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Action Comics #399 Superman Story Notes: Feat Catalogue: Superman flies into an "experimental solar power generator" where he is hit with force that he describes as "like fighting the power of 1000 atom bombs". He's unharmed by it, but is soon drawn through time and dimensions by another force. Uses x-ray vision to see through a 24th century "refractive force shield" that supposedly stops anyone inside it from seeing outwards Fires x-ray vision through the force shield to disable its control mechanism, weakening the forcefield and allowing him to break out without hurting the others around him Flies in split seconds from a building somewhere in future America (implied, at least) to the ice under Greenland. Smashes the ice to reveal a lost civilization underground After returning to the past, flies the solar furnace into space where its energy is dispersed harmlessly, then returns to Earth, unharmed Uses microscopic vision to determine that a medallion from the future is made...

Action Comics #397 Superman Story Notes: - Continuation of the Imaginary Story from the previous issue Feat Catalogue: - Again, this is a non-canon Imaginary Story, so no relevant feats Weirdness: - In the unimaginably distant future of the 1990s, we again see such things as: 'hover-cabs' various other hovering vehicles, including motorcycles and buses (the latter of which look like giant glass tubes) an 'automated welder' that instantly fixes damaged buildings 'cryogenic rays' that can freeze flood waters before they inundate a town a 'self-decontaminating chemical' that transforms atmospheric pollution into gemstones that rain from the sky a chemical spray of 'instant fertilizer' that makes plants grow to full size in seconds helicopters that deploy 'walls of fireproof foam' to stop fires from spreading Superdickery: After losing most of his powers and going broke, he refuses to apply for welfare or ask any of his friends for help, due to his own ego. After a doctor...

Action Comics #395 Notes: - There's an ad in this issue for Jack Kirby's then - upcoming New Gods and Forever People series. Awesome. Feat Catalogue: We see a flashback of how Superman first built his Fortress of Solitude in the Arctic We see a tour/layout of the Fortress, including the alien zoo, "security weapons", space communications room, robot storage room, Kandor, "secret identity vaults", super-weapon armory, "super-lab and workshop", super-computer (I thought he had more than one of those), trophy room, Krypton memorial room, and "friendship galleries" (with sections dedicated to Jimmy Olsen, Lois Lane, Perry White, Lana Lang, and Clark Kent) Using Kryptonian technology, he can apparently create "memory tapes" to record his memories and let him replay them with perfect fidelity (but I thought he already had a perfect photographic memory?) While heading back to Earth from a mission in deep space, he made a detour to a remote jungle planet because he spotted a wrecked...

Action Comics #393 Superman Story Notes: This story featured the "Star of Asia", supposedly the world's largest diamond. There actually is a "Star of Asia" in real life, but it's a sapphire, not a diamond. The actual largest gem-quality diamond in the world is the Cullinan Diamond. At the end of this story, there is a narration bubble simply saying "Kirby is Coming". I'm not exactly sure, but this may have been an announcement that Jack Kirby was returning to work for DC, as that happened around this time, shortly before he created the New Gods. Don't get your hopes up for seeing Darkseid in this thread any time soon, though. Feat Catalogue: Uses super hearing to detect a "supersonic signal beam" from a stopwatch in a stuntman's outfit, then uses X-ray vision to figure out how the escape mechanism works, in the split second before he uses it Uses heat vision to weld a suit of armor shut around him, then uses it again to get out, all without making it look like the armor was...

Action Comics #391 Superman Story Notes: Another one of those "imaginary stories", later retconned to take place on a parallel world. First part of a multi-part story I think this cover was also featured on Superdickery. We see a "Hall of Ancestors" in the Fortress of Solitude, showing some of Superman's ancestors, although it's unknown if these are canon for the Earth-1 version. A response in the letters column says that Superman didn't continue to age as he traveled forward through time after he stopped using the defective time bubble in issue #385. Feat Catalogue: - As this is an imaginary/alternate universe story, the feats here aren't canon and don't really apply to the Earth-1 versions of the characters Weirdness: The premise of this story is that Batman and Superman both have teenage sons. We see the mother of Superman's son, but she isn't named, and doesn't even have her face shown. Batman and Superman live in two large homes connected to each other at the midway...

