Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Super-Swipes #2

This one took me a bit by surprise. About a year and a half ago, I wrote a post about Action #331 (December 1965), where the story concerned Lois Lane writing an article for the Daily Planet about how Clark Kent was really Superman. It was intended as a gag, but the pressman who ran off a few copies took ill, and his assistant accidentally ran off the full press run with the headlines. At first it appears that the Planet will suffer, and Lois will be fired, but then Clark suggests that if he pretends to really be the Man of Steel for a few days and then the Planet reveals the gag, readers will forgive them. Inevitably this causes big complications, but in the end it all comes off well.

It turns out that this story is virtually note-for-note swiped from Superman #20 (Jan-Feb 1943). Note:


For:


Note:


Oh, there are a few changes here and there; "Ironjaw" the villain becomes "Iron Ike" and some of the more humorous slapstick moments of the original like these are gone:


But overall this is one of the more blatant Super-Swipes that I can recall.

The Superman #20 story is contained in this archive edition:
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2 comments:

  1. Golden Age of Comic Books Podcast8:30 AM

    And don't forget that "Iron Jaw" was also Crimebuster's chief nemesis in the pages of Boy Comics, first appearing in issue #3 (April 1942). Not sure if that is a swipe by DC, but at least it's a little bit of trivia! I mention him here: http://goldenagecomics.org/wordpress/2009/10/04/golden-age-of-comic-books-october-4-2009-63/

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  2. Jacque Nodell9:54 PM

    The pigeon on the head is going to have me laughing for days!

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