Pre-Crisis Superman Overview

[Endless Mike]

Action Comics #273

Overall Notes:

- There's an ad in this comic for a Showcase issue featuring 3 Aquaman stories. I don't know if I'll ever get to covering that.
- There's another ad in this comic for the debut appearance of the Silver Age version of Hawkman

Superman Story

Notes:

- It's said in this issue that Superman stayed at the Smallville Orphanage for a short time as a child after landing on Earth. Perhaps a reference to his Golden Age origin story? (See Action Comics #1)

Feat Catalogue:

- Intercepts Mr. Mxyptlk's globe of sneezing powder before it hits Metropolis
- Using microscopic vision, identifies it as sneezing powder (this indicates it was a type of sneezing powder he was familiar with, even if it did have 5D properties)
- Inhales all of the sneezing powder over Metropolis
- In the short time before he can release a sneeze, flies to "a long-dead universe"
- Destroys a solar system in said universe with his sneeze. Going into a bit more detail here because this is a pretty famous feat, so just to clarify some facts and dispel some rumors:
* The other people affected were sneezing normally, not sneezing cars away or something as I recall being claimed once
* It was stated to be magical sneezing powder, but it was never implied that made the sneezes more powerful. Rather, the implication was that its magical nature was why it could affect Superman in the first place
- Flies back to Earth in an unspecified timeframe, although it's implied to be under an hour as he was that late for the show that Mxy delayed him from performing (this was also after Mxy pranked him again by turning the moon into cheese)
- Using material and equipment from a perfume manufacturing plant, creates a few gallons of "blue, indelible liquid"
- While Mxy is distracted after being sprayed with the liquid, he flies off and changes back to Clark Kent at super speed, so Mxy doesn't notice
- Moves at super speed into a doctor's office and disguises himself as the doctor before Mxy gets there
- Does the same trick again, this time going to a drugstore and disguising himself as a salesman
- Tricks Mxy into saying his name backwards again
- Breaks through the dimensional barrier to the 5th dimension. This is very impressive, although a lot about the 5th dimension's nature wasn't really established back when this was published, so it's hard to say exactly how impressive
- Uses super vision to track 5th - dimensional "tele-waves" to the source that's broadcasting them
- Spits some pebbles out of his mouth to precisely knock out the light bulbs on a sign to make its message change
- Dives to the bottom of a 5th-dimensional river and kicks his feet at super speed, creating giant waves and knocking around Mxy's boat

Spoiler: Posting the first scan to get the full context for the feat

Spoiler: Bless you

Spoiler: Going to the 5th dimension. Because he can just do that now.

Spoiler: Is it more impressive because it's 5th-dimensional water?

Feat Catalogue (non-Superman):

- Mr.Mxyzptlk creates a giant sphere filled with sneezing powder and causes it to fall to Earth over Metropolis
- Keeps up with Superman as he moves over Metropolis at super speed to inhale all the sneezing powder
- Turns the moon into green cheese and then back
- Near-instantly creates a Jimmy Olsen robot in his laboratory (he a laboratory?) This robot is so accurate that the only way Superman can tell it apart from the real Jimmy is due to its lack of his signal watch
- Hypnotizes another fifth-dimensional imp into calling out a certain sequence of letters in a bingo - like game

Spoiler: At least he didn't turn it into Kryptonite...

Weirdness:

- It's a Mxy issue. And this time, we even get to see his home dimension. Mxy is running for mayor in his hometown, on the quite appropriately named "Scatterbrain ticket". Also, they have races with giant dragonflies.
- There is a giant, working perfume bottle on top of a perfume manufacturing plant, and it's said that they often fill it with perfume and spray it into the air as an advertising stunt. Not quite as weird as the giant advertising robot from issue #192, but close.
- Superman seems to assume that it will take 10 days for Mxy to remove the blue paint he sprayed him with, not considering that he could just do it instantly with his powers. Mxy doesn't think of this at first either, but that's due to his foolish, scatterbrained nature.
- Mxyzptlk apparently has a laboratory, where he creates a Jimmy Olsen robot
- Mxy assumed that if Superman said or spelled his own name backwards while in the 5th dimension, it would send him back to the 3rd dimension. Turns out he was right, he just got him to say the wrong name: "Namrepus" instead of "Le-Lak".

Spoiler: He could have just kidnapped the real Jimmy Olsen...

Superdickery:

- The entire second half of the story is pretty much Superman trolling Mxy in his home dimension. Pranks pulled include:
* Changing a campaign sign from "VOTE FOR MXYZPTLK IF YOU WANT HIGH TAXES TO GO DOWN" by removing the last 3 words
* Knocking over a picnic table that Mxy set up, covering him with food
* Sabotaging a boat ride that Mxy set up for potential voters, making them all seasick and blaming him for it
* When Mxy tries to trick him into spelling/saying his name backwards, he deliberately messes up

Spoiler: Mxy would be unbeatable if he only had the power of common sense

Power Tracker:

- In terms of pure destruction, the solar system feat is the best one we've seen thus far (in this title, at least). It's easily a High Herald level feat, and, considering how casually it was done, is probably even Transcendent level. Flying there and back in the first place, and traveling to and interacting with the 5th dimension, are also insanely impressive. However, you guys know by now how I like to have multiple feats to corroborate these things, so for now I think the feats in this issue warrant an upgrade to High Herald Level, but no further at the current time.

Supergirl Story

Notes:

- The continuation of the story from last issue
- There's a contest in this issue where readers could pick a new hairstyle for Supergirl, in her Linda Lee persona. We'll see the result of that in upcoming issues.

Feat Catalogue:

- Using telescopic vision, tracks Marvel Maid far off in space, trying to put out fires on a jungle planet
- Uses the heat of "Infra-red vision" (interesting) to fuse pieces of Marvel Maid's fortress back together
- Along with Marvel Man, fixes the Fortress and carries it back into orbit
- Corrects the trajectory of a misfiring rocket so it safely reaches space, apparently using "super-calculations" to do so
- Along with Superman, uses telescopic X-ray vision to read the books in the library on Macropolis on Terra from Earth

Spoiler: Good vision feat

Feat Catalogue (non-Supergirl):

- Superman threw a "disintegrating ray" built by Lex Luthor into space, and it ended up on Terra, meaning he threw it at a pretty high FTL speed
- He also built several Supergirl robots to serve the same purpose as his Superman robots
- Superman's Fortress has a "space monitor screen" that can monitor events in real-time from across interstellar distances
- Along with Supergirl, uses telescopic X-ray vision to read the books in the library on Macropolis on Terra, from Earth

Spoiler: You could have just destroyed the thing or kept it in the Fortress of Solitude

****

- Lex Luthor built a "disintegrating ray"

****

- Marvel Maid flies from Terra to Earth in a seemingly short timeframe. This should scale to Supergirl and Superman, as they are both likely even superior to her.
- She then flies back, in the time it takes her cousin to explain to Supergirl that drawbridges on Terra work differently than on Earth

Spoiler: You'd think different star systems were just down the street from each other...

Weirdness:

- We get more of the far-off planet Terra, which is identical to Earth except for a bunch of random differences. It also exists in an identical solar system, except their Mars has rings and their Jupiter has many Great Red Spots instead of one. Also, their version of drawbridges sink underwater to let ships pass over them.
- On Earth, there's a Mount Rushmore - esque carving of Superman and Krypto on a mountain.
- Lex Luthor apparently felt the need to inscribe a picture of his face on his disintegration ray

Superdickery:

- Superman still insists that Supergirl has to hide her existence from the public, despite the fact that Krypto is public knowledge as well and has a giant statue of himself out there. Supergirl is apparently less well-trained than the dog.
- Superman was secretly filming Supergirl as she performed her heroics, without telling her
- In the end, he decides not to reveal her to the world, since she didn't study the differences on the other planet first.

Spoiler: So what, does Krypto always make sure to do his research on alien planets?

Power Tracker:

- As the difference in power between Superman and Supergirl has not thus far shown to be significant, I guess since I upgraded him in this issue, she should be granted High Herald Level as well.

Action Comics #274

Overall Notes:

- Starting this issue, the letters column has pictures of both Superman and Supergirl reading their fan mail

Superman Story

Notes:

- Yet another "Lois gets superpowers" story, and it certainly won't be the last one.
- We see the use of the term "infra-red vision" again for heat vision
- This is the first time in this title that we see one of the Superman robots disobey its master and act on its own. This would lead to trouble later on.

Feat Catalogue:

- A Superman robot flies Lois from Metropolis to the Fortress of Solitude in "moments", protecting her from the friction and temperatures by wrapping her in his cape (probably a replica of the original's cape)
- The Fortress apparently has multiple "weather-proof blankets" that can shield people like the cape does, although probably not as well
- A Superman robot flies Lois and the (apparently now powerless) 'Superman' back to Metropolis, drops them off in front of the Daily Planet building, and leaves, too fast for anyone to see
- There is a device in his Fortress which could give Lois superpowers for a few days

Spoiler: Wonder if this empowering device will ever be brought up again...

Feat Catalogue (non-Superman):

- Lois, with Superman's powers, constructs "a transparent dome of thick, shatter-proof glass" around all of Metropolis just as a hurricane reaches it, protecting the city
- Throws the dome into the sky and pulverizes it into dust

Spoiler: There were probably simpler ways to do this

Weirdness:

- As part of an experiment to try to find an antidote to Kryptonite, 'Superman' and Lois both wear weird helmets that apparently tap into the power of their thoughts. This was actually a device that would give Lois temporary superpowers.
- One panel has characters refer to Superman both as "A He-Man" and "The most powerful man in the universe". This was 20 years before the MOTU franchise debuted.
- In the span of one day, a movie star and a foreign prince both ask Lois out. She's apparently that popular.

Spoiler: By the power of Grayskull!

Power Tracker:

- Superman himself barely appears in this story. So he'll retain his new High Herald Level status.

Supergirl Story

Notes:

- The legend of Betsy Ross sewing the first American flag is shown as historical in this story, even though most historians today agree that it isn't. Still, there's nothing stopping it from being true in the Earth-1 DC Universe.
- Joan of Arc is referred to as "the only girl in history to lead an army". She wasn't.

Feat Catalogue:

- Seeing a man starting to drown in a swimming pool, she changes to Supergirl, somehow gets underwater without anyone seeing her or noticing, helps a boy save him, and then returns, again without anyone noticing
- Using telescopic X-ray vision, reads dozens of books near-instantly without removing them from the shelves
- Travels back in time to 1885
- Somehow uses her super vision to determine that Annie Oakley's fever isn't dangerous and will pass soon
- Despite (probably) having no experience with guns, she uses two pistols to accurately shoot a dozen silver dollars out of the air before they can fall
- Just after recovering from Kryptonite, she shoots the flames off of two candles on two people's heads from what the onlookers consider to be an impossibly long distance
- Travels further back in time to 1776
- Travels a few days into the future from where she arrived in 1776
- When Betsy Ross' first American flag is destroyed by a fire, Supergirl flies off and steals a British flag at super speed, then takes a jacket from a scarecrow, changes the scarecrow's facial expression, takes apart the British flag and the jacket and sews an exact copy of Betsy Ross' first American Flag using only her bare hands, then flies back to where the man carrying the flag was and uses super breath to send it through the air back to him, making it appear as if this all happened in an instant and the flag wasn't actually burned by the fire.
- Travels further back to the year 1607
- Apparently she has "knowledge of all languages"
- Uses super breath to blow smoke from a pipe to fill a wigwam, rendering Pocahontas unconscious, then burrows into the ground with her and emerges many miles away, steals her headdress, and heads back to the wigwam in disguise, before the smoke clears, making the others think she's Pocahontas
- Travels back to the present (1961)
- Reads another book in the library in another room at super speed, then writes an essay, all in the time before the teacher calls on her (she also apparently writes it so fast that the teacher never notices that she's writing anything)

Spoiler: Super speed reading and time travel

Spoiler: More casual time travel

Spoiler: Although not strictly as impressive as the FTL feats, these feats of doing complex tasks at super speed always impress me

Spoiler: "Knowledge of all languages"?

Feat Catalogue (non-Supergirl):

- In a flashback, Superman tosses an unstable H-bomb into the stratosphere in seconds, before it can explode

Weirdness:

- On the splash page, Supergirl refers to a group of Native Americans as "Indian savages". *tugs collar*
- The narration also refers to another American Indian as "a sleeping old Redman"
- A hydrogen bomb exploding near a green Kryptonite meteor somehow sent chunks of the stuff into various past time periods

Superdickery:

- There are the aforementioned bits of racism

Power Tracker:

- Nothing here to contradict her newly-acquired High Herald Level status.

 

[Endless Mike]

Action Comics #275

Superman Story

Notes:

- Although he's been referenced many times since his debut in issue #242, this is Brainiac's second actual appearance in this title. He has appeared in other titles between his debut and this issue, though.
- Maybe not for the first time, but heat vision is actually referred to as such in this issue, without being conflated with X-ray vision
- The king and queen of another fictional country, "Rurtainia", appear in this story

Feat Catalogue:

- Uses a giant glass dome as a lens, concentrating the heat of the sun to melt some icebergs
- Walks back and forth in front of a burning building at super speed, creating a ditch in the ground that exposes a water main, then opens holes in the pipe at precise angles for the water to fly out and douse the fire
- In his Fortress of Solitude, Superman has been working on various experiments in order to find a way to overcome Brainiac's forcefield
- Searches Metropolis with his telescopic vision while working in his office at the Daily Planet, identifying a known criminal a few blocks away
- After a breeze knocks off one of his hats, he grabs a king's crown and puts it on instead "with a gesture quick as lightning"
- Uses the vibrations from his voice to shatter a giant robot movie prop
- Spinning around at super speed, he's able to focus the HV beams from all 3 of his eyes (see the Weirdness section) on Brainiac which is enough to break through his forcefield, and then knocks him out with a "slight tap"
- Puts Brainiac in his own space-time craft and uses it to send him to "some remote planet at some remote time in the past", jamming the controls so he can't use it to escape

Spoiler: Nice how everything is so neatly labeled

Spoiler: Doing his best Black Bolt impression

Spoiler: With the help of a third eye, down goes the vaunted forcefield

Feat Catalogue (non-Superman):

- Brainiac is able to manipulate his personal forcefield to form Green Lantern - like energy constructs, with which he rips open a barred window, melts down some aluminum, and absorbs it. Meanwhile, his forcefield still serves its defensive purpose, stopping bullets as he does this.
- Brainiac's forcefield is able to, once again, shrug off Superman's most powerful physical blows, and his most powerful blast of heat vision, without any sign of damage
- Brainiac has a "space-time craft", apparently capable of traveling through both
- He also built a ray that fires a blast of combined green and red Kryptonite radiation
- In his ship, flies off back to another planet, planning to return in a few days

Spoiler: But where does the molten aluminum go?

Spoiler: Just as effective as last time, it seems

Weirdness:

- Brainiac comes to Earth to steal aluminum, because it's rare and valuable on the planet he just came from. Yet there is tons of it all over the solar system, so he wouldn't have to go down to Earth to get it...
- Maybe just because he likes to experiment (and also why he decided to steal the aluminum from Earth), Brainiac decides to blast Superman with a mixed red/green Kryptonite ray, instead of just using green, which would kill him. The mixed ray appears to have no effect at first, but it actually gives him a third eye on the back of his head
- A random building in Metropolis had a giant glass dome attached to its roof for some reason
- In order to cover up the third eye, Superman takes to wearing different random hats every day, and doing his job in ways reflective of the professions of the people who typically wear those hats.
- The narration tries to justify the third eye mutation by saying that it affected his pineal gland, which is "the remnant of a third eye early man once had in the back of his head to warn him of danger behind". This isn't true at all, although some organisms do have what is known as a parietal eye linked to the pineal gland, which is on top of the head, not in the back, though.

Spoiler: Of course! Don't you know anything about science!?

Superdickery:

- Steals Lois' hat
- Vandalizes a building by ripping a giant glass dome off the top of it
- Vandalizes a road and destroys a water main to put out a fire
- Vandalize a fence and a horse statue (he apparently fixed all of this damage later, but still)

Power Tracker:

- If one really wanted to stretch things, you could take Brainiac's comment back in issue #242 that nothing in the universe could penetrate his forcefield to imply that 3-eyed Superman doing so was a universe+ level feat. But that argument doesn't hold up at all, if you ask me. Still, it's clear that the combined HV of 3 eyes made him significantly more powerful, so I'll give 3-eyed Superman a Transcendent Level label. Although it is just temporary, so after it wears off, he'll be back to High Herald Level.

Supergirl Story

Notes:

- Almost this entire issue was a dream sequence
- In the dream sequence, which presents an alternate chain of events in which Supergirl arrived on Earth first in place of Superman, Ma and Pa Kent find her and then deliberately place her in an orphanage, only to adopt her a few days later, in order to avoid suspicion of adopting a baby from nowhere. This was presumably the same story used at the time for Superman's origin.

Feat Catalogue:

- As nearly this entire issue was a dream sequence, there are no notable feats

Weirdness:

- In Supergirl's dream, she nearly hooks up with Lex Luthor when they were both teenagers. Huh?

Superdickery:

- Superman takes it upon himself to decide that Kara isn't ready to have loving foster parents yet, only when he says she can

Power Tracker:

- Literally nothing happened here except Kara dreaming, so her High Herald Level status remains unchanged from last issue.

Action Comics #276

Overall Notes:

- The cover of this one is pretty wacky, and was featured on Superdickery for how bizarre it is
- There's an ad in this issue for a new feature in Adventure Comics: "Tales of the Bizarro world". I might cover that at some point.

Superman Story

Notes:

- The narration on the splash page presents the identity of the miniature Supermen as a huge mystery, yet on that very same page we clearly see them addressed as the "People of Kandor"
- A plot point in this issue involves a rich guy uses a drug to fake his own death in order to trick Clark into admitting that he's Superman on the guy's supposed deathbed. Sound familiar? It's a complete rehash of issue #237. Also, it means he fell for this same exact trick twice. It even ends the same way, with the revelation of Superman's identity being dismissed as a hallucination caused by the drug.
- Interestingly, the difference between the conditions in Kandor and on Earth is attributed solely to the heavier gravity in the former in this story, even though the yellow sunlight has been established as a component of it for quite a while now

Feat Catalogue:

- Superman has an alarm in his Fortress of Solitude which "automatically registers the entrance of any alien invader or space ship into Earth's atmosphere"
- Flies from near Metropolis to the Fortress in a "lightning-fast journey"
- While weakened from close proximity to a huge boulder of Kryptonite, uses X-ray vision to send a signal from a underground mine to the robots in his apartment in Metropolis
- After even longer Kryptonite exposure, he's still able to use X-ray vision and super hearing to pick up on what's going on outside of the mine
- Uses X-ray(heat) vision (funnily it's referred to this way again) to heat the contents of a drug bottle without heating the bottle itself, causing the cork to pop and release fumes that cause everyone around him to hallucinate. Naturally, he's immune.
- Uses super ventriloquism to send a message to Supergirl, who is a few meters away from him, without anyone else hearing it

Spoiler: Decent senses in this situation, and resourceful criminals too

Feat Catalogue (non-Superman):

- The Kandorians have an "Earth monitor screen" that allows them to constantly keep tabs on Superman's every move
- A Kandorian scientist also invented "enlarging gas", which can temporarily increase their size to a few inches tall
- Due to their clothing being from Krypton, it apparently can't burn from friction
- Along with Supergirl, fix all the damage they caused at super speed to fool some gangsters

Spoiler: Another wacky Silver Age concept

****

- Supergirl quickly locates Clark in the mine using her X-ray vision, all the way from Midvale
- In seconds, collects some lead from ore deposits underground
- Crushes the lead into powder and adds it to a can of green paint
- Digs underground and rescues Clark by spraying the Kryptonite boulder with the lead paint, covering it before it can weaken her too much
- Switches from Linda Lee to Supergirl "at lightning speed"
- Remains unhurt and unmoved when the Supermen Emergency Squad of Kandorians throw boulders and a telephone poll at her with their super strength
- Along with the SES, fixes all the damage they caused at super speed to fool some gangsters

Weirdness:

- The scene on the cover actually happens in the story, but not at all in the way you'd expect from reading the title. It seems like it was just added to make the story match up with the cover.

