Pre-Crisis Superman Overview

[Endless Mike]

Action Comics #375

Superman Story

Overall Notes:

- There's a one - page feature in this issue recapping the history of the somewhat obscure character Sargon the Sorcerer. Interestingly, it directly names the Golden Age of comics, showing that such a distinction was a thing even back then in the Silver Age.

Notes:

• Continuation and conclusion of the story arc where he lost the memory of his Clark Kent identity
• Clark Kent's address is shown in this issue to be "E-76-125 APT. 51" (as close as I can tell, it's kind of hard to make out)
• Batman is one of the few people who knows the precise location of the Fortress of Solitude
• A response in the letters column has a reader point out the same error that I did in issue #369, regarding Mount Chimborazo

Feat Catalogue:

• Looks over all of the photo files at the Missing Persons Bureau at super speed to see that none of them look like him
• A memory deep in his subconscious causes him to dress just like he did as Clark Kent, despite supposedly losing his memories of that life
• KOs his imposter at super speed with a light tap, before he can react, then uses a nerve pinch to make him stay unconscious longer
• Uses super ventriloquism to broadcast his voice from an FBI radio while on a blimp controlled by criminals (the criminals don't hear anything)
• Flies out of the blimp at super speed, catches all of the stolen goods the criminals dropped to try to hide their crimes, and returns them to the blimp, all too fast to be seen, and so quickly nobody notices he left
• Apparently having also lost his memory of Batman's secret identity, he uses his x-ray vision to locate the Batcave

Spoiler: Not quite ripping off Mr. Spock

Spoiler: I'm still baffled about the mechanics of how this power actually works

Weirdness:

• Funny line of dialogue/thought: "No... robots don't smoke! And there are cigarette butts in that ashtray!" Obviously, he's never seen Futurama.
• Some criminals fly into the sky by releasing compressed helium into giant balloons hidden on their persons
• Another weird line of dialogue/thought, upon seeing that the criminal mastermind he's after is a woman: "Great galaxies! He's a... I mean... she's a girl!"
• Batman has a part of his cave dedicated to "Superman souvenirs", including a calendar from Bizarro World (how'd he get that?) that shows February having 31 days (and it's backwards)
• In the Fortress, there is a sample of "amnesium metal", which can wipe out the memories of non-super beings. But there's also a sample of Bizarro amnesium, which can restore the memories of super beings, which he uses to regain his memory.

Superdickery:

Power Tracker:

- Once again, he's still High Herald Level.

Supergirl Story

Notes:

• This story is continued in the next issue
• In this story, it's stated that the distance from the sun to the center of the galaxy is approximately 8200 parsecs, and a parsec is about 19.2 trillion miles. These values are actually fairly accurate.

Feat Catalogue:

• Builds a mobile "fully equipped space observatory", with "the most advanced space instruments from Superman's Fortress" to carry an astronomer into space so she can observe a nebula
• Flies the astronomer in the observatory "far across the deeps of space" to the nebula, then orbits it (it was stated to be 'engulfing all the stars in an entire sky sector' so this would certainly be an orbit of many light-years)
• Flies the astronomer in the observatory back to Earth
• Donated a model of the solar system using anti-gravity technology to Stanhope college (probably made from the Fortress technology)
• Uses a precise application of super breath to fog a woman's glasses from a distance

Spoiler: Space tourism way before Elon Musk

Weirdness:

- One student asks the question "Professor, could you demonstrate the trajectory of a satellite from Earth orbiting through the rings of Saturn?" This makes no sense. Anything that passes through Saturn's rings would be too far away from Earth to be a satellite of it, instead it would be a satellite of Saturn. You could assume she meant a man-made space probe, but that also wouldn't be called a "satellite" once it left Earth orbit.

Superdickery:

- Supergirl is inadvertently responsible for a woman going blind

Power Tracker:

- High Herald Level, still

Action Comics #376

Overall Notes:

- There's an interesting feature in this issue that covers various non-comic book adaptations of DC characters that had been released at the time. It has too much fascinating stuff in it to mention it all in the notes, so I scanned it, if you want to read it.

Spoiler: A lot of stuff here I didn't know

Superman Story

Notes:

• This is the beginning of another multi-part story
• The premise of this issue is very similar to that of issue #123, with various criminals competing to try to come up with ways to kill Superman
• The radiation from Green Kryptonite actually has an effect on something non-Kryptonian in this issue, shorting out the stabilizing controls of a space capsule. I think this is the first time we've seen something like this.
• The cover of this issue is very deceptive. It claims there is a substance as common as coal that is deadly to Superman, and shows him recoiling in fear from a box of it. It turns out that substance was glass, and it was only deadly to him in this particular situation because the lead suit that was protecting him from Green Kryptonite was transmuted into it

Feat Catalogue:

• Superman's invulnerability causes an attempt to teleport a bullet into his head to fail, as it can't materialize inside his body, so it bounces off his skin instead
• Flies to a white dwarf star and extracts several handfulls of neutronium from its core, carries them back into space, and uses them for earplugs, then flies back to Earth
• Throws the neutronium earplugs out into space when he no longer needs them
• Both Superman and his costume (his real one) are unaffected by a shrinking gas
• Brought a giant monitor screen to Metropolis square and used it to show an interplanetary broadcast
• Carries boxes of fireworks into space and ignites them with heat vision

Spoiler: Apparently you can't telefrag Superman

Spoiler: Technically that stuff should have exploded as soon as it left the star... but we'll ignore that

Spoiler: You can't shrink him either

Weirdness:

• A criminal scientist invents a teleporter ray with unlimited range, that can materialize solid objects inside of others. Instead of just patenting this and getting rich, he tries to use it to kill Superman, so he can commit more robberies without being foiled.
• Another scientist tried to create a miniature red sun (which he could hold with a pair of pliers somehow), but it exploded in his face. He later created a siren that broadcasted hypersonic frequencies that covered the entire planet Earth to try to drive Superman crazy, as normal people couldn't hear them
• Superman has a "vacuum helmet" in the Fortress of Solitude, which he can wear to surround his head with a bubble of vacuum. Obviously this doesn't harm him, but what is the point of this thing? In this case, he used it to block out a sound, but against a normal person this seems more like a cruel execution device.
• Yet another scientist invents a shrinking spray.
• Earth was made an honorary member of an interplanetary organization called the "United Worlds". To celebrate, they launched a space capsule carrying a banner with a flag with a picture of Earth on it
• A fourth scientist invented a transmutation ray that could change lead into glass, and had a range that could extend up to orbit and target a human-sized moving object.

