Pre-Crisis Superman Overview

[Endless Mike]

Backup from here: https://www.fanverse.org/threads/pre-crisis-superman-overview-action-comics.1256800/

I recently acquired digital copies of every issue of Action Comics from its debut in 1938 to Crisis on Infinite Earths, in 1985. So the Golden, Silver, and Bronze ages.

This won't be a comprehensive respect thread like my Fantastic Four and Avengers* threads, instead it will be in a different format:

- I'll go through each issue and simply take notes in text form regarding feats, events, trivia, etc.
- I will be posting scans, but only for the really crazy feats or important milestones/events. So the total scan density will be much less than my other threads, and many issues probably won't have any scans.
- I'll try to cover multiple issues per post

If I have the time, I might eventually add other titles in the same era, like the Superman, Supergirl, and Superboy titles, World's Finest, Justice League, and various other spinoffs.

My major goals with this thread are:

1. Using what I call the Power Tracker, I'll be keeping a record of how Superman's power varied over the years, keeping track of notable powerups (and powerdowns) and basically seeing how he moved throughout the different tiers over the years. Since we're starting in the Golden Age, expect a fair amount of time before he gets all that powerful.

2. Looking for unknown feats. Pre-Crisis feats, especially Silver Age, are known to be crazy, and I've heard about tons of them that I have never seen scans of. I don't know if anyone has attempted to go through so many comics in this era before, so I'll hopefully find a lot of stuff that you've never seen/heard about before.

3. Contextualizing well-known feats. How many times have you seen that panel of Superman sneezing away a solar system, or pulling a chain of planets? If/when I find those, you'll finally know how and why he was doing all that stuff, and what was really going on (including mitigating factors that might make the feats more or less impressive in context).

4. Exploring the wackiness of old comics. Many Silver Age DC stories are known to be the equivalent of LSD trips put to paper. If you've ever seen Superdickery, you know that the covers alone can be ridiculous. Here I'll actually explain these things in context (if there is a context... a lot of times there's really not), as well as point out other craziness you may have never seen before.

Obviously this will take a very long time and I may not ever finish, but I plan to at least accomplish something here.

*Which I have completed for now, and may repost here at some point

 

[Endless Mike]

Action Comics #1 (June, 1938)

Notes:

- The first issue, and the most valuable (and probably famous) comic book of all time.
- This was actually an anthology comic, featuring the debuts of many characters. The version I have only has the Superman story, and not the others, which is a shame since I would have liked to see the debut of Zatara (now mainly known as Zatanna's father), too
- This initial version of Superman's story has many differences from what you might be familiar with. Such differences include:

* Krypton (which is not named here) was said to be destroyed by 'old age', rather than an unstable, exploding core
* Instead of landing on the Kent farm, Superman's rocket lands near a road, and he is found by a passing motorist and given to an orphanage, where he grows up.
* The whole red/yellow sun thing hadn't been established yet, so the explanation given for his strength was that his (as of yet unnamed) race was millions of years more evolved than humans, which gave them these powers. It then compares them to the relative super strength of insects for to their size (forgetting the square-cube law which would make such strength impractical for larger creatures, but we're not here to grade scientific accuracy)
* Clark does work as a reporter at a newspaper, known as the Daily Star instead of the Daily Planet

Feat Catalogue:

- As a baby, Clark lifts a chair (looks like a red Chesterfield chair) single-handed

The following feats are all performed after he reaches adulthood:

- He can leap 1/8th of a mile and over the top of a 20-story building
- He lifts a steel girder at a construction site single-handed
- He can run faster than an express train (not sure how fast those trains were back in 1938, but whatever)
- The narration states that nothing less than "a bursting shell" could penetrate his skin
- He jumps rather high over a house
- Busts down the house's front door
- Picks up a man and carries him up a flight of stairs one-handed
- Rips a steel door off its hinges and bends it
- Takes a bullet from a revolver with no damage (it looks like it hit his neck, but it's hard to tell)
- Easily restrains a man and throws him against a wall with one hand
- A knife breaks on his skin when someone tries to stab him
- Jumps over a car right before it would have hit him, and then outruns it on foot. The car was going at maximum speed, although it was a 1938 car. Not really sure how fast those could go.
- Lifts the car with one hand, shakes out its occupants, then uses two hands to smash the car against a rock (the iconic cover scene)
- Captures a criminal and hangs him by his pants on top of a telephone pole, in a few seconds
- Makes more of his super jumps, this time while carrying Lois
- Climbs the outside of a skyscraper in order to listen in on a conversation occurring on a high floor
- Picks up a man by his foot and jumps onto a telephone wire
- Makes more long jumps, carrying the same man

Weirdness:

- There is actually a 'ticking clock' countdown timer that only appears in two panels (counting down the time before an innocent woman is executed).
- Points for the scene on the cover actually occurring in the comic, which is rare nowadays
- In the Golden Age, nearly every superhero was the no-nonsense, Ruthless Justice type, and as you'll see in the Superdickery section, Superman was no exception

Superdickery:

- The first act we see of Superman consists of him breaking and entering a governor's house in order to show him a signed confession of a criminal. Yeah, an innocent person was going to be executed, but he was still awfully destructive and a bit trollish about it.
- Casual sexism: "You're not fighting a woman, now!" - Got to love old comics
- In order to conceal his secret identity, he lets a bully push Lois around and make unwelcome advances on her without doing anything about it
- After having placed the aforementioned criminal on the telephone pole (see the feat catalogue), he taunts him by threatening to cut him loose and let him fall
- At one point, Superman threatens, roughs up, and interrogates a man who he had no real proof had done anything wrong. He turned out to be guilty in the end, but still. His interrogation techniques also consist of terrifying the guy by bringing him close to death multiple times, only to avoid it each time at the last instant.

Power Tracker:

At this point, I'd categorize him as Low Meta Level. Spider-Man could probably beat him.

Action Comics #2

Notes:

- As this was still an anthology comic, Superman isn't on the cover, instead there is a scene from one of the other stories in the book.
- This issue picks up at the exact moment the last one left off
- At one point, two people briefly see Superman jump over them and mistake him for a bird. Maybe the earliest version of one of his famous taglines.

Feat Catalogue:

- Falls 80 stories to the sidewalk while carrying a man, causing the sidewalk to break as he lands. Somehow the guy he was carrying is unharmed, too.
- Jumps to the top of the Washington Monument
- Is shot at close range by 3 guards with Tommy guns and is unharmed
- Bends the barrels of the Tommy guns and wraps them around the guards' necks, then throws them out the window
- Falls off the deck of a large ship and into the water, then catches up with the ship by swimming after it. He then continues to outspeed it, leaving it behind and reaching its destination (another country) first.
- Runs for miles at a speed "almost faster than the eye can follow"
- Jumps in front of bullets before they hit Lois (although there's no indication he actually outsped the bullets rather than just getting in the way a split second before they were fired)
- Picks up and throws a man one-handed at least several meters
- Jumps at a fighter plane in the sky (a 1938 propeller plane, mind you). It's unclear if he would have actually hit it, because the pilot turns in mid-air to try to crash into him for some reason.
- The plane collides with him in mid-air, and the propeller breaks on his skin.
- The plane crashes and he survives unharmed, the narration saying he appears "next instant" right next to a man who was watching
- Kidnaps the generals of two opposing armies from their tents without anyone being able to stop him

Weirdness:

- Strange turn of phrase in the first line of the comic: "As they topple like a plummet to the street below"
- Despite working for the Daily Star, Clark sends a story in to The Evening News in Cleveland, Ohio

Superdickery:

- It's only the second issue, and we already see him outright murder 3 people (or at least severely injure them) by throwing them out a second-story window with bent guns wrapped around their necks. These people were referred to as 'armed guards' earlier, so it's possible that they didn't even know that their employer (a rich businessman) was a criminal.
- Directly threatens to crush a man's neck
- In the very next panel, he threatens the same guy again, this time saying that he'll tear out his heart
- Threatens the same man again, this time forcing him to join a foreign army currently fighting a war, then disguises himself as a soldier and forces the man into a war zone.
- Seems to kill someone else, by picking him up and throwing him like a javelin. The guy was a foreign military officer torturing captured prisoners, but still.
- Threatens the man from before into giving up his business of manufacturing weapons altogether, after he was caught illegally selling weapons to fuel a foreign war.
- Kidnaps the generals of two opposing armies and orders them to fight each other to the death, threatening to kill them himself if they don't. He lets them live when they agree to peace.

Power Tracker:

- A few new feats, but essentially the same as before. Low Meta Level.

Action Comics #3

Notes:

- Again, Superman is absent from the cover
- Elsa Maxwell is referenced in this issue. I had to look up who she was (you did too, admit it).

Feat Catalogue:

- Runs across the country "at a terrific pace that not even the fastest auto or airplane could duplicate". As of 1938, the air speed record was 610.95 km/h, less than half the speed of sound.
- Unharmed after falling down a mineshaft, the narration stating that the fall would have killed a normal man
- Unaffected by poison gas (due to his "physical structure", according to the narration)
- Easily tears apart a wall of coal caused by a cave-in in a mine
- Climbs an elevator cable very quickly (someone watching comments that he's "like a streak of lighting", but that's pretty obvious hyperbole)
- Destroys a wooden support in the mine, causing another cave-in
- Tears down the fallen wood and rock caused by the second cave-in, opening a path to the surface

Weirdness:

- At one point, the narration notes that Superman peers through a window and "discovers a gay party in progress". Not that kind of gay, obviously. I know it's immature to chuckle at this kind of stuff, but I can't help myself sometimes.
- A corrupt mine-owner is throwing a party, and after Superman, disguised as a miner, crashes it, the guy spontaneously gets the idea to continue the party in the mine itself, which was earlier shown to be very unsafe. What?
- For the second time, Superman disguises himself as someone else. The art back in these days was not very distinctive though, so it's actually hard to tell that it's supposed to be him sometimes when he does this.

Superdickery:

- Superman deliberately causes a mine to collapse while people were in it. He was trying to teach them a lesson, but could have easily ended up killing them by mistake.
- He forces the people he trapped in the mine (a group of wealthy socialites) to try to dig their way out until they collapse of exhaustion. The man hosting the party was corrupt and evil, but there's no indication any of the guests had done anything wrong.

Power Tracker:

- A nice sustained traveling speed feat, but the verdict remains the same. Low Meta Level.

Action Comics #4

Notes:

- Another non-Superman cover
- At one point, Superman picks the wrong locker to open since he is unfamiliar with them. This shows that he did not yet have X-ray vision, another one of his trademark powers.

Feat Catalogue:

- Superman makes a jump from what looks to be a downtown metropolitan area with skyscrapers to a train track in the countryside with no other buildings around. Quite probably more than his previously stated range of 1/8th of a mile.
- Outruns a train and rescues someone from a car on the tracks before the collision. Notable is that Superman implied that he would have been killed had the train hit them.
- No-sells punches from a pro football player and sends him crashing against a wall, knocking him out, with a light tap from one hand.
- Is tackled by an entire football team but keeps running down the field, dragging them behind him
- Chases a car to its destination without being seen
- While playing football, scores two touchdowns in the space of a few seconds
- A knife breaks against his skin again

Weirdness:

Superdickery:

- Superman disguises himself as a specific football player, then ambushes the guy and knocks him out with a hypodermic needle in order to take his place. The drug he used also keeps the guy paralyzed for multiple days after Superman takes him back to his home. This was all to foil a crime by the other team's coach, so the player in question was completely innocent.
- The same player is later kidnapped by the criminals, taken to a hideout, and bound and gagged. Superman follows them and decides to just let them keep him, since apparently they're not going to hurt him and he'll remain out of his way for the time being. Wow.
- After doing so well in the football game, Superman switches clothes with the actual football player (who escaped from the criminals and returned to the game) halfway through and lets him finish the game - where he is immediately tackled by the entire opposing team, who are desperate to stop him.


Power Tracker:

- Still Low Meta Level - it's implied that being in a car while a train collides with it could kill him in this issue.

 

[Endless Mike]

Action Comics #5

Notes:

- Another non-Superman cover
- This is the first issue where we actually see that Clark is wearing his costume underneath his regular clothes, although he returns home to take them off.
- Lois kisses Superman for the first time in this issue. This also marks the point where she falls in love with him, not knowing that he's really Clark Kent.

Feat Catalogue:

- Narration refers to Superman as "The strongest man on Earth". There wasn't nearly as much competition for that title back then as there would be later.
- Uses his super jumps to catch up with a train long after it left, and beat it to its destination.
- Narration says that he moves at the speed of light, but at this point in his career, this is almost certainly a hyperbole. Still, this will be the first scan of this thread, as it's notable as a claim, at least.
- Braces a collapsing bridge long enough for a train to pass over it, then he lets it go and it collapses.
- Tries to hold a crumbling dam together, although he says he can only keep it up for so long, and indeed the dam eventually breaks. At this point he had no heat vision to melt the cracks closed, or ice breath to freeze the water, so there wasn't all that much he could do.
- Notably, Superman fails to save Lois before the flood from the burst dam reaches her car, but it somewhat makes sense since he was in the middle of descending from a leap at the time, so his speed was limited by how fast gravity could make him fall.
- Dives into the floodwaters, breaks open the car, and rescues Lois
- Outraces the floodwaters while carrying Lois
- Pushes over what the narration refers to as a mountain peak in order to divert the flood. He seems to struggle a bit, but this is his best strength feat so far.

Spoiler: Not really the speed of light

Spoiler: Breaks and pushes over a mountain

Weirdness:

- Lois refers to Superman as "A real He-Man" - wrong superhero, lol.

Superdickery:

- After Lois lies to Clark to trick him into missing a train so she can get a scoop on a big story before him, he considers it completely fair to use his superpowers to beat her there and cover the story first

Power Tracker:

- As I said, the lightspeed thing is almost certainly hyperbole, but the mountain feat is, I think, good enough to push him up to Mid Meta Level.

Action Comics #6

Notes:

- Another non-Superman cover.
- The art seems to have improved in this issue, being more sharp and detailed. The DC wiki notes that Paul Lauretta is credited as an inker starting with this issue, where previously Joe Shuster did both the pencils and inks.
- The plot of this issue involves someone trying to trademark Superman's name and using it to sell things like gasoline, cars, exercise equipment, and a radio program based on him. The real-life Adventures of Superman radio serial wouldn't start until 1940 (it ran until 1951). A movie deal was also mentioned.
- This is the first issue featuring another "Superman", although in this case it's just an imposter dressing as him to try to get fame and money

Feat Catalogue:

- The narration in the beginning gives a recap of Superman's powers, but notably it says he can leap over a 10 - story building, not a 20 - story building like in the first issue. I wouldn't consider this an actual depowerment though, just the writers being inconsistent. It also says he can leap 1/8th of a mile, although his feats so far suggest he might have gone beyond that. New are the statements that he can "lift tremendous weights and crush steel in his bare hands".
- Accidentally crushes an ashtray in his hand
- Is unaffected by a knockout drug, although he pretends to fall asleep
- Saves Lois from being thrown out a window of a tall building
- Rips open an elevator door and pulls the elevator up by the cable
- An imposter breaks his hand when trying to punch Superman

Weirdness:

- There is an odd exercise suggested at the end of the issue for how the reader can 'acquire super strength'. It seems very dubious to me.