Spoiler: At least the cover didn't technically lie... but how will they explain them all hallucinating the exact same thing?

Superdickery:

Power Tracker:

- Nothing that notable here, except the effective use of some sensory powers despite Kryptonite radiation, so still High Herald Level.

Supergirl Story

Notes:

- First appearance of Legion of Super-Heroes members Phantom Girl, Triplicate Girl, Shrinking Violet, Bouncing Boy, Brainiac 5, and Sun Boy
- This issue implies that it's been a year since the events of the Supergirl story in issue #267
- Brainiac 5 says he is the great-great-great-great-grandson of the original Brainiac. This relationship would be retconned a bit later on.
- Supergirl and Brainiac 5 join the Legion in this issue
- Interestingly, it's noted that Supergirl can bring an object back through time with her if she uses the Legion's time bubble, rather than her own natural time travel abilities

Spoiler: Joining the Legion

Feat Catalogue:

- Can apparently never forget a face due to her photographic memory
- Digs at super speed underground all around the world, locating and collecting many ancient relics including King Arthur's Excalibur, Achilles' helmet, and King Richard the Lionhearted's shield, all in 1 minute
- While protected by Brainiac 5's forcefield belt, intercepts and smashes a Kryptonite meteor the instant before it hits the ground
- Flies to "a universe millions of light-years distant from ours" (must be a lot of millions...) and buries a Kryptonite meteor deep inside a lead asteroid, then flies back to Earth

Spoiler: Way to disturb priceless archaeological sites!

Spoiler: They may have meant "galaxy", but flying to other universes was established as a Pre-Crisis Kryptonian ability later on, so I'll take it face value

Feat Catalogue (non-Supergirl):

- The LOSH monitors both the past and future on their "time-scanner machine"
- Brainiac 5's forcefield belt makes Supergirl immune to Kryptonite when she wears it
- He adjusts the controls of the belt so it will only work for Supergirl, and gives it to her

****

- In a flashback (probably to a timeline that was later undone/altered), we see how Superman defeated Brainiac. First he splits open a meteor and carves a warning message into it with his heat vision, then he grabs Brainiac's ship and throws it in the path of its own shrinking ray, causing it (and Brainiac) to shrink to nothingness

Spoiler: The final defeat of Brainiac! Or not...

****

- In the same flashback, we see that Brainiac can shrink and collect entire planets, and also that, with his ship's forcefield active, it would be immune to the shrink ray. IMO the feats in this flashback should still count, as they did happen in the original timeline, even if they were later undone by time travel shenanigans.

Weirdness:

- Misspelling: "Orphange". Twice, even.
- The Legion apparently ride flying robotic horse-like... things in a parade
- To preserve the status quo, Brainiac 5's forcefield belt runs out of power and becomes useless shortly after being brought back through time. He should have known that would happen.

Superdickery:

- Supergirl digs tunnels all throughout 30th century Earth and "finds" (aka steals) a lot of precious ancient artifacts

Power Tracker:

- The speed feat, matching (or at least approaching) Superman's in issue #273 could be a potentially Transcendent feat, but for now she's still High Herald Level.

 

[Endless Mike]

Action Comics #277

Superman Story

Notes:

- This issue makes it explicitly clear that Luthor barely cares about wealth or power anymore, and is completely obsessed with getting revenge on Superman to the exclusion of everything else

Feat Catalogue:

- One of Superman's robots flies from the Fortress of Solitude to Fort Knox before Luthor's vehicle can reach the walls (probably taking no more than a few seconds)

Feat Catalogue (non-Superman):

- Lex Luthor quickly builds an anti-gravity ray from provided materials, before a damaged plane can run out of fuel
- Lex had a secret lair in an abandoned museum, which he bought under another name and installed a secret entrance into
- He also explored a jungle in another dimension, then shrunk it and the creatures that live there and put them in a bottle in his lair
- Not yet done copying Brainiac, Luthor builds a vehicle in under a day that's equipped with a shrink ray, that can shrink the crews of tanks while leaving the vehicles themselves unaffected
- Luthor's vehicle can also project illusions of various forms of Kryptonite, including a new "Yellow Kryptonite" (which doesn't actually exist)
- He built a device that could materialize a giant, "fourth-dimensional" robot arm that ripped Fort Knox off of its foundations and dug up the gold underneath
- He also built a fleet of trucks that can transform into airplanes

Spoiler: Lex-Gyver to the rescue

Spoiler: It's never shown if these soldiers were returned to their original sizes or not...

Spoiler: Lex defeats "Superman"

Spoiler: Brainiac is going to sue

Spoiler: Get a hobby, Lex

Weirdness:

- The opening narration declares that "Scientists say there is nothing more twisted than the mind of a criminal!" Somehow, I doubt they actually say that.
- With Superman offworld, the US government is forced to temporarily free Lex Luthor from prison to help catch a damaged plane carrying an unstable H-bomb. There isn't anyone else they could have called, really? Green Lantern? Wonder Woman? Even Batman might have a gadget that could help.
- Apparently Lex Luthor gets inspiration from such historical figures as Attila the Hun (misspelled 'Atilla" once on the same page, despite being spelled correctly earlier on the same page), Genghis Khan, Captain Kidd, and Al Capone.
- Apparently Superman's robots need to be trained

Superdickery:

Power Tracker:

- Superman himself doesn't even appear in this issue until the end. He does nothing except for another interstellar flight, but we know how common that is by now. No change from High Herald Level.

Supergirl Story

Notes:

- The opening narration states that "The very universe shakes and reels when Cat of Steel and Dog of Steel hurtle into the battle of Super-Pets!" This is almost certainly hyperbole.
- It's shown here that Streaky, not being Kryptonian in origin, is unaffected by Green Kryptonite

Feat Catalogue:

- Along with Superman, pulls Streaky and Krypto apart so they can't fight
- Somehow made a cape for Streaky, which is "friction-proof and acid-proof"
- Along with Krypto and Streaky, flies "far out into the universe" to an uninhabited planetoid
- Uses super vision to determine that a piece of green Kryptonite was turned into false Kryptonite
- Builds a "space-globe" for Streaky who had lost his powers, so she can fly him back to Earth (which she does before the compressed air inside the globe can run out)

Feat Catalogue (non-Supergirl):

- Krypto, seeing that Linda is about to be adopted, uses "infra-red vision" (the term they seemed to be using at this point for heat vision) to precisely target and change the features of a sculpture she carved while up in the air
- Along with Supergirl and Streaky, flies "far out into the universe" to an uninhabited planetoid
- Krypto spins the planetoid at super speed so fast in the opposite direction that Streaky is running, that it prevents him from getting anywhere. Likely FTL as Streaky was trying to go as fast as possible.

Spoiler: Very nice precision here

Spoiler: Here's a great feat that I never actually saw before

****

- Superman, along with Supergirl, pulls Streaky and Krypto apart so they can't fight

****

- Streaky and Krypto break a chain playing tug-of-war, and Krypto is sent flying miles away in a split second to accidentally dig a subway tunnel. Streaky observes this with telescopic vision and super hearing.
- Along with Krypto and Supergirl, flies "far out into the universe" to an uninhabited planetoid
- Flies around the planetoid several times
- Digs underground and drains the water out of a lake before Krypto can dive into it

Spoiler: They should have figured that chain would snap

Spoiler: Okay?

****

- Mr. Mxyzptlk and his 5D friends in the "interplanetary multi-dimensional practical jokers' club" planted "magical joke gadgets" on a distant planetoid that did things such as:
* Return a skeleton to life
* Transform Streaky into giant size and then back to normal
* Make a giant bone grow arms, legs, and a face and run off
* Temporarily make Supergirl and Krypto immune to Kryptonite (via a "magic wishing well")
* The same wishing well turns a piece of Kryptonite into "harmless false Kryptonite" forever

Spoiler: The Silver Age, folks

Weirdness:

- Krypto and Streaky are again portrayed like arguing children rather than animals.
- They also happen to be competing on a planetoid owned by Mr. Mxyzptlk. So you know a bunch of trippy stuff happens.
- Supergirl could have used the wishing well to wish for herself, Superman, and Krypto to become permanently immune to Kryptonite, but apparently she never thought of that
- Beppo the super-monkey randomly shows up at the end of the story

Spoiler: Now all we're missing is the horse

Superdickery:

- Streaky attacks Krypto out of jealousy, and they both cheat when competing against each other

Power Tracker:

- Still High Herald Level. We can probably give this status to Krypto and Streaky as well, actually.

 

[Endless Mike]

Action Comics #278

Superman Story

Notes:

Feat Catalogue:

- Uses super ventriloquism to talk to Supergirl over an unknown (but presumably fairly far) distance
- Hypnotizes himself to not feel pain from Kryptonite (although it's only effective for 30 seconds)
- Types at super speed, finishing his day's writing assignments in moments
- Builds and wears a lead suit equipped with cameras to see the outside world
- Took an "energy-drainer" device from "Erezan, the most warlike planet in the universe", and keeps it in his Fortress
- In his alien zoo, he also has a "space porcupine", which "emits all sorts of deadly radiations"
- Superman invented a machine, which creates vibrations that he claims "can shatter any known substance to dust" It doesn't work on the superpowered Perry White, though

Spoiler: Self-hypnosis

Spoiler: Hoarding powerful weapons is one of Superman's lesser-known hobbies

Feat Catalogue (non-Superman):

- Supergirl flies into space and searches until she finds a piece of the rare White Kryptonite, then brings it back to the Fortress to save Superman

Spoiler: Deus Ex Kryptonite saves the day

Weirdness:

- Upon seeing a bizarre alien plant in his garden, Perry White suddenly decides to eat one of its fruits, just because it smells good.
- After realizing that he has gained superpowers, Perry immediately constructs a costume for himself, with an asbestos-lined suit and a lead-lined mask. He should hope that super-not-getting-cancer is one of his powers, too.

Spoiler: Yes, that looks totally legit. I'm sure it's fine to eat...

Superdickery:

- The villains in this issue are a race of plant aliens that want to colonize Earth because their home planet is dying. Superman never even attempts to find a more suitable planet for them, and just kills them.
- We see he has stolen a lot more objects and creatures from other planets for his collection

Power Tracker:

- High Herald Level again. Perry White's temporary alien-granted powers should scale to the same level.

Supergirl Story

Notes:

- This is part 1 of a rather long story arc, longer than any multi-part story we've had in this title so far
- It's stated in this issue that the Linda Lee robot has Supergirl's powers too (although presumably at a lesser level than the original)

Feat Catalogue:

- Fixes wind-caused damage to a carnival put on by the orphanage at super speed, including recreating a complex miniature city with the help of her photographic memory
- In a flashback/archived footage, put out a fire on a burning ship by tossing a huge wave of water at it
- Uses telescopic X-ray vision to track some criminals stealing a treasure while she's under the ocean
- From the bottom of the ocean, creates a makeshift fishing pole from a shipwreck and anchor, and uses it to hook the whale statue the criminals were hiding in on shore
- Rips a figurehead from another shipwreck on the ocean floor and throws it to the surface, in a precise location and angle to scare some smugglers into thinking it was a sea monster
- Uses more shipwrecks to build a giant blowgun, loads it with harpoons for darts, and uses super breath to blow them and precisely aim them to destroy some criminals' getaway cars on land

Spoiler: Interesting feat

Spoiler: Good aim

Feat Catalogue (non-Supergirl)

- Superman has a machine that sends himself and Krypto to another dimension. It's unknown if he acquired it somewhere or built it himself. It also automatically returns them to Earth after a certain amount of time.
- Using some machinery in his Fortress of Solitude, Superman determines that Supergirl has permanently lost her powers

Weirdness:

- In Atlantis, they have built underwater pyramids in the style of Ancient Egypt, and a Sphinx with a fish tail
- Thinking that it's Superman underwater fighting crime (not knowing about Supergirl), the various nations of the world try to communicate with him by firing "message-missiles" into the ocean

Superdickery:

- Superman was secretly recording himself and Supergirl in action with hidden cameras without telling her

Power Tracker:

- Nothing to really note, so still High Herald Level when she had her powers. Low Street Level or below when she was depowered at the end of the story.

Action Comics #279

Superman Story

Notes:

- This is the first story we've covered here that is explicitly labeled as an "imaginary story" - basically sort of similar to Marvel's "What If?" series. These were later retconned to take place in various alternate universes, and I don't think anything here is in continuity to anything relevant. However, I'll still save scans of any truly impressive feats, just in case.
- A response in the letters column replies to a reader asking about the gravity/yellow sunlight explanation for Superman's powers. The response this time attributes his powers solely to the yellow sun.

Feat Catalogue:

- All of this is non-canon, even with the recent retcons, I'm pretty sure, so I won't bother listing any feats

Weirdness:

- Some rather cringy dialogue from Lana Lang: "We both want what every girl wants... a husband, a home, children, a social life!" Well, it was the early 60s.
- The premise of this story is that Superman goes back in time to bring Hercules and Samson to the present so they can marry Lois and Lana, so the two will stop bugging him to marry them. Then the two strongmen from the past are driven crazy by Lois and Lana's unreasonable demands. Really.

Spoiler: The writers realized this would be too crazy to be canon...

Superdickery:

- Superman messes with the past, abducts Hercules and Samson, and laughs at their misfortunes as they are tormented by being married to Lois and Lana

Power Tracker:

- Nothing canon happened here, so the High Herald Level classification is unchanged.

Supergirl Story

Notes:

- Continuation of the story that started last issue
- First appearance of Lesla-Lar, who is credited as being Supergirl's first original supervillain
- Also the first appearances of Fred and Edna Danvers, the couple who would adopt Supergirl
- It's stated that Superman and Krypto's trip last issue was to the "4th dimension"
- Linda Lee/Kara Zor-El/Supergirl is adopted from the orphanage in this issue
- Kryptonians having powers on Earth is again attributed to "Earth's gravity conditions", despite the reply in the letters column in this very issue. I guess both the gravity and the sun factor are still in play at this point.
- The Phantom Zone is mentioned, although not directly seen, for the first time in this title. It had previously appeared in an issue of Adventure Comics (#283) only a few months previously

Spoiler: Another important aspect of the Superman mythos, appearing for the first time in this title

Feat Catalogue:

- Being depowered for the entire story, Supergirl has no notable feats here

Feat Catalogue (non-Supergirl):

- Lesla-Lar has an "Earth-viewer" screen that allows her to keep tabs on Supergirl from Kandor, even while Supergirl is deep beneath the ocean
- She also invented a "Kryptonite-tinged ray" that she could somehow project through the Earth-viewer to strike Supergirl and remove her powers
- Another invention of hers was a teleport ray, which she again projects through the Earth-viewer, shrinking the now-powerless Supergirl and teleporting her to Kandor
- She then uses a "Brain-wash helmet" to erase Kara's memories and replace them with memories of being Lesla-Lar on Kandor
- Using the teleport ray in reverse, she then switches places with Kara, taking over her identity. She has a "teleport-bracelet" on her wrist that she can use to return to Kandor and exchange places with Kara whenever she wants, which will also erase Kara's memories of being in Kandor
- Having powers on Earth, Lesla-Lar digs underground and travels from the Danvers' home to Lex Luthor's prison cell in minutes
- She created an inflatable plastic replica of Lex Luthor, which is realistic enough to fool the prison guards (at least while he's supposed to be asleep)
- She builds a giant crane and uses it to steal and break open an armored car
- Uses "super-microscopic vision" to spy on Supergirl in Kandor (all the way in the North Pole) from the Danvers' home.
- After teleporting Kara to her room, she switches clothes with her and uses her bracelet to teleport back to Kandor, all so fast that Kara doesn't perceive it happening at all

Spoiler: I won't even bother asking how this is supposed to work

Spoiler: Impressive senses and speed

****

- Superman builds a secret compartment into Supergirl's new home, at a speed faster than sound

****

- The Kandorians have a working Phantom Zone Projector, with which they punish criminals

Weirdness:

- Supergirl, having had her powers removed, is now only as strong as a normal human teenager. So shouldn't the increased gravity of Kandor have squashed her flat?

Superdickery:

Power Tracker:

- The depowered Supergirl would be Low Street Level or below. High Herald Level with her powers.

 

[Endless Mike]

Action Comics #280

Superman Story

Notes:

- The opening narration refers to Brainiac as the most terrible of Superman's villains. Even at this point, that's subjective, but could be considered true.
- This issue shows dinosaurs as existing before humans, instead of both coexisting (as shown in some previous issues)
- This story features a crossover with the character of Congo Bill/Congorilla, who had been a backup feature in Action Comics for years before this. In a nutshell: He's an explorer who can switch minds with a large golden gorilla using a magic ring. That's comic books for you. He eventually had his mind permanently transferred into the gorilla's body.

Spoiler: Yes, this is an established and popular DC character

Feat Catalogue:

- Carries a jet airliner from Metropolis to the Congo (presumably a lot faster than it could normally fly)
- Broils some steaks for a group of explorers in Africa with heat vision
- It's implied that, had he not been weakened by Brainiac's Kryptonite bomb, Superman would have been immune to Brainiac's shrinking ray
- After regaining his size and powers, easily defeats and disarms Brainiac (who didn't have his forcefield belt with him because it was destroyed back in issue #275)
- After capturing Brainiac, Superman takes him to a prison planet and lets them deal with him

Feat Catalogue (non-Superman):

- After the glass canopy of his timeship is cracked, Brainiac somehow repairs it with no obvious tools or materials with which to do so
- Apparently, Superman jamming the controls of Brainiac's timeship back in issue #275 was pointless, as Brainiac is able to easily fix it and travel back to the present
- He is able to pick up telepathic cries for help from various space criminals on a prison planet
- Brainiac's "pentrascope-viewer" is able to home in on the telepathic signals and observe the inside of the prison cells on the planet from an interstellar distance
- Ambushes Superman with a Kryptonite bomb, that has other chemicals mixed in that cause him to lose his powers (although this wears off after a while), then shrinks him and his friends with a portable shrinking ray
- Launches a small bottle from his ship, which he expands to giant size with a ray, then shrinks again, capturing the shrunken Superman and co. along with Congorilla. Interestingly, the shrink ray shrinks Congorilla and the tree caught inside the bottle, but only to the same relative size as the already-shrunken Superman and the others
- While imprisoned on another planet, Brainiac secretly builds a "mind-helmet", that allows him to project his thoughts telepathically across space to ask for help

Spoiler: Well, so much for keeping Brainiac trapped in the past...

Spoiler: Ambushing Superman

Spoiler: Selective enlarging and shrinking

Weirdness:

- A caveman who invents the very first wheel just happens to smash it into Brainiac's time ship, awakening him from his suspended animation in the past
- The space criminals somehow know that Brainiac is back and telepathically contact him (unless they were just constantly thinking that they wanted his help for the entire time he was gone, which would be just as weird)
- The prison planet Kronis is run by the "cosmic police", where "the universe's worst criminals" are imprisoned. It's unknown if this organization has any relation to the Green Lantern Corps, or other various space police forces in DC.
- One of the alien criminals, who has the power to become invisible, recalls how he was chased down and captured by lawmen using "scentipedes" - giant centipedes that could follow his smell. Cute pun, I guess.
- Another criminal, "Insect Master", "used various devices to imitate insects while battling police on his world", including a spider-web gun. Spiders aren't insects.
- A group of four alien criminals is introduced in this issue, two of which have the powers of invisibility and stretching, respectively. At first, I thought this might have been a deliberate reference to the Fantastic Four, but the first issue of that title didn't come out until 2 months after this comic was published, so I guess it's just a coincidence.