Superdickery:

- Juggles a caged lion as part of a performance. That's animal abuse again.

Power Tracker:

- He struggled a bit to lift the neutronium out of the core of the white dwarf star, so that could be considered a low-end compared to many of his other strength feats. It could have also had something to do with the white dwarf star not empowering him like a yellow sun, maybe? Either way it's not enough to take away his High Herald Level status.

Supergirl Story

Notes:

- Continuation of the story from the previous issue

Feat Catalogue:

• It's confirmed in this issue that Supergirl built the anti-gravity model of the solar system seen in the previous issue
• Uses "mental super-energy" to overload the circuits of a device designed to drain all of her knowledge into an alien computer databank. The aliens had apparently previously absorbed the scientific knowledge of "half a universe" without issue.
• No-sells blasts from alien "death rays" and "shock guns"
• Flies back from the alien planet to Earth, carrying kidnapped scientists back with her in rockets

Spoiler: I guess this is a mental/telepathy resistance feat

Spoiler: Foils the aliens' plot

Weirdness:

• In a flashback to the previous issue, we see the student say that he asked the professor to "demonstrate the trajectory of a space vehicle orbiting Saturn", no longer using the word "satellite". It's almost as if they traveled forward and then back through time to read my criticism and correct it.
• We see a scene set in an African jungle, with some very stereotypical - looking, loincoth-wearing natives
• Some aliens planned and modified the construction of a "World Science Center" building on Earth, which was actually a rocket designed to help them kidnap all of Earth's greatest scientists and steal their knowledge. It was also built on the Stanhope college campus, for some reason

Superdickery:

Power Tracker:

- Again, High Herald Level.

 

[Endless Mike]

Action Comics #377

Superman Story

Notes:

• Continued from the story in the previous issue
• The narration says that only lead can stop Kryptonite rays. I think we saw other things stop it before as well, like Brainiac 5's forcefield, though...

Feat Catalogue:

• The narration on the splash page claims that "only one substance... Kryptonite" can kill Superman. Obviously there are other things that can, though... so don't take this 100% literally.
• The narration on the first page again says that Green Kryptonite is "the only substance in the universe that can destroy Superman".
• While dying from Green K poisoning, Superman manages to use the last of his remaining strength to propel himself out of the ring of Green K dust and grab on to a space capsule, then ride it back down to Earth as it re-enters the atmosphere (being far enough away from the Kryptonite dust now so his powers return, at least to an extent)
• We get a recap of some of his feats from the last issue (resisting the teleportation and traveling to a white dwarf star to get neutronium earplugs)
• He says he could have easily pushed a stranded ship off of a sandbar with one finger, but now due to the Kryptonite ring around the Earth, he is weak enough that he needs to use both hands, and he is continuously weakening and will eventually die from it
• Still weakened, he digs underground, finds some lead and forms it into a thick cylinder for protection from the Kryptonite rays.
• As his lead shield is transmuted again, he escapes it before he hits the Kryptonite ring again, and traces the invisible transmutation ray to its source with his vision powers
• Digs underground in Metropolis and travels underground all the way to the Fortress of Solitude
• Invented a flexible, invisible suit of "lead glass" that can protect him from Kryptonite rays. It's also bulletproof.
• Hypnotizes himself to feel no pain from the Kryptonite hitting his uncovered face
• Uses heat vision to somehow "alter" (transmute)? a sample of "rare dynium metal" which is required to power the lead-changing ray.
• Builds a "giant magneto-cleaner" to vacuum up all of the Kryptonite dust in orbit around Earth
• Throws the bag full of Kryptonite dust to the next galaxy

Spoiler: That's a lot of Kryptonite from such a small capsule...

Spoiler: Recap of feats from the last issue

Spoiler: Avoids the lead - to - glass trick a second time and traces the transmutation beam

Spoiler: Well if Star Trek can invent transparent aluminum, I guess this isn't such a stretch

Spoiler: Why not just hypnotize the criminals intead?

Spoiler: Transmuting/altering metal with HV

Spoiler: Giant space vacuum cleaner + FTL throw to another galaxy

Weirdness:

• If I didn't mention this before, it's very weird that the small amount of Kryptonite dust released from a single space capsule instantly formed a visible ring around the entire Earth, and it was so powerful that it continued to weaken him even on the surface, to the point where he would die within months if it remained there
• Once Superman discovers the criminals' plot, instead of just apprehending them at super speed or destroying their Kryptonite weapons from long range, he comes up with a convoluted plot to make himself appear as if he has been knocked out, allow himself to be captured, and even risk death by keeping his face uncovered by the invisible suit so the Kryptonite can actually hurt him, all to trick them into thinking he had built up an immunity to Kryptonite. He says he wanted evidence that they tried to kill him so he could take them to jail, but what about all of the other things they tried? He still has the bullet they tried to teleport into his head, for example.

Superdickery:

Power Tracker:

- While under the influence of the Kryptonite ring around Earth, perhaps Low-Mid Meta level, based on the strength needed to move that ship, although his other powers seemed mostly intact. High Herald Level otherwise.

LOSH Story

Notes:

• As of this issue, Supergirl's stories were moved to Adventure Comics, while the backup stories in Action Comics would now feature the Legion of Super-Heroes. I'll be covering these as well since they are quite relevant for this thread.
• This particular story is a reprint from Adventure Comics #300 from 1962, and is actually the first Legion story where they appeared as the main characters, and not guest stars in some other book. Eventually I hope to cover the Adventure Comics title as well.
• Mon-El becomes a LOSH member in this issue. I listed his feat in the non-Legion section though, because he wasn't inducted into the Legion until after he performed it.