Superdickery:

- Lois is the guilty one this time, as she drugs Clark in order to stop him from covering a story that she wanted to cover instead

Power Tracker:

- Nothing really changed, so I'll keep him at Mid Meta Level.

Action Comics #7

Notes:

- Apparently Superman has now become popular enough to be the star of the title, as he is prominently featured on the cover and it is stated in large print that he appears in this and every issue

Feat Catalogue:

- The opening narration claims that Superman possesses the strength "of a dozen Samsons". DC had yet to introduce their version of Samson, though.
- Said narration also claims he can race a bullet, and possesses "a skin impenetrable to even steel"
- He is shown lifting what appears to be a small locomotive on the first page, although this has no bearing on the story whatsoever
- Grabs a gun out of a man's hand, at a speed the narration describes as "faster than the eye can follow"
- Crushes said gun in one hand
- Lifts a circus truck one handed
- Breaks of a wheel of the truck and ruins part of it with a punch
- Kicks the truck high into the air
- Falls of a trapeze (likely deliberately) and lands unharmed
- Juggles a large iron barbell and a weightlifter
- Lifts an elephant (a fairly small one, though) with one hand
- Subdues a lion and returns it to its cage
- Holds a broken tent pole in place (for a large circus tent) while it is repaired
- Runs so fast that, according to the narration, "he appears to be a blurred streak of motion"
- Says bullets are as harmless to him as peas as he tanks them

Weirdness:

- The plot of this issue involves Superman joining a circus, just to save it from going bankrupt. Apparently he had nothing better to do at the time.

Superdickery:

- When trying out for the circus strongman act, Superman apparently thinks breaking the circus equipment is a perfectly okay way to demonstrate his strength
- He also interrogates a guy merely on suspicion by throwing him up in the air and threatening not to catch him. The guy was guilty, but he just did this on a hunch.
- Gets revenge on a minor office prankster by taking off his outer clothes at super speed, ripping them apart, and leaving him in his shorts and t-shirt in front of the whole office.

Power Tracker:

- Still Mid Meta Level - no real change

Action Comics #8

Notes:

- Another non-Superman cover.
- This issue is dated January 1939, so we've moved past the first year at this point.

Feat Catalogue:

- The opening narration says that Superman can race "at a speed hitherto unwitnessed by mortal eyes". Since light can be seen by mortal eyes, you could call this his first FTL showing, but that would be an enormous stretch. A much more reasonable interpretation is just that he can move faster than any vehicle on Earth at the time (as we already knew he could run faster than the fastest airplane in a previous issue).
- First appearance of Superman's super hearing (here referred to as merely "sensitive ears"), as he overhears a conversation from across a courtroom.
- Tears an old rotary phone off the wall with one hand
- Jumps away so fast that a pair of cops can't see where he went. It was at night, to be fair.
- Outruns a police wagon, picks it up, and easily holds its rear wheels off the ground with one hand
- Literally races against a rifle bullet, outrunning it and getting in front of it before it hits its intended victim. First unquestionable bullet-timing feat.
- Throws a man far off shore into a river
- Someone tries to hit him on the back of the head with a metal wrench, but it bends and he is unharmed
- The narration notes that Superman's balance is miraculous as he does backflips on top of telephone wires while carrying 4 teenagers
- Completely levels multiple city blocks of housing. While doing this, he claims he hasn't had such a fine workout in a long time, indicating it took some effort. At one point he has trouble trying to pull down a large building, which is inconsistent with his prior mountain feat, but what are you gonna do?
- Shrugs off machinegun fire while still wrecking buildings
- Jumps a distance of several city blocks in one leap

Spoiler: First appearance of super hearing

Spoiler: Faster than a speeding bullet

Weirdness:

- At one point, the narration refers to Superman as "The Iron Man" - again, wrong superhero
- There's another "acquiring super strength" exercise at the end - this time to train your eyes to see better. Not sure what that has to do with strength. Interestingly enough, Superman himself had yet to demonstrate super sight yet.

Superdickery:

- Superman interferes with the police multiple times in this issue, releasing several prisoners so he can deal with them his own way
- Reforms some teenage thugs by his usual method of performing dangerous stunts and threatening them with death
- Superman has the bright idea to demolish an entire neighborhood of slums, because the government will replace it with quality apartments. He sent 4 teenagers to warn everyone to evacuate first, but it's not likely that they all did, and even so, he left a lot of people homeless and unable to afford the new housing.

Power Tracker:

- Still Mid Meta Level, although if more lower-end showings appear the mountain feat might be reclassified as an outlier, in which case I'd have to take him down a level.

 

[Endless Mike]

Action Comics #9.

Notes:

- Another non-Superman cover, although there is a text box on the cover reading "In this issue: Another thrilling adventure of Superman!"
- A bounty of $5,000.00 is put on Superman's head in this issue. Using the inflation calculator, in 1939 that would be worth more than $100,000.00 today.

Feat Catalogue:

- The opening narration mentions him running faster than a bullet and rending steel with his bare hands
- Similar to the locomotive in issue #7, here Superman is shown lifting and smashing a tank, but this has nothing to do with the actual story
- Jumps downwards off a skyscraper and saves a man who was trying to commit suicide by jumping from another building across the street
- Two people trying to capture Superman jump at him at the same time, and manage to knock themselves out by colliding with him

Weirdness:

Superdickery:

- In a nice and previously unprecedented act of continuity, Superman is actually being held responsible for his actions of demolishing the slums last issue, and is now a wanted criminal.
- Clark admits to Lois that he had been watching her 'when she thought she was alone'. Super-stalker vibes.

Power Tracker:

- Nothing notable in this issue, so the Mid-Meta Level classification remains.

Action Comics #10.

Notes:

- The cover depicts Superman smashing an airplane. No airplanes appear anywhere in the actual story, though.

Feat Catalogue:

- The opening narration states that Superman's skin is "impenetrable", but obviously this isn't meant to be taken absolutely literally. His durability at this point was still rather limited.
- Endures being held in the stocks for an hour at a prison without any discomfort.
- Uses a sledgehammer to smash a bunch of rocks in 5 minutes, when given a time limit of half an hour
- Smashes a pile of rocks twice as big, also in 5 minutes
- Runs from one town to another, changes his outfit, grabs a camera, and is running back all within the scope of a few minutes
- Walks into quicksand and pulls a sinking man out

Weirdness:

- In order to infiltrate a corrupt prison, Superman takes on a fake identity and allows himself to be judged and sentenced. Somehow the government doesn't notice that this person they're arresting doesn't have any records or actually exist in any way, and at the end of the story, the fact that he disappeared is never mentioned.
- The villain of this issue, Superintendent Wyman, is probably the most evil one yet in this book. He's a corrupt prison warden who tortures his prisoners to death and takes sadistic glee in it. Because of this, I'm not labeling anything that Superman did to him as Superdickery this time.
- Apparently the whole thing about the bounty and being a wanted criminal from the last issue is completely forgotten by now.

Superdickery:

- In order to keep up his meek Clark Kent persona, he betrays a man who he had previously promised to keep safe. The guy was an escaped criminal, but he was also a victim of torture at a corrupt prison. It was part of a plan to catch the corrupt superintendent, but said plan also involved allowing the recaptured man and many others to be tortured even more.
- A dog (referred to as a bloodhound, although it looks nothing like one) from the prison is chasing an escaping convict. When Superman rescues the guy from quicksand, the dog leaps at him and falls in the quicksand behind him, and he just lets it suffocate without a second thought.
- Breaks into the governor's house in the middle of the night (that's the second time he's done this) and kidnaps him, taking him to the prison to show him the abuse going on (despite the fact that he had taken photos and could have just waited and shown them to him later).

Power Tracker:

- No Change. Still Mid Meta Level.

Action Comics #11.

Notes:

- Another non-Superman cover
- First appearance of Superman's X-ray Vision, here referred to as "X-Ray Eyesight". No explanation is given for why he never had this power before.

Feat Catalogue:

- Races past a train while going to another town, in what the narration describes as a speed that would "outdistance the fastest streamline limited". Being faster than a train is getting pretty old by now, though.
- Assembles a drill at an oil well with his bare hands
- Uses X-ray vision to see through a roof while on top of a building, and super hearing to hear the conversation occurring inside
- Smashes a car
- Is unharmed (but pretends to be) by two gunshots, one at point-blank range
- Jumps from the curb into a moving taxi
- Busts through a brick wall, Kool-Aid Man style
- Demolishes an oil well and derrick with no visible effort

Spoiler: First ever use of X-ray vision

Weirdness:

- Despite now having X-Ray vision, he still doesn't have heat vision. When he has to ignite an oil well, he uses a flaming torch.

Superdickery:

- Ambushes and knocks out a night guard on an oil well, just to get inside
- Breaks and enters the houses of two criminals, also vandalizing one of them by smashing through the wall. He then kidnaps them and runs while carrying them in their pajamas through the freezing night
- Vandalizes and destroys an oil well, after tricking two criminals by selling it to them for a million dollars, so they can't make a profit off it

Power Tracker:

- Still Mid Meta Level. Destroying the oil derrick with no effort was fairly impressive, but still below the mountain feat.

Action Comics #12.

Notes:

- Superman appears in an inset on the cover, but the primary focus of the cover is Zatara
- At this point, I'm not listing every single feat, as the ones that are relatively unimpressive or redundant compared to what we've already seen don't really need to be mentioned
- The end of this issue had a promo for Batman's first appearance, which would come soon in Detective Comics #27. So technically, this was the first time that Batman appeared in the panels of a comic book.

Spoiler: I'm sure this "Batman" character will never catch on...

Feat Catalogue:

- The opening narration again repeats the "speed hitherto unwitnessed by mortal eyes" claim
- Superman is shown ripping down a suspension bridge (for no apparent reason).
- Breaks through another brick wall
- Smashes a bunch of cars in a lot
- Wrecks more cars at a used car dealership
- (Seemingly randomly) smashes various cars all over the city
- Picks up a car and runs while carrying it, jumping over other cars, then jumps high into the air while carrying it and lands on a bridge.
- He is taken by surprise and hit by a speeding car, which knocks him down, but he is uninjured
- Outruns and jumps into a car
- Destroys the equipment in an auto manufacturing plant, then demolishes the building
- Breaks through a newly-built brick wall
- His super hearing lets him overhear a crooked cop taking a bribe while he's high up in the air
- Creates a new road by smashing a path through a small hill, creating an alternate route instead of the dangerous curve that went around it

Weirdness:

- World War I is referred to as "The World War" (as WWII would not start for another few months). Kind of odd, because I remember hearing that, pre - WWII, it was mostly referred to as "The Great War".
- After being struck by a hit-and-run driver, Superman pretends to be his own ghost, claiming to have been killed in the accident, in order to scare the drivers

Superdickery:

- Like the locomotive and tank in previous issues, here Superman is shown performing a feat of strength on the first page that has nothing to do with the story. However, while there could be many legitimate reasons for him to lift a locomotive or smash a tank, here he is destroying a suspension bridge near a large city, which is far less justifiable.
- Breaks a window to get into a radio station, smashes down a door, and forcefully takes over the broadcast, threatening to murder a worker if he cuts off the transmission. He declares war on all reckless drivers, then smashes his way out of the radio station. Perhaps he should consider taking on the crimes of vandalism and reckless destruction of property next...
- Wrecks a bunch of cars in an impound lot, that were confiscated from traffic violators. These people might have done nothing worse than run a single red light.
- He then repeats his performance at a used car dealership, claiming the old cars were unsafe and dangerous
- Wrecks many private cars for no directly explained reason
- Breaks into an auto plant and wrecks the place, because the cars they make are low quality and more prone to accidents. He doesn't even warn the employees to evacuate first, although it seems they all got out safely.
- Breaks the wall of the radio station again, just as it was repaired, then hijacks the broadcast again - just to remind people that he's serious
- Breaks into the mayor's car, hijacks it, and drives it at top speed to scare him.
- A little karma - after doing all of this crap and getting the mayor to make sure stricter traffic laws are enforced, Clark Kent gets a ticket for parking in the wrong spot.

Power Tracker:

- With the bridge thing, he's accumulating more of these Mid Meta Level feats.

 

[Endless Mike]

Action Comics #13.

Notes:

- First appearance of the Ultra-Humanite, the first supervillain that Superman ever fought. He appears here as a crippled bald man, and wouldn't gain his signature gorilla body until much later.
- With this issue, we'll introduce a new category to the thread: the Feat Catalogue for characters other than Superman himself.
- According to the DC wiki, Superman actually appeared in another comic since the previous issue of Action, New York World's Fair Comics #1. Not sure if I'll eventually cover that.
- This is also the first time Superman is defeated (unless it also happened in New York World's Fair Comics #1), although the defeat is temporary

Spoiler: Superman's first real supervillain, a bald mad scientist... no, not that one

Feat Catalogue:

- The cover shows Superman stopping a train with one hand. However, covers are generally not considered canon unless the scene on the cover actually occurs in the comic itself.
- He is shown lifting a truck one-handed in the intro page, although this has nothing to do with the story.
- The narration states that Superman moves his hand faster than the eye can follow to grab and smash a gun before its user can fire it
- Another knife breaks against his skin
- Holds a car stationary with one hand, preventing it from moving
- Lifts a car and destroys it, while tanking bullets
- Picks up and throws a car a short distance with one hand
- Smashes more cars and breaks through another brick wall
- While knocked unconscious, the Ultra-Humanite tries to kill Superman with a buzzsaw, but the saw shatters when it touches him
- Survives a building burning down around him, although after escaping, he says that was almost the end of him
- Jumps faster than the Ultra-Humanite's custom airplane, despite them trying to escape at top speed. He intercepts it and smashes it, then survives the fall unharmed.

Feat Catalogue (non-Superman):

- Ultra-Humanite invents a cigarette that releases smoke that acts as a deadly poison gas. Somehow the smoker himself is immune to it.
- Ultra-Humanite claims that a scientific experiment gave him "the most agile and learned brain on Earth"
- Ultra-Humanite knocks out Superman with an electric charge, stated to be enough to kill 500 men
- Ultra-Humanite invented a high-tech airplane

Weirdness:

- Despite Superman having made quite a name for himself at this point, it seems that average people still don't know who he is, for the most part
- One panel has Superman throwing a car, which looks very similar to the cover of Whiz Comics #2, which featured the debut of Captain Marvel (Shazam). This issue came out a year earlier, though. Was the famous cover perhaps inspired by this panel?

Spoiler: Captain Marvel ripped off Superman in more ways than one?

Superdickery:

- While jumping while carrying a criminal, the man tries to knife Superman. It doesn't work, but distracts him enough that he misses his jump and lets go of the guy, letting him fall to his death. Superman isn't remorseful about it at all, saying he got what he deserved.
- Threatens to murder another criminal if he won't destroy his own taxicabs
- Smashes through the roof of a building he admits he was only guessing was a criminal hideout (he was right, but...)

Power Tracker:

- Despite showing more vulnerabilities than before in this issue, it's not enough to bump him down from Mid Meta Level.

Action Comics #14.