Superdickery:

Power Tracker:

- When depowered and shrunken to tiny size, Superman would be Below Human Level. Otherwise, High Herald Level.

Supergirl Story

Notes:

- Continuation of the Lesla-Lar story arc from the past 2 issues
- The device that was referred to last issue as a "Brain-wash helmet" is now called a "Brain-command helmet", for some reason.

Feat Catalogue:

- As Supergirl remains depowered and brainwashed for the entirety of this issue, she has no notable feats

Feat Catalogue (non-Supergirl):

- Lesla-Lar does the whole spying on Kara from Kandor and switching places with her with the teleport ray thing again
- She comes up with the design for a Kryptonite ray and gives it to Lex Luthor to construct
- Using her powers on Earth, she catches some rocks knocked loose by an earthquake and builds them into a series of giant arches at a speed faster than the eye can follow

Spoiler: I'd still like to know how she can do that by aiming the beam at a screen

Spoiler: Lucky for Lesla-Lar that she looks physically identical to Kara Zor-El

Spoiler: Yeah, makes perfect sense...

****

- Kandor has the technology to preserve living brains after their bodies die, but apparently only those of geniuses, so they can keep coming up with new useful ideas. Kind of a horrifying existence, if you think about it.
- They also have "really" movies, allowing the audience to not only hear and see, but smell, taste, and feel the images.
- Kandor also had a "super-telescope that could see through walls", which they used to view the last moments of Krypton and of Argo city after Kandor was stolen and miniaturized by Brainiac. It was also accurate enough to view individuals and their actions over interstellar distances.

Spoiler: I love how they have mechanical instruments writing out the thoughts instead of digital displays

Spoiler: More of that Kryptonian interstellar observation technology

****

- Superman lifts a rock containing ore, crushes it, melts the grains of ore with X-ray(heat) vision, and cools it with his super breath, turning it into a powder
- Seeing rocks dislodged by an earthquake about to squash some tourists in a canyon near Metropolis, Superman flies there from Midvale and stops the rocks in a fraction of a second

Weirdness:

- Apparently it's believable that a bunch of rocks knocked loose by an earthquake would spontaneously assemble into a series of Stonehenge - like arches in a line covering a road, by sheer coincidence.

Superdickery:

Power Tracker:

- As Kara remains depowered in this issue, she would be Low Street Level or below.

 

[Solar Sailor]

Action Comics #273

Overall Notes:

- There's an ad in this comic for a Showcase issue featuring 3 Aquaman stories. I don't know if I'll ever get to covering that.
- There's another ad in this comic for the debut appearance of the Silver Age version of Hawkman

Superman Story

Notes:

- It's said in this issue that Superman stayed at the Smallville Orphanage for a short time as a child after landing on Earth. Perhaps a reference to his Golden Age origin story? (See Action Comics #1)

Feat Catalogue:

- Intercepts Mr. Mxyptlk's globe of sneezing powder before it hits Metropolis
- Using microscopic vision, identifies it as sneezing powder (this indicates it was a type of sneezing powder he was familiar with, even if it did have 5D properties)
- Inhales all of the sneezing powder over Metropolis
- In the short time before he can release a sneeze, flies to "a long-dead universe"
- Destroys a solar system in said universe with his sneeze. Going into a bit more detail here because this is a pretty famous feat, so just to clarify some facts and dispel some rumors:
* The other people affected were sneezing normally, not sneezing cars away or something as I recall being claimed once
* It was stated to be magical sneezing powder, but it was never implied that made the sneezes more powerful. Rather, the implication was that its magical nature was why it could affect Superman in the first place
- Flies back to Earth in an unspecified timeframe, although it's implied to be under an hour as he was that late for the show that Mxy delayed him from performing (this was also after Mxy pranked him again by turning the moon into cheese)
- Using material and equipment from a perfume manufacturing plant, creates a few gallons of "blue, indelible liquid"
- While Mxy is distracted after being sprayed with the liquid, he flies off and changes back to Clark Kent at super speed, so Mxy doesn't notice
- Moves at super speed into a doctor's office and disguises himself as the doctor before Mxy gets there
- Does the same trick again, this time going to a drugstore and disguising himself as a salesman
- Tricks Mxy into saying his name backwards again
- Breaks through the dimensional barrier to the 5th dimension. This is very impressive, although a lot about the 5th dimension's nature wasn't really established back when this was published, so it's hard to say exactly how impressive
- Uses super vision to track 5th - dimensional "tele-waves" to the source that's broadcasting them
- Spits some pebbles out of his mouth to precisely knock out the light bulbs on a sign to make its message change
- Dives to the bottom of a 5th-dimensional river and kicks his feet at super speed, creating giant waves and knocking around Mxy's boat

Spoiler: Posting the first scan to get the full context for the feat

Spoiler: Bless you

Spoiler: Going to the 5th dimension. Because he can just do that now.

Spoiler: Is it more impressive because it's 5th-dimensional water?

Feat Catalogue (non-Superman):

- Mr.Mxyzptlk creates a giant sphere filled with sneezing powder and causes it to fall to Earth over Metropolis
- Keeps up with Superman as he moves over Metropolis at super speed to inhale all the sneezing powder
- Turns the moon into green cheese and then back
- Near-instantly creates a Jimmy Olsen robot in his laboratory (he a laboratory?) This robot is so accurate that the only way Superman can tell it apart from the real Jimmy is due to its lack of his signal watch
- Hypnotizes another fifth-dimensional imp into calling out a certain sequence of letters in a bingo - like game

Spoiler: At least he didn't turn it into Kryptonite...

Weirdness:

- It's a Mxy issue. And this time, we even get to see his home dimension. Mxy is running for mayor in his hometown, on the quite appropriately named "Scatterbrain ticket". Also, they have races with giant dragonflies.
- There is a giant, working perfume bottle on top of a perfume manufacturing plant, and it's said that they often fill it with perfume and spray it into the air as an advertising stunt. Not quite as weird as the giant advertising robot from issue #192, but close.
- Superman seems to assume that it will take 10 days for Mxy to remove the blue paint he sprayed him with, not considering that he could just do it instantly with his powers. Mxy doesn't think of this at first either, but that's due to his foolish, scatterbrained nature.
- Mxyzptlk apparently has a laboratory, where he creates a Jimmy Olsen robot
- Mxy assumed that if Superman said or spelled his own name backwards while in the 5th dimension, it would send him back to the 3rd dimension. Turns out he was right, he just got him to say the wrong name: "Namrepus" instead of "Le-Lak".

Spoiler: He could have just kidnapped the real Jimmy Olsen...

Superdickery:

- The entire second half of the story is pretty much Superman trolling Mxy in his home dimension. Pranks pulled include:
* Changing a campaign sign from "VOTE FOR MXYZPTLK IF YOU WANT HIGH TAXES TO GO DOWN" by removing the last 3 words
* Knocking over a picnic table that Mxy set up, covering him with food
* Sabotaging a boat ride that Mxy set up for potential voters, making them all seasick and blaming him for it
* When Mxy tries to trick him into spelling/saying his name backwards, he deliberately messes up

Spoiler: Mxy would be unbeatable if he only had the power of common sense

Power Tracker:

- In terms of pure destruction, the solar system feat is the best one we've seen thus far (in this title, at least). It's easily a High Herald level feat, and, considering how casually it was done, is probably even Transcendent level. Flying there and back in the first place, and traveling to and interacting with the 5th dimension, are also insanely impressive. However, you guys know by now how I like to have multiple feats to corroborate these things, so for now I think the feats in this issue warrant an upgrade to High Herald Level, but no further at the current time.

Supergirl Story

Notes:

- The continuation of the story from last issue
- There's a contest in this issue where readers could pick a new hairstyle for Supergirl, in her Linda Lee persona. We'll see the result of that in upcoming issues.

Feat Catalogue:

- Using telescopic vision, tracks Marvel Maid far off in space, trying to put out fires on a jungle planet
- Uses the heat of "Infra-red vision" (interesting) to fuse pieces of Marvel Maid's fortress back together
- Along with Marvel Man, fixes the Fortress and carries it back into orbit
- Corrects the trajectory of a misfiring rocket so it safely reaches space, apparently using "super-calculations" to do so
- Along with Superman, uses telescopic X-ray vision to read the books in the library on Macropolis on Terra from Earth

Spoiler: Good vision feat

Feat Catalogue (non-Supergirl):

- Superman threw a "disintegrating ray" built by Lex Luthor into space, and it ended up on Terra, meaning he threw it at a pretty high FTL speed
- He also built several Supergirl robots to serve the same purpose as his Superman robots
- Superman's Fortress has a "space monitor screen" that can monitor events in real-time from across interstellar distances
- Along with Supergirl, uses telescopic X-ray vision to read the books in the library on Macropolis on Terra, from Earth

Spoiler: You could have just destroyed the thing or kept it in the Fortress of Solitude

****

- Lex Luthor built a "disintegrating ray"

****

- Marvel Maid flies from Terra to Earth in a seemingly short timeframe. This should scale to Supergirl and Superman, as they are both likely even superior to her.
- She then flies back, in the time it takes her cousin to explain to Supergirl that drawbridges on Terra work differently than on Earth

Spoiler: You'd think different star systems were just down the street from each other...

Weirdness:

- We get more of the far-off planet Terra, which is identical to Earth except for a bunch of random differences. It also exists in an identical solar system, except their Mars has rings and their Jupiter has many Great Red Spots instead of one. Also, their version of drawbridges sink underwater to let ships pass over them.
- On Earth, there's a Mount Rushmore - esque carving of Superman and Krypto on a mountain.
- Lex Luthor apparently felt the need to inscribe a picture of his face on his disintegration ray

Superdickery:

- Superman still insists that Supergirl has to hide her existence from the public, despite the fact that Krypto is public knowledge as well and has a giant statue of himself out there. Supergirl is apparently less well-trained than the dog.
- Superman was secretly filming Supergirl as she performed her heroics, without telling her
- In the end, he decides not to reveal her to the world, since she didn't study the differences on the other planet first.

Spoiler: So what, does Krypto always make sure to do his research on alien planets?

Power Tracker:

- As the difference in power between Superman and Supergirl has not thus far shown to be significant, I guess since I upgraded him in this issue, she should be granted High Herald Level as well.

Action Comics #274

Overall Notes:

- Starting this issue, the letters column has pictures of both Superman and Supergirl reading their fan mail

Superman Story

Notes:

- Yet another "Lois gets superpowers" story, and it certainly won't be the last one.
- We see the use of the term "infra-red vision" again for heat vision
- This is the first time in this title that we see one of the Superman robots disobey its master and act on its own. This would lead to trouble later on.

Feat Catalogue:

- A Superman robot flies Lois from Metropolis to the Fortress of Solitude in "moments", protecting her from the friction and temperatures by wrapping her in his cape (probably a replica of the original's cape)
- The Fortress apparently has multiple "weather-proof blankets" that can shield people like the cape does, although probably not as well
- A Superman robot flies Lois and the (apparently now powerless) 'Superman' back to Metropolis, drops them off in front of the Daily Planet building, and leaves, too fast for anyone to see
- There is a device in his Fortress which could give Lois superpowers for a few days

Spoiler: Wonder if this empowering device will ever be brought up again...

Feat Catalogue (non-Superman):

- Lois, with Superman's powers, constructs "a transparent dome of thick, shatter-proof glass" around all of Metropolis just as a hurricane reaches it, protecting the city
- Throws the dome into the sky and pulverizes it into dust

Spoiler: There were probably simpler ways to do this

Weirdness:

- As part of an experiment to try to find an antidote to Kryptonite, 'Superman' and Lois both wear weird helmets that apparently tap into the power of their thoughts. This was actually a device that would give Lois temporary superpowers.
- One panel has characters refer to Superman both as "A He-Man" and "The most powerful man in the universe". This was 20 years before the MOTU franchise debuted.
- In the span of one day, a movie star and a foreign prince both ask Lois out. She's apparently that popular.

Spoiler: By the power of Grayskull!

Power Tracker:

- Superman himself barely appears in this story. So he'll retain his new High Herald Level status.

Supergirl Story

Notes:

- The legend of Betsy Ross sewing the first American flag is shown as historical in this story, even though most historians today agree that it isn't. Still, there's nothing stopping it from being true in the Earth-1 DC Universe.
- Joan of Arc is referred to as "the only girl in history to lead an army". She wasn't.

Feat Catalogue:

- Seeing a man starting to drown in a swimming pool, she changes to Supergirl, somehow gets underwater without anyone seeing her or noticing, helps a boy save him, and then returns, again without anyone noticing
- Using telescopic X-ray vision, reads dozens of books near-instantly without removing them from the shelves
- Travels back in time to 1885
- Somehow uses her super vision to determine that Annie Oakley's fever isn't dangerous and will pass soon
- Despite (probably) having no experience with guns, she uses two pistols to accurately shoot a dozen silver dollars out of the air before they can fall
- Just after recovering from Kryptonite, she shoots the flames off of two candles on two people's heads from what the onlookers consider to be an impossibly long distance
- Travels further back in time to 1776
- Travels a few days into the future from where she arrived in 1776
- When Betsy Ross' first American flag is destroyed by a fire, Supergirl flies off and steals a British flag at super speed, then takes a jacket from a scarecrow, changes the scarecrow's facial expression, takes apart the British flag and the jacket and sews an exact copy of Betsy Ross' first American Flag using only her bare hands, then flies back to where the man carrying the flag was and uses super breath to send it through the air back to him, making it appear as if this all happened in an instant and the flag wasn't actually burned by the fire.
- Travels further back to the year 1607
- Apparently she has "knowledge of all languages"
- Uses super breath to blow smoke from a pipe to fill a wigwam, rendering Pocahontas unconscious, then burrows into the ground with her and emerges many miles away, steals her headdress, and heads back to the wigwam in disguise, before the smoke clears, making the others think she's Pocahontas
- Travels back to the present (1961)
- Reads another book in the library in another room at super speed, then writes an essay, all in the time before the teacher calls on her (she also apparently writes it so fast that the teacher never notices that she's writing anything)

Spoiler: Super speed reading and time travel

Spoiler: More casual time travel

Spoiler: Although not strictly as impressive as the FTL feats, these feats of doing complex tasks at super speed always impress me

Spoiler: "Knowledge of all languages"?

Feat Catalogue (non-Supergirl):

- In a flashback, Superman tosses an unstable H-bomb into the stratosphere in seconds, before it can explode

Weirdness:

- On the splash page, Supergirl refers to a group of Native Americans as "Indian savages". *tugs collar*
- The narration also refers to another American Indian as "a sleeping old Redman"
- A hydrogen bomb exploding near a green Kryptonite meteor somehow sent chunks of the stuff into various past time periods

Superdickery:

- There are the aforementioned bits of racism

Power Tracker:

- Nothing here to contradict her newly-acquired High Herald Level status.

Dunno what’s more ridiculous, that he sneezed away an entire Solar System, or the fact that him flying to a completely different universe is treated like it’s not even a big deal

 

[Endless Mike]

Action Comics #281

Superman Story

Notes:

- It's stated in this issue that Metropolis is "more than 2000 miles away" from Hollywood, California. It's also shown that Metropolis is 3 hours ahead of Hollywood, which puts it in the EST time zone. That's another clue that helps with determining its location on Earth.
- A movie producer named "Ted Mason" is namedropped. I can't find any notable real people with that name and profession, so either it was a reference to a character from another comic, or just a random name.
- At the end of the story, Superman collects the Kryptonian teleporter and stores it in his Fortress of Solitude

Feat Catalogue:

- Flies from Metropolis to a Hollywood police station in an instant
- Used telescopic vision to keep an eye on the crook Paul Pratt for days on end, trying to catch him in a crime, even though Superman was in space for part of that time and Pratt was traveling around the country
- After seeing a picture of a criminal, he uses telescopic X-ray vision to search Metropolis and instantly locates him in a jewelry store, as well as his partner in crime in disguise, and determines that they are wearing belt-sized teleportation devices. He is also able to overhear them whispering.
- This is an interesting one. Superman uses his super speed to outrace the "matter-radio waves" of a Kryptonian teleportation device, which was earlier stated to be instantaneous, and was at least fast enough to teleport someone from Earth to Krypton in what seemed like an instant. I'm not going to say that this feat makes him literally 'faster than infinite' or anything (and time travel/manipulation might have been involved in some way), but it certainly seems impressive.

Spoiler: Faster than a speeding teleport ray

Feat Catalogue (non-Superman):

- The Kryptonians apparently had FTL radio transmissions, being able to communicate with Earth in real time. They were also able to translate English (but we've seen them do that before).
- Jor-El transmits the instructions for someone on Earth to build a teleportation device that could instantaneously transport people and things between Earth and Krypton. As this took place in a flashback several decades before the early 60s when this comic was published, they were able to build this with early 20th century technology on Earth, somehow.
- The matter transmitter also had "dial settings for time and space", perhaps indicating that it could also function as a time machine. This is further suggested later when Superman tricks the criminals using the device into thinking they have accidentally sent themselves to the future.
- Jor-El also invented an anti-gravity belt that allowed a human from Earth to survive and safely move around in Krypton's heavier gravity
- We see more of the Kryptonian "super-telescopes", which had been monitoring Earth for years even at the point of the flashback in the past, and could "pick up any sight and sound on Earth".
- Jor-El invented a "dream helmet" that can read a person's dreams and subconscious thoughts
- Some random criminal was able to not only reproduce the teleporter from the plans, but miniaturize it to fit on a belt.

Spoiler: Krypton exploded before he could use this thing to evacuate it

Weirdness:

- A criminal using a Kryptonian teleportation device deliberately commits vandalism to get himself arrested in California minutes after committing a crime in Metropolis, in order to establish an alibi. But wasn't there a way he could have done that without being charged with another crime?
- A human scientist from the early 20th century, who was not even trained as a medical doctor, is somehow able to diagnose and treat Kryptonian patients.
- Somehow the human scientist also saw Krypton explode from Earth in real-time with a telescope. Although I suppose it could have been a telescope using Kryptonian technology that Jor-El had instructed him how to build, like he did with the teleporter.

Superdickery:

- As a baby, Kal-El knocks over and breaks a fish tank in his parents' house on Krypton.
- As a baby again, Kal-El dreams of himself robbing Al Capone and drinking all of his alcohol.
- Tricks two criminals into thinking the world was destroyed in a nuclear war and they're about to die of radiation

Power Tracker:

- That speed feat is pretty insane, especially if you take the 'instantaneous' claim literally. Combined with his ease of flying to different universes that we've seen, this could mean that his speed in particular can be said to be Transcendent Level, but overall he's still High Herald Level.