Feat Catalogue:

• Cosmic Boy, having lost control of his powers, accidentally destroys a robot and its camera with his magnetism
• The same thing happens to Sun Boy as he melts the remains of the robot and the camera
• Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl's powers also go out of control. Notable is that the latter can use her telepathy to torture people, but never willingly does
• Superboy had a signal device in his bedside lamp that could transmit messages from the LOSH in the future
• He casually flies through time to the 30th century, then uses super friction to quickly repair the Legion clubhouse before it completely collapses
• Sun Boy again can't control his powers, as a mountain of ice melts simply due to him flying over it
• Superboy uses X-ray vision to scan the Legionnaires' bodies for any sign of a disease causing their powers to go haywire, but finds nothing
• The robot Urthlo had a device that could activate or deactivate the rest of the Legionnaires' powers at will, but it didn't work on Superboy due to his invulnerability
• Saturn Girl invented a serum that could temporarily protect Mon-El from the effects of lead, after telepathically communicating with and diagnosing him while he was in the Phantom Zone
• Superboy flies back to his own time

Spoiler: More of that casual time travel, also Sun Boy causes global warming

Spoiler: Saturn Girl gives everyone a headache

Spoiler: But at least she found a temporary cure for Mon-El

Feat Catalogue (non-Legion):

• Lex Luthor built a robot named Urthlo, equipped with a device that could remotely activate or deactivate the powers of the Legion (except Superboy). The robot also had Green Kryptonite vision and could fly, and had clothes immune to the Legionnaires' powers. He also sent it to the future with a time projector device.
• Mon-El, temporarily immune to the effects of lead, one-shots and destroys Urthlo

Spoiler: Luthor's robot is just as arrogant as he is

Spoiler: Mon-El actually does something... again!

Spoiler: There are so many better ways he could have used that time device...

Weirdness:

• Each Legion member has a placard at their seat listing their name and powers... what, were they going to forget them otherwise?
• Being in the 30th century, the Legion meeting is filmed by a robot cameraman - which happens to be a bulky humanoid robot carrying an old-fashioned looking film camera. LOL.
• The Legion had a Phantom Zone Projector, but they just buried it in a random spot underground instead of keeping it in a vault or something.
• Lex Luthor felt the need to built a robot with his own appearance, despite being covered by a lead mask all the time so he never expected anyone to actually see the robot's face. He also gave it an anagram of his own name.
• Apparently Lex programmed his robot by filling it with "hate tapes" that constantly repeated messages telling it to hate the Legion

Superdickery:

- Even though they couldn't control it, the Legionnaires wrecking things and torturing each other with their powers counts. Also, I'll be using this section in these LOSH stories to document general dickery by superheroes, not specifically Superman or his relatives.

Power Tracker:

- I'm not actually sure what I should do for this section regarding the LOSH stories, as I can't exactly keep a tracker for every Legion member. So I guess from now on, I'll just note whether there is any kind of feat, power change, or anything that affects or could scale to the Kryptonians.

Action Comics #378

Overall Notes:

- A response in the letters column says that Superman's boots are made of a different material than his cape, and while the boots can temporarily block Green K radiation, the cape can't

Superman Story

Notes:

• First appearance of the Marauder, an alien villain who looks like he's doing an Odin cosplay. Superman says he remembers encountering him before this, though.
• Superman is shown building "Earth's first space station" in this story. Indeed, this was published just under 2 years before the first RL space station, the russian Salyut 1, was launched. However, I'm pretty sure we've seen space stations in the DCU before this.
• The cover of this issue implies that Superman will face off against Satan/the devil. This is misleading as it's actually an alien brainwashed to believe he is the devil. The actual devil in the DCU would be either the First of the Fallen or Lucifer Morningstar, and it would still be many years before either of them would officially debut in comics.

Feat Catalogue:

• Digs the foundation for a new children's hospital in seconds
• Puts together a space station in orbit and welds it with heat vision
• Evades blasts from "Satan's" trident (these were later shown to be Green K based, so they would move at lightspeed, but there is no clear visual showing it wasn't aimdodging. It's also worth noting that he did this while in range of the Green K pin the fake Satan was wearing, so he was weakened at the time)
• Flies down to Earth so fast he's invisible to the fake Satan
• In a vision of the fake Satan's plan, an enslaved Superman builds "super-ray rifles" for a group of soldiers that allows them to easily defeat the other militaries of the world. This probably doesn't count as a feat but I'm noting it anyway.
• Tricks the fake Satan by controlling one of his robots remotely while he stays out of range of the Kryptonite

Feat Catalogue (non-Superman):

- The Marauder gives his brainwashed agent a thought-controlled trident and other devices which give him the following abilities:

• Teleportation (to anywhere he thinks of), as well as teleportation of others (including Superman) by firing a beam at them
• Telepathy
• Survival in space
• Telekinesis
• Energy blasts which can hurt Superman (Green Kryptonite - based)
• Tracking Superman's location
• Shooting "the flames of Eternal Tophet" to burn through the door to the Fortress of Solitude
• A Green K - infused pin that he wore, that passively weakened Superman when he was nearby

Weirdness:

• The Marauder has a brainwashing machine that he used to convince some guy he's the devil... by inputting a paper book into the machine.
• The guy the Marauder brainwashed just happened to be an alien refugee who once lived on Krypton and was named Superman's godfather when he was a baby, and his memories of this snapped him out of the brainwashing
• A narrative caption at the end of the story says that we'll be seeing more of Superman's godfather Rol-Nac "very soon", but he only made one more appearance ten years later, in a flashback.
• The cover shows the fake Satan using a voodoo doll on Superman, as well as knowing his secret identity. Neither of these happen in the story.

Superdickery:

- The cover and splash page imply Superman is pledging to serve Satan (although only one of his robots says this as it's being destroyed).

Power Tracker:

- Still High Herald Level, probably slightly weaker when near the Kryptonite pin that Rol-Nac was wearing.

LOSH Story

Notes:

- Unlike the one in the last issue, this is a new story and not a reprint

Feat Catalogue:

• Timber Wolf picks up and throws a chunk of loose pavement (which is apparently made of plastic in the 30th century) large enough to smash a laser tank vehicle
• He then defeats a group of at least 5 criminals armed with "rip-rays" that can "shear through the toughest steel". He avoids almost all of the blasts, although he takes a glancing hit but it only seems to leave a small wound on his arm, which he completely recovers from in a few days
• Dodges and does an acrobatic flip to catch a thrown fruit before it hits the floor
• Light Lass uses her power from long range to make a basket of fruit so light that a breeze can blow it several meters to her position
• Timber Wolf resists the addictive power of the fruit when forced to choose between it and Light Lass' life

Spoiler: Decent strength, agility, and durability for Timber Wolf

Weirdness:

• Apparently in 30th century Metropolis, roads are paved with plastic and smoothed over with laser-shooting tanks.
• The plot of this story is basically that a villain tries to get the Legion under his control by getting them hooked on drugs. I guess they got it past the CCA by using an addictive fruit as the drug, though.