Notes:

- Superman again appears on an inset in the cover, but the cover most prominently features Zatara again
- This is the first time that Superman's costume features a more distinctive S-shield emblem

Feat Catalogue:

- The opening narration states that Superman 'races faster than a bullet'
- Outraces a subway train while carrying a man
- After accidentally knocking over a streetcar, the narration describes Superman as "whirling with lightning-like speed" (again, almost certainly hyperbole) to catch and push it back upright before it falls.
- Flexes his muscles and breaks out of a block of solid crystal that the Ultra-Humanite used to trap him

Feat Catalogue (non-Superman):

- The Ultra-Humanite creates a device that makes a car invisible
- The Ultra-Humanite escaped the plane crash last issue with a parachute, and somehow Superman didn't see him
- Ultra-Humanite creates a trap for Superman that entombs him in some sort of quick-hardening liquid crystal
- Ultra-Humanite escapes from Superman via a trap door he prepared. Even after Superman rips up the floor, he can't find him

Weirdness:

Superdickery:

Power Tracker:

- Still Mid Meta Level

Action Comics #15.

Notes:

- Superman still has the million dollars he made from selling the oil company stock in issue #11, although in this issue he donates it, along with another million he found from a buried treasure, to a housing development for troubled youth
- There are two brief promos at the end: One for the Sandman (Wesley Dodds version) stories in Adventure Comics, and another for the Batman stories in Detective Comics

Feat Catalogue:

- Is shot from close range and is, of course, unharmed, but the interesting thing is that the bullet doesn't seem to damage his suit either (his normal work suit, not his costume). Could just be an artist error, though.
- Lifts a fallen tree off a guy
- Breaks out of a submarine diving bell on the ocean floor, without oxygen
- The narration states that he can hold his breath for hours underwater
- While underwater, he jumps out of the way of a shark in what the narration describes as a "lightning-speed leap" (yeah, this is a very common hyperbole)
- Fights off a pack of sharks underwater
- Tears through a large outcropping of coral to break into a sunken ship, which treasure hunters had previously failed to enter
- Immobilizes a rather large submarine with one hand while underwater (although since he wasn't himself anchored to anything, this feat is rather puzzling)
- Tears off the submarine's propeller
- Carries the submarine across the ocean floor, then throws it upwards to the surface, causing it to quickly breach. This was described as taking "all his might", but it's probably his most impressive strength feat since the mountain one.
- Yet another knife breaks on his skin. I'll probably avoid mentioning this every time it happens now.

Spoiler: A fairly impressive feat for this version of Superman

Weirdness:

- Superman again pretends to be a ghost, this time of an old Spanish sailor, to scare people

Superdickery:

- When attacked by a group of sharks, Superman kills several of them, despite it being directly stated that they can't hurt him
- Breaks through and destroys a large amount of coral to get to a sunken shipwreck (although this was a bit more excusable in 1939, when coral wasn't dying everywhere due to global warming)

Power Tracker:

- Yet another issue that gives him feats that solidify him at Mid Meta Level

Action Comics #16

Notes:

- Another non-Superman cover, although he does appear in an inset on the top-left of the cover
- I really wish the versions I had came with the other stories, especially the Zatara ones. At this point, Superman is mostly dealing with small-time crooks, gangsters, and corruption, while the Zatara story for this issue is titled "The Terror from Saturn", which I'd much rather be reading about. It's funny though, if you compare Superman and Zatara at this point in their careers, the latter is probably much more powerful, too.
- The city where Clark lives, and where the Daily Star is headquartered, is identified as Metropolis for the first time in this issue
- A lot of people still don't recognize Superman, but some of them are beginning to, as he becomes more famous in-universe

Feat Catalogue:

- Superman is shown demolishing a house by pushing it over on the first page. This has no relation to the story.
- We get our second lightspeed hyperbole: "Fast as light, Superman streaks forward". Again, highly doubtful.
- Grabs a gun out of a man's hand so fast he can't react
- Rips open a steel safe
- As a gangster is diving for his desk (his hand looks less than a foot from it), which has a concealed gun, Superman races across from the other side of the room and smashes the desk before the gangster can touch it
- Narration describes Superman as "a streak of light" as he races in front of a guy. Not technically a lightspeed claim, but still probably a hyperbole. He does create a gust of wind as he runs past, though. He does this another time to prevent the guy from escaping.
- Spends several hours demolishing all of the gambling centers in the city

Spoiler: Fast as light? Probably not

Spoiler: Speed and agility, but not lightspeed

Weirdness:

- When talking a thief out of committing suicide, Superman just assumes that he has a wife and family, and turns out to be correct.
- Apparently a gambling operation was rigged so that the house would always win - not just a majority of the time - 100% of the time. Somehow no one found this suspicious.

Superdickery:

- Superman listens in on a private conversation in someone's home, and later follows the guy to make sure he doesn't gamble
- Threatens to murder a man if he doesn't stop gambling
- Threatens another gambling organizer by punching holes through a wall, then threatening to do the same to his head
- Demolishes all of Metropolis' gambling establishments. They were illegal, but it's still property destruction, and he could have hurt or killed somebody.
- Threatens to kill another gambling kingpin. The narration even describes him as "terrorized by Superman"
- Threatens to murder all of the gamblers if they don't leave the city

Power Tracker:

- Hyperboles notwithstanding, he remains at Mid Meta Level.

 

[Endless Mike]

Action Comics #17.

Notes:

- Superman is shown lifting a WWI - era tank and tanking machinegun fire on the cover, but that has nothing to do with the story and, as I mentioned before, covers like this aren't generally considered canon. That's why this is in the notes section instead of the feat catalogue.
- This issue is dated January 1940, so we've now left the 30s behind.

Feat Catalogue:

- Dives off a cliff into the ocean and swims against the prevailing winds and waters of a powerful storm to reach an endangered ship. Said storm had previously capsized a Coast Guard boat that tried to reach the ship.
- Using a water hose, he puts out a fire on the ship by running right into it, the narration noting his "amazing resistance to flame and pain"
- Jumps in the water again and pushes the ship (it's a rather large cruise ship) through the waves, close enough to land for the Coast Guard to reach.
- Easily catches up with a car going at top speed, then picks it up and jumps with it, carrying it onto a rooftop.
- Follows another car without being seen, by "leaping high among the clouds"
- Breaks through Ultra-Humanite's "unbreakable metal" barrier, although the narration says he uses all his might to do so

Feat Catalogue (non-Superman):

- Ultra-Humanite created a device that can make telephone calls that can't be traced, and don't even register on the phone company's lines. It's also wireless.
- Ultra-Humanite invents a type of acid he can fire from a gun which he claims can hurt Superman (this is never tested, though)
- Ultra-Humanite creates an invisible, transparent barrier which he claims is made of an "unbreakable metal". It stops Superman temporarily.
- Ultra-Humanite creates a realistic hologram of himself to fool Superman

Weirdness:

- The Ultra-Humanite is extorting a ship line by threatening to sabotage their ships if they don't give him money. The fact that he could make a lot more money, a lot more easily, by just patenting his inventions, apparently never occurred to him.

Superdickery:

- Investigating an office on a hunch, Superman picks a guy up and throws him out of the way when he is denied admittance. It later turned out that no one at that office had done anything wrong.

Power Tracker:

- Some new feats to solidify him at Mid Meta Level.

Action Comics #18.

Notes:

- Another non-Superman cover, and the last one until issue #602 in 1988 (which is after the Crisis, so I don't even plan to go that far)
- At this point, it seems more people have heard of Superman in-universe, but many consider him to just be a myth

Feat Catalogue:

- Superman uses X-Ray vision and super hearing to spy on a conversation behind a brick wall.
- Rips open a steel safe, the narration saying he did it as easily as if it was constructed of paper
- Catches an arrow fired at him from nearly point-blank range
- Fires the same arrow from a bow and accurately hits and destroys a lightbulb on a sign across the street
- Stops a truck with one hand
- Outraces another truck, picks it up, and throws it
- Smashes a series of printing presses

Weirdness:

- The word "queer" is used to mean weird or strange, as was often the case in those days.
- When Superman uses his X-Ray vision to see through a wall, it actually appears as red beams shooting out of his eyes, which appear to melt the wall. The narration even says that "the wall seems to waver and melt". But no, it's not heat vision, it's just a visual effect to represent seeing through the wall.

Spoiler: Not actually heat vision

Superdickery:

- Vandalizes a sign just to prove a point
- Destroys the headquarters of a newspaper, ruining the business. The head of the paper and at least some of the employees were involving in kidnapping and blackmail, but he also cost a lot of people their jobs, even though there's no indication that any of them did anything wrong

Power Tracker:

- Still Mid Meta Level.

Action Comics #19.

Notes:

- The Ultra-Humanite appears to die in this issue, yet again. Of course, if you know anything about comics, you know he'll be back.
- Superman has no compunctions about killing the Ultra-Humanite's henchmen, even exclaiming "good riddance!"

Feat Catalogue:

- Superman is shown to be immune to the Ultra-Humanite's "purple plague", which kills everyone else it comes in contact with. This is stated to be due to his "super-resistance to disease"
- The narration describes Superman running as "a veritable streak of light". Not really a lightspeed claim.
- Somehow dives off a cliff and catches a falling man before he hits the bottom, even though the man fell before him. As he can't fly and has to rely on gravity to pull him downwards at this point, your guess is as good as mine as to how he caught up with the guy in mid-air.
- Runs up the side of a steep cliff while carrying a man
- Resists Ultra-Humanite's attempt to hypnotize him

Feat Catalogue (non-Superman):

- Ultra-Humanite creates a deadly "purple plague" that kills everyone who contracts it, and quickly spreads over the entire city
- Ultra-Humanite wears a disguise that fools Superman
- Ultra-Humanite uses a large "electric-gun" that KOs Superman (so far, strong electrical charges are the only thing that has been effective in knocking him out)
- Ultra-Humanite creates an airship to deploy his plague
- Uses some kind of helmet combined with hypnotic suggestion to try to control Superman. It doesn't work, so we don't really know if it would have been effective against a normal person or not.

Weirdness:

- Instead of simply dominating the world, the Ultra-Humanite declares in this issue that his goal is to exterminate the human race and replace it with a new race of his own

Superdickery:

- Superman picks up and shakes a scientist just to encourage him to get back to work
- He also steals chemicals from a corporation so the scientist can use them in his work, breaking into the building and damaging it in the process
- Calls people cowards for not helping someone infected with the purple plague, despite the fact that it's 100% fatal to everyone who gets near a victim and he's the only one who's immune

Power Tracker:

- No change, still Mid Meta Level.

Action Comics #20.

Notes:

- Superman is shown ripping the door off a bank vault on the cover, but no such thing happens in the actual story
- First appearance of Superman's "telescopic vision" (the ability to see and zoom in on details from a great distance)
- Also the first appearance of his super breath (no ice breath yet though)

Spoiler: Another iconic power to add to the checklist

Feat Catalogue:

- Braces an elevated railway that was collapsing, so a train can pass safely over it
- As he jumps off a building, a spectator says he "whizzed away like a rocket"
- Holds his breath underwater for over 2 hours and 45 minutes
- Grabs a stalagmite and throws it at a switchboard, smashing it before the Ultra-Humanite can hit a switch (despite standing right next to it)
- Recognizes the Ultra-Humanite in Dolores' body by her eyes
- In his first use of super breath, he blows out a torch

Spoiler: In a few hundred issues, he'll be doing the same thing to stars

Feat Catalogue (non-Superman):

- The Ultra-Humanite survives by transplanting his brain into the body of a female movie star
- He also has a device that can teleport his ransom demands (written on paper) to a target
- Ultra-Humanite built a 'magnetic ray' that acts as a tractor beam to attract metallic objects
- Ultra-Humanite somehow evades Superman again after diving underwater. Superman follows but can't find him.

Weirdness:

- The word "gay" is again used to mean "happy". I'm probably not going to note this anymore unless the line in question is really funny out of context, though.
- I will note the quote "as time passes, the party grows more and more gay," though

Superdickery:

- Some mild sexism: "females are a puzzle"

Power Tracker:

- Still Mid Meta Level.

 

[Endless Mike]

Action Comics #21.

Notes:

- In this, and a few previous issues, there have been advertisements for a contest that readers could enter to win prizes. I just find it so weird when I see stuff like 'last chance to enter the contest!' being said urgently, when said contest ended before my parents were born.
- I'm still referring to the Ultra-Humanite as a "him" here because he has a male brain in a female body.
- The end of this comic has a promo for the upcoming introduction of the Spectre
- The Ultra-Humanite appears to die again in this issue. He'll be back, obviously.

Feat Catalogue:

- Throws people clear of a falling wall before it hits them, and survives the wall collapsing on him (caused by an explosion inside the building) unharmed. He also says that he "cannot be injured by a mere explosion", although of course that has to be taken in context.
- Braces a collapsing skyscraper until the people around it can evacuate
- Jumps after an airplane, and somehow maneuvers in mid-air to dodge a beam from the "atomic disintegrator"
- Picks up a boulder and throws it at the plane, destroying the weapon
- Jumps and catches up to the plane again
- Easily destroys Ultra-Humanite's robots
- Is hit by a large cannon (sort of like a Howitzer), and is knocked to the ground, but unharmed
- Says that bullets tickle him
- Catches a safe with one hand and throws it back up to the next story of a building and in the window
- Rips open another safe, while ignoring tear gas and machine guns
- Jumps high and fast enough to lose the fighter planes pursuing him
- Easily breaks out of and destroys a trap with diamond drills
- Triggers a volcanic eruption in what was explicitly stated to be an extinct volcano by... throwing boulders into it? Go figure.

Spoiler: VOLCANOES DO NOT WORK THAT WAY!

Feat Catalogue (non-Superman):

- Ultra-Humanite built a helicopter (referred to by the narration as a "fantastic autogyro")
- Ultra-Humanite uses a "torture ray" to convince a scientist to build a weapon for him (although the ray itself seems to be just a bright light)
- The "atomic disintegrator" (built by another scientist) destroys a skyscraper in one shot.
- Ultra-Humanite has some kind of hidden camera that views the outside of his plane, and Superman doesn't notice it
- Ultra-Humanite has an entire hidden city covered by a glass dome in a volcano, populated by robots to serve him
- Ultra-Humanite rigs a "photo-electric beam" (seemingly like a laser tripwire), that will trigger the destruction of Metropolis (presumably via the disintegrator) if Superman passes through it

Weirdness:

- Ultra-Humanite, still in Dolores Winters' body, seduces a male scientist in order to get info on his "atomic disintegrator"

Superdickery:

- Ultra-Humanite (who has known to be completely untrustworthy in the past) says he'll let his hostages go if Superman robs some jewels for him. So Superman does it, and even threatens to kill one of the soldiers guarding the jewels. And wouldn't you know it, Ultra-Humanite goes back on his word. And in the end, he doesn't even bother to return the jewels, letting them get buried by a volcanic eruption.

Power Tracker:

- The volcano feat could be considered high meta level, but as it's just one feat so far, and the mechanics of it didn't really make much sense, I'm still putting him at Mid Meta Level.

Action Comics #22.