Supergirl Story

Notes:

- The results of the contest to determine Linda Lee's new hairstyle were announced in this issue. The winner was the one called the "Campus Cuddle-Bun", which I guess was the peak of 60s fashion. (Personally, I preferred the "Contempo Cut").
- Both Earth's lesser gravity and yellow sun are both stated to be responsible for Kryptonian powers in this issue

Feat Catalogue:

- In the past, with her powers restored, she carves a giant tree into a totem pole at super speed and balances it on one finger
- Digs a large hole in the middle of a village, flies to a distant mountain peak, rips the glacier at the top off, places it in the hole she dug, and melts it with heat vision to create a lake, so the village can have uncontaminated drinking water.
- Repairs a bunch of houses damaged by a storm at super speed
- Flies to a tropical island, constructs two giant buckets and fills one of them with fruit, then goes underwater and catches a bunch of fish, throwing them into the other bucket, then brings them back to the village to feed them.
- Digs underground and finds a large amount of coal in seconds, then ignites it with X-ray(heat) vision, and throws it down the chimneys of the village.
- Manufactures quinine at super speed from a tree in South America and delivers it to the village doctor
- Flies through the time barrier back to 1961, but finds out that she is now depowered again

Spoiler: Showing off her returned powers in the past, where they still work

Feat Catalogue (non-Supergirl):

- Krypto's "dog instinct" somehow prompts him to use microscopic vision to look inside Kandor and see the real Supergirl trapped inside there
- Superman's Fortress of Solitude contains an "exchange ray" that can do the same thing that Lesla-Lar's technology can do, switch the positions of her and Supergirl in and out of Kandor and change their sizes
- Krypto is able to use the ray to bring back Kara and trap Lesla-Lar in Kandor
- Superman carries the depowered Supergirl back in time to the year 1692, where her powers are restored (for some reason)
- He then travels back through the time barrier at super speed to the present (the year 1961)
- The Linda Lee robot is able to fly back to its storage area in the hollow tree so fast that no one can see it

Spoiler: If you have been reading this thread so far, you will probably find this completely normal

Spoiler: Yet more time travel

Weirdness:

- The Kandorians decide to shoot a "Supergirl science - fiction movie" based on her life. But wouldn't that be science fact for them?
- Supergirl says "This is the year 1692 A.D., when many people believed witches actually existed!" Except in the DC universe, they do exist. I guess she had just never met one at that point.

Superdickery:

Power Tracker:

- High Herald Level in the past, Low Street Level in the present while depowered.

Action Comics #282

Overall Notes:

- A response in the letters column states that when Supergirl once said that she can't bring "solid objects" across the time barrier, what she really meant was "inorganic objects". I have a feeling they won't stick to this rule for long, though.
- There's an ad for The Atom's comic in this issue, back when he was a new character

Spoiler: Anyone else get the feeling they're just making up the rules for this stuff as they go along?

Superman Story

Notes:

Feat Catalogue:

- Uses super pressure to compress coal into diamonds in order to feed a "diamond - eating zandrill from Vega" in his interplanetary zoo. You should be getting used to this kind of thing by now.
- Flies an ice cream truck above the stratosphere to keep its contents cold
- Uses X-ray vision to help brain surgeons remove a piece of glass from a patient's brain, as their X-ray machines can't detect it
- Flies to Antarctica, uses X-ray vision to find some (somehow perfectly preserved) dinosaurs, digs them up, puts saddles on them, takes them to a public school, and makes them into a merry-go-round for kids to ride (yeah...)
- Blows a giant glass bubble in a glass factory to create an isolation chamber for a sick mayor and equips it with microphones and speakers so he can communicate with the public without infecting them
- Lifts a skyscraper off its foundations before a missile can hit it and then places it back (why not just stop the missile?)
- Bores a hole through a statue and a mountain so the missile doesn't hit them, then follows the missile around the world and catches it when it runs out of fuel
- In the time it takes for someone to ask to shake hands, Superman flies to a plastic factory, places his hands in molten plastic and coats them with it, cools it with super breath to form plastic casts of his hands, then flies to the location of his robot and replaces the plastic coverings on the robot's hands so fast that no one can see it happening, while also using vibration to remain invisible

Spoiler: One of those pages you would only see in the Silver Age

Spoiler: Or you could just, you know, catch the missile...

Spoiler: Another one of those complex super speed feats

Feat Catalogue (non-Superman):

- One of the Superman robots uses X-ray vision to read a clock in a nearby building
- The robot then uses super breath to knock over a fan, creating a distraction, and signs Clark Kent's name at super speed while everyone's attention is occupied elsewhere

Weirdness:

- For some reason, Superman has an appointment to be a guest teacher of natural history at a local public school
- Just look at the descriptions of some of the feats
- There are also some rather racist depictions of 'primitive natives'

Superdickery:

- Sends one of his robots in place of himself on a date with Lois
- Damages buildings, statues, and mountains in the way of a rogue missile, instead of just stopping the missile itself (which was even stated to not be carrying a warhead so there was no danger of it exploding)

Power Tracker:

- High Herald Level. I noted last time that his speed might be higher, but I won't be tracking individual stats here for every story, so for now he's still High Herald Level overall.

Supergirl Story

Notes:

Feat Catalogue:

- In the future (where her powers work again), she sees a giant bird attacking some people, and she weaves a giant net out of vines in the time before it can reach them, and captures it
- Flies all around the world and captures more of the giant birds, putting them in a zoo
- No-sells a blast from a handheld "death ray" from the future
- Uses ice breath to Freeze blasts from flamethrowers as they are fired
- No-sells blasts from "atomic rays"
- Repowered, and now immune to Kryptonite, she throws a Kryptonite meteor into the ground, where it travels miles into the crust

Spoiler: Another weird future, blame Hypertime I guess

Feat Catalogue (non-Supergirl):

- Superman builds an exact, working replica of the Legion of Super-Heroes' time bubble

****

- Lesla-Lar has a "time-viewer" that can see into the past, but not the future

****

- Mr. Mxyzptlk restores Supergirl's powers, but actually improves on them, making her just as strong as she was before, but also immune to Kryptonite and to Lesla-Lar's power-draining ray.

Spoiler: So he has no time to fly her to the future himself, but he has time to build a time machine?

Spoiler: Well, that's awfully convenient

Weirdness:

- Supergirl travels to a future where Earth was attacked by giant Martian birds
- The Martians also dropped "E-bombs" that artificially evolved animals on Earth into different forms
- While in a swimming race with a guy she used to know at the orphanage, Supergirl thinks "even if I still had my super-powers, I wouldn't overtake him! Men enjoy feeling superior to women!"

Superdickery:

Power Tracker:

- Low Street Level when depowered, High Herald Level when empowered.

 

[Endless Mike]

Action Comics #283

Overall Notes:

- There's a PSA in this issue about racial equality. While the intent is noble, it gets a few scientific facts wrong, like saying that "before the dawn of history, all men were of the same race", and modern racial characteristics only emerged afterwards. It's actually more of the other way around, as there used to be many different hominid species, much more variable than humans are today, who eventually either died out or interbred with each other to create modern humans. So we're less diverse than we used to be, not more so.

Superman Story

Notes:

- Two shapeshifting alien outlaws from the future who referred to themselves as "Chameleon Men" in this issue were quite clearly meant to be of the species that DC would later identify as the Durlans.
- A "Legion of Super-Outlaws" from the thirtieth century is mentioned, the precursor to the Legion of Super-Villains.
- One of the aliens states that "everything that existed on Krypton before it exploded is indestructible", but that Red Kryptonite lost that property when traveling through the "cosmic cloud" that transformed it into its current form. Yet I swear that we've seen Green Kryptonite destroyed before several times...
- The future Legion of Super-Outlaws know Superman's secret identity.
- Then-President John F. Kennedy and the contemporary Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev are not only mentioned, but both 'appear' in this issue, in a manner of speaking.
- A reference is made to a "Flame-dragon from Krypton". Not sure if we've seen such a thing in this series yet, but it could have been in another title.
- Kennedy and Krushchev arrange to meet at an abandoned US military fort called "Fort Dixon". While there is such a place in real life, it doesn't bear any resemblance to the one shown in the comic.

Feat Catalogue:

- Clark thinks to himself that, as Superman, he could easily row a boat from Metropolis to a nearby island in one second.
- Being affected by Red Kryptonite, he temporarily gets the ability to warp reality and cause his wishes to come true. The wishes include:
* Fog appearing so Lois and Jimmy can't see him
* Sherlock Holmes appearing to help him solve a mystery
* His parents (both his original and foster parents) appearing alive to offer him advice
- Uses super breath to push Lois and Jimmy's rowboat to shore at a speed of 200 miles/minute, as well as blowing away all of the fog he wished for
- After his wishing power wears off, his next mutation causes him to breathe fire every time he opens his mouth.
- Super-ventriloquism apparently allows him to talk without opening his mouth, and thus he doesn't have to worry about breathing fire
- When the fire breath wears off, the third effect of the Red Kryptonite gives him the temporary ability to read minds
- After foiling the Durlans' scheme by reading their minds, he flies them through time back to the 30th century so they can be arrested by the LOSH

Feat Catalogue (non-Superman):

- The future Durlans have a time machine similar to the time bubble used by the Legion of Super-Heroes.
- The two Durlan shapeshifters claim that not even Superman's vision powers can see through their shapeshifting disguises, and that they can "instantly imitate anything".
- They set up two antennae, one to attract Green Kryptonite and the other to attract Red Kryptonite from space.
- They transform into the following forms over the course of the issue: A tree, a boulder, an octopus, a shark, police officers, seagulls, a pile of leaves, and John F. Kennedy and Nikita Krushchev

****

- Jor-El uses X-ray(heat) vision to melt some sand, and uses super strength, speed, precision, and calculation to combine it with other elements to prepare an antidote that will make Superman immune to Red Kryptonite. Unfortunately, he fades away before it's complete.

Weirdness:

- The villains here are making the same mistake that Brainiac made in issue #275, by trying to use both Green and Red Kryptonite against Superman. The green stuff is deadly to him, but there's no way of knowing what the red stuff will do - it could even cancel out the effects of the green. So why not just use Green only?
- Random Sherlock Holmes appearance
- Jor-El and Lara (conjured up by Superman's wish) are unaffected by the Red Kryptonite because they're already dead. Yet they can still use their powers.
- There's also the fact that the Durlans somehow felt the need to build a statue out of Red Kryptonite and dress it in a Superman outfit in order to carry out their scheme. It was never explained why they did this.

Spoiler: This technically makes sense...

Spoiler: But this doesn't

Superdickery:

- The panels of Superman slapping "Kennedy" and "Kruschev", without context, were featured on Superdickery. It's pretty funny, really.

Spoiler: Remove the last four panels: "And that's how Superman started World War III"

Power Tracker:

- High Herald Level for his normal form, and while under the influence of the second and third pieces of Red Kryptonite. It's unknown what limits there were to the wishes, if any, so in that form he could potentially have been as high as Abstract Level.

Supergirl Story

Notes:

- Supergirl says that her clothes, and the clothes worn by her Linda Lee robot, are chemically treated so that they don't burn from friction when flying at super speed through the atmosphere
- This is the first part of a two-part story. Supergirl is exposed to 3 effects of Red Kryptonite in this issue, and still has 3 more to go by the end.

Feat Catalogue:

- Flies from Midvale to the Fortress of Solitude, too fast to be seen
- Flies into space and searches for Kryptonite to dispose of it, finding 6 Red Kryptonite meteors. She fuses them all together into one giant meteor with heat vision and then flies through it, 'completely disintegrating its atomic structure' (seems similar to what Superman did to that battleship in issue #214)
- Unfortunately, she didn't realize that she had only become immune to Green Kryptonite, and was still vulnerable to the red stuff. So it has the following effects on her:
* Making her fat (lol)
* Transforming her into a werewolf - like humanoid
* Shrinking her to the size of a microbe
- Uses super-ventriloquism to send a message from a movie theater to her robot hidden in the forest to come and cover for her
- Uses telescopic X-ray vision and super hearing to spy on and overhear conversations from a specific house and then from a hospital, while in her house
- At miniature size, flies into a man's bloodstream to fight off an infection, destroying millions of bacteria in an implied short amount of time

Spoiler: Could have just used heat vision to destroy it from a distance...

Spoiler: Can I win this great battle? Oh, looks like I did. That was easy.

Feat Catalogue (non-Supergirl):

- Superman flies past the time barrier to travel to the 30th century and visit the LOSH

****

- It's stated that Mxy could have made Supergirl invulnerable to Red Kryptonite as well, but simply forgot to do so

****

- The Linda Lee robot flies from the forest to the movie theater "almost instantly"

Weirdness:

- Linda takes being called "as normal as blueberry pie" as a complement, for some reason.
- After becoming fat as an effect of Red Kryptonite, she disguises herself as a balloon. Really.
- Infectious bacteria are depicted as looking more like mutated ants with multiple eyeballs.

Spoiler: Ah, the Silver Age...

Superdickery:

- Linda briefly gets jealous of her own robot when she has to have it substitute for her on a date.

Power Tracker:

- High Herald Level. The shrunken form might be lower, but I'm not sure where I would place it.

Action Comics #284

Superman Story

Notes:

- The cover of this one was featured on Superdickery, as the child Superman was seen smashing up a police officer's desk just to convince him of his identity

Feat Catalogue:

- In his Fortress of Solitude, Superman has samples of various chunks of Red Kryptonite with known effects (as they affected Supergirl and/or Krypto previously). He uses one of them to turn himself into a child temporarily.
- Throws pennies with super speed and accuracy to hit all the targets in a rigged carnival game which were meant to be impossible to normally hit
- Wins the other rigged carnival games and cleans out the prizes, giving them back to the swindled children
- Flies from the Metropolis police station to an ocean reef off of "Cape Main" in seconds (there's a real place with that name, but it's in Antarctica and wasn't named until 4 years after this comic was published, so we're talking about a fictional location here)
- Lifts a damaged battleship and flies it back to a drydock for repairs
- Intercepts and blocks 16-inch battleship shells just to prove that he's Superman
- Uses X-ray vision to determine that a rocket is poorly built and will fall apart soon after it launches
- Uses super speed to take a kid out of the rocket and put him in a nearby building, then take his place, so fast that the guy watching doesn't see anything happen
- Using their combined X-ray vision, Superman, Supergirl, and Krypto burn away the Aurora Borealis, which seals a dimensional hole leading to the Phantom Zone (okay...)

Spoiler: This is what TVtropes calls being "crazy prepared"

Spoiler: Of course! Don't you know anything about science!?

Feat Catalogue (non-Superman):

- The Kryptonian criminal Jax-Ur once destroyed a moon near Krypton with a "nuclear rocket". He says that a similar weapon would be powerful enough to destroy the Earth.
- Another Kryptonian criminal, Professor Vakox, created a "life force formula" which combined with minerals in a lake to instantly create a giant monster
- Using their combined X-ray vision, Superman, Supergirl, and Krypto burn away the Aurora Borealis, which seals a dimensional hole leading to the Phantom Zone (okay...)

Weirdness:

- Misspelling: Perry White says "You have a two-week vaction coming to you"
- Superman deliberately turned himself into a child in order to fit through the small hole to the Phantom Zone. But in the end of the story, he was able to seal it from the outside with help from Supergirl and Krypto, so that means he actually never needed to enter it in the first place, so becoming a child was completely pointless.

Superdickery:

- See the cover
- Steals some children's clothes from a drying line outside for a disguise
- When pretending to be a kid, talks like a stereotypical baby, even though the other kids around him are talking normally
- The cover also accurately reflects the events of the comic, as he does destroy the desk
- In order to prove his identity, he intercepts battleship shells right after they're fired from a battleship, with a bunch of sailors on the deck. Couldn't someone get hurt?
- Tricks a crazy scientist into thinking that he accidentally killed his own son, instead of just warning him and stopping the rocket ahead of time.

Power Tracker:

- High Herald Level. In child form, probably the same, although slightly weaker.

Supergirl Story

Notes:

- This is the continuation of the Red Kryptonite story from the previous issue
- For some reason it was public knowledge that Superman was currently off on a mission in the future
- After all of the effects of the different chunks of Red Kryptonite wear off, Supergirl is now vulnerable to Green Kryptonite once again, since apparently Mxy's magic wore off and her original powers returned. Status quo is God.

Feat Catalogue:

- More Red Kryptonite mutations, including:
* Growing a second head
* Hallucinating that she gains a power that causes anything that she looks at to die
* Changing her into a mermaid
- Catches a falling H-bomb and flies off with it at super speed to a desert where it detonates, also tanking the explosion
- Moves rainclouds together to create a rainstorm to water crops suffering from a drought
- Uses her telescopic vision to track Lenora, a runaway mermaid, underwater after she ran off and instantly locates her

Feat Catalogue (non-Supergirl)

- Superman travels back in time from the 30th century to the present (1962)

Weirdness:

- Two-headed Supergirl. 'Nuff said.
- Weird "jet-propelled" ball - like aliens that terrorized the universe. Unclear if they actually existed or were only part of the hallucination, though.
- Instead of "Atlantean", the word for inhabitants of and things relating to Atlantis used in this story is "Atlantide". Although "Atlantean" is used afterwards.
- There's a "Valley of Hands" underwater, where alien giants once tried to attack Atlantis, but sank into the seabed, and only their hands protrude above it. Said hands are still alive and try to attack anything that swims near them.

Spoiler: A two-headed Supergirl. Yawn. (Cookie for the reference)

Superdickery:

- When Supergirl's second head begins to fade away, it begs for its life, and she doesn't seem to care much
- Even though they were described as hostile space monsters, and it was a hallucination, she still willingly committed genocide on an alien race

Spoiler: Genocide solves all of your problems!

Power Tracker:

- Still High Herald Level the whole way through.

 

[Endless Mike]

Action Comics #285

Overall Notes:

- This is the first issue of this title in which the Superman story and the Supergirl story form a two-parter where one leads directly into the other
- There's a PSA in this issue urging people to get vaccinated against diseases like polio and tetanus. This was back when most people actually had common sense about these things and didn't think it was some giant conspiracy.

Superman Story

Notes:

- This is the point where Supergirl's existence is officially revealed to the world. Her secret identity of Linda Danvers is also revealed to her adopted parents, but the wider public remains in the dark about it
- The title and the cover proclaim her to be "The World's Greatest Heroine". What would Wonder Woman have to say about that?
- There's a letter from the editors in this comic explaining why they had to increase the price from $0.10 to $0.12, because of inflation. Individual issues of comics today usually cost anywhere from $3 to $5.
- It's stated in the intro that Supergirl has been helping Superman in secret "for several years now"
- We see a cameo from then-President John F. Kennedy, appearing for real this time
- Supergirl is given a "Golden Certificate" that authorizes her to visit any country without a passport, and make arrests. Superman has one of these as well.

Spoiler: The reveal they've been teasing us with ever since Supergirl's debut

Feat Catalogue:

- Superman has a broadcasting device in his Fortress that can interrupt every television signal on Earth to broadcast his own announcements
- The narration refers to Superman and Supergirl as "the two mightiest crusaders in the entire universe". Possible hyperbole...
- The Fortress has an "interstellar map", where various lights representing alien planets can flash communication signals to Superman if they want his attention
- As shown on the splash page, Superman and Supergirl use their telescopic vision to observe various alien planets across the universe celebrating the revelation of her existence.
- They then use their vision to view celebrations underwater in Atlantis
- Superman travels through the time barrier to the 50th century. Interesting is that when he does this, we see him appear to fade out while in the same position, instead of accelerating in a certain direction at super speed. A different method of time travel, perhaps?