Action Comics #389 Superman Story Notes: The opening narration says "Everyone knows that Superman is the strongest, fastest, most superbly conditioned being on all the Earth!" The Flash and several others would probably have something to say about that... Apparently Metropolis has a baseball team known as the Majestics A group called the Intergalactic Police, or "Galactopol" for short, are mentioned in this story This issue also features a few pages showing Superman's rogues gallery, including several villains we haven't seen for a while like the Toyman, the Puzzler, and the Prankster Feat Catalogue: Zooms into a stadium during baseball practice and catches a ball shortly after it was thrown When trying to hit a baseball with a bat, he swings it so fast that the ball makes a hole through the bat (very questionable physics here) Using a bronze bat, hits a baseball so fast into the sky that it catches on fire from air friction Outmaneuvers and defeats a professional British...

Action Comics #388 Notes: This issue was made to be as intentionally weird as possible (see Weirdness section) We see "the latest Apollo mission" landing on the moon, but it's not made clear which one it is. Going by the publication date of the comic, it was probably meant to be either Apollo 12, or the then-upcoming Apollo 14. A response in the letters column says that the iceberg near Metropolis in issue #384 was created by the Flash villain Captain Cold. This is probably just a joke, though. Feat Catalogue: Blitzes the duplicate Mxy, moving him so fast he doesn't realize what is happening He was off visiting another galaxy, which is why he wasn't on Earth when it was duplicated Creates and polishes a giant mirror (not stated what materials he used, though) Creates a duplicate of the duplicator ray and uses it to return Earth to the proper dimension, sending the duplicate Earth back to that other dimension. Weirdness: Some scientist created a weird duplicate Earth...

Action Comics #387 Superman Story Notes: Continuation and conclusion of the story from the previous issues I had seen scans of some of the feats from this issue in respect threads before, but I had always assumed, due to lack of context, that they were from some alternate future timeline (due to the aged Superman) and thus not canon. However, if you've been following the story of the last few issues, you'll see that this is indeed the same Superman we've been following, and even though this timeline is eventually undone at the end of the issue (maybe, it's kind of unclear), these feats are still applicable to him. Back in issue #300, Superman also traveled to Earth a million years in the future, but there was still some life there, as opposed to this issue where it's entirely dead. I guess that was a different future timeline, which does make sense since time travel and reality warping is constantly shifting these things around. A response in the letters column clarifies that...

Action Comics #385 Superman Story Notes: Part 1 of a multi-part story The intro text says "Superman is the most powerful being on Earth"... even at this point, that is definitely arguable We get another appearance of the POTUS, although his face isn't shown (it would have been Richard Nixon at this point) First appearance of the Time Trapper in this title, who is normally a Legion of Super Heroes villain (and an extremely powerful one, at that) A future treasury holds an equivalent of 50 trillion dollars in 1970 US currency. That would be almost 400 trillion dollars today. Feat Catalogue: An alarm system on the Fortress of Solitude actually works for once, as it goes off to send an ultrasonic signal to alert Superman when an energy beam starts cutting through the door Uses microscopic vision to determine that a robot hand is made of a metal alloy that hasn't been discovered in the current time He is also able to determine that the letters carved by the energy beam on the...

Action Comics #383 Superman Story Notes: - First part of a multi-part story Feat Catalogue: Uses a combo of heat vision and ice breath to disintegrate a falling satellite and freeze and preserve its data recorder simultaneusly Scans every square inch of an area in Metropolis to find a pickpocket (he only fails because the guy was disintegrated) Notices a guy's heartbeat increase out of nervousness with super hearing Uses X-ray vision to quickly scan all the documents in a file cabinet, looking for criminal evidence (but doesn't find any) Is hit by a "death-touch" that knocks him back but doesn't hurt him due to his invulnerability. The same ability was previously shown to make a desk fade away into nonexistence. Weirdness: - Ready for another crazy premise? An alien criminal is being transported through space on a prison ship, piloted by a single alien cop. The ship accidentally flies into the tail of a radioactive comet, and the radiation is so lethal that it...