Notes:

- Superman is shown lifting a steam shovel on the cover. As you can probably guess, this has nothing to do with the actual story.
- Superman murders the pilots of a bomber plane and the crew of a submarine here... just noting how willing he was to kill in the Golden Age

Feat Catalogue:

- Uses his enhanced vision to spot a sniper in the distance, and throws an object to disarm him before he can fire
- Jumps into the air to grab onto a bomber plane. It's notable that he seems a bit worried about the AA fire being directed at it, but it's unclear whether he's afraid it will actually hurt him, or just knock him off the plane.
- Breaks the plane's propeller by putting his hand through it
- Falls from the plane at high altitude onto the ground unharmed
- Bullets from the plane's machinegun bounce off him
- Lifts the plane with one hand and throws it, breaking through a power line and causing the plane to explode
- After hearing about a plan to torpedo an ocean liner in 15 minutes, Superman runs to the ocean and swims out in time to stop the submarine (distance is unknown, though)
- Grabs a submarine torpedo while underwater, stops its momentum, then throws it back at the submarine
- Throws a lifeboat from a ship into the water to set off a mine

Weirdness:

- This comic involves a war in Europe, but not WWII (even though it was going on IRL when this was published). Rather, it's a war involving fictional nations.

Superdickery:

- Threatens to murder a man if he won't confess to his crimes

Power Tracker:

- Mid Meta Level, no real change.

Action Comics #23.

Notes:

- Chronologically the first appearance of Lex Luthor (known in this continuity as Alexei Luthor). He appeared in Superman #4 (a title I'll also hope to cover here eventually) which was published a bit earlier, but it was meant to take place later
- Luthor is shown as having a full head of red hair in this issue
- Luthor apparently dies in this issue, but you know how that always ends up...
- The newspaper Clark works for is, as of this issue, called the Daily Planet instead of the Daily Star. Some rather odd speculation exists saying that this means that this actually takes place in a different universe than all of the previous issues.

Spoiler: Lex Luthor... not exactly how you probably remember him

Feat Catalogue:

- Superman catches and throws artillery shells back at the guns that fired them, accurately hitting and destroying them
- Tears a (small) hole in a mountainside to get to a secret passage
- Tanks Lex Luthor's energy ray unharmed, then smashes his transmitting receiver device, which causes a cave-in
- Digs his way out of the collapsed cave
- Jumps into the air, tanks machinegun fire from a bomber plane, throws the pilot out and to his death, hijacks the plane, uses its gun to shoot down two other planes, then grabs on to two more planes and smashes them together.
- Crashes his hijacked bomber into another one, destroying both of them, and is unharmed by the crash
- Jumps into the stratosphere to reach Luthor's dirigible (the greatest distance he has jumped so far)
- Resists Luthor's energy rays again, although Luthor says that five minutes of sustained exposure from four of the rays will kill him
- Despite being weakened by the rays, he blitzes Luthor and destroys one ray, and then another after it is trained on him
- Wrecks the control mechanism of the dirigible, causing it to crash, then jumps off it to safety

Feat Catalogue (non-Superman):

- Lex Luthor creates some kind of screen that can transmit his face and image over long distances. It can also fire some type of energy beam that tears a guy in half.
- Lex Luthor has some kind of giant blimp that looks to be bigger than a city and is stated to be suspended in the stratosphere
- Luthor has hypnotized most of his minions to serve him, except for one guy who is immune for some reason
- Luthor's energy rays do have an effect on Superman when used continuously, sapping him of his strength (precursor to Kryptonite? They are green)

Weirdness:

- Various panels in this comic serve as 'transition' panels, with nothing but text, a solid color, and a few geometric shapes
- Despite being in the stratosphere, Luthor's dirigible still functions, and everyone on it is still able to breathe just fine

Superdickery:

- Threatens to bash a guy's brains out when interrogating him

Power Tracker:

- He's continuing to rack up those Mid Meta Level feats

Action Comics #24.

Notes:

- The narration states that Superman's eyes "glow weirdly" when he uses his X-ray vision. We again get the part about the object he's looking through "seeming to melt away"
- Superman uses 'microscopic vision' to search a room. The DC wiki doesn't note that this was the first appearance of this power, so he might have used it in a different book already, but it's the first time we've seen it in Action Comics

Spoiler: Another vision power

Feat Catalogue:

- Superman is shown smashing some robots on the first page. This has nothing to do with the story.
- Catches a car before it drives off a cliff and flips it over, then destroys its wheels

Weirdness:

Superdickery:

- Upon being denied entrance to a house, Superman simply forces his way in
- Superman taunts a suicidal man


Power Tracker:

- No change here, still Mid Meta Level.

 

[Endless Mike]

Action Comics #25

Notes:

- This is the first time that Lois tries to figure out Superman's secret identity
- This is the first time (in this title, at least) that Superman battles another being with superhuman powers* - in this case a hypnotist named Medini, who can erase memories and control people with hypnotic commands

*Unless you count the Ultra-Humanite's intellect, which he says was enhanced by an experiment

Feat Catalogue:

- Stands there while a man beats him in the face with a metal wrench, doing no damage. The man eventually knocks himself out.
- Is temporarily paralyzed by a villain's hypnotic powers, but manages to break out of it
- Defeats two guards with brass knuckles despite still being weakened by the hypnosis, and barely able to control his body
- Finally shakes off the hypnotic spell by jumping into the stratosphere (the second time he's done this so far) and falling
- Grabs a crashing passenger plane and lands it safely with one hand
- Throws said plane and destroys it

Weirdness:

Odd bit of dialogue: "-Fool! - Is he trying to queer our game...?-"

Superdickery:

- Superman completely destroys a hijacked plane instead of returning it to its rightful owners

Power Tracker:

- Solid Mid Meta Level.

Action Comics #26

Notes:

- The villains in this issue are a pair of quack doctors selling fake cures that turn out to just be sugar pills. They'd have a much easier time of it nowadays, as they'd just have to claim that sugar is a 'miracle solution' or it was prepared homeopathically, and they wouldn't even have to lie about what was in the pills

Feat Catalogue:

- Breaks out of a locked room in a clinic, rescues Lois, carries her back to the Daily Planet, and returns to the clinic, all in around 4 minutes and 30 seconds (the distance is unknown, though)
- Jumps onto the roof of a building while carrying a giant steel safe
- Runs back to the room he was held in, changes back into civilian clothes, and reties his restraints before the villains could check on him (which probably couldn't have taken more than a few seconds)
- Carries the same safe all the way back to the Daily Planet while jumping
- Demonstrates, for the first time, a photographic memory, memorizing all of the quack doctors' patients and their addresses by quickly flipping through some papers
- Jumps across the city carrying a little girl in her bed to a hospital
- Runs 200 miles to reach a specific doctor, the narration describing him doing so "with the speed of a meteor gone wild"
- Runs 200 miles back, carrying the doctor, through a hurricane. At one point the wind blows an entire house his way and he smashes it with a punch, protecting the doctor. There's no stated timeframe for these feats, however.
- Jumps while carrying a police wagon all the way to the nearest police station

Spoiler: Photographic Memory. Any bets how many new powers he'll get before he's finally able to fly?

Weirdness:

- The fake doctors apparently built a "special heating cabinet" for their fake paralysis cures, and instead they use it as a means of execution. Why they would need to build such a thing and how they could convince people it worked is a mystery.
- Even though I don't really have any plans to calc many Golden Age feats for this thread, as they really won't compare to the Silver Age feats, I find it kind of annoying that there are two impressive-looking speed feats in this issue, but the first one has a stated timeframe but no distance, and the second one has a stated distance but no timeframe.

Superdickery:

- Some anti-Superdickery here, actually. A mob of scammed patients tries to hang the two quack doctors, but Superman saves them, even though they had just attempted to kill Lois

Power Tracker:

- Still Mid Meta Level, although he's slowly but surely racking up more impressive feats.

Action Comics #27

Notes:

Feat Catalogue:

- The first page shows Superman holding what looks like an old-fashioned bus up with one hand as he jumps over a broken bridge, carrying it
- Bites off the top of a red hot glowing steel poker and swallows it, with no apparent discomfort
- Has a pot of boiling water dumped on him, with no effect
- Catches a bullet fired from close range in both hands, then flicks the bullet back, knocking a second bullet off of its trajectory
- Is unharmed in the middle of a fire caused by molten metal and burning gasoline, and puts it out with his bare hands
- Breaks a buzzsaw by putting his hand in front of it
- Uses his finger to cause a building's wiring to short circuit, and apparently takes the electricity with no damage (although it's still probably less than the charge that the Ultra-Humanite previously used to knock him out)
- Pulls a rising elevator car back to the floor it left by the cable
- Runs up the side of the elevator shaft, pushing the elevator car ahead of him, smashing it through the roof of the building and carrying it through the air in a jump to the police station

Spoiler: Better than the previous bullet-timing feat

Weirdness:

Superdickery:

- The cover (which has nothing to do with the story, of course) features Superman holding a lion with one hand, his other hand positioned as if he's about to impale the poor thing. IIRC this cover was actually featured on the original Superdickery website.
- After Lois goes in to investigate a corrupt children's home by herself and gets captured, Superman arrives and threatens not to free her, saying that leaving her captive would help her learn to be more sensible. Later, when she wants to go with him to confront the kidnappers, he threatens to lock her back up in the cell she was in again.

Power Tracker:

- Still Mid Meta Level, although he accumulated a few durability feats here, as being inside a burning building and being electrocuted (both things which had troubled him before) were shown to be no threat.

Action Comics #28

Notes:

- This is the first time (in this book, at least), that Superman fights an enemy who also has super strength (although judging by his feats, it's more like comic book 'peak human' strength rather than something comparable to Superman himself)

Feat Catalogue:

- Easily defeats a circus strongman, who is supposedly strong enough to twist iron in his bare hands. The man hurts his fists trying to punch Superman but can't move him. When he tries to jab Superman's eyes, he actually dodges, though, and flips the guy with one hand. When the strongman attempts to tackle him, he just bounces off.
- Finally a quantifiable speed feat, as he runs 1 mile in 1 second (around Mach 4.73).

Spoiler: Shouldn't the audience be deaf from the sonic booms?

Weirdness:

- This is the second time in the issues we've covered so far that Superman has performed at a circus. Were they running out of ideas already?

Superdickery:

- After winning his match against the circus strongman, they shake hands, and Superman crushes his hand in his own (the guy had tried to do the same to him before, but still)

Power Tracker:

- Still Mid Meta Level.

 

[Endless Mike]

Action Comics #29

Notes:

Feat Catalogue:

- Superman is somehow able to use his X-ray vision to tell that a bottle of 'aspirin pills' are actually poison. Even more inexplicably, he points this out as Clark Kent without anyone taking one, or explaining how he could know, and no one questions it.
- Dives in front of a gun and gets in front of the bullet to protect Lois during the time it took the gunman to pull the trigger
- Knocks two guys out super quickly with a nerve pinch (does this count as a new power?)

Spoiler: Eat your heart out, Mr. Spock

Weirdness:

- Apparently Superman is wanted by the police again. If they're still after him from what he did in issue #8, it's weird that this is the first time it's been brought up since issue #9.
- One particular panel has a weird background - solid red with thin white lines in random patterns. I have no idea what it's supposed to represent, if anything.

Superdickery:

Power Tracker:

- No change, he's still Mid Meta Level.

Action Comics #30

Notes:

Feat Catalogue:

- Survives a hit from an atomic weapon that can completely disintegrate human bodies, only being knocked unconscious. (The narration previously described one of the victims of this weapon as being "blasted into nothingness", but that's a pretty obvious hyperbole - it's not an existence-erasing weapon. Still fairly impressive, though.)
- Tears a large metal airship in half from the inside
- Jumps at another airship, grabbing it and throwing it into a group of others to destroy them
- Takes another hit from the atomic globe gun, although the projectile itself bounces off his body and disintegrates the people who fired it, leaving Superman unconscious again
- Survives inside a crashing airship while unconscious and weakened from the globe gun, but is otherwise unharmed

Weirdness:

- The villain in this issue has a fleet of advanced airships, atomic-powered weapons, weather manipulation machines, and a bunch of other crazy stuff, and it's never once explained where he got any of it from
- One of the villains' atomic - powered weapons has the effect of completely disintegrating a human being, leaving only an imprint of their shadow behind. Keep in mind that this came out 5 years before the first atomic bomb was tested, which have been known to cause similar phenomena.
- The villain's henchmen are pretty racially insensitive Arab stereotypes. It was 1940, after all.

Spoiler: Not too different from what would actually happen at Hiroshima...

Superdickery:

- Says that he should have let Lois get vaporized since she's always snooping into dangerous business
- Superman forces the villain, who controls his minions hypnotically, to order his fleet of airships to crash and destroy themselves, killing everyone onboard, instead of just ordering them to call off the attack and land

Power Tracker:

- Mid Meta Level again. Still racking up the feats though.

Action Comics #31

Notes:

Feat Catalogue:

- Is unaffected by a gas that put everyone in an entire town to sleep
- Overhears a conversation in a moving car on a separate road, traveling in the opposite direction, while in a car himself. Maybe his best super hearing feat yet.
- Does the Spock thing again, this time to Lois, twice. Also shows the ability to reverse it.
- Chases after a car and stops it before it hits a kid
- Uses 'telescopic x-ray vision' to see inside a bank from a distance. Does this really count as a new power, or is it just a combination of two pre-existing powers?
- Digs a tunnel underground and up through the floor of a basement
- Shrugs off a hit from a "subatomic death ray gun" with no damage, although he notes that "the shock is terrific"
- Intercepts another blast from the same gun before it can hit someone. Interesting to note is that the blast is stated to be electric in nature, and the wording of the narration is kind of ambiguous on whether he moved before or after it was actually fired, so I guess this is a possible lightning - timing feat? Too unclear to really say, though
- The force from the electric death ray rebounds off his hand and kills the shooter

Spoiler: Technically not a new power

Spoiler: Unsure if he actually reacted to the beam or not

Weirdness:

- Sci-fi technology is becoming more and more common in-universe, it seems. A scientist building electric death ray guns isn't seen as unusual at all

Superdickery:

Power Tracker:

- If the lightning timing feat is legit (can't prove it is though), he could be ready to go up a tier, but for now he's still Mid Meta Level.

Action Comics #32

Notes:

- The "Krypto-Raygun" that appears in this issue is the very first mention of anything that sounds like Krypton or Kryptonite, although (aside from being built by a Kryptonian) it has nothing to do with either

Feat Catalogue:

- Throws two thugs through a window from a long distance away
- Uses "mental hypnosis" to reverse the effects of a memory-erasing drug on Lois
- Builds a "Krypto-raygun", which is apparently a camera that can project the pictures it takes as images on walls
- Uses the same hypnosis power to cure another victim of the drug

Spoiler: Another new power, also, where did that laboratory come from?

Weirdness:

- Lois catches Superman changing back to his civilian clothes, but she happens to be conveniently drugged at the time, so she never actually remembers it happening
- Clark Kent apparently has his own laboratory, which has never been brought up before
- The "Krypto-Raygun" was doubtless firmly in the realm of sci-fi when this was written, but such a thing could easily be built with today's technology. I wonder how many other old sci-fi gadgets we can now say that about.

Superdickery:

Power Tracker:

- No change, still Mid Meta Level.

 

[Endless Mike]

Action Comics #33

Notes:

The phrase "Up, up, and away!" is used for the first time in this issue. It may have been used earlier in other titles, but I'm not sure. Also, as Superman still can't fly, it here refers to jumping into the air

Spoiler: The first time he ever said this? Possibly

Feat Catalogue:

- Superman claims he could chop a pile of logs in "one second flat", but as he is in his Clark Kent identity he does it much more slowly
- Swims down into a whirlpool at "express train velocity", according to the narration
- Swims out of the whirlpool, against its force, using only one hand as he's carrying Lois with the other one
- Another use of Superman's hypnosis power, except this time he seems to have a lot more control over it, being able to put Lois in a trance where she can't remember what occurs (perhaps he learned it from Medini a few issues back?)