Spoiler: Time travel again

Feat Catalogue (non-Superman):

- Supergirl uses her telescopic vision to view aliens celebrating the announcement of her existence on planets all across the universe
- Linda changes to her Supergirl costume "in the twinkling of an eye"
- A USSR leader (possibly meant to be Khrushchev) thinks to himself how Supergirl is "mightier than all the soviet atomic bombs put together"
- In a recording, we see that Supergirl hurled a boulder at a Kryptonite meteor from a safe distance, with such force that the Kryptonite was "pulverized out of existence"
- In another recording, we see her deflecting a comet from hitting Earth
- The narration refers to Supergirl and Superman as "the two mightiest crusaders in the entire universe". Possible hyperbole...
- Superman describes Supergirl as being the physically mightiest female of all time. Again, I have to ask what Wonder Woman would say...
- They then use their vision to view celebrations underwater in Atlantis

Spoiler: More crazy vision feats

Spoiler: Interpret "pulverized out of existence" how you will

Weirdness:

- An alien planet of shapeshifters uses their powers to all transform into copies of Supergirl for a few minutes
- The Atlanteans (here referred to as "Atlantites", for some reason) build a statue of Supergirl as a mermaid, in reference to her brief Red Kryptonite - induced transformation in the previous issue

Superdickery:

- Superman uses his advanced technology to interrupt every TV broadcast in the world simultaneously with no warning, just to announce Supergirl's existence
- Superman describes his cousin as such: "Physically, she's the mightiest female of all time! But at heart, she's as gentle and sweet and is quick to tears - as any ordinary girl!" That's a bit degrading...

Power Tracker:

- No change from High Herald Level.

Supergirl Story

Notes:

- John F. Kennedy appears once again, along with his wife, Jackie Kennedy
- The "Infinite Monster" Supergirl battles in this issue is protected by a forcefield that is noted to be similar to Brainiac's, making it invulnerable to direct attack
- The "Infinite Monster" is also just a nickname, it was in no way infinite (although it was trans-dimensional)
- Brainiac 5 is noted by the narration to be the "great-great-great-great grandson" of Brainiac, again.
- Brainiac 5 knows how to build a shrink ray, but not an enlarging ray, because his ancestor kept that secret to himself

Feat Catalogue:

- At super speed, re-arranges an amusement park maze to keep her date trapped in there for at least an hour while she goes to do her heroics
- In a flashback, we see that Supergirl saved an alien city on the planet Lonar by juggling colored gems to hypnotize the monster attacking it and put it to sleep
- Builds a message capsule from scrap metal at super speed, then throws it through the time barrier into the 30th century, making it land precisely outside of the LOSH clubhouse
- Supergirl rebuilds the shrink ray at super speed after the monster steps on it, having memorized its design by viewing it with her X-ray vision and photographic memory
- Uses her photographic memory to recall what was written on the note Brainiac 5 sent to the past, even though it was destroyed nearly as soon as it arrived

Spoiler: Hypnosis via juggling, not the weirdest thing we've seen

Spoiler: This would be an effective way to BFR an opponent, as well

Feat Catalogue (non-Supergirl):

- Superman is offworld on a mission to another galaxy
- Saturn Girl somehow uses her telepathy to determine that the capsule from the past was sent with good intentions, and that it was sent by Supergirl
- Brainiac 5 sends a miniature time bubble back to the past with the shrink ray that Supergirl asked for
- The LOSH views Supergirl in the past via their "time-scope"
- Superman travels back from the future to the present
- Superman uses super-ventriloquism to summon Supergirl to the Fortress of Solitude.
- He then builds a new wing of the Fortress dedicated to Supergirl (it's said he did so "swiftly", but there's no further elaboration on how fast or how much time it took)

Spoiler: Somehow I don't think you really know what those words mean...

Spoiler: This brings up so many privacy issues...

Weirdness:

- Two random scientists are trying to build a machine to contact alien life, and manage to open a portal to another universe in which only the lower legs of a forcefield-protected monster step through. They then immediately call the navy to attack it without even trying to communicate with it or determine its intentions first.
- The President and the US government throw Supergirl a party for defeating the monster on the lawn of the White House. Somehow, a group of the orphans from Midvale Orphanage get access and are personally introduced to Supergirl by the president (when no one knows that she used to be one of them except her)
- The narration says that Superman returns from the future, while it previously said that he was in another galaxy. Although I suppose he could have been both in another galaxy and in the future...

Superdickery:

- See the first feat. Kind of a bitch move to pull.
- Superman does the thing with interrupting all of the world's TV broadcasts again, this time just to congratulate Supergirl on stopping the monster and announce that they would take turns protecting the Earth when one of them was away.

Power Tracker:

- Still High Herald Level.

Action Comics #286

Superman Story

Notes:

- This is part one of a two-part story that continues next issue
- The villains in this issue actually test the effects of various pieces of Red Kryptonite before trying to use them on Superman, so they know what they will do in advance, which is a much smarter approach than previous' villains use of the stuff.
- The space pirate villains also know Superman's secret identity, by observing him with their advanced technology. Overall, they seem pretty competent...
- The cover of this one is deceptive, as while the scene portrayed there does happen, it's part of a Red Kryptonite - induced nightmare and not real
- In the dream, it's stated that Supergirl's X-ray(heat) vision can't harm Superman, which might be an implication that Kryptonians are immune to each other's heat vision, but it's unclear
- A response in the letters column states that Superman's costume is "made of a highly resilient, indestructible fiber which stretches and is wrinkle-proof"

Feat Catalogue:

- As Superboy, Clark repeatedly foiled the plans of space pirates from another galaxy, and he still keeps tabs on their planet as Superman, to the point where they believe they could have conquered the universe if not for him. These pirates also seem to have very fast and easily accessible intergalactic travel, as they are able to visit Earth and Mars casually.
- Superman was experimenting with a machine that could amplify sounds by a factor of 1000

Spoiler: It was explained that Krypto was subdued with a dose of Green Kryptonite

Feat Catalogue (non-Superman):

- Supergirl takes the bottle containing Kandor with her on a trip to scores of worlds in space over a period of five days to try to find one that has the ability to restore it to normal size. I don't know why she needed to take Kandor itself with her, though.

Weirdness:

- Jimmy Olsen has a fanclub of cosplayers who dress up just like him, and have imitation signal watches that can only allow them to communicate with each other via short-wave radio
- Of the various villains putting Superman on trial in his dream, we have some familiar faces from this title and others, along with a newcomer called "Electro" (no, not the Spider-Man villain, he debuted almost 2 years after this comic was published). As noted in the DC Wiki: "Electro" is not a pre-existing Superman villain, but rather a creation of Superman's dreaming subconscious, evidently based on the appearance of the fake alien that Lex Luthor used to deceive Superman in Action Comics #271.

Superdickery:

Power Tracker:

- A lot of this issue was spent in dream sequences, so no real opportunity for anything to change from High Herald Level.

Supergirl Story

Notes:

- This is the first time that Lex Luthor and Supergirl meet (although he had previously met Lesla-Lar, who was disguising herself as Supergirl)

Feat Catalogue:

- Notices that her foster mother is about to be burned by overflowing soup from a pot and surreptitiously freezes it with super breath without her boyfriend noticing
- No-sells a point-blank shot from a cannon designed by Lex Luthor and then destroys it (Lex was under the impression Supergirl was a robot, so this cannon was presumably powerful enough to destroy one of the Superman robots, so this is a pretty good durability feat)
- Her X-ray vision can easily see through the artificial darkness created by Lex Luthor's grenade
- In a period described as only "a few minutes", she performs the following actions:
* Flies from near Metropolis to underwater in Atlantis, locates her friends Jero and Lori, explains what she wants, waits for them to rig up the detection equipment they need, and finds the element she's looking for under a Viking shipwreck with their help
* Uses her X-ray vision to determine that the element alone won't be enough, so she flies to a planet in another galaxy, burrows through its crystallized atmosphere, and grabs a flower that she detected and analyzed with her microscopic vision as having the components she needs
* Compresses the flower, puts it in the pouch of her cape, and then no-sells an attack by alien robots in a spaceship, and counterattacks and destroys the robots
* Figures out how the alien robot ship works (saying the equipment is "simple to understand") and uses it to undo the transmutation of the planet's atmosphere to crystal
* Flies back to Earth, to where she left from, and combines the two elements she gathered into a strange type of plastic fiber, which she wraps Luthor's body in, which brings him back to life

Spoiler: Lex's cannon does nothing

Spoiler: All this in a few minutes

Feat Catalogue (non-Supergirl):

- Lex Luthor does the Macgyver thing again, using a combination of mouthwash, orange juice, aspirin, radio components, and the prison's sound signal to make himself invisible (huh?)
- Lex has a cannon that is apparently capable of destroying one of Superman's robots, although it proves useless against a real Kryptonian like Supergirl
- He also has a shrink ray based on Brainiac's design, except it only shrinks things temporarily, and it doesn't change their weight
- He uses "anti-gravity tongs" to lift a shrunken bank building, which still weighs as much as it did originally
- He also built a "darkness grenade" which very quickly causes "gaseous darkness" to envelop several city blocks, as well as having special goggles he built for himself and his henchmen that can see through it
- He wields a "nuclear Kryptonite ray-gun" (likely based on the design Lesla-Lar gave him earlier) with which he intends to kill Supergirl. When he accidentally shoots himself with it, we see that it is also deadly to humans.
- In a flashback, we see that Luthor once tried to "drive everyone out of Metropolis with giant sun spheres which radiated unbearable heat, so his mob clad in insulated suits could rob at will". I don't know if this was in another title or just something made up as of this issue.

Spoiler: Exactly how was anyone supposed to guess that?

Spoiler: Careful, Brainiac might sue

Spoiler: He should have known she could see through this, but at least he had a backup plan

****

- The Atlanteans equip their giant seahorses with "isotope-counters" in search of the rare "isotope element Z"

Weirdness:

- Again, we have it being publicly announced on the TV news that Superman and all of his robots have left Earth for a mission in space. They try to reassure the public by telling them that Supergirl is still there, but that kind of information should really not be broadcast to everyone.
- We have yet another self-described criminal "midget", as in issue #269.
- Supergirl just conveniently happened to know of a rare "isotope element Z" that could counteract the type of "nuclear stun-shock" that killed Luthor, and knew that the Atlanteans could find it for her.
- A planet in another galaxy is described as being "billions of miles away in outer space". Yeah, a lot of billions...

Superdickery:

- Supergirl brings Luthor back to life after he accidentally kills himself, apparently so he can serve out his prison term, except she should know that he always escapes...

Power Tracker:

- Another very impressive speed feat, although I would still place her at High Herald Level.

 

[Endless Mike]

Action Comics #287

Superman Story

Notes:

- Continuation of the story from the previous issue
- Again, the scene on the cover only occurs in a dream
- In the dream, we find that the US government has stockpiled Green Kryptonite in case Superman ever turns against them. This will become a much more common theme (for not only the US government, but other allies he has, like Batman) as the years go on

Feat Catalogue:

- This is very questionable, since it occurs during a dream sequence, but a villain calling himself the "super-hypnotist" says that his hypnotic power is second only to Superman's own, and he needs to use Green Kryptonite in order to weaken Superman's resistance to hypnosis so he can take control of him. Figured I'd note it anyway, though.
- Destroys a bunch of alien robots that were trying to wipe out all plant life on Earth
- Superman has a "matter-eater" creature in his intergalactic zoo (from the same planet as Matter-Eater Lad?), which he says will eat anything. He says it has tried to eat him unsuccessfully.
- He also uses an "unbreakable metal leash" to restrain the creature, which it presumably can't eat. The creature is, however, able to eat an alien poison that proves immune to Superman's heat vision

Spoiler: For all their elaborate preparation, this plan wasn't very well thought-out

Spoiler: This was almost a year before the debut of Matter-Eater Lad

Weirdness:

- Due to the influence of the Red Kryptonite, Superman falls asleep while in mid-flight. Instead of dropping to the ground like you would probably expect, instead he just continues "sleep-flying"
- Krypto awakens Superman from his dream by "super-licking" his face. Really.
- In order to fool Superman, the alien space pirates set up an entire fake futuristic city on Earth overnight to trick him into thinking he's dreaming he's in the future again. Somehow this almost works.

Superdickery:

- The splash page has Superman breaking all of "America's worst criminals" out of prison
- In the Red Kryptonite dream, Superman is hypnotized to pick the pockets of everyone at a horse racing track at super speed
- The scene in the splash page later happens in the comic, although it's also part of the dream
- He also robs Fort Knox in the dream

Power Tracker:

- Still no change from High Herald Level.

Supergirl Story

Notes:

- The opening narration states that the Positive Man, the villain in this issue, is "a massive peril greater than even the Man of Steel has ever tackled!" Seems like hyperbole.
- Elvis Presley is name-dropped in this issue
- We have more "Chameleon race" aliens as villains, although this time their true forms don't look anything like Durlans
- Apparently telepathic signals are able to travel from the Phantom Zone to normal reality. We'll see if they keep this consistent later on.

Feat Catalogue:

- Uses heat vision to simulate a bolt of lightning and claps her hands to simulate thunder to trick some forest rangers into thinking that lightning destroyed a tree stump
- Travels forward through time to the 30th century
- Uses telescopic vision to quickly locate the various Legion members on Earth
- Flies right through the Positive Man, a creature that can destroy planets merely by touching them, and is unharmed, ascribing this to her invulnerability
- Flies out of the solar system and across space, searching the universe for a "Negative Creature" she saw in the mental recording, and lures it back to the solar system to collide with and mutually destroy the Positive Man
- Uses super vacuum breath to make some robots crash into each other and destroy each other
- Before the alien shapeshifters can change form, she flies over to a city, grabs a giant "impenetrable dome" and cages them with it
- Uses her vision powers to find the real LOSH spaceship and saves them with an "antidote ray" (that she presumably got from someone else in the future)
- Travels back in time to 1962

Spoiler: This guy sort of reminds me of Urko (remember him?)

Spoiler: Decent speed feat. Also, a telepathic phantom cat from the future.

Feat Catalogue (non-Supergirl):

- The LOSH has given Supergirl devices that let them communicate with her through time to summon her from the past
- The Legion has a "mind-pictures chair" that can transmit thoughts and information directly to Supergirl's brain to inform her of the history of the menace she's facing, which was recorded by the Legion's timescope

Weirdness:

- The 30th century that the Legion lives in is mistakenly identified in this issue as the 21st century
- The Positive Man is referred to as having once been human, although in the very next sentence he is called an alien scientist
- Supergirl runs into "Whizzy", the 30th - century descendant of Streaky, who not only has his powers but also telepathy, which his ancestors supposedly gained via evolution in just 1000 years

Superdickery:

Power Tracker:

- She takes on a casually planet-destroying creature larger than planets and seems confident she could win if it wasn't intangible... seems to track with High Herald Level.

Action Comics #288

Superman Story

Notes:

- Apparently, Clark still legally owns his parents' old house in Smallville

Feat Catalogue:

- Superman remembers being taken to the Smallville Orphanage as a baby, and the narration notes that he can remember all the incidents of his childhood due to his super memory
- In a flashback, as Superboy he drills underground and releases oil at an oil field
- In a flashback, as a baby, he had a steel teething ring that he would constantly destroy by biting on it
- In another flashback, uses his fingernails to carve out Kryptonian glass from the remains of his rocket, which can withstand his heat vision. As stuff from Krypton is universally shown to have super durability, this is pretty impressive.
- Digs underground at super speed and removes the contents from a trunk, then replaces the soil underneath it, before some criminals can open it
- Is able to use his "super sense of smell" to determine that some dynamite is fake
- Uses super ventriloquism to summon Krypto from wherever he was and tell him to dig tunnels under Smallville to find a dinosaur bone, in order to fool the criminal trying to expose him

Spoiler: Kryptonian fingernail > Kryptonian glass

Weirdness:

- Dinosaur bones are apparently intact under Smallville, and look just like giant cartoonish bones.

Superdickery:

- Gets Krypto to dig a bunch of tunnels and vandalize people's yards and property just to protect his secret identity

Power Tracker:

- Nothing much in this issue to change him from High Herald Level.

Supergirl Story

Notes:

Feat Catalogue:

- Rips up a bunch of multi-colored napkins and re-weaves them at super speed into a tapestry as a present for her foster mother
- Uses toothpicks to create an accurate scale model replica of a bridge her foster father once built in a minute
- Uses super-pressure at super speed to shape a "shatter-proof glass paperweight" into a thin, bulletproof shield, which is also transparent enough as to appear invisible
- After her hypnotized father smashes all of her souvenirs, she rebuilds them at super speed
- Apparently Supergirl's tears, when mixed with a certain chemical formula, can open a portal to the Phantom Zone (lolwut)
- The Kryptonian criminals say that they could not hypnotize Supergirl because of her "super-mind"

Spoiler: Couldn't she have just caught or deflected the bullet, or let it bounce off her, or destroyed it with HV, and still got away with the same lie?

Feat Catalogue (non-Supergirl):

- Some of the Kryptonian Phantom Zone criminals are able to telepathically influence Linda's foster father Fred Danvers, as he is one of the few humans with latent telepathic abilities, and they hypnotize him from within the Phantom Zone to help them construct a way to free them

****

- Mon-El, released from the Phantom Zone, flies under the ocean, locates a Green Kryptonite meteor, and brings it back to use on Jax-Ur in what likely couldn't have been more than a few minutes
- He then tosses the meteor into space

Spoiler: Of course! Don't you know anything about chemistry!?

Spoiler: Mon-El actually got to do something!

Weirdness:

- A thought balloon meant to be coming from a criminal is mistakenly shown coming from Supergirl's foster father instead
- Supergirl takes the place of the blades on a helicopter belonging to a bunch of criminals... it looks really goofy
- Both the narration and Fred Danvers' thoughts again reiterate that Supergirl is "as quick to cry as any ordinary girl". Pretty sexist...
- Apparently being hit by Jax-Ur somehow permanently removed Fred Danvers' psychic abilities

Spoiler: This looks completely dignified and not ridiculous in any way

Superdickery:

Power Tracker:

- Not that much of note here, so she's still High Herald Level for now.

 

[Gordo]

not sure if this was already posted or mentioned in an issue you reviewed, but a nice bit feat for him and the Flash would be reacting to something that makes the speed of light look like a snail in comparison

 

[Endless Mike]

That's nice, but I'd like to know what issue it's from so I can see it in context. Seems like it might be one of the Justice League titles, which I will get to eventually... maybe.

 

[Gordo]

That's nice, but I'd like to know what issue it's from so I can see it in context. Seems like it might be one of the Justice League titles, which I will get to eventually... maybe.

It’s from World’s Finest 198

which came out in 1970, not sure how far you are from that. Said enemies were stated to be far faster than light and screwing up time according to the Green Lantern guardian

but yeah, it’s just a bit feat I felt like bringing up

 

[Solar Sailor]

Action Comics #287

Superman Story

Notes:

- Continuation of the story from the previous issue
- Again, the scene on the cover only occurs in a dream
- In the dream, we find that the US government has stockpiled Green Kryptonite in case Superman ever turns against them. This will become a much more common theme (for not only the US government, but other allies he has, like Batman) as the years go on

Feat Catalogue:

- This is very questionable, since it occurs during a dream sequence, but a villain calling himself the "super-hypnotist" says that his hypnotic power is second only to Superman's own, and he needs to use Green Kryptonite in order to weaken Superman's resistance to hypnosis so he can take control of him. Figured I'd note it anyway, though.
- Destroys a bunch of alien robots that were trying to wipe out all plant life on Earth
- Superman has a "matter-eater" creature in his intergalactic zoo (from the same planet as Matter-Eater Lad?), which he says will eat anything. He says it has tried to eat him unsuccessfully.
- He also uses an "unbreakable metal leash" to restrain the creature, which it presumably can't eat. The creature is, however, able to eat an alien poison that proves immune to Superman's heat vision

Spoiler: For all their elaborate preparation, this plan wasn't very well thought-out

Spoiler: This was almost a year before the debut of Matter-Eater Lad

Weirdness:

- Due to the influence of the Red Kryptonite, Superman falls asleep while in mid-flight. Instead of dropping to the ground like you would probably expect, instead he just continues "sleep-flying"
- Krypto awakens Superman from his dream by "super-licking" his face. Really.
- In order to fool Superman, the alien space pirates set up an entire fake futuristic city on Earth overnight to trick him into thinking he's dreaming he's in the future again. Somehow this almost works.