Superdickery:

• While under the addictive effects of the fruit, Timber Wolf is rude to Light Lass and tries to get her hooked on it too, and he also nearly lets her die in order to get another fruit
• Light Lass also set up the situation, effectively forcing him to kill her if he wants another fruit

Spoiler: Say no to drugs, kids - by putting your friends' lives at risk!

Power Tracker:

- Nothing relevant to note

 

[Endless Mike]

Action Comics #379

Superman Story

Notes:

• This story implies that Superman's invulnerability would have made him immune to a magic curse, but as the "curse" turned out to be fake, this can't be taken at face value
• One character declares Clark Kent to be "America's most prominent news personality" in this story
• For some reason, the Superman story in this issue is separated into two parts, in the same issue

Feat Catalogue:

• Stops liquid oxygen leaking from a truck by squeezing the damaged valve shut
• Attempts to perform CPR on a guy but fails because he's already dead, but at least it shows that he knows how to do so
• Superman's form couldn't be copied by some alien shapeshifters
• No-sells a "death-blast" from an alien that could project himself as any form of energy. Not really quantifiable since it's unknown what type of energy a "death-blast" is, and he thought Superman was one of the other shapeshifting aliens in disguise so he was using what would be considered sufficient against that target

Spoiler: I guess these particular aliens can't take his form, although we've seen other beings shapeshifting into duplicates of him before

Weirdness:

• Superman thinks to himself "Is this a gag? There's no such thing as the supernatural in this day and age". Did you perhaps forget multiple villains, heroes, and allies you've encountered who all have supernatural powers/origins? He continues to disbelieve magic and sorcery throughout the story... and in the end it turns out he was right, there was nothing magical going on, but he should know that magic obviously does exist in his world.
• A reporter owned a boat named "Scoop Sloop"
• An alien lawman decided to fake an identity as a human mystic, stage his own death, and make up a fake curse for the purpose of executing 7 alien criminals disguised as humans

Superdickery:

- Refuses to believe that reporters he knows are dying because of a curse even as it keeps happening, and tries to get the papers to stop publishing stories about it, just so they will stop making him look bad. He didn't know for sure at the time that the curse wasn't real.

Power Tracker:

- Still no change from High Herald Level

LOSH Story

Notes:

- Mon-El takes a temporary serum every day to make him immune to both the effects of lead and red sun radiation

Feat Catalogue:

• The Legion's computer alarm is able to determine that one of them is an imposter, but it explodes due to sabotage before it can reveal who it is
• Element Lad tries to transmute Sunburst's weapons into hydrogen gas, but misses and transmutes the door of a bank instead (he missed because Sunburst had a forcefield device that deflected the transmutation beam)
• Mon-El deduces that Shadow Lass was the imposter

Weirdness:

- Sunburst, a villain using weapons that created bright sunlight and heat, was defeated by a weapon that created a much less bright light that appeared as dark by contrast and blinded him... huh?

Superdickery:

- The Legionnaires accuse each other of being imposters before they figure it out

Power Tracker:

- Nothing relevant to note.

Action Comics #380

Superman Story

Notes:

• This is the first part of a multi-part story arc
• The cover of this issue was featured on Superdickery (every time I mention this, try googling the cover for the issue, and you'll probably see why)
• Although the cover implies that Superman publicly reveals his secret identity while writing his confessions, he doesn't do so in this story.
• We have another appearance of one of the RL Telstar satellites
• At one point in this story, Mount Rushmore is defaced and a carving of Superman's face is placed on it, as part of an alien plot to incriminate him. This was 11 years before Zod and his cohorts would do something similar on the big screen.

Spoiler: Maybe Zod was watching this from the Phantom Zone and got the idea...

Feat Catalogue:

• According to the Superman Revenge Squad, he was the only thing that kept them from conquering the galaxy
• They also say that the Fortress of Solitude is guarded by "the most sensitive security devices in the universe", although their "monitor beam" is able to bypass them to see inside
• Superman invented a Red K detector, which is able to scan someone to see if they have been exposed to Red Kryptonite

Feat Catalogue (non-Superman):

- The SRS' ship is not only able to scan the interior of the Fortress, but can also become invisible and avoid all of the various "devices Superman uses to guard Earth from invaders" while he's away

Weirdness:

• Some alien criminals compete in an arena fight to determine who will get the chance to try to kill Superman, and they win the battle using "judo force beams" (which look like gloves that shoot fire and lightning blasts)
• We see some past Red Kryptonite effects, including turning Superman into a giant made of metal, a humanoid sea serpent, and turning only the left half of his body invisible

Power Tracker:

- Still High Herald Level.

LOSH Story

Notes:

Feat Catalogue:

• Duo Damsel splits into two bodies in reaction to a blast from an "anti-tron gun" (not sure exactly what that could be... it might be short for anti-electron, aka positron, which would fit its description as "the most powerful pistol in the galaxy" stolen from an "atom research lab"). Notable is that the narration says she uses her ability "instantly".
• We get more info on the Legion's alarm system, which "spans the entire mega-city of Metropolis and vital points all over Earth... plus many other worlds"
• Some of the weapons the Legion has access to include "nerve-rays" to stun targets.
• Another one they have is a "super-power neutralizer", which they claim will work on "just about anyone". It seems that it would indeed have worked on the alien Nam-Lor, as he is careful to avoid the blasts.

Spoiler: Reaction feat, it seems

Weirdness:

Superdickery:

- Duo Damsel's other self is accidentally turned evil by a "hyper-aura" from the alien Nam-Lor, and commits a bunch of crimes and tries to kill Bouncing Boy. Nam-Lor, himself a hero from another planet, is so head-over-heels for her that he decides to go along with her evil plans and commit crimes along with her, just hoping she'll eventually turn back to normal.

Power Tracker:

- Nothing relevant to note.

