Mort Weisinger's enthusiasm for swiping story ideas from earlier issues of Superboy does not seem as high as it was for Adventure Comics, but here's a pretty impressive example of a double swipe. For starters, here is the cover to Superboy #52 (October 1956):
And Superboy #85 (December 1960):
As you can see, in both cases, Superboy is startled to discover another super-powered boy on an alien planet. He changes into civilian clothes and confronts the lad:
The other boy comes from a startling place:
Clark realizes how the other boy got his powers:
So it looks like Superboy is finally going to have a super-powered buddy. But as they start off together, something happens:
Superboy eventually realizes that it's his presence that is causing the other superlad to lose his powers, and thus he must leave, resulting in a sad ending:
Weisinger recycled that ending in Superboy #87 (March 1961), in a Krypto story. Krypto rescues a beautiful female dog:
You've gotta love that he calls her Toots. She doesn't have super-powers, but it turns out that Krypto knows where she can get some:
And so she drinks from the pool and becomes super. Unfortunately:
Krypto soon realizes that he is no longer super when near Kolli, and so we get the same ending as in the two Superboy tales:
1 comment:
Two of those I've read, but not the original story - poor Power Boy, the most tragic thing about him was the costume.
Post a Comment