Superdickery:

- The splash page has Superman breaking all of "America's worst criminals" out of prison
- In the Red Kryptonite dream, Superman is hypnotized to pick the pockets of everyone at a horse racing track at super speed
- The scene in the splash page later happens in the comic, although it's also part of the dream
- He also robs Fort Knox in the dream

Power Tracker:

- Still no change from High Herald Level.

Supergirl Story

Notes:

- The opening narration states that the Positive Man, the villain in this issue, is "a massive peril greater than even the Man of Steel has ever tackled!" Seems like hyperbole.
- Elvis Presley is name-dropped in this issue
- We have more "Chameleon race" aliens as villains, although this time their true forms don't look anything like Durlans
- Apparently telepathic signals are able to travel from the Phantom Zone to normal reality. We'll see if they keep this consistent later on.

Feat Catalogue:

- Uses heat vision to simulate a bolt of lightning and claps her hands to simulate thunder to trick some forest rangers into thinking that lightning destroyed a tree stump
- Travels forward through time to the 30th century
- Uses telescopic vision to quickly locate the various Legion members on Earth
- Flies right through the Positive Man, a creature that can destroy planets merely by touching them, and is unharmed, ascribing this to her invulnerability
- Flies out of the solar system and across space, searching the universe for a "Negative Creature" she saw in the mental recording, and lures it back to the solar system to collide with and mutually destroy the Positive Man
- Uses super vacuum breath to make some robots crash into each other and destroy each other
- Before the alien shapeshifters can change form, she flies over to a city, grabs a giant "impenetrable dome" and cages them with it
- Uses her vision powers to find the real LOSH spaceship and saves them with an "antidote ray" (that she presumably got from someone else in the future)
- Travels back in time to 1962

Spoiler: This guy sort of reminds me of Urko (remember him?)

Spoiler: Decent speed feat. Also, a telepathic phantom cat from the future.

Feat Catalogue (non-Supergirl):

- The LOSH has given Supergirl devices that let them communicate with her through time to summon her from the past
- The Legion has a "mind-pictures chair" that can transmit thoughts and information directly to Supergirl's brain to inform her of the history of the menace she's facing, which was recorded by the Legion's timescope

Weirdness:

- The 30th century that the Legion lives in is mistakenly identified in this issue as the 21st century
- The Positive Man is referred to as having once been human, although in the very next sentence he is called an alien scientist
- Supergirl runs into "Whizzy", the 30th - century descendant of Streaky, who not only has his powers but also telepathy, which his ancestors supposedly gained via evolution in just 1000 years

Superdickery:

Power Tracker:

- She takes on a casually planet-destroying creature larger than planets and seems confident she could win if it wasn't intangible... seems to track with High Herald Level.

Action Comics #288

Superman Story

Notes:

- Apparently, Clark still legally owns his parents' old house in Smallville

Feat Catalogue:

- Superman remembers being taken to the Smallville Orphanage as a baby, and the narration notes that he can remember all the incidents of his childhood due to his super memory
- In a flashback, as Superboy he drills underground and releases oil at an oil field
- In a flashback, as a baby, he had a steel teething ring that he would constantly destroy by biting on it
- In another flashback, uses his fingernails to carve out Kryptonian glass from the remains of his rocket, which can withstand his heat vision. As stuff from Krypton is universally shown to have super durability, this is pretty impressive.
- Digs underground at super speed and removes the contents from a trunk, then replaces the soil underneath it, before some criminals can open it
- Is able to use his "super sense of smell" to determine that some dynamite is fake
- Uses super ventriloquism to summon Krypto from wherever he was and tell him to dig tunnels under Smallville to find a dinosaur bone, in order to fool the criminal trying to expose him

Spoiler: Kryptonian fingernail > Kryptonian glass

Weirdness:

- Dinosaur bones are apparently intact under Smallville, and look just like giant cartoonish bones.

Superdickery:

- Gets Krypto to dig a bunch of tunnels and vandalize people's yards and property just to protect his secret identity

Power Tracker:

- Nothing much in this issue to change him from High Herald Level.

Supergirl Story

Notes:

Feat Catalogue:

- Rips up a bunch of multi-colored napkins and re-weaves them at super speed into a tapestry as a present for her foster mother
- Uses toothpicks to create an accurate scale model replica of a bridge her foster father once built in a minute
- Uses super-pressure at super speed to shape a "shatter-proof glass paperweight" into a thin, bulletproof shield, which is also transparent enough as to appear invisible
- After her hypnotized father smashes all of her souvenirs, she rebuilds them at super speed
- Apparently Supergirl's tears, when mixed with a certain chemical formula, can open a portal to the Phantom Zone (lolwut)
- The Kryptonian criminals say that they could not hypnotize Supergirl because of her "super-mind"

Spoiler: Couldn't she have just caught or deflected the bullet, or let it bounce off her, or destroyed it with HV, and still got away with the same lie?

Feat Catalogue (non-Supergirl):

- Some of the Kryptonian Phantom Zone criminals are able to telepathically influence Linda's foster father Fred Danvers, as he is one of the few humans with latent telepathic abilities, and they hypnotize him from within the Phantom Zone to help them construct a way to free them

****

- Mon-El, released from the Phantom Zone, flies under the ocean, locates a Green Kryptonite meteor, and brings it back to use on Jax-Ur in what likely couldn't have been more than a few minutes
- He then tosses the meteor into space

Spoiler: Of course! Don't you know anything about chemistry!?

Spoiler: Mon-El actually got to do something!

Weirdness:

- A thought balloon meant to be coming from a criminal is mistakenly shown coming from Supergirl's foster father instead
- Supergirl takes the place of the blades on a helicopter belonging to a bunch of criminals... it looks really goofy
- Both the narration and Fred Danvers' thoughts again reiterate that Supergirl is "as quick to cry as any ordinary girl". Pretty sexist...
- Apparently being hit by Jax-Ur somehow permanently removed Fred Danvers' psychic abilities

Spoiler: This looks completely dignified and not ridiculous in any way

Superdickery:

Power Tracker:

- Not that much of note here, so she's still High Herald Level for now.

I guess since this is a Supercharged Kryptonian finger nail, it’s better than a normal Kryptonian finger nail

although this DOES imply that Kryptonian Nails > Heat Vision, funnily enough

 

[Endless Mike]

It’s from World’s Finest 198

which came out in 1970, not sure how far you are from that. Said enemies were stated to be far faster than light and screwing up time according to the Green Lantern guardian

but yeah, it’s just a bit feat I felt like bringing up

I plan to get to that series eventually. If I get that far, that is.

Anyway:

Action Comics #289

Overall Notes:

- The cover of this issue is based on the Supergirl story, although it does also feature Superman.
- A response in the letters column says that Metropolis is a coastal city, meant to be a fictional composite of New York City and San Francisco. They mention that there is a real town called Metropolis in Illinois, but at the time it only had a population of 3339.
- There's an ad in this issue for the Atom's new title, as he proved popular enough after his debut in Showcase to get his own book.

Spoiler: Believing Metropolis was real was a bit more excusable before the internet existed

Superman Story

Notes:

- Superman retrieves a sample of "Superanium, the strongest metal known" from his Fortress of Solitude. On the following page, it's referred to as "Supermanium", which was introduced in issue #140, although this might be a different version of the substance (since that was in the Golden Age and we're in the Silver Age now).

Feat Catalogue:

- An electric shaver breaks when it is used on Clark's hair, not cutting any of it
- Upon hearing that someone is falling out of a window of the Daily Planet building, he goes into a storage room, changes to Superman, and then flies down the stairs and out the front door in time to catch him a second before he hits the ground (although it was actually just a dummy thrown by a practical joker)
- Searches the city with his telescopic vision and almost instantly locates an escaped gorilla
- Quickly flies from Metropolis to the Fortress of Solitude and back, retrieving a sample of "Super(m)anium, the strongest metal known", which he forms into fine wires (too thin to see with the naked eye) that he uses to control a bunch of giant monster statues like puppets to trick someone into thinking they're alive
- Causes a bunch of condemned buildings to collapse with the sound of his laughter

Weirdness:

- Superman protects his secret identity by wearing a helmet in the shape of his own hair and uses that to explain why his hair seemed indestructible... because that makes sense

Superdickery:

- Hijacks a prankster's car while he's in it and makes it seem like it's out of control and going to crash, just to mess with him
- Uses metal strings to control a bunch of monster statues at an amusement park like puppets to scare the same guy, wrecking the park around the statues a bit
- Temporarily switches some street signs to lure the prankster into a neighborhood scheduled to be demolished, then wrecks the buildings himself so they nearly fall on the guy

Spoiler: What a dick

Power Tracker:

- High Herald Level. Nothing relevant happened here.

Supergirl Story

Notes:

- The narration on the splash page refers to Supergirl as "the most powerful girl in the universe". Even back then I think she had some competition for that title...
- It's shown that Superman and Supergirl have a "Time Traveling Log Book" in the Fortress of Solitude, to leave messages for each other regarding when and where they travel through time
- We see one potential future of the Legion of Super-Heroes here, where the teenage heroes are grown up and married. As the DC wiki states, this issue provides the first hint of the relationship between Garth Ranzz (Lightning Lad) and Imra Ardeen (Saturn Girl), which would become a major thing in the Legion titles later on.
- For, I think, the first time so far, we have a scene where Kryptonian powers on Earth are attributed solely to the yellow sun, without a mention of the different gravity.
- Kryptonians apparently don't lose their powers under an orange sun (although see the Overall Notes for issue #292)

Feat Catalogue:

- After a power outage, she uses telescopic vision to locate its source, digs underground, and repairs the electric cable, being unharmed by the electric shock
- Flies through the time barrier back to ancient Troy before the Trojan War
- Supergirl states that she and Superman have studied and know every ancient language
- Uses an invisible blast of super breath to force Helen of Troy's thumb to point upwards (it makes sense in context...)
- Along with Superman, flies back through the time barrier to 1962
- Cleans the Fortress of Solitude at super speed
- Along with Superman, flies through the time barrier again to the future, 10 years ahead of when they usually visit the LOSH
- She and Superman take only "moments" to fly into space and locate an "anti-gravity meteor", then bring it back to Earth
- Along with Superman, they return through the time barrier to 1962 again
- Supergirl is able to use her telescopic vision to view Superman on a planet in a far off star system in real time

Spoiler: With how rare an "anti-gravity meteor" must be, this is a pretty impressive speed feat

Spoiler: Keeping a record of their travels through time is actually a pretty smart idea

Feat Catalogue (non-Supergirl):

- Supergirl states that she and Superman have studied and know every ancient language
- Superman flies back through the time barrier to the exact day and time that Supergirl told him to go
- Along with Supergirl, Superman flies back through the time barrier to 1962
- Along with Supergirl, Superman flies through the time barrier again to the future, 10 years ahead of when they usually visit the LOSH
- Superman and Supergirl take only "moments" to fly into space and locate an "anti-gravity meteor", then bring it back to Earth
- Along with Supergirl, they return through the time barrier to 1962 again
- Superman's computer is able to calculate and predict the existence of an adult Superwoman on a specific planet
- Superman flies to a distant solar system pinpointed by his computer, in a seemingly short amount of time
- He then flies the alien Superwoman, Luma Lynai, to Earth and back, again in a short period of time (the narration simply says "swiftly")
- And finally he flies back to Earth

****

- The future Legion uses their time-scope screen to take pictures of Superman and Supergirl, on Krypton and Argo City, respectively, when they were babies. We've seen that the teenage Legion had the same device, so presumably they could have done the same thing.
- The future Saturn Girl (now known as Saturn Woman) used her telepathy to drive off space monsters attacking Earth

Spoiler: Casual interstellar travel and senses

Weirdness:

- The splash page shows Cupid menacing Superman as if he were a supervillain. No such thing happens in the actual story.
- There are living examples of both a minotaur and a unicorn in a stadium in Ancient Troy. Although considering this is the DC Universe, where most mythology is true, perhaps that isn't so weird.
- A bit of antiquated gender politics in the following line: "Some day, when you're married, it'll be your wife who will do your housecleaning!"
- There is an "anti-gravity meteor" in space that Superman breaks into pieces and gives each of the Legionnaires to put under their belts, allowing them to fly by giving it mental commands. Huh? (Also I guess this was before the Legion flight rings were introduced)
- Superman possibly implies that he would want to marry Supergirl if they weren't cousins, and marriage between cousins wasn't illegal on Krypton. Ick.
- The cover has Supergirl thinking "I'm so happy for Superman. But how strange that the woman he is finally going to wed looks exactly as I will when I grow up!" In the actual story, the woman is completely unrelated to Supergirl (not even the same species), but this weird line on the cover adds further to the somewhat creepy incest vibes of this story.

Spoiler: Unicorns and minotaurs in ancient Troy. Because comics.

Spoiler: You may have seen these first 2 panels before, but the 5th one is also fairly disturbing

Superdickery:

- Supergirl is willing to mess around with history just to get her cousin a girlfriend
- This issue is also the source of a famous Superdickery scan, where Lightning Lad/Man gets angry at Superman for kissing his wife

Power Tracker:

- The incredibly casual time and space travel just further reinforce both Superman and Supergirl's High Herald Level status.

Action Comics #290

Overall Notes:

- Apparently Red Kryptonite stories were so popular with the readers that they kept demanding more of them, so in answer to their demand, this is another issue that features Red K in both stories
- A response in the letters column clarifies a few things about the effects of Green Kryptonite, stating:

"Its main effect is to render Superman helpless to fly or to use his super-strength. Also, the Kryptonite radiations make him feel weak and dizzy. However, in the early stages of exposure to Kryptonite, he is still able to use his X-ray and heat vision at short range. He is also able to use super-ventriloquism and super-breath - but with modifications. Of course, even these powers keep fading the longer he endures exposure to Green K. An interesting sidelight is that no matter how long he is exposed to the stuff, his body, at all times, is invulnerable to weapons, explosives, acids, etc."

Also note how they differentiate X-ray from heat vision in this answer.

- The letters column in this issue was 2 pages instead of 1.
- There's an anti-littering PSA featuring Superman in this comic

Spoiler: Of course there's no guarantee they'll keep this explanation consistent over the following years...

Superman Story

Notes:

- The opening narration states "Of all the awesome capabilities of Superman, one of the most important is his invulnerability! Because he is invulnerable to any injury, except from the rare substance Kryptonite, he can dare any danger, from blasting lightning-bolts to the fiercest monsters!" Obviously the 'any injury/danger' parts are hyperbole.

Feat Catalogue:

- Flies to space and quickly finds Krypto chasing a comet
- Survives several micrometeorite impacts in space despite losing the invulnerability on one half of his body due to the effects of Red Kryptonite
- Survives reentry (albeit at a slower speed) still with a vulnerable half
- Uses heat vision (from just one eye) to create a "heat shimmer" in the air to disguise his actions
- His cape is not only indestructible, but also a perfect insulator that protects his vulnerable hand from a live wire carrying 20,000 volts of electricity
- He somehow manages to repair an electric cable by squeezing both ends together until they meld... using his non-super hand.
- Catches an artillery shell fired from a military gun in a test without damaging it, using only his invulnerable right hand
- In the short time before the second shell hits him, he uses his ice breath to cool off the burning red hot shell so he can safely hold it in his left hand, freeing his right hand to catch the other shell, and then continues to do this for every shell afterwards.
- Uses super ventriloquism to contact Krypto and summon him to help him
- Crushes some rubber erasers and shapes them into a mask of the back of his head to trick Lois, who was going to show up "any minute"
- Interestingly, one of the wounds he sustained from the meteorites in space heals instantly once the Red Kryptonite wears off.

Spoiler: But wouldn't the lack of air and dangerous radiation in space mean... you know what, just forget it

Spoiler: Resourcefulness when half-depowered

Spoiler: Juggling artillery shells

Spoiler: Regeneration?

Feat Catalogue (non-Superman):

- Supergirl took all of the Superman robots and Krypto to help a "disaster-stricken planet" in space. I don't know if this means the robots can go FTL on their own, or if she and Krypto carried them or something, though.
- Krypto is prone to chasing comets in space "just as Earth-dogs chase cars"
- Krypto survives several micrometeorite impacts in space despite losing the invulnerability on one half of his body due to the effects of Red Kryptonite
- He then survives reentry (albeit at a slower speed) still with a vulnerable half

Weirdness:

- It's a common thing in these issues, but this issue took it to an extreme just how suspicious and obsessed Lois is with proving that Clark is Superman, and yet how easily she's fooled by simple tricks into believing that he's not.

Superdickery:

Power Tracker:

- It's hard to rate the half-depowered Superman. I suppose he would be High Herald Level on one half of his body, and Low Meta Level on the other (since he still seemed to have some superhuman attributes there)? Obviously he's back to High Herald Level overall when the Red K wears off.

Supergirl Story

Notes:

- Atlantis is referred to as a "sunken continent" by the narration in this story
- The scientists in Atlantis cannot cure the temporary condition of Supergirl caused by Red Kryptonite
- The Kryptonian power of ice/Arctic breath is referred to by the narration here as "Frigid Breath"
- It's stated in this issue that the radiation and effects of Red Kryptonite can't penetrate lead. I forget if that was established before or not.

Feat Catalogue:

- Intercepts a sinking battleship in a split second, before it can crush an Atlantean shrine, and casually tosses it to a safer spot on the ocean floor, 2 miles away
- Uses telescopic X-ray vision to check on Jerro in Atlantis, instantly finding him and realizing he now has super powers too

Feat Catalogue (non-Supergirl):

- This one is a bit unclear, but it's possibly implied that Superman sent instructions to Supergirl via super-ventriloquism while he was in space and she was on Earth

****

- The LOSH uses a "time-projector" to send Phantom Girl back to the past to speak with Supergirl, although it's malfunctioning so it can only maintain the signal for a few moments

****

- Jerro, given Supergirl's powers by a side effect of Red Krptonite, gathers pearls from oysters in the ocean at super speed, quickly creating several large piles of them
- Jerro and Dick Malverne (also given powers) use ice breath to freeze a giant tsunami and pick it up and throw it to the Arctic from a south seas island

****

- A Supergirl fan club on Kandor apparently had access to an "Earth Viewer" that could track Dick and Jerro anywhere on Earth... that has some disturbing implications
- Seeing the two boys fall to their death as their powers wore off, the female Kandorians changed into their costumes (which are friction-proof) and flew from Kandor in the Fortress of Solitude to the volcano the boys were falling into in time to catch them

Spoiler: But how did they get in the spaceship and start it so fast?

Weirdness:

- Superman apparently takes all of his robots into space for another mission. Why would he need all of them?
- Phantom Girl hands Supergirl a figurine of her before the time-projector sends her back to the future, but for some reason the figurine remains in the past
- Again, the Atlanteans are referred to as "Atlantides" here
- The Red Kryptonite has the effect of causing anyone that Supergirl kisses for a period of time to develop temporary Kryptonian powers
- A Supergirl fan club in Kandor forms a "Supergirl Emergency Squad", of female Kandorians at miniature size to help in emergencies

Superdickery:

- Supergirl kisses and dates both Jerro and Dick Malverne and basically says that she doesn't want to settle down with either of them

Power Tracker:

- High Herald Level, same as usual.