 

[Endless Mike]

Action Comics #381

Superman Story

Notes:

• Another cover that was featured on Superdickery, for obvious reasons
• Continuation of the story from the last issue
• Red Kryptonite radiation can't penetrate lead, either. I don't recall if that was established before, although it probably was.

Feat Catalogue:

• Shreds all of the flags at the United Nations building, then uses two flagpoles as knitting needles to weave their remnants at super speed into a giant Superman flag, and uses heat vision to melt all the flagpoles together into a giant flagpole to fly it
• Tricks the villains by incorporating an electronic satellite monitoring device into the giant flagpole to spy on them (after taking the device from the Fortress so fast the villains couldn't see him do so)
• Flies from the UN to the Fortress of Solitude and gets there before the villains can escape in their spaceship
• Throws the villains (in their ship) back into space

Spoiler: Tricks the Liquidators

Weirdness:

• The villains randomly decide to describe the details of their plan out loud to each other, despite having already done it, which is just what Superman needs to record to prove his innocence
• A narrative caption says "miniseconds later". That's not a real measure of time...

Superdickery:

• Even though it was a ruse meant to trick the villains, he seemingly decides to become evil and take over the world, vandalizing the UN building
• He is awfully uncaring about sending the villains to space to be enslaved for life

Spoiler: Classic Superdickery

Power Tracker:

- High Herald Level, again no change.

LOSH Story

Notes:

• The DC wiki lists Duplicate Boy's real name as "Qeulu Ord", but the comic calls him "Qued Orlu"... I'm going with the former here
• I've decided to forget about separating the feat catalogue in these LOSH stories into Legion and non-Legion feats, and just list feats in general from now on

Feat Catalogue:

• Quelu Ord, aka Duplicate Boy, has the ability to "duplicate any super-power at will... making him the mightiest hero in the universe"
• A trip of 5 million parsecs is considered not to be routine, but not unreasonable either, in the 30th century. Shrinking Violet complains that, due to the distance, she hasn't seen her boyfriend in weeks.
• Duplicate Boy uses super strength to rip up and bend a metal bar in order to try to intimidate Matter-Eater Lad. He then claims to be a billion times more powerful than him (although if he can really copy any power he has ever encountered, that might be underselling it)
• He also says he was on a mission and was watching Shrinking Violet and Matter-Eater Lad's date with his telescopic vision. Not sure if that actually means from 5 million parsecs away or closer, though.

Spoiler: Potentially an insanely broken character

Weirdness:

• Phantom Girl's parents are apparently cooking her a "fourth-dimensional dinner"... whatever that is supposed to mean
• Apparently 60s slang like "groovy" is popular again in the 30th century...
• In the last two panels of the story, Matter-Eater Lad's home troubles are apparently miraculously resolved as his parents completely forgive him and his father gives up his gambling addiction...

Superdickery:

• Matter-Eater Lad uses his paycheck from the Legion to take Shrinking Violet out on a date, despite the facts that his parents are poor and need the money, and that she already has a boyfriend
• Duplicate Boy vandalizes a metal structure

Power Tracker:

- Let's talk about Duplicate Boy for a bit. According to the DC wiki, he does have the ability to copy any power he has ever encountered, and use any number or combination of them at once (which theoretically makes him even more powerful and broken than Composite Superman, who I recently did a respect thread for). However it does note that his power has failed when trying to copy targets that were simply too powerful, such as Validus. I'd need to see more from him to assign him a level, though.

Action Comics #382

Superman Story

Notes:

• I think this cover was featured on Superdickery too, just for being bizarre
• Jimmy Olsen compares Perry White to Simon Legree, a slavedriving plantation owner from Uncle Tom's Cabin

Feat Catalogue:

• Uses super speed to charge a plastic wand with static electricity to attract balloons from the ceiling
• Uses X-ray vision to "excite the molecules" in the steel springs of a couch, creating a "powerful negative magnetism" that levitates Perry White because he has a metal cigar case in his pocket.
• Hypnotizes a criminal to paralyze him by vibrating the same wand at super speed
• Eats a bunch of (real) swords as part of his magic act
• Overhears gunfire nearby in Metropolis and uses X-ray vision to identify a criminal robbing a rare coin store
• Uses X-ray vision to make a guy's skeleton glow in the dark (that can't be healthy...)
• Takes stolen gold coins from a criminal's pocket at super speed, and makes it look like he coughed them up
• Uses super breath to lift a rubber hose into the air, in imitation of a snake charmer act, then freezes the water in the hose to make it solid so he can climb it like an Indian rope trick
• A criminal breaks his blackjack when trying to smash it over Clark Kent's head
• Tears through a mountain to retrieve a giant diamond inside of it
• Sees Jimmy Olsen being kidnapped with telescopic vision and traces him to the criminals' hideout
• Follows a car at invisible speeds and switches place with a wooden puppet too quickly for anyone to see

Spoiler: Another weird application of X-ray vision

Spoiler: Another hypnosis trick, and sword swallowing

Spoiler: Seems more like telekinesis than super breath...

Weirdness:

• The cover. Said scene actually happens in the comic, although it makes slightly more sense there...
• Get this: NASA launched an experimental "carbonized satellite" that collided with a comet, and the heat turned it into a giant diamond, which fell to Earth. That's... not how any of that works.

Superdickery:

• Levitates Perry White in mid-air, knowing that the effect won't wear off for a few minutes, so pretends to have forgotten the 'magic word' to bring him back down.
• When Jimmy is kidnapped by criminals, Superman sees it happen with telescopic vision, but doesn't rescue him as he wants to trap the criminals later

Power Tracker:

- Still High Herald Level.

LOSH Story

Notes:

Feat Catalogue:

• A mad scientist and industrialist in the 30th century invents a new kind of "super-hypnosis" that lets him capture Superboy and Mon-El, and studies, duplicates, and enhances many of their powers for use in a line of robots he builds. Notable is that the robots can gain power from any kind of sun, not just yellow ones.
• The Legion has "chameleoid costumes" that allow them to change their appearance for disguise

Weirdness:

• Jupiter is shown with a solid surface... you figure they should know better by now
• Upon seeing that her employer is dumping her for the disguised Light Lass, the villain's female partner in crime decides to self-destruct the robot factory and kill herself along with him. Kind of an overreaction...