Spoiler: A more nuanced application of this power

Weirdness:

- The narration in one panel literally begins with "Flashback!", as it shows what happened before the previous panel

Superdickery:

Power Tracker:

- Still Mid Meta Level.

Action Comics #34

Notes:

Feat Catalogue:

- Hears a cry for help from deep in a mine shaft while outside, and immediately identifies exactly where in the mine it came from
- Rushes past two people so fast that one of them rhetorically asks if it was a streak of lightning. Not an actual speed claim, though.
- Races down a mine shaft in time to stop a runaway mine car before it crushes a woman, when the car was already in motion before he entered the mine
- Sends the mine cart back up the downwards-sloping track at super speed with a flip of his hand
- Digs his way out of a caved-in mine
- Somehow uses his X-ray vision to identify poison again, this time in a drink
- Survives the highest air pressure in a decompression chamber easily
- Breaks through a solid steel wall while carrying a woman
- Uses his super hearing to locate a time bomb in a the mine, take it outside, and throw it in the air where it can explode at a safe distance, all in 9 seconds

Weirdness:

Superdickery:

- Superman trespasses on a property where he's specifically not allowed to go, just because he suspects that the property owner might be up to something. He was right, but again that doesn't make it justified.

Power Tracker:

- You guessed it, still Mid Meta Level.

Action Comics #35

Notes:

Feat Catalogue:

- Superman is shown smashing a car on the first page. If you guessed that this has nothing to do with the actual story then... you're wrong! This scene actually appears later in the comic. Wow.
- Jumps up into the sky, intercepts a fighter plane and smashes its machine gun, then catches a falling passenger plane and guides it safely to the ground with one hand.
- Jumps into the sky again, intercepting the fighter plane for a second time and smashes it, while capturing the pilot
- Throws the passenger plane into the air when it couldn't take off on its own due to the terrain
- Picks up an armored truck and shakes it above his head until the occupants fall out
- Digs into a collapsed mine and rescues Lois (there are sure lots of mines and cave-ins in these issues, aren't there?)
- Another more advanced bullet timing feat, he catches the bullets from multiple guns at once, saving a group of people
- Catches a falling bottle of nitroglycerine "at a speed so swift the eye can hardly follow" and jumps to a safe distance in the air before it explodes, then tanks the explosion unharmed
- Figures out and thwarts a rather complex criminal scheme and sees through a disguise

Spoiler: Improved bullet-catching technique

Spoiler: Batman would be proud

Weirdness:

- Superman appears to fly in this issue, as he maneuvers in mid-air to catch a falling plane and deliver it safely to the ground, even though he didn't officially have the power of flight yet at this point. A similar thing had happened earlier in Superman #10, due to a miscommunication with the artist
- Superman is worried about destroying an armored truck because it was stolen. This seems like the first time he has ever been concerned about destroying someone else's property.

Spoiler: Flying even though he technically can't... is this the Tournament of Power?

Superdickery:

- Threatens to murder a thief if he catches him stealing again
- Interrogates a guy by spinning him around in the air, then throwing him to the ground and threatening to let him fall

Power Tracker:

- Mid Metal Level. Again.

Action Comics #36

Notes:

- The cover features Superman smashing some generic - looking robots. This has absolutely nothing to do with the story, once again.

Feat Catalogue:

- The narration says that "The Man of Steel's powerful muscles rocket him out into space", but the actual image and context just shows that he is doing another one of his long jumps from one building to another. It's likely that the "space" in this sentence is just referring to being in midair, as he doesn't actually go into outer space.
- Stops a train before it goes over an unstable bridge
- Picks up the locomotive and places it sideways across the train tracks
- Drinks a bottle of what are described as "deadly narcotics" without any discomfort
- Jumps into a formation of bomber planes and destroys them
- Another pseudo-flight feat, as he dodges bullets in mid-air
- Knocks out multiple thugs in one second
- Yet another pseudo-flight feat, as he jumps out the window of a building and falls in a curved trajectory to land in a lower window of the same building.

Weirdness:

- The opening narration says that the US is being invaded. I'm pretty sure that never actually happened in WWII. The enemy in this comic is actually referred to simply by the code name "Nation X", but it was probably meant to be Germany or another member of the Axis.

Superdickery:

- Smashes through a window of a public building. What happened to avoiding damaging other people's property?
- Strands Lois on top of the Daily Planet building just so she will stay out of trouble and he won't have to rescue her again
- Tricks two saboteurs into drinking the "deadly narcotics". The narration says they fall unconscious, but considering that these were described as deadly (and just a few bottles of this stuff was considered enough to dangerously pollute a reservoir), they probably died right afterwards, so he just murdered two more people
- Smashes through the roof of a radio station

Power Tracker:

- Say it with me, Mid Meta Level.

 

[Endless Mike]

Action Comics #37

Notes:

- This is the first time that Superman's costume change involves a telephone booth, although he doesn't actually change in the telephone booth. Rather, he uses it to lure a policeman following him in and trap him so he can change without being seen.
- The police are still trying to capture Superman
- Clark Kent temporarily becomes the Metropolis Police Commissioner in this issue

Feat Catalogue:

- Dodges a bullet from close range by just turning his head to the side
- Puts out a fire with his super breath
- Tackles a fleeing thief over a distance of 100 yards

Weirdness:

- After a corrupt police commissioner is removed from office, 4 of his replacements are assassinated by gangs in as many days. Still, Lois and others guilt Clark into accepting the job, acting as if only a complete coward would refuse.
- Lois hires a friend to do a fake mugging on Clark so he can beat him and get a reputation as a tough police commissioner, but he's then immediately attacked by a real assassin, who he thinks is the fake, despite Lois saying it's not, and the guy violently smacking her. Even after the guy shoots at him and tries to strangle him, he still thinks it's an act. He's usually much smarter than this.

Superdickery:

- Saves two criminals from falling to their deaths, but he says they don't deserve it and he just doesn't want their bodies to mess up the pavement. Then threatens to kill them for real next time.
- Traps a police office in a telephone booth so he can't see him change his clothes and reveal his identity

Power Tracker:

- Hopefully this will say something other than Mid Meta Level soon.

Action Comics #38.

Notes:

Feat Catalogue:

- A mail truck truck is a few feet away from running down some pedestrians, and Superman crosses a distance of at least several truck-lengths to stop it before it hits them. He then lifts the truck with one hand and flips it over.
- His super hearing allows him to hear a radio broadcast. I'm counting this as a new power.
- Uses telescopic x-ray vision again, seeing what's going on in a bank vault from another building
- Smashes open a bank vault
- Breaks a pair of handcuffs
- Detects the electric discharge of a radio broadcast, using vague "super-senses"
- No sells a barrage of "super-cooled carbon dioxide pellets", which are later shown to be capable of blasting through steel
- Similarly ignores a barrage of "heat pellets"
- Shrugs off hypnosis and reverses it back on the hypnotist (he sure learned a lot since he fought Medini...)
- He also shows the ability to release someone from the hypnotic trance at will, via some kind of subtle nonverbal signal

Spoiler: Apparently hearing really well will turn your ears into radio receivers

Spoiler: Generic "super-senses" makes a bit more sense than hearing radio waves

Spoiler: Anything you can do, I can do better...

Spoiler: Don't worry, you can always just hypnotize them to make them forget

Weirdness:

- The police are after Superman again, but it seems that they've forgotten about all of the previous times they were out to arrest him. Now they're just doing it because they think it's suspicious that he's around when so many crimes happen.
- The villain is another hypnotist whose powers verge on outright mind control. Apparently this isn't all that unusual in-universe.

Superdickery:

- Resists arrest again, without even attempting to explain the situation to the cops

Power Tracker:

- Mid Meta Level. Nothing much to say.

Action Comics #39.

Notes:

- This is the first time in this title that Superman meets a foil with physical powers that could potentially match his own. Unfortunately, we never find out, because the two of them never fight. How disappointing.

Feat Catalogue:

- Catches a man thrown off a building before he hits a ledge
- The narration again says that Superman "launches himself up into space", but it's again just referring to a jump in the air
- Stops another train before it can reach damaged train tracks
- Gets shot with a "radium-gun", which does nothing, although he pretends to be paralyzed by it

Feat Catalogue (non-Superman):

- The villain of this issue, the Ghost, got his powers from a lab experiment with radium gone wrong. He's bulletproof, super strong, and radioactive, so anyone he touches quickly dies. His own power is self-destructive, though, and it kills him within a week.

Weirdness:

- Lois utters the line "I don't believe Superman is capable of cold-blooded murder." Obviously she's never seen Superdickery.
- The villain in this issue has radioactive hands, but apparently he needs to actually touch his victims to kill them. Radiation that deadly should be just as dangerous at close range, but Lois is fine even though the guy's fingers get inches from her neck
- The 'accident' that gave the Ghost his powers apparently wasn't an accident, it was deliberately engineered. How anyone could know it would give him those powers, though, is a mystery.

Superdickery:

- Threatens to dash a guy's skull against the wall while interrogating him

Power Tracker:

- Mid Meta Level. Also, we were totally gypped out of seeing him finally fight someone who might have been a decent challenge for him.

Action Comics #40

Notes:

- The cover shows Superman punching a tank, which has a distinctive cross emblem on it, likely meant to evoke the Iron Cross used by the Nazis. This has nothing to do with the story, but we're gradually feeling more WWII influence.
- Superman claims that he has had a perfect record up until now. I guess he's not counting all of the people who died that he didn't manage to save.

Feat Catalogue:

- On the first page, Superman is shown rescuing a man from a fallen tree, with a lightning bolt in the background. You could interpret this to mean he is reacting before the lightning bolt hits the ground, but that's a stretch.
- Lifts a car and shakes out the occupants
- Gets under another car and forces it to drive in the opposite direction by physically moving the steering equipment
- Jumps to a nearby town while carrying a ladder with a person on it. The guy says it's so far away it will take him hours to get back.
- Braces a huge mansion against a rock outcropping to stop it from being destroyed when floodwaters were going to smash it into the rocks. The physics of this are very questionable. (The narration also says that he "leaps out into space" to do this again, even though he is quite clearly on the ground)
- Swims against the floodwaters while carrying the mansion with one hand, then sets it safely on dry land (what is that place made out of, that it doesn't fall apart?)
- Swims through the floodwaters again, "faster than a rocketing speedboat", and manages to get ahead of the flood
- Digs a ditch a mile long in a matter of moments in order to divert the floodwaters. This is quite impressive.
- Cleans up the damage caused by the flood in what couldn't have been more than a few hours, saying that it would take repair crews days to do the same

Spoiler: One of his best feats so far

Weirdness:

- We see another rigged gambling table, and the narration says that "the player hasn't the slightest chance of winning". Again, you'd think people would find that suspicious.

Superdickery:

- Interrogates and tortures a cheating gambler by tossing him up in the air, throwing him down, and catching him, then threatens to murder him if he doesn't pay back all the money he scammed. He then sits by and does nothing while the gambler's boss beats him up for losing the money.
- Effectively hijacks a woman's car
- Picks her up and carries her against her will (even if it was what her father hired him for)
- Prevents the woman from eloping by carrying her boyfriend off to another town. He was a gold digger, but she didn't care and they were both on board with it.

Power Tracker:

- Mid Meta Level. The trench feat is nice, but it's not enough by itself to propel him to high meta. In fact it might not even qualify as a high meta feat, just a very high-end mid-meta feat.

 

[Endless Mike]

Action Comics #41

Notes:

- The villains in this issue are saboteurs, working at the behest of an unidentified foreign nation to cripple the US' national defense effort. Again, we are moving into WWII.

Feat Catalogue:

- Jumps into the air, carrying a time bomb set to go off in a few seconds, and gets it far enough so that it explodes safely, and is unhurt by the explosion, then returns to the ground faster than the eye can see
- Stops a car collision by rushing in and pushing one of the cars out of the way and then leaving, so fast that the drivers didn't even know he was there and thought it was just luck. The cars also looked to only be a foot or so from colliding before he started heading towards them.
- Breaks through a wall, grabs a guy, and jumps with him high into the air in a split second before another bomb goes off
- Hears a radio broadcast again, showing that this wasn't a one-time power
- A seeming limitation: When Lois is held at gunpoint (the gun right up against her body), he doesn't risk trying to save her or disarm the guy before he can fire, despite him being only a few feet away. Instead, he tricks him. Doesn't mean he couldn't have done so, but he probably didn't want to take the chance.

Weirdness:

- Clark worries about having to change into Superman without Lois and others noticing again, even though it was established earlier that he could just hypnotize them to make them forget it

Superdickery:

Power Tracker:

- Mid Meta Level. Not much to say.

Action Comics #42

Notes:

- It seems that a lot more people instantly recognize Superman now, as his in-universe fame grows

Feat Catalogue:

- Casually jumps above the clouds
- Tanks an energy ray blast unharmed that completely vaporizes a guy standing right next to him
- Tanks another blast from the same weapon, this one completely destroys the house he's in, but he emerges unharmed
- Unaffected by chloroform (but he pretends to be knocked out)
- Stops a train with one hand
- Dismantles a large building in a matter of minutes
- Temporarily resists Luthor's mind control in order to save Lois
- Manages to resist it again, then moves past Lois and Lex too fast to be seen and changes back into Clark Kent
- Beats a monster Lex created with one punch
- Fully escapes from Luthor's hypnosis
- Catches Luthor's flying city after he disables its flotation, and lowers it safely to the ground (it doesn't look that big in the panel, but it was stated to be a city and looked larger earlier. Also, how he can do this without flying is a mystery.)

Spoiler: Kind of a small city, but that's probably just artistic license

Feat Catalogue (non-Superman):

- Lex Luthor has an energy weapon that can be fired from above the clouds with enough precision to target individual people and completely vaporize them
- Said energy beam can also target individuals indoors and hit them by burning through the roofs of buildings
- Lex has built an entire flying city powered by an antigravity generator
- Luthor has a machine that uses electricity that can paralyze Superman
- Luthor hypnotizes Superman, actually managing to control him against his will, which is impressive because we've seen him resist hypnosis before
- Luthor created some kind of green monster creature. Not sure if it was a robot or what.

Weirdness:

- Lex Luthor masquerades as an alien from another universe. Said "alien" disguise looks like a fat guy in a powdered wig.
- The idea of an alien who travels from planet to planet, collecting knowledge from those planets (here in the form of famous scientists and intellectuals), may have just been a ruse by Luthor in this issue, but it's oddly similar to the MO of Brainiac, a villain who wouldn't be introduced until 19 years later.
- Lex is bald here, despite having red hair the last time we saw him. The official explanation for this is actually hypertime weirdness, with different alternate realities and timelines mixing with each other in these early stories. Still, I'm counting all of the Golden Age Superman feats as being from the same character unless explicitly stated otherwise, or it would be impossible to track them.

Spoiler: I, Lex Luthor - I mean Brainiac - I mean Zytal, am a good guy, I swear!