Action Comics #381 Superman Story Notes: Another cover that was featured on Superdickery, for obvious reasons Continuation of the story from the last issue Red Kryptonite radiation can't penetrate lead, either. I don't recall if that was established before, although it probably was. Feat Catalogue: Shreds all of the flags at the United Nations building, then uses two flagpoles as knitting needles to weave their remnants at super speed into a giant Superman flag, and uses heat vision to melt all the flagpoles together into a giant flagpole to fly it Tricks the villains by incorporating an electronic satellite monitoring device into the giant flagpole to spy on them (after taking the device from the Fortress so fast the villains couldn't see him do so) Flies from the UN to the Fortress of Solitude and gets there before the villains can escape in their spaceship Throws the villains (in their ship) back into space Weirdness: The villains randomly decide to describe the...

Action Comics #379 Superman Story Notes: This story implies that Superman's invulnerability would have made him immune to a magic curse, but as the "curse" turned out to be fake, this can't be taken at face value One character declares Clark Kent to be "America's most prominent news personality" in this story For some reason, the Superman story in this issue is separated into two parts, in the same issue Feat Catalogue: Stops liquid oxygen leaking from a truck by squeezing the damaged valve shut Attempts to perform CPR on a guy but fails because he's already dead, but at least it shows that he knows how to do so Superman's form couldn't be copied by some alien shapeshifters No-sells a "death-blast" from an alien that could project himself as any form of energy. Not really quantifiable since it's unknown what type of energy a "death-blast" is, and he thought Superman was one of the other shapeshifting aliens in disguise so he was using what would be considered sufficient...

Action Comics #377 Superman Story Notes: Continued from the story in the previous issue The narration says that only lead can stop Kryptonite rays. I think we saw other things stop it before as well, like Brainiac 5's forcefield, though... Feat Catalogue: The narration on the splash page claims that "only one substance... Kryptonite" can kill Superman. Obviously there are other things that can, though... so don't take this 100% literally. The narration on the first page again says that Green Kryptonite is "the only substance in the universe that can destroy Superman". While dying from Green K poisoning, Superman manages to use the last of his remaining strength to propel himself out of the ring of Green K dust and grab on to a space capsule, then ride it back down to Earth as it re-enters the atmosphere (being far enough away from the Kryptonite dust now so his powers return, at least to an extent) We get a recap of some of his feats from the last issue (resisting the...

Action Comics #375 Superman Story Overall Notes: - There's a one - page feature in this issue recapping the history of the somewhat obscure character Sargon the Sorcerer. Interestingly, it directly names the Golden Age of comics, showing that such a distinction was a thing even back then in the Silver Age. Notes: Continuation and conclusion of the story arc where he lost the memory of his Clark Kent identity Clark Kent's address is shown in this issue to be "E-76-125 APT. 51" (as close as I can tell, it's kind of hard to make out) Batman is one of the few people who knows the precise location of the Fortress of Solitude A response in the letters column has a reader point out the same error that I did in issue #369, regarding Mount Chimborazo Feat Catalogue: Looks over all of the photo files at the Missing Persons Bureau at super speed to see that none of them look like him A memory deep in his subconscious causes him to dress just like he did as Clark Kent, despite...

Action Comics #373 Notes: - This is a special giant-sized issue reprinting several Supergirl - focused stories. As everything in this issue consists of reprints of previous issues of Action Comics that I've already covered, there are no scans this time. Action Comics #374 Overall Notes: A response in the letters column states that Superman works out in the Fortress of Solitude with "special devices designed to tax even his muscles" It's also stated that the reason so many pieces of Kryptonite reached Earth is because there is a "space-warp" connecting the former location of Krypton and that of Earth that they traveled through Superman Story Notes: Continuation of the storyline from issue #372, where Superman has still lost the memory of his Clark Kent identity It's implied in this issue that Superman is right-handed, although I also recall him being ambidextrous. It could be the latter and he just decided to use his right hand at the time. Feat Catalogue: According...