Superdickery:

- Timber Wolf attacks Karate Kid to keep up his disguise, and even thinks to himself that they're fighting for real and one of them might end up dying

Power Tracker:

- Ultra Boy is directly stated to be weaker than both Superboy and Mon-El. He is also defeated by one of the robots, which is hardly surprising if they have Kryptonian/Daxamite speed and strength at the same time. Timber Wolf briefly fights Karate Kid but the fight is interrupted before any conclusions can be drawn.

 

[Endless Mike]

Action Comics #383

Superman Story

Notes:

- First part of a multi-part story

Feat Catalogue:

• Uses a combo of heat vision and ice breath to disintegrate a falling satellite and freeze and preserve its data recorder simultaneusly
• Scans every square inch of an area in Metropolis to find a pickpocket (he only fails because the guy was disintegrated)
• Notices a guy's heartbeat increase out of nervousness with super hearing
• Uses X-ray vision to quickly scan all the documents in a file cabinet, looking for criminal evidence (but doesn't find any)
• Is hit by a "death-touch" that knocks him back but doesn't hurt him due to his invulnerability. The same ability was previously shown to make a desk fade away into nonexistence.

Spoiler: Interesting combined power use

Spoiler: Another thing the vaunted Kryptonian "invulnerability" can stop

Weirdness:

- Ready for another crazy premise? An alien criminal is being transported through space on a prison ship, piloted by a single alien cop. The ship accidentally flies into the tail of a radioactive comet, and the radiation is so lethal that it instantly kills both of them and disintegrates their bodies, but leaves their uniforms not only unharmed, but somehow imbued with their consciousnesses and willpower. The ship then splits in two and both parts crash-land on Earth, where the sentient costumes try to find people to wear them to continue to carry out their roles. The evil costume has the ability to be invisible to anyone who isn't evil, and disintegrate anyone who tries to wear it if they don't meet its standards for evil. It can also mentally compel people to wear it. It also gets a whole bunch of other powers, like the ability to make things fade out of existence by touching them. When this doesn't work on Superman, though, it is able to adapt its powers to a different form.

Superdickery:

- Uses his super senses to spy on a private phonecall just because of a hunch. He turned out to be right, but still.

Power Tracker:

- Still High Herald Level, but we get a decent resistance feat. It's rather unclear though, as the costume's power causes the desk to become transparent and then fade into nothingness, but the guy wearing it refers to it as 'dissolving' and 'disintegrating', so it's unclear what exactly is happening. He is just a criminal the suit chose to wear so he doesn't know any details about its powers, so his terminology might be off, but it's hard to say anything for sure.

LOSH Story

Notes:

Feat Catalogue:

• Chameleon Boy "instantly" (according to the narration) transforms into a giant umbrella to shield two people from the sun, when sunlight reflecting off an alien gem starts to blind them
• Transforms into an alien 4-winged bird
• Princess Projectra creates an illusion of Chameleon Boy leaving in his flying car
• Robot waiters that can instantly synthesize any type of food ordered (like Star Trek replicators) are a thing in the 30th century
• Some buildings also have teleporters instead of elevators
• The Metropolis Science Police have anti-gravity platforms they can ride around on
• Chameleon Boy turns into a garter snake and crawls inside a robot guard to examine it for clues
• Princess Projectra uses her power to make Chameleon Boy and his crush invisible
• The "Metro Science Center" has a "Senili-ray" that can age someone 10,000 years in 30 seconds
• Chameleon Boy shapeshifts into the form of his crush to trick a villain
• Then he transforms to an "Octoid Man of the planet Luvan" to attack and disarm the villain
• Implies he could transform into a cloud, but that could just be a figure of speech

Spoiler: Another application of Princess Projectra's illusion powers

Weirdness:

• A group of partiers uses "gill-masks" to breathe underwater, in order to dance underwater... which is apparently a popular activity in the 30th century
• A security system consists of hundreds of physical buttons on a wall, where a combination of 5 exact ones needs to be pressed. Uh, why not just use a keypad with a 5-digit code?

Superdickery:

• Chameleon Boy admits to himself that it's wrong, but he still eavesdrops on a private conversation because he's into a girl and wonders what she thinks of him
• He decides to disguise himself as a human to gain the girl's favor, and Princess Projectra helps him with this plan.
• Chameleon Boy and Princess Projectra deceive the Science Police because the former doesn't want to reveal his real identity to his crush

Power Tracker:

- Nothing to note here.

Action Comics #384

Overall Notes:

• This issue's date of publication is January, 1970. That means that we have officially left the 60s behind (for Action Comics, at least).
• A response in the letters column says that the effects of the White Dwarf star Superman got the neutronium from in issue #376 weakened his powers somewhat, so that's why he struggled to lift it

Notes:

• Continuation of the story from the previous issue
• Superman and Batman have a "secret conference room" inside the globe on top of the Daily Planet building
• The Metropolis police department keeps a pair of Green Kryptonite handcuffs "for use against super-criminals". Although they would only work on one specific type of super-criminal...
• It's shown that an orange sun weakens Superman somewhat, but not completely like a red sun

Feat Catalogue:

• Compresses his Superman costume into a tiny ball to hide it
• He is able to somewhat resist the mental powers of the alien uniform when he is forced to wear it, but he can't resist completely. He's also able to partially prevent it from reading his mind.
• The costume was only able to read his mind when he "let his mental guard down" while sleeping
• He is unable to completely resist the costume's control, but he is able to alter his flight path and grab a welder's mask, and wear it to disguise his identity when the costume tries to reveal it
• He resists the costume's control again, enough to put on the other costume over it, and the two mental energies of the two costumes battle each other and take Superman to another star system
• While reduced to half power, he flies into the core of an orange sun and is unharmed
• Still at half power, he flies back to Earth and its yellow sun

Spoiler: Resisting the costume's influence

Spoiler: The effects of an orange sun

Feat Catalogue (non-Superman):

- Supergirl picks up a sinking ship and flies it to the nearest harbor, and melts an iceberg with heat vision

Weirdness:

• The narration says that the ship from the last issue was "disintegrated by the fiery trail of a passing comet", when actually the radiation killed the two people onboard and the ship later broke in half and crashed on Earth
• The evil costume suddenly appears in Clark Kent's office and tells Perry White that it wants to help him advertise for the Daily Planet, and he buys it.