 

[Endless Mike]

Action Comics #291

Overall Notes:

- There's an ad in this issue for an upcoming issue of Adventure Comics, mentioning that it would feature the debut of Gold Kryptonite

Superman Story

Notes:

- The opening narration states that "The only thing the Man of Steel has to fear in the entire universe is the ghastly green substance which was flung into space when the planet Krypton exploded!" Even ignoring his other weaknesses, what about Red Kryptonite?

Feat Catalogue:

- Flies 1000 miles out to sea and searches the ocean floor to locate a Green Kryptonite meteor that he knew fell in the region the previous year
- It's mentioned that Superman once defeated a "flame dragon" from Krypton by throwing it into the past
- Travels back to the present from the past
- Says he is going to build a better space capsule for the military (better than the one that can travel through time...)

Spoiler: Another instance of temporal BFR

Feat Catalogue (non-Superman):

- Lex Luthor designed special guns meant to fire Kryptonite bullets (of course they need Kryptonite to make the ammunition first)

Weirdness:

- A scientist experimenting with Green Kryptonite somehow created Red Kryptonite without realizing it, and its properties were transferred to three mundane objects (one made of diamond, one of gold, and one of silver and aluminum), which caused Superman's Kryptonite weakness to temporarily shift to each of those substances instead. Yeah, I don't get it either.
- An experimental military space capsule apparently has the ability to accelerate faster than light and travel back through time.

Spoiler: Uh... blame DC Earth's super-science, I guess

Superdickery:

- Lois once again tosses a piece of Green Kryptonite at Clark, despite suspecting that he's Superman and it would kill him
- Superman breaks into a criminal's apartment and trashes the place searching for evidence, even ripping a safe out of the wall and taking its contents. There was no mention of any warrant.

Power Tracker:

- Still High Herald Level.

Supergirl Story

Notes:

- I'm going by the DC wiki in saying that the Zor-El and Allura featured in this story were magical constructs and not the originals. It wasn't stated in the comic itself but was probably established later via a retcon or something.

Feat Catalogue:

- Digs a large tunnel underground that a plane can follow her into and out of safely without crashing
- Uses super breath to gently lower a pilotless plane safely to the ground
- Before the giant bees can hurt anyone (and they were very close), she gathers a lot of flowers and squeezes the nectar out of them into an empty water tower to distract the bees
- Apparently, once Mxy is banished back to the 5th dimension, not only does his magic wear off (well, most of the time...) but everyone forgets everything that happened when he was there, except for Superman and Supergirl, because of their "super-minds"

Spoiler: I guess this is a TP resistance feat?

Feat Catalogue (non-Supergirl):

- Mr. Mxyzptlk has a "multi-dimensional viewer screen" that he can use to spy on the 3rd dimension from his home in the 5th dimension, including tracking individuals like Supergirl
- Mxy turns the pilots of a military plane into Bizarros
- Turns everyone in NYC and then everyone on Earth into Bizarros
- Easily outmaneuvers Supergirl when she tries to grab him, despite using all of her speed
- At some point he turned everyone back to normal
- Turns some cards with letters on them into snakes
- Makes some bees giant in size
- Is immune to the effects of an alien mind-control helmet
- Creates magical constructs of Supergirl's parents and tricks her into thinking they are the real thing. These constructs also have Kryptonian powers under Earth's yellow sun.
- Materializes a wedding dress on Supergirl

****

- Superman had an alien mind-control helmet in his Fortress of Solitude

****

- Using the laboratory in the Fortress of Solitude, the magical construct of Zor-El (which had the original's mind and memories) created a "Krypton truth serum" that he used to trick Mr. Mxyzptlk

Spoiler: Bizarro-fication

Spoiler: Mxy is wising up

Spoiler: Makes giant bees and no-sells TP

Spoiler: *Cue Ultra Instinct Music*

Weirdness:

- Mxy issue. 'Nuff said. Also, he randomly falls in love with Supergirl and proposes to her (keep in mind she's still 16)

Superdickery:

- When Mxy announces he is going to go pester the inhabitants of Atlantis, Supergirl just lets him without even trying to help, since she wants to spend time with her 'parents'

Power Tracker:

- Nothing really notable for Supergirl here, so she's still High Herald Level.

Action Comics #292

Overall Notes:

- A letter in the letters column in this issue was actually written by a resident of Metropolis, Illinois. Contrary to what was stated in the letters column in issue #289, he says that their population is almost 9000.
- Another letter in the letters column (from a while back, most likely) was printed as being the winner of the contest to name Comet the Super-Horse.
- A response in the letters column said that in issue #289, Superman apparently did lose some of his powers under the orange sun, but could still fly

Notes:

- It's strongly implied (but not outright stated) that Brainiac's forcefield is made out of 'positive ions' in this issue
- Superman apparently has jurisdiction to arrest people throughout the solar system, but no further than that

Feat Catalogue:

- Searches outer space for Lex Luthor and finds him, only a few hours after he landed on a planet outside of the galaxy
- Solves and flies through an alien maze in record time
- Puts together a model of an alien city made of thousands of parts, without knowing what the final product will look like, in "a matter of moments"
- Fixes his destroyed robot and transfers its mind into the remains of a destroyed alien robot, fixing it as well

Spoiler: Solving alien puzzles

Spoiler: Quickly figures out how to modify an advanced alien robot

Feat Catalogue (non-Superman):

- Lex Luthor uses a pinwheel to hypnotize a guard in order to escape prison
- Using a design that he claims Brainiac let him copy, Luthor uses some kind of force ray to temporarily paralyze the cops that are after him
- Destroys one of Superman's robots with a "vibro-gun" (that presumably wouldn't work on the real Superman)
- The statue on top of his lair is actually a rocketship in disguise
- Said rocket is capable of intergalactic flight (I guess that lends credence to the existence of the FTL space capsule from the previous issue). Superman even says that the ship can travel almost as fast as he can.
- Superman says that Luthor's intellect makes him a menace to the entire universe
- Luthor uses his vibro-gun to destroy an alien robot
- Lex also had a copy of Brainiac's forcefield belt and an anti-gravity device

Spoiler: So what was the paper hat for?

Spoiler: What did Luthor give Brainiac in return for this stuff? I doubt he just handed it over out of the goodness of his heart

Spoiler: Some of Luthor's own inventions

Weirdness:

- Superman and Supergirl were both off on a mission in the past, and again they somehow allowed this to be public knowledge
- Luthor's "Hall of Heroes", featuring famous criminals and evildoers from history, reappears, but he says that some day he'll add a statue of himself to it in this issue. However, we saw that he already had done so back in issue #277.
- At one point, instead of actually chuckling, Lex just exclaims "Chuckle!"
- Lex Luthor somehow has a star chart with the names and locations of planets in other galaxies
- Lex doesn't bother resisting arrest from alien authorities, since he figures that there can't be too much of a punishment for destroying a robot. Pretty foolish assumption when dealing with an alien world.
- In order to determine if Luthor deserves a fair trial (with Superman as his attorney), the alien robots put Superman through a series of intelligence tests. Shouldn't they be testing Luthor instead?
- The last, and apparently most difficult, intelligence test was locking him in a cage and asking him to figure the only way out, without using his powers. The answer? The door was unlocked. Yeah, that wouldn't have been expected, but wouldn't that be the first thing that most people would try anyway?
- It's probably not even worth mentioning that the alien robots use Arabic numerals

Superdickery:

- Superman apparently thinks that on a world ruled by robots, which have their own civilization and justice system, a charge of murder for destroying one of them should only be classified as a "minor offense"
- Also, to solve the case and free Luthor, he commits fraud by using an imposter of the murder victim. Luthor wasn't even going to be killed if he was found guilty, just placed in suspended animation.
- Basically trolls Luthor at the end by leaving him on the alien robot planet and laughing about it

Spoiler: It would have been easier to just let the robots freeze him, but I guess Superman wants to troll Luthor again in the future

Power Tracker:

- What's there to say? High Herald Level again.

Supergirl Story

Notes:

- This is not actually the debut of Comet the Super-Horse, although he first meets Supergirl in this issue. He debuted in a Superboy story in Adventure Comics #293
- Supergirl thought to herself that Superman was off in a distant galaxy, although this was in a dream sequence, so it's unknown if he actually was or not at the time
- In another dream sequence, she thought to herself that Superman was in the future. The same concerns apply.

Feat Catalogue:

- Supergirl doesn't do anything here outside of dream sequences

Weirdness:

- Lots of it, but we'll cover that in the next issue that is the continuation of this story, so we know the entire context.

Superdickery:

Power Tracker:

- Nothing to note, so still High Herald Level.

 

[Endless Mike]

Action Comics #293

Superman Story

Notes:

- When experimenting with his powers (having no memories of them) the Red Kryptonite copy of Superman claims that he has "unlimited strength". This obviously shouldn't be taken literally.
- A previous incident where Red Kryptonite had the same effect on Supergirl (separating her into non-powered and powered halves) is referenced here, but I don't recall that happening in any of the Supergirl stories I've covered already. Either it was in another book, they made it up for this story, or maybe my memory is just spotty.
- A response in the letters column in this issue implies that Superman's heat vision is invisible, and often drawn just for the readers' benefit.

Feat Catalogue:

- Flies into space and catches a satellite before it can reach Earth's atmosphere and be damaged by reentry
- The Red K half uses X-ray vision on the Clark Kent half to "see more than the most powerful microscope" and examine the atoms of his body, identifying the Red Kryptonite effects on his body as precisely the same as those caused by a piece of the stuff that had previously affected Supergirl
- He then carves a giant statue of Lois into a mountainside with his bare hands
- Pushes the Earth to increase its rotation rate and shorten the day
- Digs deep into the Earth's crust to mine a large amount of gold and form it into bars
- Creates many diamonds by compressing coal
- Puts the gold and diamonds back underground
- Builds a giant slingshot from a ton of rubber and steel and uses it to launch a bunch of chunks of Green Kryptonite into space
- Using his memories of how the lock on the Fortress of Solitude works, the non-powered Clark half is able to squeeze through it and enter the Fortress without using the key
- After re-merging, slows the Earth's rotation back to normal

Spoiler: They should just be lucky this didn't have realistic consequences...

Spoiler: Didn't quite think this one through, did you?

Spoiler: Disposing of Green Kryptonite with a Looney Tunes gag

Weirdness:

- Red Kryptonite causes Superman to split into two copies - a powerless Clark Kent with all of his memories and a copy Superman without memories. This is explained by saying that it affected him while he was changing out of his costume. Okay...
- The copy tries to dispose of some chunks of Green Kryptonite by building a giant slingshot and using it to shoot them into space. And this actually works.
- The copy miscalculates the amount of time that has passed because speeding up the Earth's rotation shortened the length of the day. This does actually make sense if you presume he was counting the hours by those on the redesigned clocks, but it's also stated that he "made time go faster", which is probably a figure of speech.

Superdickery:

- The splash page shows Superman lifting Clark Kent off the ground and menacing him. The same scene later occurs in the story proper.
- The Superman copy without memories is shown and stated to be proud, vain, and arrogant... and it's implied that this is just his subconscious personality coming to the forefront.
- He then smacks Clark Kent and flies off
- Speeds up the Earth's rotation just for a lark
- Threatens to kill Clark if he doesn't tell him the location of the Fortress of Solitude, and only relents because he worries that killing Clark might cause him to die too
- Sends Supergirl and Krypto into the Phantom Zone so they can't stop him
- Even though the copy is a jerk, Clark's attitude here is pretty bad as well. He insists that he and the copy have to be in close proximity to each other once the Red Kryptonite wears off so they will re-merge, ignoring the fact that the copy has its own mind and personality, so he would effectively be killing it. The copy even says at one point that Clark is threatening to 'steal his individuality'. Clark is also willing to use Green Kryptonite to paralyze and injure the copy so he can reintegrate with him. Dickery all around.

Spoiler: For once he's a victim of his own dickery

Power Tracker:

- The merged and powered halves would both still be High Herald Level. The depowered Clark half would probably be Low Street Level, as climbing through the lock in the freezing North pole was pretty impressive by human standards.

Supergirl Story

Notes:

- This issue explains the origin of Comet the Super-Horse. And it's a doozy.
- In a flashback, we see an evil wizard named Maldor. No relation to Maaldor the Darklord, a DC villain who would not be introduced until 21 years after this comic was published
- There is, perhaps, a clue to the distance to Krypton (or at least Argo city) in this story. Comet was banished "to the constellation of Saggitarius", and Supergirl's rocket passed right by the asteroid he was imprisoned in, so I guess we could say that it was at least as far away as the closest star in that constellation, which, according to my research, is Ross 154, at 9.68 light-years from Earth.

Feat Catalogue:

- Uses heat vision to melt horseshoes into shape around Comet's hooves
- Uses light puffs of super breath to create a smokescreen from a fire
- This is a weird one. She applies lipstick to Comet's hide and then uses heat vision to 'change its molecular structure' so it adheres to him temporarily and looks like a brand
- Supergirl and comet fix damage caused by an alien attack

Spoiler: This is the kind of 'random new power' that Silver Age Kryptonians were stereotypically known for

Feat Catalogue (non-Supergirl):

- Comet was sending Supergirl those dreams from the last issue telepathically, and can also communicate with her telepathically
- He apparently also has "telepathic vision", which seems to work the same way as X-ray/telescopic vision
- After being freed from his prison, he follows Supergirl's rocket to Earth.
- Intercepts a "Kryptonite energy bolt" before it can hit Supergirl. Since it's radiation it should be moving at lightspeed.
- Kicks an alien ship into space
- He also has heat vision

****

- Supergirl's Kryptonian rocket designed by her father Zor-El was equipped with "repeller rays" to shatter any meteors in its path. These rays were somehow able to dispel the magic aura that was keeping Comet trapped.

Spoiler: Talk about horsepower

Weirdness:

- See feat #3.
- Comet's backstory: He was a centaur from ancient Greece named Biron, who fell in love with the sorceress Circe. When she tries to create a potion to turn him completely human, for some reason she also created one that would turn him completely into a horse and is tricked into giving him that one instead. She can't undo it, so instead she creates another potion to give him superpowers (specifically "The Might of Jove, the Speed of Mercury, the wisdom of Athena, and the telepathic powers of Neptune", along with immortality. Another Captain Marvel/Shazam reference?). An evil wizard then uses a magic spell to send him into space and keep him trapped there, until Supergirl's rocket passed by, and its "repeller rays" somehow broke the spell, and he followed her back to Earth, but didn't decide to actually contact her until now, because he somehow knew of an impending alien invasion in advance and wanted to warn her about it.
- Upon seeing Supergirl riding a super-powered horse that is invulnerable to Kryptonite, Superman doesn't even question it. I guess he's used to this kind of stuff by now.

Spoiler: Oh, Silver Age...

Superdickery:

Power Tracker:

- Supergirl herself didn't really do much in this issue, so there's no change from High Herald Level.

 

[Endless Mike]

Action Comics #294

Superman Story

Notes:

- There is a "Galaxy Procyon" mention in this issue. In reality, Procyon is a star in the Milky Way galaxy, although since DC has multiple locations in space named "Vega", for instance, there could also be a galaxy with name of Procyon.
- A response in the letters column in this issue states that, in the Kryptonese language, "Krypton" means Earth

Feat Catalogue:

- Sculpts an accurate statue of Lex Luthor out of still-molten wax with his bare hands
- Uses his telescopic vision to spy on the planet Roxar (which, if you recall, is in a different galaxy) and sees that Luthor has escaped
- Then he uses his telescopic vision to identify Luthor's rocket landing on a planet in another star cluster
- Flies to said planet in the time it takes Luthor and his robot minions to have a short conversation
- Destroys the robot "Diamond Man" and shatters him into a cloud of dust with "a light tap"
- Despite being near death from Kryptonite radiation 3 times more powerful than normal, Superman somehow sends out a "supersonic call" that travels across space at FTL speed (which I guess is technically still supersonic) to the planet Roxar to reach the robot he modified there.
- The robot he modified, which still has the ability of flight, flies from Roxar to Luthor's base planet seemingly in seconds (before the Kryptonite can kill Superman)
- Superman hears a ticking clock from inside an asteroid in space
- Throws the various asteroids containing Luthor's stolen materials at FTL speed back to the planets they belong to

Spoiler: Super senses

Spoiler: Don't even bother asking how this is supposed to work

Spoiler: More super senses

Spoiler: Express delivery

Feat Catalogue (non-Superman):

- Lex Luthor analyzes some metal and creates a "repeller ray" that can chase off a species of giant bugs that prey on the alien robots
- Using a laboratory gifted to him by the robots, Luthor creates a dozen new inventions in a matter of days, including a "heat gun" and a "frost-ray projector", and some kind of helmets that can analyze the brain patterns of androids to determine which are the most intelligent among them
- He also built a "converter machine" that he uses to convert 3 of the androids into super-powered beings: Lead Man, Diamond Man, and Kryptonite Man
- He built a "deactivator beam" which can short-circuit the repeller rays he built and disable them
- Apparently Luthor was able to coordinate a massive wave of space piracy across multiple planets and galaxies
- He also built a "special radar system" that can somehow detect Superman approaching at FTL speeds
- He built a machine that tripled the strength of Green Kryptonite radiation from his Kryptonite Man henchman

Spoiler: Lesson: Don't let Luthor build stuff

Weirdness:

- Superman has a "Hall of Enemies" in his Fortress, with busts and statues of all of his notable foes, including a 'before and after' display of Lex Luthor (see below).
- Apparently Lex Luthor became evil because he lost his hair in an experiment and blamed it on Superman (sort of similar to how Doctor Doom had his face scarred in an experiment and blamed it on Reed).
- The robot that Superman altered to replace the destroyed alien robot in the last issue remembers that it used to be a Superman robot, even though we get a direct flashback of Superman telling it to forget its previous identity
- When Luthor takes up space piracy, he paints a picture of his face instead of a skull with crossbones below it as his insignia.
- A robot that just flew an interstellar distance in seconds is somehow unable to dodge or escape a blast from Lex Luthor's heat gun

Superdickery:

- The androids that Luthor conned into working for him were not so evil, as they objected to his plans and one of them even sacrificed itself to save Superman. But that didn't stop Superman from killing the first one that attacked him with no hesitation.

Power Tracker:

Some very good sensory and speed feats here, and Superman should scale above his robot's flight speed too, but still nothing above High Herald Level.

Supergirl Story

Notes:

- Comet's vision powers are referred to in this issue as telescopic vision, rather than "telepathic vision", the term used in the previous issue

Feat Catalogue:

- Along with Comet, flies "at lightning speed" to rescue a distant falling cable car before it can hit the ground
- Uses heat vision to weld the broken cable back together
- Uses heat vision to melt some metal spearheads before they reach their target
- Uses heat vision and ice breath to cook hot dogs and cool down drinks
- Along with Superman, uses telescopic vision to spy on Comet from halfway across the world
- Uses her bare hands to carve a statue of Comet's original form, the centaur Biron, out of rock at super speed

Feat Catalogue (non-Supergirl):

- Comet uses his super vision to spot a falling cable car from a far distance, and he and Supergirl rush to it "at lightning speed" and catch it before it hits the ground

****

- Along with Supergirl, Superman uses telescopic vision to spy on Comet from halfway across the world, and also identifies the flowers he was eating

Weirdness:

- The intro narration implies that Comet's existence and heroics became known to the public shortly after he met Supergirl. The comic itself seems to bear this out, yet the only public thing they had done so far was repel a single alien invader.
- A movie director specifically requests Supergirl as a scientific advisor for the science fiction movie he's making. Seems kind of a weird choice, because although she is an alien, she's not exactly a scientist.
- The science fiction movie in question involves an Earthlike climate and people living on Venus. Even back when this was published, we knew that wasn't the case. Then again, things in the DC Universe are often different from real life.
- The director actually has actors throwing real, sharpened metal spears at an actress, and is relying on Supergirl to melt them with her heat vision before they hit the target...
- He also somehow got his hands on a piece of real Green Kryptonite to use as a prop in his movie... are we sure this guy is a director and not a supervillain in disguise?
- Comet just happened to find and eat some of the exact same type of lotus flowers that were featured in the Odyssey, that made those who ate them lose their memories. I guess they're magical.