Action Comics #371 Overall Notes: - A response in the letters column says that Green Lantern couldn't have used his ring to cure the Kryptonian Virus-X, because it was Kryptonian in nature, and thus invulnerable like Superman. This would seem to imply that Superman and other Kryptonians are invulnerable to the powers of a GL ring, although a lot of these answers in the letters columns are not held to and often contradicted later. Superman Story Notes: This is the first part of a multi-part story. At the end of the issue, Superman still can't remember his civilian identity and is still trying to discover it. The US President plays an important role in this story. The comic is dated January 1969 - right after an election year, but as I'm not sure when it was actually released to the public, I'm unsure if the president was meant to be Lyndon B. Johnson or Richard Nixon. I'd probably guess Johnson. Although the editor's notes say that they are not going to portray the...

Action Comics #369 Overall Notes: There's a special feature in this issue where Bill Finger, one of the creators of Batman, reveals where he got the name "Bruce Wayne" from - a combination of Mad Anthony Wayne and Robert Bruce. Robin's name, Dick Grayson, came from a writer named Charles Grayson, and the name of a character from some old adventure books. Alan Scott was originally going to be named "Alan Ladd" (a play on Aladdin), but the editors didn't like that, so he got the name Scott from seeing a volume of the works of Sir Walter Scott. Another feature covers the phenomena of early Comicons, which were just becoming popular at the time A response in the letters column says that Superman was wrong about believing that he had only around 12 hours to live in issue #363, as he survived for longer while under the effects of Virus-X Superman Story Notes: Continuation of the story from the previous issue We see a place called "Fire Crater", which is (or was, rather) a...

Action Comics #367 Superman Story Notes: - Apparently, for the past 3 years, the Metropolis Police Department has been giving out a "Superman Award" each year to the person who has helped Superman the most, who they vote on - Superman says here that if the ice covering Antarctica melted, the sea level would rise 600 feet, flooding half of the world. However, in real life, if all of the polar ice and glaciers in the Arctic, the Antarctic, and Greenland melted, the sea level would rise only some 230 feet. Feat Catalogue: - Uses telescopic X-ray vision to see that painters are still working on his apartment from across town - In an instant before a swarm of meteors hits Antarctica (with enough force to melt all of the ice on the continent), he slices a glacier off of the land, shapes it into a giant bucket, and uses it to scoop up millions of tons of seawater to throw at the meteors to stop them, repeating this process around 100 times before they hit the ground - He claims to...

Action Comics #365 Superman Story Notes: - Continuation of the storyline from the previous issue - We see cameos from the JLA here, including Batman, Robin, Green Lantern, Flash, Green Arrow, Wonder Woman, and Hawkman and Martian Manhunter (I don't believe the latter two have appeared or even been mentioned in the title before this) - It's stated in a note in this issue that White and Gold Kryptonite originated the same way as Red Kryptonite, from Green Kryptonite passing through "weird cosmic clouds" - In the brief recap we get of Superman's origin here, it appears the part about him living in an orphanage before the Kents adopted him has been retconned away - We also see that he first encountered Green Kryptonite in Smallville as Superboy - It's also stated that his foster parents died of a mysterious fever that he couldn't cure with his powers (not sure if that is ever elaborated on elsewhere) - It's stated in this story that Kandor has a population in the millions - The star...

Action Comics #363 Superman Story Notes: - Continuation of the story from the previous issue - According to the DC Wiki, a Kryptonian "Virus X" originally appeared in Superboy #106 as a hoax, but apparently it was based on a real disease from Krypton. - We see a flashback to Krypton centuries before Superman was born. The narration states that the Kryptonians didn't have space travel at that point, but still had those super telescopes to monitor other planets. They also knew about Earth at this point. - In this issue, we see "Luna City", a "moon-base mockup NASA built to train astronauts for the coming moon landings". I checked just in case this was a real thing, and it wasn't. Feat Catalogue: - Still under the hypnosis from the last issue (including his self-hypnosis), his subconscious mind still rebels against the desire to kill - Somehow the shock from being infected with the virus restores Superman's memories and removes the effects of the hypnosis - Despite killing Earth...