This is an imaginary story. The first two pages tell the familiar origin of Superman, taking us to the point where the Kents drop him off at the orphanage while they try to adopt him. However, before they can:
So the government gets hold of him and the military sees him as a potential weapon but:
Of course he breaks free. But when he seeks out the Kents, he makes a few mistakes:
So they don't want him either. Eventually he encounters an aspiring tyrant:
So they do the classic "We'll pretend to love him so that he'll help us take over the world," routine, but inevitably he discovers their real feelings towards him. Eventually he leaves Earth and becomes the greatest hero on another world. But he's always wondered what would have happened if he grew up with the Kents, so he heads back to find out, but runs into a curious golden meteor:
So when he lands on Earth, he's lost his superpowers. The Kents still adopt him and:
Comments: An offbeat, oddball tale, that still illustrates some of the recurring themes in the DC Silver Age. The curious workings of fate conspire to make Clark need glasses and to become the weakling that he always pretended to be in the "real" stories. And second, this turns out to be the first appearance of gold Kryptonite:
This is the last issue for the Tales of the Bizarro World; effective with #300 the backup feature (soon promoted to the lead) was the Legion of Super-Heroes. The title should bring back some memories to Boomers:
This is a reference to the old TV show, Car 54 Where Are You, which had one of the great song intros of all time:
There's a holdup in the Bronx,
Brooklyn's broken out in fights,
There's a traffic jam in Harlem
That's backed up to Jackson Heights
There's a scout troop short a child,
Kruschev's due at Idlewild...
Car 54, where are you?
In the story, Bizarro #1 and his son vacation on Earth as police officers, where they are under the command of Captain Bloke (the real commanding officer in Car 54 was Captain Block). They perform terribly, as indicated by this scene where they supposedly frisk a prisoner:
But since they are invulnerable and super-strong he finds himself unable to get rid of them. But when he's struck on the head and becomes convinced they are good officers, he gives them a golden badge, which of course:
Comments: Nothing special, but the cultural mention of Car 54 does give this story an added something.
5 comments:
You have to like the aspiring tyrant's fashion sense: turtleneck, fur-lined coat, monocle and Burger King crown.
Pat: This story has once again brought to my mind a weird thing about DC's Silver Age stuff, especially Superman titles. Why are children always depicted as speaking in a weird, broken English like the cavemen in Turok? "Me want this"- "Me no like that!"... I see it time and again in these comics and it always seems jarring.
Perhaps the writers and editors at DC didn't KNOW any small children?
Jared, yeah, the monocle especially was a symbol in this era of a pompous ass.
Weisinger certainly knew some small children, including his own son, Hank. I know that in this era, it was quite common for American Indians in TV and film to use "me" as the subject of a sentence. Not sure if this is accurate, but I think the concept is the same; people not familiar with the difference between subject and object may confuse the two.
IRL, I've never heard a child use "me" as the subject in a sentence, or talk in that broken "me Tarzan, you Jane" dialect, either. They did so constantly in Silver Age Superman Family comics, though.
This comic presents an interesting idea: take a concept you plan to introduce in the core stories, and introduce it to your readers in a non-canon story. This way, you could demonstrate the irreversible effects it would have on the main character without endangering the eternal narrative.
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