Spoiler: WHY DO YOU HAVE THAT!?

Superdickery:

Power Tracker:

- Nothing much to note here so she's still High Herald Level.

Action Comics #295

Overall Notes:

- There's a PSA promoting UNICEF, featuring Superman, in this issue

Superman Story

Notes:

- In this comic it's said that there are 103 members in the United Nations, although according to Wikipedia there were actually 110 when this comic was published. There are 193 nowadays.
- This is a pretty famous issue for the whole Superdickery meme. See the section below.
- A place called the "Rebo Gorge" in Switzerland is shown. As far as I can tell, this isn't a real place.
- A response in the letters column in this issue says that Lex Luthor had rigged most of his inventions to explode if anyone else touched them, although Superman was somehow able to get around this
- A letter in the letters column actually pointed out the same thing I did, that in issue #292, the alien robots used Arabic numerals. The editors admitted that was a mistake that they had no clever explanation for.
- Another response in the letters column says that Superman builds each of his robots with different activation methods and capabilities, and is constantly upgrading them

Feat Catalogue:

- Smashes a billion-dollar diamond into 103 million pieces
- Flies into space and destroys a satellite
- Pushes the moon out of orbit, messing with the tides and creating disasters all over the world, which also ended up wrecking Atlantis
- Repairs the damage to Atlantis
- Pushes the moon back to its proper orbit
- Punches the head off of one of his Superman robots
- Uses more of the robots as melee weapons and projectiles to destroy various landmarks around the world, including the Eiffel Tower, the Sphinx, and the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
- Pushes two mountains together to seal up a valley
- Uses super ventriloquism to send a message to the Kandorians without the villains realizing
- He has set up various secret codes with his friends by using code words to have them enact specific plans, in this case using fake Kryptonite to trick the villains
- Repairs all the damage he caused while under mind control

Spoiler: Context if you ever saw the first part of these scans before

Feat Catalogue (non-Superman):

- Some alien members of the Superman Revenge Squad (not the same species as the ones in issue #286) have developed a "telepathic signal gun", which they were able to tune in on Superman's brain and manipulate him from orbit
- The device can also transmit telepathic messages to him, as well as read his mind
- They were also somehow capable of disabling the observations devices in Kandor so the Kandorians wouldn't realize what was going on

****

- Apparently during the events of this story, Supergirl is in the future helping the LOSH with a scientific experiment

****

- The Superman Emergency Squad of Kandorians is able to fly out of Kandor, locate the villains' spaceship in orbit, and reach it in seconds.
- They're also easily able to no-sell the explosion from the self-destruct of the villains' ship

Weirdness:

- One of the villains suggests using their mind control ray to just make Superman swallow Green Kryptonite, but the other one rejects it because "death is too good for him". Such a cliche mistake.
- The first time the mind control ray is used on Superman, he remembers what he did but can't explain it. The second and all subsequent times it's used, he doesn't remember what happened at all.

Superdickery:

- The cover of this one was featured on the original Superdickery site, for good reason
- The premise of this one is that Superman is under intermittent mind control that makes him turn evil, causing him to do such things as:
* Smash the globe on top of the Daily Planet building
* Crush a valuable diamond into dust instead of breaking it into 103 pieces to give to each member of the UN like he was supposed to
* Berate Jimmy Olsen, take his signal watch, push around Perry White, destroy all of the Daily Planet's typewriters, and say he'll no longer rescue Lois, Jimmy, Perry, or Lana.
* Destroy a satellite in space that the government wanted him to retrieve for them
* Push the moon out of orbit, messing with the tides and creating disasters all over the world, which also ended up wrecking Atlantis
* Destroy his own robots, and use them as weapons to destroy various famous landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower, the Sphinx, and the Leaning Tower of Pisa

Spoiler: Fuck the UN!

Power Tracker:

- Apparently he has no resistance to the specific method of mind control the villains were using, but that doesn't stop him from still being High Herald Level.

Supergirl Story

Notes:

- Apparently the existence of merpeople in Atlantis, and the fact that Superman was involved with one of them, is public knowledge
- Apparently Lex Luthor was only faking insanity again at the end of the Superman story in issue #294, even though Superman thought he had gone insane for real

Feat Catalogue:

- Stops a bridge from collapsing and uses heat vision to weld and strengthen the steel beams to repair it
- Flies from Midvale to Washington DC in what the narration describes as "a lightning-swift journey"
- Travels back in time to 1948 to investigate her friend Lena's past
- Goes further back in time to continue to investigate Lena and Lex Luthor
- Travels back to the present
- Inhales a room full of tear gas and exhales it harmlessly out the window
- She seems to be somewhat resistant to Lena's telepathy, as Lena is only able to pick up that she's thinking of Linda Danvers, not that she is Linda Danvers. Supergirl worries that Lena's powers are growing stronger and could eventually discover her identity some day.

Spoiler: Time travel has become so routine by now that I question why I'm even posting this scan

Spoiler: Lena can't fully read Supergirl's thoughts

Feat Catalogue (non-Supergirl):

- In the past, a teenage Lex Luthor developed a machine that he used to try to interpret telepathic signals from an alien organism
- Present Luthor builds a radio from bed springs, a piece of natural quartz, a broken hearing aid, and the metal bars of his prison cell window
- Past Luthor built some kind of hovercraft with a canopy made of transparent Green Kryptonite

Spoiler: Okay, maybe try a straightjacket in a padded room?

Spoiler: The petty origin of Luthor's life of crime

Weirdness:

- The science club at Midvale High school is holding a public experiment on ESP. But again, this is the DC universe, so I guess that is actually real science over there.
- The FBI is referred to as the Federal Bureau of Intelligence in this issue, when it should be Federal Bureau of Investigation. I checked and it never went by the former name in real life.
- This isn't her first appearance overall, but it's the first appearance in this title of Lena Thorul, who is actually Lex Luthor's younger sister. Her family oh-so-creatively changed their name to escape Lex's bad reputation. Despite knowing that her name used to be Luthor, and that she had an older brother named Lex, somehow Lena never connects him to the infamous criminal mastermind who is on the news all the time...
- An alien "space-brain" with telepathic powers randomly fell to Earth near Smallville. Young Lena touched it, triggering some kind of feedback that destroyed it and gave her telepathic powers.
- Lex Luthor's gang has their own radio show where they broadcast news regarding crime and criminal enterprises. I'm guessing there's some technobabble reason for why the police or anyone else can't tap into the frequency, but it's still weird

Superdickery:

Power Tracker:

- Still High Herald Level

 

[Endless Mike]

Action Comics #296

Notes:

- The cover of this issue was also featured on Superdickery, mainly just for how bizarre it is.
- It's stated in this issue that exposure to certain types of Red Kryptonite can render a Kryptonian temporarily immune to the green variety as a side effect, in addition to the primary effect of the red stuff. I don't know if this was ever established before.
- Unlike many of the previous issues, the scene on the cover doesn't actually happen in the comic. In fact, it's a complete misrepresentation of the story.

Feat Catalogue:

- Uses super breath to blow a giant cloud of poisonous gas into space
- Flies into space, towards the location of a cloud of Red Kryptonite he previously knew about, and concentrates on making his head look like an ant's head, which causes the Red K to induce that transformation, then returns to Earth.

Spoiler: Blows a cloud of poison gas into space

Weirdness:

- Let me just quote the plot summary on the DC Wiki:

A colony of giant ants, mutated by a nuclear war on another planet, comes to Earth with a warning, and Superman uses Red Kryptonite radiation to give himself an ant's head in order to communicate with them.

- We see planets in space where 'human' civilizations were devastated by nuclear wars, leading to plants or even rock creatures becoming the dominant species.
- Somehow the ants could communicate with some other species in space, but not humans, but they also knew of Superman's existence, and they deliberately kidnapped Lois Lane because they knew she was involved with him, and figured that would cause him to figure out how to communicate with them... or something
- The ants' spaceship was powered by liquid Kryptonite. That doesn't seem like a very reliable fuel source...

Spoiler: I'll just let this speak for itself

Superdickery:

- The cover and splash page both imply that Superman has turned against humanity and is helping the ants invade Earth (even though he actually wasn't)
- After Lois is captured by the giant ants, Superman thinks to himself that he could save her, but decides to just see where they take her instead

Power Tracker:

- Aside from being immune to Green Kryptonite and being able to communicate with ants, ant-head Superman seems to be the same as the normal version, both still being High Herald Level.

Supergirl Story

Notes:

- Wonder Woman is actually mentioned in the intro to this one. I believe that might be her very first mention in this title so far.
- The FBI is correctly referred to as the Federal Bureau of Investigation in this issue, as opposed to the last one

Feat Catalogue:

- Uses super breath to slow a bus so it doesn't hit a guy, without anyone noticing
- Is immune to knockout gas
- Changes to Supergirl at lightning speed and stops some jewel thieves, then changes back to her civilian identity before anyone can notice
- Uses telescopic X-ray vision and super hearing to spy on Dick Malverne and Lena Thorul when they start dating
- Uses super breath to save a pilot falling from a crashing plane when his parachute won't open

Feat Catalogue (non-Supergirl):

- Lex Luthor invented a process to harness the energy from a thunderstorm to turn coal into diamonds.

Spoiler: You could have just gotten rich this way without doing anything illegal, you know...

Weirdness:

- Linda dresses in a stereotypical Native American costume as "Pocahontas" for a costume ball. Somehow I don't think that would fly today...

Superdickery:

- See feat #4. The narration even admits it's out of jealousy.
- She also imagines telling Dick that Lena is Lex Luthor's sister, with a rather evil grin on her face while revealing this information

Power Tracker:

- Nothing too relevant here, so she's still High Herald Level.

 

[Endless Mike]

Action Comics #297

Superman Story

Notes:

- A "Crime Syndicate" is mentioned in this issue, but seems to be just a regular criminal organization. The evil alternate universe counterpart to the Justice League wouldn't debut until the following year.
- This story features a character named "Rand Sterling", who is a science fiction writer for TV. He is likely a parody of Rod Serling.

Feat Catalogue:

- In a documentary film, we see Superman batting a "creature from the Marix Galaxy". He likely defeated it.
- We see on a newspaper cover that he also saved a sinking aircraft carrier
- Superman set up a Rube Goldberg - esque device in his apartment to trigger a pre-recorded phone call to deflect suspicion in case anyone stumbled upon the secret closet where he keeps his robots
- Uses super breath to levitate a museum statue of Julius Caesar, uses heat vision to "irradiate the atoms on the statue's outer metallic surface" to make them glow, and uses super ventriloquism to speak through it, making it seem as if it's a ghost. This triggers Perry to say his catchphrase, "Great Caesar's Ghost", which somehow restores his memory...
- Removes his civilian clothes to change into his costume at super speed, so fast Perry doesn't see it happen

Spoiler: Wouldn't it be easier to just put a lock on the closet?

Spoiler: Another weird application of heat vision

Weirdness:

- The splash page gives some physical characteristics of Superman, including his eye and hair color, his height, and... his chest and waist measurements. Really.
- Perry White goes undercover as a hobo to try to catch a criminal, but gets exposed, beaten, and then just left there. When he comes to, he has 'Hollywood amnesia', having forgotten his identity but nothing else, and randomly runs into another criminal who convinces him that he's a washed-up reporter named Paul Webster, and that he should help the criminal underworld uncover Superman's secret identity. He actually succeeds, but then snaps out of his amnesia and forgets everything from after he first lost his memories.
- Apparently there is an underworld organization called the C.B.I. (Criminal Bureau of Information) that has a professional-looking headquarters building, and they plan to publish their own newspaper.
- Odd dialogue: "Dirk got Perry White out of here just in time! If he ever saw himself on the screen he might snap right out of his amnesia and queer the whole deal!"

Spoiler: In case you ever wanted to know...

Superdickery:

- Exposes Perry White to radiation in order to snap him out of his amnesia and make him forget Superman's secret identity

Power Tracker:

- We have a new HV power - using it to make metal atoms temporarily glow with radioactivity, but that doesn't change his status from High Herald Level.

Supergirl Story

Notes:

- Lesla-Lar uses something called an "Anti-Monitor Bomb" in this issue. It has no relation to the COIE villain, who wouldn't be created for many more years.
- Lesla-Lar attributes her powers outside of Kandor to "Earth's gravity conditions", not mentioning the yellow sun this time.
- First appearance of General Zod in this title, although not his first appearance overall
- First appearance of the (oh-so-creatively named) Kryptonian criminal Kru-El (get it?)
- Lesla-Lar dies (at least physically) in this issue

Feat Catalogue:

- Creates a giant iron scoop from the steel of several sunken ships, and uses it to dig up the plateau under Atlantis, causing it to sink back into the ocean after it was raised to the surface by an earthquake
- Uses super ventriloquism to send a message to Lex Luthor in his prison cell that only he can hear, from across the world
- Continues to carry on a two-way conversation with him via this method, while also using her super vision to observe him

Spoiler: Saving Atlantis by sinking it again

Spoiler: You do realize that your sister is part of the human race you were willing to let die just a second ago, right?

Feat Catalogue (non-Supergirl):

- Lesla-Lar escaped from jail in Kandor by "short-circuiting the energy bars of her cell"
- She also had a secret backup laboratory since her main one was destroyed
- She has a "thought control machine" which can project a ray through the Kandorian observation devices to control people on the outside, in this case Lena Thorul
- Uses the teleport ray she used before to teleport Lena into Kandor and shrink her to Kandorian size, then takes her place, then uses the same brain-washing helmet she used on Supergirl before to hypnotize Lena into thinking she's Lesla-Lar
- Uses an "Anti-Monitor Bomb" to shut off all of Kandor's communications and sensors, and make it so that they can't escape or contact Superman or Supergirl until they can repair the damage, which will take weeks
- Uses parts from an ordinary, 1960s TV set to build a "trans-dimensional lens" that can open a portal to the Phantom Zone (albeit temporarily)

****

- Superman and his robots (not sure if they mean all of them) are on a mission in the past

****

- General Zod once created a duplicator ray and tried to take over Krypton with clones of himself
- Kru-El developed an "arsenal of super-powerful forbidden weapons"
- Kru-El uses his telescopic X-ray vision to locate his hidden cache of Kryptonian weapons that Superboy hid under the ocean years ago and retrieves them. (Since the weapons are from Krypton, they can affect empowered Kryptonians)
- One of the weapons creates a "super force-field" that isolates Earth from the time barrier, so no one can travel from or to the past or future.
- Another one was a disintegrator gun that can "vaporize anything into nothingness". They're unsure if it will work on an empowered Kryptonian though, so they test it on Lesla-Lar and it works, killing her. A side effect from the gun destroys a mountain, creates an earthquake, and raises Atlantis from the ocean
- One weapon is a ray that infects Supergirl with a "plant scourge", that causes any animal that gets close to her to transform into a plant (what?)
- Another is a time machine that can send the entire Earth a million years back in time (see the following issue for more details on this)
- "Transmutation rays" are also mentioned, but we don't see them

Spoiler: Lesla-Lar up to her old tricks again

Spoiler: Lesla's "Anti-Monitor Bomb" (no relation)

Spoiler: *Hums Macgyver Theme*

Spoiler: Another Phantom Zone jailbreak. Also, Mon-El is useless once again.

Spoiler: The time-exclusion forcefield

Spoiler: Ironic fate for Lesla-Lar

Spoiler: Kryptonian viruses can do some funky stuff

Weirdness:

- A Kandorian guard refers to Lesla-Lar as "the girl science criminal".
- Supergirl, Lesla-Lar, and Lena Thorul all look so similar that they can fool people into thinking they're each other just by wearing different outfits
- Mon-El says "Superman put me in the zone when he was a boy until he could find a cure to my invulnerability to lead!" I think you meant vulnerability, not invulnerability.
- The "plant scourge" weapon
- Lex Luthor is more than happy to let the Phantom Zone criminals destroy the Earth and the human race just to spite Superman and Supergirl, but he suddenly has a change of heart when he hears that his sister Lena has been imprisoned in Kandor

Superdickery:

Power Tracker:

- Nothing too notable, the best and most interesting feats here are the ones from the Kryptonian weapons (I wonder why Superman didn't keep them in the Fortress of Solitude in case he ever needed to use them? They could be useful...). So Supergirl's still High Herald Level.

Action Comics #298

Superman Story

Notes:

- Apparently Superman can't blush, due to his invulnerable skin
- A response in the letters column says that the FBI mistake in issue #295 was intentional, as they didn't have permission to use the real FBI. Yet they used the correct meaning of the acronym in the following issue. Seems like a poor attempt to cover for their mistake.

Feat Catalogue:

- Seemingly no more than seconds after using his signal watch, Jimmy Olsen is surprised that Superman isn't there, saying that "he always answers instantly" (he didn't answer this time because he was there with Jimmy already as Clark Kent)
- Uses super breath to propel the hot-air balloon they're on up and over a mountain
- Uses heat vision invisibly to chase off a metal bird (see weirdness section)
- Uses X-ray vision to see a glacier about to crash into his Fortress of Solitude, and uses his heat vision to drill through the Earth and melt it from another part of the world
- Sees Lana Lang and her father in danger with X-ray vision, changes to his costume "at lightning speed", tunnels through the Earth to the desert where the two of them are, and releases water from an underground spring for them, then flies back before he's missed
- Wipes red flower pollen off his face at super speed so no one sees it happening
- Uses super breath to deflect an explosive boomerang to the same desert Lana and her father were in, where it damages a cliffside and reveals a dinosaur fossil that they were looking for, and he somehow arranged for it to do this without damaging the fossil
- Changes to Superman "at lightning speed" again
- Eats a bomb and it explodes inside his stomach harmlessly
- Flies off, captures the ones who planted the bomb, and returns "an instant later"
- Freezes some water into shards of ice that he polishes to look exactly like shattered glass fragments of eyeglasses
- Throws a disarmed explosive boomerang so fast that it looks like Superman flying through the sky, and uses super ventriloquism to project his voice from it

Spoiler: Nice HV feat

Spoiler: How did they know it was him?

Spoiler: Internal durability and speed

Weirdness:

- A hot-air balloon in this story uses hydrogen. After the Hindenburg disaster in 1937, hydrogen was pretty much never used again for lighter-than-air craft.
- The hot-air balloon is attacked by a metallic bird. No, not an airplane shaped like a bird, or a robot bird, but a living bird made of metal, that eats metal.
- Upon being captured by men with guns from an unknown civilization, all Lois can think of is how handsome they are
- Lois, Clark, and Jimmy find themselves blown off course into an unknown hidden civilization called "Mistri-Lor", with Mesoamerican - style architecture, tame tigers, ray guns, explosive boomerangs, and populated by blonde white people. Also they don't have glass.
- On the splash page, the explosive boomerang weapons are called "blast-rangs", but in the actual comic, they're called "power-rangs"

Superdickery:

- Agrees to marry the queen of Mistri-Lor, then tricks her into cancelling the marriage. In the process he made Lois jealous and made the queen cry, which he then laughs and winks about.
- In order to protect his secret identity, forces Lois and Jimmy to fly the hot air balloon back to Metropolis and refuses to help them as Superman

Power Tracker:

- Some pretty good feats in this issue, but nothing to put him above High Herald Level.