Superdickery:

- Threatens to cripple a man while interrogating him
- Causes various havoc across town while under Luthor's hypnosis (yeah, not his fault, but a lot of the original Superdickery stuff was also out of context)
- When rescuing Lois, tosses one of her kidnappers out of a window many stories up, almost certainly to his death

Power Tracker:

- If we assume the city was much bigger than it was depicted in the final panel (as it was hinted to be earlier), that could be a High Meta level feat, but for now he's still at Mid Meta Level.

Action Comics #43

Notes:

- The narration at one point says "Superman streaks up - up - and away...", the second time this phrase has been used in this title.
- First appearance of Nazis in this title (well, in the Superman stories at least), but only on the cover

Feat Catalogue:

- Follows a passenger plane over a long distance, by jumping after it
- Pushes the crashing plane away from a mountain, then smashes a tree before the plane can hit it
- Catches the plane and lowers it safely to the ground
- Lifts the damaged plane above his head and runs along the ground, building up speed, then jumps, carrying it into the air over a mountain range
- While jumping, carries the plane at a speed much faster than it could normally fly, and it arrives at its destination far ahead of time
- Runs up the side of a perpendicular cliff while carrying Lois

Weirdness:

- Even though he still officially can't fly at this point, you would be forgiven for reading this comic and thinking that he could
- The cover features Superman fighting a Nazi paratrooper. This has nothing to do with the story.
- The narration again says that he "leapt out into space", just meaning the air. I can probably stop noting this now.

Superdickery:

- An airplane pilot shoots him due to being startled and misunderstanding the situation. Superman responds by crushing the guy's gun.
- Lois now actually holds a guy at gunpoint and threatens to shoot him if he doesn't talk... apparently she's taking up her idol's interrogation tactics
- As if to show where she got it from, Superman interrogates two more thugs by picking them up and running in front of a train while carrying them, threatening to drop them and let the train hit them
- After smashing the villain's plane, he saves him, only to deliver this line of dialogue: "Can't let you die like this when a spot is already reserved for you in the electric chair!"

Power Tracker:

- Still Mid Meta Level.

Action Comics #44.

Notes:

- Superman is again fighting Nazis on the cover, but no such thing is even hinted at in the story

Feat Catalogue:

- Superman is shown smashing some war planes on the first page, but this has nothing to do with the story.
- Hears radio waves again, this time a police broadcast
- When a car crashes into a fruit cart, it knocks a bunch of oranges and bananas into the air. Superman catches them all before they hit the ground and returns them to the cart.
- Falls off a skyscraper and hits the street below with no injury.
- Pushes Lois out of the way before bullets can hit her (you'd figure she'd be dead from the g-force, though)
- Again, Lois is held at gunpoint, and Superman resorts to tricking the guy instead of trying to blitz him before he can pull the trigger

Spoiler: You just shoved her at supersonic speed. Her insides should be liquified.

Weirdness:

- The plot in this issue involves a caveman found frozen in ice, who is reanimated by just melting the ice with electricity. Some criminals decide to take advantage of this by dressing one of their goons up as the caveman and having him commit crimes. This is goofy enough to be a Silver Age plot.

Superdickery:

Power Tracker:

- Mid Meta Level, again.

 

[Endless Mike]

Action Comics #45

Notes:

- "The war in Europe" is mentioned here. Maybe the first explicit reference to WWII in this title.
- The narration states that Superman is "famous the world over", although in this title he hasn't done much outside of the US yet (maybe he has had more international adventures in other titles)
- Clark says "This is definitely a job for Superman". Earliest appearance of a variation of this phrase in the title.
- Previously, Superman has shown to be immune to knockout drugs and anesthetics, but here is rendered motionless by what is described as a "witch potion". Perhaps the first appearance of his vulnerability to magic.
- The plot of this issue seems to be a reference to "The Most Dangerous Game". Although in this case, the hunter goes after an even more dangerous game than a human - a Kryptonian. It doesn't end well for him.

Spoiler: The birth of yet another catchphrase

Feat Catalogue:

- Superman is shown on the first page jumping into the air while carrying a literal Noah's ark (complete with giraffes and elephants). This actually occurs later in the comic.
- Picks up a replica Noah's Ark (it looks smaller than the one described in the Bible, though). He jumps with it to the ocean and then swims across the Atlantic while pushing it, reaching Africa in record time, according to the narration.
- Stops a herd of stampeding elephants by elbowing the one in front and knocking over the others like dominoes
- No-sells a bunch of spears being thrown at him
- The narration describes him as "an unleashed lightning bolt" as he quickly captures a bunch of large animals, throws them in cages, and closes the cages before the animals can escape
- Limitation: Is rendered paralyzed by a "witch potion"
- With a strong effort of willpower, manages to break out of the paralysis
- Picks up the cages containing the animals, stacking many on top of each other, and jumps to the ark while carrying them.
- Carries the ark, full of animals and two humans (one of them wounded) to a hospital, then carries it back to the ocean, then swims it back across the Atlantic and carries it back to Metropolis (see the first feat in this list)
- Walks while carrying the ark with one hand

Weirdness:

- Mild racism: Africa is referred to as "The Dark Continent". That's generally considered inappropriate nowadays.
- Less mild racism: A group of African natives are drawn so brutish-looking that I thought, at first glance, that they were supposed to be gorillas
- More racism: A hunter in Africa says "I'm all alone here... haven't seen another white person in years!" when he meets Superman. Funny enough, since Superman is an alien, he has a lot less in common with the guy than he does with the African natives. To be fair, this guy was later shown to be a villain.
- Superman encounters a tiger in Africa. Tigers don't live in Africa.
- He also runs into what the natives call "Devil animals", weird-looking creatures that don't match anything in real life. The nature of these is never explained.
- A guy dies instantly just by falling into a refrigerated room.

Spoiler: The 1940s were a different time...

Superdickery:

- Calls a guy stupid for attempting suicide, and says he's tempted not to help him with his problems.
- Shows no reaction to a few blatant displays of racism
- Swings a tiger around in the air by its tail... that's definitely animal abuse
- Beats up a bunch of wild animals, puts them in cages, and captures them to put in a zoo

Power Tracker:

- Some nice stamina feats in this issue, but still nothing to push him above Mid Meta Level.

Action Comics #46

Notes:

- According to the wiki summary, the Zatara story in this issue involves him destroying the German army, beating up Hitler, and personally ending WWII, while Superman is stuck fighting criminals in an amusement part. How did the latter become the more popular character, again?

Feat Catalogue:

- Puts his civilian clothes back on at super speed and pretends to be stuck in a tree, seemingly seconds after appearing as Superman
- A thug tries to push him over while he's just standing there and not resisting, and he can't budge him. This was later explained as Superman having a Blob-like power to remain unmoved against forces that would normally be able to move something of his weight
- Stops a car on a log flume type ride and pushes it back up the slope with one hand
- Stops a roller coaster train as it's falling, before it hits a destroyed part of the track
- Picks up the train and jumps with it into the air, carrying it safely to the ground
- Knocks two thugs over from a distance by rolling a bowling ball at them
- Spins a merry-go-round at super speed so it becomes a blur, causing the criminals hiding within it to fly out
- Uses super breath to extinguish a cigarette lighter from a distance before it can be used to light a stick of dynamite

Weirdness:

- Superman finishes a sentence started by the narration. It would probably be reaching to interpret this as a fourth-wall breaching power. Still, it makes little sense otherwise for him to randomly say "Superman!" like that.

Spoiler: Either he read the narration, or he just likes randomly shouting his name

Superdickery:

- Rips a door off an amusement park building when chasing a criminal

Power Tracker:

- Mid Meta Level. Nothing much to say.

Action Comics #47

Notes:

- The cover features Superman punching Lex Luthor through a brick wall. This cover is notable for being featured on the original Superdickery website.
- This is the first time in this title that Superman actually fights someone with comparable strength to his own.

Feat Catalogue:

- The narration says that Superman is on his way to the bank "in less time than it takes to blink an eyelash"
- Breaks out of Luthor's electric shock by spinning at super speed (what?)
- Punches Luthor through a brick wall and a tree (with the same dialogue as on the cover)
- Jumps across multiple states "in a matter of moments" (pretty good speed feat)
- Smashes through the side of a mountain
- Swims through molten metal
- Shrugs off hypnosis again
- Pushes through and resists strange flames that attack his mind
- Is crushed under a large statue but breaks out unharmed
- Splits a mountain in half (the image doesn't make it look that impressive but the narration suggests it is)
- Carries a huge slab of rock with multiple people on top of it to the nearest populated area
- Beats the electrically - amped Luthor (although his electrical powers were starting to wear off)

Spoiler: The mountain looked bigger in an earlier page

Feat Catalogue (non-Superman):

- Lex Luthor creates a device that gives him super strength by charging his body with electricity (however that's supposed to work). With this, he rips open the metal doors of his laboratory so violently it's mistaken for an explosion, and tears a thick chunk of metal in half with his bare hands. Despite having the strength, he still doesn't have Superman's other powers, though.
- The electrically - powered Luthor stops a car with his bare hands, then releases an electric shock that knocks its occupants unconscious
- Luthor uses his powers to melt through a bank vault door
- Knocks another guy out with an electric shock
- Temporarily paralyzes Superman with an electric shock
- Tanks being punched through a brick wall and a tree by Superman
- Releases another electric shock at a range and knocks out everyone in a room

Weirdness:

- Luthor sends Superman to retrieve the "powerstone" an extraterrestial gem guarded by, among other things, hypnotic snakes, psychic-draining flames, and cultists. This thing will supposedly make Lex more powerful than Superman, but he never gets a chance to test it.

Superdickery:

- Taunts Lois by saying that Clark Kent will cover the story before she will, while risking his identity as Superman to say so

Power Tracker:

- He's getting closer and closer to high meta level, but for now is still Mid Meta Level.

Action Comics #48

Notes:

- The opening narration refers to Superman as "the mightiest avenger of them all" - wrong team, wrong universe, LOL.
- Clark is offered a cigar, but he reveals that he doesn't smoke.

Feat Catalogue:

- The narration refers to Superman as "a human lightning bolt" as he jumps into the air (ignoring for a moment, the fact that he isn't human)
- Drifts through the air, using his cape like a sail to slow his descent. The physics of this are questionable.
- Disappears from the vision of two criminals
- Another display of his 'inability to be moved' power, as a man lassos him with a rope but can't move him
- Falls out of a speeding car (on purpose) and changes to Superman before he hits the pavement
- Survives the collapse of a large building while inside it, unharmed
- Stops a giant hydraulic press by using his knees

Spoiler: And you probably thought that anime invented this trope

Weirdness:

Superdickery:

- Leaves Lois tied up after disarming a deathtrap, so she can't get the scoop in the paper over him

Power Tracker:

- Still Mid Meta Level.

 

[Endless Mike]

Action Comics #49

Notes:

- First appearance of the Puzzler, a rather minor villain. He's basically Superman's version of the Riddler.
- The cover says that he's Superman's cleverest opponent, but honestly I don't see him as being anywhere near as smart as the Ultra-Humanite or Lex.

Feat Catalogue:

- Using X-ray vision, he sees that a ping-pong ball (that's already flying in midair) is filled with explosives, so he rushes out of the room, changes to Superman, runs back in, and grabs it before the other player can hit it
- He then plays ping-pong with himself by running to both sides of the table and hitting (a different) ball back and forth
- He jumps into the sky with the explosive ping-pong ball and tanks the explosion with no damage
- Catches and deflects bullets from multiple machine guns at once
- Beats the Puzzler at checkers, despite him claiming to be "the world's most brilliant checkers expert", and Superman stating he only played the game once before
- When the Puzzler cheats at checkers, Superman cheats back by moving the pieces so fast that his hands can't be seen
- Is only disoriented but not hurt by poison gas
- Explosives set off near a volcano trigger a minor eruption and blast lava at him, but he remains unharmed

Spoiler: It seems like they're continuously upping the ante with the bullet timing feats

Spoiler: This kind of cheating wouldn't be effective at all if both players could remember where their pieces were supposed to be

Feat Catalogue (non-Superman):

- The Puzzler doesn't seem to have access to the kind of sci-fi technology that Lex Luthor and the Ultra-Humanite have, but he does have a lot of bombs, poisonous gas, electric tripwires, etc.
- Puzzler dives into a river and somehow manages to escape Superman

Weirdness:

- Another "Flashback!" narration panel
- The Puzzler somehow creates a whirlpool when Superman dives into the water, which is almost powerful enough to pull him in. It's never explained how he did this.
- The Puzzler kidnaps people with the surnames King, Bishop, Queen, Knight, and Clausen (the latter of whom owns a pawn shop), and Superman correctly deduces that this is a puzzle based on chess pieces, but he assumes the remaining one will be someone named "Castle", although it really should be "Rook".

Superdickery:


Power Tracker:

- No change. Still Mid Meta Level.

Action Comics #50

Notes:

Feat Catalogue:

- Plants an entire farm's worth of crops, a job that the narration says would ordinarily take weeks, in a few moments

Weirdness:

- For a story based around baseball, it's disappointing that Superman never once actually plays the game

Superdickery:

- Sexism: Objects to Lois covering a baseball story because "Baseball is a man's game!"
- Kidnaps an aspiring baseball player from a train and carries him through the air, just to try to get him to try out at a training camp

Spoiler: Got to love the 40s...

Power Tracker:

- Mid Meta Level. Not much to say.

Action Comics #51

Notes:

- First appearance of the Prankster, another minor villain (although a bit more prominent than the Puzzler). Unfortunately we'll have to wait many years before seeing villains like Brainiac, Darkseid, and Mongul.

Feat Catalogue:

- Ties up the Prankster and his goons "in the twinkling of an eyelash"
- Captures a thug and steals his clothes to disguise himself, all in "an instant"
- Takes the Prankster's stolen loot and replaces it with blank paper at super speed so that no one can see (why he didn't just grab the Prankster himself then, I have no idea)

Feat Catalogue (non-Superman):

- The Prankster has custom designed cars, a gun disguised as a flute, an automatic trap chamber that fills with poison gas, fire and blade traps, bombs, collapsing boulders, and various other gimmicks

Weirdness:

- The Prankster's goons evade Superman by hiding in a hidden compartment in their getaway car, making it seem like they've disappeared. For some reason he doesn't think to use his X-ray vision.
- The Prankster's plan is to stage several fake bank robberies and give away money instead of stealing it, so that banks will invite him to come over and 'rob' them, so he can easily steal from their vaults for real. Somehow this actually works, until Superman intervenes.

Power Tracker:

- He's getting a lot more of these really good speed feats, but remains at Mid Meta Level.