Superdickery:

• Helps the evil alien costume plan and carry out several crimes, although he tries to arrange for other heroes to stop them
• Steals a welder's helmet
• Insults some cops and carries them up into the sky while under the influence of the costume
• Breaks into a law enforcement conference and messes with their computer, under the influence of the costume

Power Tracker:

- The narration implied his powers were at half strength under the orange sun, but that would still probably put him at High Herald Level, just a bit lower down the scale. High Herald Level under the yellow sun, obviously.

LOSH Story

Notes:

- The serum that Brainiac 5 invented to immunize Mon-El against the effects of lead "combines some of the rarest elements in the universe", including Kryptonite

Feat Catalogue:

• Dream Girl says that all of her dreams are prophetic, and they always come true
• Mon-El compresses the underground laboratory that produces his anti-lead serum with super pressure, into a super-hard shell, so no one else can get into it
• He flies through space to an asteroid complex to investigate the loss of a probe there (distance unknown, though)
• Dream Girl correctly predicts an attack by interdimensional raiders, and that Mon-El would be fighting them
• Mon-El's cousin dresses as him and defeats the raiders
• Mon-El's cousin carries Mon-El's dead body back to Earth from the "Posvar Belt" at super speed, and the Legion are able to follow him and arrive soon after with their flight rings (indicating the rings are capable of FTL travel)
• The Daxamites invented a machine that can bring a dead person back to life by sacrificing the life force of a living person

Spoiler: Interstellar flight via the flight rings

Spoiler: Kind of a cop-out ending to the story...

Weirdness:

Superdickery:

- Superboy intends to attack Mon-El by surprise and subdue him in order to kidnap him and take his place (to try to protect him from the prophecy of his death, but still)

Power Tracker:

- It's shown that another Daxamite was able to KO Mon-El after getting the drop on him, and Superboy suspected he could have done the same thing. We also get an idea of how fast the Legion flight rings can propel their users.

 

[Endless Mike]

Action Comics #385

Superman Story

Notes:

• Part 1 of a multi-part story
• The intro text says "Superman is the most powerful being on Earth"... even at this point, that is definitely arguable
• We get another appearance of the POTUS, although his face isn't shown (it would have been Richard Nixon at this point)
• First appearance of the Time Trapper in this title, who is normally a Legion of Super Heroes villain (and an extremely powerful one, at that)
• A future treasury holds an equivalent of 50 trillion dollars in 1970 US currency. That would be almost 400 trillion dollars today.

Feat Catalogue:

• An alarm system on the Fortress of Solitude actually works for once, as it goes off to send an ultrasonic signal to alert Superman when an energy beam starts cutting through the door
• Uses microscopic vision to determine that a robot hand is made of a metal alloy that hasn't been discovered in the current time
• He is also able to determine that the letters carved by the energy beam on the door of his Fortress are 50 times hotter than anything on Earth in 1970.
• The Fortress door itself also remains mostly intact under that heat, although it has the letters carved into it
• Using a defective Legion time bubble to travel 100,000 years into the future has the side effect of aging him 100,000 years, but it just gives him grey hair and wrinkles.
• Even aged 100,000 years, he pretty easily pulls apart two metal bars held together by "cosma-magnetism, the mightiest force in the universe"
• Resists being hit by energy from a "pulsato-energi fence", a device from 100,000 years in the future that can supposedly instantly dissolve anything that comes within 2 feet of it. The energy was being amplified beyond its ordinary levels, as well. He said that he doubted he could take a second hit, though.
• Flies into the fence when it's at normal power, and it only causes him stinging pain
• Some future superheroes make him immune to Kryptonite, magic, and red sunlight. He claims now that no force in the universe can harm him.

Spoiler: Passes a strength test

Spoiler: Superman vs... whatever that thing is

Spoiler: Now he has no weaknesses (this probably won't last for long)

Feat Catalogue (non-Superman):

- The Time Trapper puts up a barrier in time that can stop both the Legion time machine and Superman from breaking through it, so he can't return to the past

Spoiler: Time Trapper's first appearance in Action Comics

Weirdness:

• Apparently the US army was working on a "vortex experiment" that depended on "the space-time continuum remaining undisturbed", so Superman couldn't travel through time for 24 hours or else he would somehow mess it up. Apparently using a time machine, though, like the Legion time bubble, won't cause this disruption to happen.
• Superman tricks and defeats an energy creature by painting the money it was eating yellow to disguise the fact that it was actually blue, which somehow causes it to be poisoned and dissipate when it eats it (huh?)
• In the far future Metropolis, there are a bunch of criminals called the "Superman Gang" who dress up like Superman and fly around committing crimes with jet packs
• The people in the future decide to test Superman's weaknesses by exposing him to a "witch dog from the mystical planet Tozz" which can drive people insane.

Superdickery:

Power Tracker:

- Being aged 100,000 years doesn't seem to have noticeably weakened his powers, and being made immune to his weaknesses still doesn't technically make him any stronger, so still High Herald Level for now.

LOSH Story

Notes:

• Two of the pages in this story were out of order in the scan I had, for some reason
• Apparently the Legion has a rule against killing, and Star Boy broke it because he was forced to kill a villain to save his own life. But he still got kicked off the team, and was only reinstated later after helping them with a mission.
• A response in the letters column again refers to Duplicate Boy as "the most powerful hero in the universe"

Feat Catalogue:

• The Legion has access to FTL ships with hyperdrive (kind of obvious but it's at least nice to note this kind of thing)
• Star Boy is able to easily lift and carry a statue around twice as large as he is, which is stated to be made of precious metals, so it's probably pretty heavy. At this point, I think he could only make objects heavier and not lighter with his power, so this is a strength feat.
• Anti-telepathy helmets that can block out Saturn Girl's telepathy are apparently a well-known thing in the 30th century
• Star Boy increases the mass of two statues so a criminal gang using a robot arm from their ship can't lift them, and the arm breaks
• Using his flight ring, he dodges a lot of blasts from a ray gun, shot from close range
• He then uses his power to alter the mass of his enemies and their weapons, even though they're in zero gravity
• Saturn girl uses a "neutra-ray", set at "stun-force" to knock a guy out
• Saturn Girl also tracked Star Boy's location by his brain waves, and she and Colossal Boy got there in seemingly a few minutes (distance unknown, but it was in space when they were previously on a planet's surface)

Spoiler: Star Boy suddenly remembers his physics

Weirdness:

Superdickery:

- Seems kind of harsh to kick Star Boy off the team because he killed a guy who would have killed him otherwise. He had no choice.

