

That one might not be obvious to you, but it is to me, because it refers to my birthday: March 4th (March Forth!)  But it does not end up being a Riddler story, or a Getaway Genius story as implied by the cover.  In fact it is the final Outsider story:

I talked about the Outsider series years ago; I honestly thought I had read them all.  I am a little chagrined to find out that there was another tale.

The First Brainiac (Or the Sixth?)

In Jimmy Olsen #28, Jimmy gets caught in a whirlwind that Superman created to stop a hurricane from hitting Metropolis, and is transported to the Metropolis of 5921.  He is startled to learn that he is reviled as the man who killed Superman, way back in 1958 (when the story was published).  He is arrested, but hopes to get off as there are surely no witnesses who can attest to his identity. 

DOH! This is the April 1958 issue, which came out three months before the first green-skinned, pink-shirted Brainiac story in Action #242.  So is this the first Brainiac?  Or since it takes place almost 40 centuries in the future, well after the Legion of Super Heroes Brainiac 5's era, is it the sixth?  This time travel business can sure make things confusing!

We learn at the end of the story that Jimmy's murder of the Man of Steel was actually faked; it was all a ruse that Superman had come up with to trick a gang.  Later, Superman hurls a time capsule into the future to clear Jimmy's good name.