Action Comics #52

Notes:

- The opening narration reads: "This is a tale that could occur only after the war... many years hence! It's up to all of us to see that it doesn't!" This suggests that this is a hypothetical, or rather what DC would later call an "imaginary story", which is not canon. However, I can't be sure about that, so I'll still be documenting the feats.
- The President of the United States appears in this story. At the time this was published, the president was Franklin D. Roosevelt, but I'm not sure if the character depicted here is supposed to be him or not

Feat Catalogue:

- Opens the door of a plane in mid-flight and leaves "faster than the eye can follow" (and apparently also fast enough to prevent decompression)
- A legit lightning timing feat - he intercepts a lightning bolt before it hits a plane
- Pushes two mountain peaks apart so a plane doesn't hit them
- Corrects the plane's trajectory in mid-air to stop it from crashing
- Opens the door and reenters the plane, changing back into Clark Kent, at super speed again, so there's no decompression
- Is unaffected by the 'apathy ray' that the villain uses to make everyone else a complete pushover
- Catches bullets from a firing squad aiming for Lois
- The ray is concentrated at full power directly on Superman, but he still manages to resist it, at least for a short time

Spoiler: Lightning timing and mountain pushing, in one page

Weirdness:

- The plot of this story involves a villain who creates an 'apathy ray' that makes the entire country lose all of their initiative and willpower, and comply with anything they are told to do. Using this, he simply waltzes into the White House and declares himself "Emperor of America".
- After stealing lots of the country's treasure, the "Emperor" plans to destroy his own ray machine to hide the evidence. Makes very little sense.

Superdickery:

Power Tracker:

- Combined with several previous feats, the undeniable lightning timing seen here, as well as moving the two mountains before the plane hit them, would normally be enough to finally push him up to high meta level. Unfortunately, due to this story's questionable canonicity (see the first note), he has to remain at Mid Meta Level for now.

 

[Endless Mike]

Action Comics #53

Notes:

- Superman is once again shown fighting Nazis on the cover, but no such thing happens in the actual comic.

Feat Catalogue:

- Superman's enhanced vision can see in pitch darkness. I'm counting this as another power.
- Jumps between two cars and stops them from colliding. Oddly, the narration refers to this as "one of the most sensational exhibitions of strength that the world has ever seen", yet it's pretty low-end compared to many of his other strength feats so far
- Rushes into a car and knocks out a criminal before he can fire his gun
- Rushes over to a car, pulls it out of its parking spot, opens the door, takes out the criminal, takes his place, and changes back to Clark Kent "all in the amazing space of a fraction of an instant". This happened before Lois or the cops could notice anything was up after the light came back.
- Enters a jail cell so fast that no one can see him
- Follows a guy and moves out of the way when he turns around to try to see him, keeping out of his line of sight
- Uses makeup to make his face look exactly like that of a criminal he captured
- Rushes to multiple spots around Metropolis, smashes the black light devices, and catches all the crooks at super speed
- Pushes a car with its headlights on into a cave fast enough to blind the villain, who was about to strangle Lois

Spoiler: Another vision-related power

Spoiler: This is impressive. I'd calc it if I didn't know the Silver Age feats were going to blow it out of the water.

Weirdness:

- Another random mad scientist invents a device that can plunge localized areas into complete darkness temporarily. People must be getting used to this kind of thing, as the idea isn't met with all that much skepticism.
- Superman suddenly has a "secret mountain retreat" with his emblem on it (an early version of the Fortress of Solitude?) I don't know if this was shown or mentioned in any other titles, but this is its first appearance in this one

Spoiler: Not much of a secret with that big logo right on the front

Superdickery:

- Kills the villain's pet owl (it had poison claws and was about to kill Lois, but that's just what it was trained to do)

Power Tracker:

- He's still accumulating those impressive speed feats, but so far nothing to put him above Mid Meta Level.

Action Comics #54

Notes:

- Superman is shown destroying a German U-Boat on the cover. This never happens in the comic.

Feat Catalogue:

- Pushes a boat with Lois on it through the ocean, covering miles in seconds (again, you'd figure this would kill her)
- Pulls a rather large sinking ship out of the water (the narration says he uses all his might, though)
- Lifts said ship, seemingly with one hand, and carries it to shore
- Carries a pirate ship inland to the police station (not sure exactly what they're supposed to do with it, though... you'd figure he could just take the pirates)

Spoiler: How does that boat and Lois remain intact at those speeds?

Weirdness:

- The villain in this issue is the descendant of a pirate captain who is possessed by his ancestor's ghost, although the possibility is left open that it's all in his head and he's just crazy
- The ghost apparently knows who Superman is and is afraid of him

Superdickery:

- Lois accidentally gets in trouble while on a ship. Clark thinks she is just being stubborn and refuses to even go look for her.

Power Tracker:

- Nothing here to change the verdict of Mid Meta Level.

Action Comics #55

Notes:

- This issue ends with a Superman comic strip being published in-universe. Like the radio show, this was also a real thing. However, the real one had been running since 1939 (I'm not sure if I'll cover it in this thread).

Feat Catalogue:

- Superman travels hundreds of miles in a short but unspecified period of time (The narrations says "shortly after")
- This is a bit crazy - he grabs a bottle out of someone's hand, rushes off to a cabin, switches the bottle with another one, rushes back, and places in the guy's hand before he (or the person he's handing the bottle to) can notice
- Grabs a hillbilly, knocks him out, changes into his clothes, and molds his face to resemble him (what?) so fast that no one can see what happened
- Escapes a mountain cave, carrying three people, before an explosion goes off

Spoiler: I'm guessing all these speed feats were to compete with the Flash at the time

Spoiler: According to the wiki, he's done this face-changing thing before. Maybe in another title.

Weirdness:

- The entire premise of this issue is that a washed-up comic strip artist becomes famous by writing a new comic based on two hillbillies he spies on, then he tries to sabotage their marriage because it would end his strip. It's apparently a parody of the Li'l Abner comic strip, which was popular at the time.

Superdickery:

- Follows an artist to his private cabin to spy on him

Power Tracker:

- The speed feats are nice, but still not beyond Mid Meta Level.

Action Comics #56

Notes:

Feat Catalogue:

- Runs up the side of the Washington Monument an instant before some giant hailstones hit the top of it, and punches them all away.
- One of the hailstones falls down towards Lois, so he runs back down the monument and diverts its path by creating a vortex by running past it quickly, then smashes it
- Hears another radio broadcast
- Runs from Washington D.C. to South Dakota in an unspecified period of time, but it seems fairly fast, as he did so in response to hearing about a mysterious green ray which was menacing Mount Rushmore, and the ray is still there and hasn't yet damaged the statues when he arrives
- Blocks the green ray with his body before it can damage Mount Rushmore
- Shorts out the ray by jumping with a car into it, as it reacts poorly to metal
- Runs back to Washington D.C., arriving as the train Lois took (which left right before he did) just arrived at its first stop
- Manages to see people running away from a building from many states away (his longest range vision feat yet)
- Runs across the nation again "at blinding speed". The narration says he covers cities, counties and states in minutes.
- Climbs up a skyscraper with ease
- Stops a vibrating tuning fork that was about to destroy a skyscraper
- Spots a giant tsunami about to hit the Statue of Liberty, and rushes there before it makes contact (unsure of the distance though, as he was in the fictional "Princeville", which we only know is located somewhere in the continental United States)
- Stops the tsunami by swimming in the opposite direction at super speed
- Punches back artillery shells
- Jumps from Metropolis to Africa in minutes. We see a panel of him seeming to be in space, although it could just be jumping through the air at night.
- Intercepts a bunch of bombs aimed at the Giza pyramids, although he notes that he is dazed from the explosions
- No-sells a barrage of lightning bolts that were powerful enough to trigger a giant volcanic eruption
- Carries a large boulder with many people on it from somewhere deeper in Africa back to near Giza
- Swims across the Atlantic while carrying Lois, much faster than a steam ship

Spoiler: Looks like your typical disaster movie

Spoiler: Not quite sure how he did that...

Spoiler: Very nice long-range jumping feat (is he in space?)

Spoiler: Considering the size of that tower, those are some powerful lightning blasts

Weirdness:

- Another fairly wacky plot, with a villain using unspecified technology to create natural disasters to destroy various monuments, and strapping Lois to a giant rocket and sending her to Africa, for some reason. Apparently the villain is an architect who wanted to build the world's greatest building (and did - a tower taller than the clouds), and to ensure it has that title, he tried to destroy every other famous building in the world.
- Africa is again referred to as the "Dark Continent"

Superdickery:

- Interrogates a guy by threatening to drop him from a skyscraper, and when he reveals the information he wanted, he leaves him clinging to the side of said skyscraper and says it's his own problem to get himself down

Power Tracker:

- The feats in this issue are pretty crazy. I think we've finally done it, folks - High Meta Level achieved.

 

[Endless Mike]

Action Comics #57

Notes:

- The blurb on the cover calls the Prankster "Superman's most puzzling foe" - kind of speaks badly for the Puzzler that he doesn't even get the title you'd expect from his name
- The intro page says that the Prankster returned by popular request by the readers

Feat Catalogue:

- Superman is encased in concrete and lowered into a river, but breaks out

Weirdness:

- The "Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Ostriches" is a plot point in this issue. Really.
- The Prankster temporarily defeats Superman with a squirt gun, which somehow makes him punch himself in the face and knock himself out. Again, really.

Spoiler: PIS, or just a gag scene?

Superdickery:

- Superman breaks into the Prankster's office and searches it without a warrant (when he wasn't even wanted for anything at the time). Apparently being a superhero means you don't have to follow proper procedure.

Power Tracker:

- Despite his incredibly poor showing this issue, there's still nothing to degrade him from High Meta Level.

Action Comics #58

Notes:

Feat Catalogue:

- Breaks out of a sealed underground vault
- Hears a gasp from an attacked man in a building while he was on the top of a Ferris wheel
- Catches Lois and several other people who were flung into the air off an out-of-control Ferris wheel

Weirdness:

- The cover of this one is kind of infamous. Some of the typical WWII propaganda at the time - you may have seen it on Superdickery. I'm going to post a scan of it just in case you haven't. There's even a disclaimer on the scanned version I have that says "This DC Comics comic book reflects the sensibilities and language of the time in which it was first published. This content is published without alteration for historical reference."
- Apparently Clark and Lois are such famous reporters that a newspaper publishes a large article merely reporting that they've been assigned to visit the homes of several famous people in the movie industry to get interviews. What?
- Another newspaper article headline reads "Movie director robbed by incredibly ugly thug". Way to editorialize...

Spoiler: This didn't age well...

Superdickery:

- The Cover. 'Nuff said.

Power Tracker:

- Nothing notable, so he's staying at High Meta Level for now.

Action Comics #59

Notes:

- Superman is shown fighting a German tank on the cover, but of course, no such thing happens in the story
- Superman uses his breath to quickly cool red-hot glowing glass. This might be the first appearance of his arctic breath, except for the fact that this was a dream
- Ann Rutherford is mentioned in this issue. I had to look up who that was, once again.

Spoiler: The first appearance of ice breath in Action Comics... is in a dream sequence

Feat Catalogue:

- For the very first time in this thread, we have no notable feats, because everything in this story aside from a few pages was a dream

Weirdness:

- The premise of this issue is that Clark has to babysit Lois' bratty niece, and when reading her the story of Cinderella, he falls asleep and has a dream where he's part of the fairy tale. Okay...

Superdickery:

Power Tracker:

- Considering that he did absolutely nothing other than fall asleep and have a dream in this issue, no change from High Meta Level.

Action Comics #60

Notes:

- The second issue in a row that is just a dream.
- This is also the first time the recurring plot of Lois getting Superman's powers is introduced... even though it's just a dream this time, it happens for real several times afterwards.
- The villain in the dream sequence says that Superman can "fly like a bird". This possibly indicates that he has officially learned how to fly by this point, but there is conflicting information online saying that didn't happen until later, and this is just a dream...

Feat Catalogue:

- Again, the whole thing was a dream, so no feats

Weirdness:

- Even in her dream of having superpowers, Lois freaks out upon seeing a mouse.

Superdickery:

Power Tracker:

- Again, nothing happened outside of the dream sequence, so no change from High Meta Level.

 

[Endless Mike]

Action Comics #61

Notes:

Feat Catalogue:

- Superman does the Fry with 100 cups of coffee thing, rushing around a room at super speed to put out a fire
- He also shows the ability to make his voice extremely loud to a superhuman volume. Another seemingly new power.
- The narration says that he has "super-powers of perfect bodily control" - seemingly another power we haven't seen or heard about before.
- Rather impressive speed feat. While captured in a room next to Lois, he escapes his restraints, jumps out the window and high into the air, scans the city for a person who looks sort of like him, captures the guy, knocks him unconscious, puts Clark's clothes on him, and replaces him in the chair and reties the restraints, all so fast that Lois couldn't perceive anything happening.

Spoiler: Posting scans every time we see a new power, in this case a super loud voice

Spoiler: And now "perfect bodily control", although apparently it's not quite perfect

Spoiler: These speed feats are getting crazier

Weirdness:

- Clark repeatedly tries to reveal that he's Superman to Lois and others in this issue, but a bunch of coincidences keep making everyone fail to believe him
- Clark is arrested right as he's about to take off his civilian clothes and reveal his Superman costume, because a police officer thinks he's about to strip in public

Superdickery:

- Follows Lois around to spy on her while she's on a date out of jealousy

Power Tracker:

- Very nice speed feat, which fits in with the High Meta Level classification.

Action Comics #62

Notes:

- After so many covers teasing us with Superman fighting Nazis, now we finally get to see it happen. It's about time, if you ask me.
- Due to the framing device used for this story, it's possible it might not be canon, or at the very least, the future scenes depict an alternate future (but the feats taking place in WWII should still be valid)

Feat Catalogue:

- Uses X-ray vision to see clearly into very deep water
- Moves at such speed (while carrying a guy) that he phases through solid matter. I'm counting this as a new power, and it's also perhaps the ancestor of his later ability to vibrate himself intangible
- Prevents a grenade from going off and hurting people around him by containing the explosion in his hand
- Temporarily holds back thousands of tons of collapsing rock from a cave-in caused by a TNT explosion
- Is buried by the rockslide but remains unharmed, and tunnels out (the narration describes him tunneling underground "swift as a rocket ship in the stratosphere")
- Breaks out of the rock and gets in front of the Nazi machineguns before they can fire
- Digs his way up to the surface while holding Lois
- Evacuates a bunch of allied prisoners and Nazis from a cave while the ocean is filling it up
- Appears healthy and unaged 200 years in the future, and is said to be using his "super-brain" to advance the cause of science

Spoiler: I don't believe this is quantifiable as a speed feat, but it does demonstrate intangibility

Spoiler: Decent strength and durability

Spoiler: Superman's longevity would be rather inconsistently portrayed over the years

Weirdness:

- This story is framed as a flashback of history told from the year 2143 (200 years after the comic was published), when apparently crime was a thing of the past. Pretty optimistic.
- The future narrator says that WWII ended "With the destruction o' the Nazis and their evil allies, and the spread o'liberty through all the world!" - I guess that could be considered half right?

Superdickery:

Power Tracker:

- The intangibility thing is a nice new power, but he's still High Meta Level.

Action Comics #63

Notes:

- Unfortunately, we're back to the covers having nothing to do with the story, as this one features Superman attacking a Japanese fighter plane
- Superman's home planet of Krypton is first mentioned by name in Action Comics in this issue, although this isn't the first time the name appeared (I actually believe that the name originated on the radio show, same as the concept of Kryptonite)

Feat catalogue:

- The narration says that Clark "moves with lightning speed", although this could easily be a hyperbole
- Sees the collision of two stars in space a great distance away with his telescopic vision, where normal people needed a huge planetarium telescope to see it
- Falls off a skyscraper onto the street and is unharmed
- Digs underground and up through the floor of a fortified vault
- Hears Lois calling for him while deep underground in the vault
- Stops a meteor that was stated to be able to wipe out half a city
- Blitzes a group of gangsters who have taken Lois hostage, rescuing her and knocking them out before they can pull the trigger on the gun they have pointed at her

Spoiler: Not an absolutely huge meteor, but a decent feat nonetheless

Weirdness:

- The plot involves two rogue stars colliding with each other at the edge of the solar system, creating some kind of weird radiation that gives Superman temporary amnesia.
- A scientist says the collision happened hundreds of years ago and the light is just now reaching Earth, meaning it was hundreds of light-years away, but the narration and dialogue from other characters suggests it is much closer
- The villain in this issue, a mob boss, is referred to by the narration as "one of the most cunning villains who ever lived". Considering that this was his only appearance, I don't think he's any competition for the Ultra-Humanite or Lex Luthor.
- The criminals plan to use the amnesiac Superman to rob the federal gold reserve at "Fort Blox". No idea why they changed the name, as it's not like it's copyrighted or anything.

Superdickery:

- Having lost his memory, he's tricked by some mobsters into beating up rival gangsters, fighting cops, and attempting to steal gold from the government

Power Tracker:

- The meteor feat further solidifies his High Meta Level status.

Action Comics #64

Notes:

- First appearance of the Toyman, another C-list villain (B-list at best). It seems they were kind of hesitant in these early years to give Superman genuinely powerful villains to fight.

Feat Catalogue:

- Unaffected by knockout gas
- Grabs a toy armored car filled with TNT and crushes it in his arms, containing the explosion
- The army says that not even their biggest shells can hurt Superman
- Ties together the wrecked supports of a bridge to prevent it from collapsing after a bomb damages it
- Unharmed by acetylene torches (I think... the dialogue implies they were used on him but the picture makes it hard to tell)
- Apparently has a "sixth sense of danger"
- Hears radio control frequencies

Spoiler: Superman had Spider-Sense before Spider-Man?

Feat Catalogue (non-Superman):

- Toyman builds an army of remote-controlled toy soldiers that can fire knockout gas
- Builds a pogo stick with a spring powerful enough to launch him into the air like a rocket, and a parachute to allow him to land safely
- Built a remote-controlled toy fire engine with an incendiary bomb inside
- Built a ladder with springs that launched him up the side of a skyscraper like his pogo stick
- Built two miniature armored cars, each loaded with TNT
- Built remote controlled dolls with poison needles for fingers

Weirdness:

- Toyman's gimmick isn't quite weird enough to qualify for this section IMO, but some may disagree

Superdickery:

- Leaves Lois tied up after Toyman captured her, in order to beat her to writing the story in the paper

Power Tracker:

- Still High Meta Level.

 

[Endless Mike]

Action Comics #65

Notes:

- At one point, the narration refers to Superman as "the fastest man on Earth". That's probably because this was before he and the Flash were officially part of the same universe.
- A kid in this issue says that he wants to see Superman fly, possibly indicating that he can fly by this point, but I'm not sure.

Feat Catalogue:

- Jumps from an apartment to a hospital (both in Metropolis) in a directly stated timeframe of one second. No distance given, though.
- Jumps from Metropolis to Washington D.C. and back, in an unknown timeframe (but probably much less than an hour)
- Builds a large ship in minutes, the narration saying it would have taken a hundred men many days to do the same.
- Carries some people away from dynamite before it explodes so fast they don't know what happened, and they think the explosion blasted them up into the air
- Builds another ship, in an unstated timeframe
- Carries the ship down the street
- Flies into an indoor auction, grabs a guy, and carries him outside, all so fast that no one sees it happen and it seems like the guy just disappeared
- Continues to do the same to multiple people, and all they can perceive is themselves disappearing and reappearing outside instantly
- Spins to create a vortex that sucks all of the money out of a group of gangster's pockets. The narration says he does this at the speed of light, but despite being much faster now than before, I still don't buy lightspeed quite yet.

Spoiler: Still probably not lightspeed

Weirdness:

- The plot of this issue involves a dying millionaire leaving the remainder of his fortune to one of his sons, on the condition that he spend $1 million in 24 hours, without giving any of it away or spending more than $1,000.00 on a single purchase. He needed Superman's help to do this, but if this plot took place today, then anyone could do it pretty easily over the internet. I just found that kind of funny.
- A blind man is shown in this issue to be wearing a large sign around his neck that says "BLIND". I have no idea if that was actually a thing in the 40s, but it seems weird.

Superdickery:

Power Tracker:

- A legit lightspeed feat would push him towards Low Herald Level, but this one probably isn't legit, so he's still High Meta Level.

Action Comics #66

Notes:

- It's shown in this issue that Superman knows how to perform CPR

Feat Catalogue:

- Smashes through solid rock to rescue a boy from an underground stream he was carried into by a waterfall, then breaks back through to the surface
- Swims down a river "faster than any craft ever traveled", according to the narration.
- Picks up a boat with criminals on it and jumps to the police station in Metropolis while carrying it

Weirdness:

- The opening narration says that Superman has "never taken a human life". Many previous issues of this very same comic beg to disagree.

Superdickery:

Power Tracker:

- Nothing notable. Still High Meta Level.

Action Comics #67

Notes:

Feat Catalogue:

- Smashes four city blocks worth of buildings, much faster than he did way back in issue #8
- Carries a bunch of stacks of books, paintings, and other assorted junk through the air without dropping any of them, somehow
- Picks up two mansions, moves them next to each other (away from the center of Metropolis towards the edge of the city), and smashes the walls between them
- Builds a military academy consisting of multiple buildings at super speed

Weirdness:

Superdickery:

- Smashes his way through a window to try to talk a guy into moving out of his home so the military can build a training facility there
- Breaks into and relocates two people's houses without their permission, then smashes the walls keeping them apart to create one big house.

Power Tracker:

- No change from High Meta Level.

Action Comics #68

Notes:

Feat Catalogue:

- Catches a whale with a steel cable, overpowers it, and brings it to shore
- Carries a battleship through the air
- The narration again says that Superman moves with the speed of light. Again, I don't buy it, considering all he did here was rush in a building and get some suitcases in the span of 1 second
- Creates a vortex to carry tear gas away from civilians and harmlessly up into the sky
- Juggles 6 large boulders

Spoiler: Well, it's a claim, but it doesn't quite hold water if you ask me

Weirdness:

- The title of the story is "Superman meets Susie", and indeed, everyone acts like it's his first time meeting Lois' 8-year-old niece. Except that he met her before, in issue #59.
- In one panel, where Superman is heading towards a group of whales, one of the whales has a dialogue balloon saying "I'm late for school!"
- Lois' niece overhears a conversation, calls the paper, and the editor assumes she's calling on behalf of Lois, which somehow ends up with a full story being written in the paper under Lois' byline, seemingly within minutes. How...?
- The story ends with Lois spanking her niece. Not really an acceptable practice these days.

Spoiler: A talking whale?

Superdickery:

- Upon meeting Lois' niece, Clark immediately tells her that he and Lois are going to be married, as if it's a sure thing, despite Lois disagreeing.
- When Lois' niece starts telling tall tales and Lois chastises her for it, Clark decides to troll her by using his powers to make the stories come true
- Captures a whale in the ocean and ties it to a dock, just to troll Lois

Power Tracker:

- It might seem like the lightspeed claims are being dismissed unfairly, but I know that he does reach lightspeed and beyond, I just want to see a much clearer feat before I accept it, like traveling in space or doing something in a nanosecond, or racing actual light beams. For now, he's still High Meta Level.

 

[Endless Mike]

Action Comics #69

Notes:

- This is the first time in this title that it is shown that Superman's X-Ray vision can't see through lead.

Spoiler: First time we see a limit to his X-ray vision

Feat Catalogue:

- Searches the entire city (or a large part of it) with his X-ray vision
- Digs underground and breaks into a lead-lined vault
- Carries said vault back up to the surface, digging it out of the ground, and places it on a truck

Weirdness:

- After catching the Prankster, Superman spanks him. Yes, really.

Superdickery:

- Deliberately ignores Lois asking him to get her down from a roof, just so he can do so later as Clark Kent
- Barges in and searches the Prankster's office without a warrant

Power Tracker:

- Still High Meta Level.

Action Comics #70

Notes:

- Superman's first use of ventriloquism in this title, which would later become the famous 'super-ventriloquism'

Spoiler: A power mainly known for being a wacky Pre-Crisis thing

Feat Catalogue:

- Hears a radio broadcast again
- Puts a dummy of himself in his place faster than the eye can follow (it's unclear where he got it from, if he built it in that time too then that's even more impressive)
- Replaces himself with the dummy again while Lois' back is turned
- Uses ventriloquism to make it seem like the dummy is talking

Weirdness:

- The villain in this issue, a crime boss known as The Thinker (no relation to Marvel's Mad Thinker) is hyped up a lot by the narration, and Superman even refers to him as "the toughest problem I've ever tackled". Yet, this was his only appearance.

Superdickery:

Power Tracker:

- High Meta Level, nothing much to say.

Action Comics #71

Notes:

- Although he had appeared in the book as early as issue #6, this is the first story where Jimmy Olsen is actually important to the plot

Feat Catalogue:

- Jumps while carrying a fire truck to a fire, much faster than it could get there on its own
- Jumps from the Daily Planet to a mansion in what looks to be a suburban neighborhood, arriving "seconds later", according to the narration
- Flies through a concrete wall so fast he pulverizes it to fine dust
- Moving so fast as to be invisible, Superman beats up a bunch of crooks while making it appear to everyone that Jimmy Olsen is the one fighting them

Spoiler: Not his most impressive speed feat so far, but still it's pretty complex

Weirdness:

- In this Valentines' Day story, Cupid is constantly referred to as "Dan Cupid". Apparently that is a term that was actually used, though I've never heard it before.
- There's a little kid in this comic who goes around dressed up as a stereotypical Native American, carrying a bow and arrow, and basically acting like a rather offensive caricature. But he looks to be only like 4 or 5, so you can't blame him that much.

Superdickery:

- Intends to give Lois an insulting present and a sarcastic Valentine letter as Superman, just so she'll be more interested in Clark Kent

Power Tracker:

- High Meta Level, again.

Action Comics #72

Notes:

- The cover shows Superman deflecting some kind of lightning beam from what appears to be a mad scientist. This has nothing to do with the story.

Feat Catalogue:

- Superman is shown carrying a large truck with a crane on it, holding a large steel beam, while jumping, on the first page
- Clark says that Superman would have to strain some to lift and carry something heavier than 10,000 tons (although, as Clark, he sometimes talks down Superman so Lois will like him better in his civilian identity, so that's not anything conclusive)
- Jumps into the air "with the screaming speed of a hurtling shell", according to the narration
- Catches and safely lands with a giant 40-ton machine
- The narration says that his eyes are "swift as a thousand camera lenses" as he catches a very slight movement from a Nazi spy
- Picks up and moves a large set of stands in a baseball stadium
- Hides and changes into Superman "quicker than a camera shutter"
- Tosses the pieces of an observatory over a mountain, then jumps over and catches them before they fall, assembling them into the full observatory
- Travels across the country to the "Rocky Dam" (no location is specified, but I guess by the name it's probably somewhere in the Rocky Mountains?), and then returns to Metropolis in the space of one panel, although no timeframe is given.

Weirdness:

- We get another off-brand name, in "Malley's Comet"

Superdickery:

Power Tracker:

- No change from High Meta Level.

 

[Endless Mike]

Action Comics #73

Notes:

- It's shown in this issue that Clark Kent has a huge collection of antique and diverse clocks
- It's also shown in this issue that Lois is allergic to roses
- Lois almost kisses Clark in this issue

Feat Catalogue:

- Stops a train by grabbing the rearmost car, then jumping to the front and stopping the locomotive
- States that time seems to stand still when he employs super speed
- Destroys a killer plant to save Lois before it can hurt her

Weirdness:

- The narration addresses Clark Kent himself at one point, telling him not to reveal his identity to Lois. There's no indication that he can actually read it this time, though.
- One of the clocks in Clark's collection can fire a rocket on a timer. The hell?
- The villain has an "African man-eating plant" in a greenhouse. Apparently this is just a thing that exists in this world.

Superdickery:

Power Tracker:

- High Meta Level, still.

Action Comics #74

Notes:

Feat Catalogue:

- Superman is trapped in a room made of a special kind of "tremendously thick rubber" and eventually breaks out by using sulfur and heat from friction to weaken the rubber, but he has trouble trying to break out with brute force. A rather low showing.
- After a dynamite explosion causes a mountain lake to break its boundaries, Superman repairs the natural dam with rocks at super speed before too much water gets out

Weirdness:

- Some guy dresses up as Superman and pretends to be him in this issue. What's weird though, is that when he pretends to use X-ray vision, the beams are actually illustrated

Superdickery:

Power Tracker:

- A low-end feat doesn't change his status of High Meta Level.

Action Comics #75

Notes:

- Both the Prankster and the Puzzler are namedropped in this issue

Feat Catalogue:

- Outswims a speedboat, picks it up, and jumps out of the water, carrying it into the air
- When the villain uses sleeping gas to instantaneously render the drivers of many vehicles in a busy intersection unconscious, Superman manages to stop all of the vehicles before any of them can collide with each other
- Rips open a steel elevator door and pulls the elevator car up by the cable
- Reshapes a guy's skull to fix an injury, by just touching the outside of his head

Spoiler: Brain surgery... now we're just waiting for rocket science

Weirdness:

- The villain in this issue apparently became evil when he fell off a horse, injuring his skull and causing a bit of bone to press against his brain. After this is fixed, he's suddenly back to normal.

Superdickery:

- Superman was so confident that his chiropractic cure had worked that he gave the villain back his gun and offered for him to shoot Lois

Power Tracker:

- High Meta Level, no real change.

Action Comics #76

Notes:

- This one has another disclaimer like the one for issue #58, so we're probably in store for some good old-fashioned WWII propaganda.
- This story is actually a flashback that takes place in 1939 (the comic was published in 1944)

Feat Catalogue:

- Disappears from the sight of multiple people, changes into his Superman costume, and returns before anyone can react
- Intercepts and tanks a shell from a battleship
- Throws a bunch of 50 lb. balls of rubber onto said battleship, then uses a giant spoon (where did that come from?) to cover it in liquid rubber
- Pushes a large sailing ship through the water
- Gets caught in a sudden waterspout/tornado and breaks free, although it does require some effort. Then again, this is the 1939 Superman.

Weirdness:

- As I predicted from the disclaimer, we get some typical WWII - era racist caricatures of Japanese soldiers
- Despite the fact that this takes place in 1939, when most people even in Metropolis hadn't heard of Superman (at least according to early issues of this title), the Japanese had apparently heard of him from newsreels
- "C'mon, let's play nip and tuck! Let's tuck the nips away!" - Got to love the Golden Age...
- As if the Japanese stereotypes weren't enough, we also have Indian stereotypes speaking in broken English

Spoiler: Racial caricatures worthy of Popeye

Superdickery:

- Uses the racial slur "Jap"
- Refers to a Japanese soldier as "Mr. Suki Yaki"
- Punches out a tiger, that wasn't even threatening anyone, just minding its own business

Power Tracker:

- As this is a flashback to 1939 when he wasn't as powerful, but his feats are still better than those in the first few issues, I think he's portrayed as Mid Meta Level here.