Power Tracker:

- Nothing too notable here

Action Comics #386

Superman Story

Notes:

- Continuation of the story from the previous issue

Feat Catalogue:

• Superman travels a further 20,000 years into the future.
• The poisoned, radioactive atmosphere of future Earth is still harmless to him.
• Travels 500 more years into the future
• Flies from a planet in a nearby star system to Earth (timeframe unknown, but seemed to be fairly fast)
• Creates an ultra-strong metal alloy by mixing materials gathered from all over the galaxy and coats a storage silo in it
• Contains an explosion (after it goes off) by flying around it at super speed, forcing it all to be released in a single direction. Said explosion was caused by "nutanium - the most powerful explosive element in the universe". Apparently it was at least powerful enough to have destroyed future Metropolis (which had skyscrapers many miles high)
• He then travels dozens of more centuries into the future

Spoiler: Decent speed and power feat

Feat Catalogue (non-Superman):

• The Time Trapper was spying on Superman in the past and is still monitoring him in the future
• He is even able to monitor him while he is traveling through time

****

- A future Green Lantern, despite being old and his mind not being sharp enough to use his ring that effectively anymore, flies to "the outermost sectors of the galaxy" to grab a super-dense "magna-meteor" and bring it back to Earth

Spoiler: Time Trapper gloating as he spies on Superman through time

Spoiler: Geriatric GL still has some juice left

Spoiler: Time Trapper can track him even as he's traveling forward through time

Weirdness:

• He claims to have aged 120,000 years, even though he only aged 100,000 years due to the defective time bubble, and traveled the remaining 20,000 years using his own power, which shouldn't have aged him
• On Earth, "cosmic fission" created a giant cliff that is as reflective as a mirror
• After traveling 500 years further into the future, there is now a law in Metropolis banning the use of super powers, except they explain this was due to an incident that occurred 30,000 years ago...
• The vehicles in future Metropolis have devices that automatically make them intangible if they are going to crash
• One of the retired heroes Superman meets in the future is the last Green Lantern in the universe. But if his ring and battery still work, shouldn't that mean the Guardians are still around? So why don't they make a new Corps? Or if they don't want to, why let this one guy keep his ring? Makes no sense, really.

Superdickery:

• Trespasses into the future Daily Planet building and looks at the records, before he is caught and kicked out
• Uses heat vision to destroy the police device that detects the use of super powers, just because he doesn't want to be bothered by it

Power Tracker:

- No real indication of his powers diminishing from his advanced age, and he still has his weaknesses removed, so still High Herald Level.

LOSH Story

Notes:

- We see the return of the villain who was impersonating Shadow Lass in issue #379

Feat Catalogue:

• In the 30th century, they have a "time-cinema" with a "3-D time-scope" that can project holograms of past events, such as a boxing match from 1910
• Saturn Girl can perform mind control. It fails this time because the villain was using a device that caused all of the Legion's powers to backfire, but we have confirmation that she can do it
• Brainiac 5 designed a "battery bed" that can recharge Lightning Lad's powers and heal him if he's injured
• In 30 minutes, Brainiac 5 modified a bunch of wrecked spaceships to make them into robots with weapons like energy cages to try to capture the villain
• Ultra Boy ultimately defeats the villain by just punching her out, without using any of his powers

Spoiler: We know she can do this... now we just have to see her doing it successfully

Spoiler: TVTropes would call this an example of "Boring but Practical"

Weirdness:

• A prison in the future uses brainwashing to "hypnotically deaden the evil parts" of criminals' brains to reform them. Seems quite unethical to me.
• Apparently boxing was outlawed centuries ago, as combat sports are now considered barbaric

Superdickery:

Power Tracker:

- It's unknown where the villain got her belt that can disrupt superpowers from... but it did seem to be extremely versatile and effective. She implied it would have worked against Ultra Boy had he used his invulnerability power, which is similar to Kryptonian invulnerability, but we don't have confirmation it would work on an actual Kryptonian.

 

[Endless Mike]

Action Comics #387

Superman Story

Notes:

• Continuation and conclusion of the story from the previous issues
• I had seen scans of some of the feats from this issue in respect threads before, but I had always assumed, due to lack of context, that they were from some alternate future timeline (due to the aged Superman) and thus not canon. However, if you've been following the story of the last few issues, you'll see that this is indeed the same Superman we've been following, and even though this timeline is eventually undone at the end of the issue (maybe, it's kind of unclear), these feats are still applicable to him.
• Back in issue #300, Superman also traveled to Earth a million years in the future, but there was still some life there, as opposed to this issue where it's entirely dead. I guess that was a different future timeline, which does make sense since time travel and reality warping is constantly shifting these things around.
• A response in the letters column clarifies that Superman has "absolute control of his appetite" and he can eat nothing at all, or "any amount of anything", except Kryptonite, without ill effects.
• It wasn't explicitly stated, but I think we can probably assume that Superman's vulnerabilities to Kryptonite, magic, and red sunlight are back in play at the end of this story.

Feat Catalogue:

• Splits the Earth in half on the splash page
• The narration says that Superman has now aged every year for 800,000 years (which doesn't quite make sense, see the Weirdness section) but we'll go with it
• Flies into deep space, finds 5 frozen astronauts in suspended animation, and carries them towards the nearest star to thaw them out
• Due to having his weaknesses removed, all the different types of radiation from a "rainbow sun" (see Weirdness section) don't have any effect on him
• Scans and analyzes a future spaceship with his X-ray vision and near-instantly figures out how it works, then uses internal heat vision to disable it and force it to land
• Travels a further 200,000 years into the future, and is now a million years past 1970, when Earth is abandoned and dead.
• Finding two giant (moon-sized) robots too durable and powerful to destroy directly, he flies inside them and rewires them at super speed, figuring out their advanced technology from a million years in the future. He somehow gives them both positive charges, causing them to repel each other away from Earth.
• Drills through the Earth 5000 times per second, splitting it in half down the middle, then uses heat vision to extract elements from the core and fuses the halves back together
• Searches a dozen planets in "mere minutes" to find the right combination of gasses for Earth's atmosphere, and breathes them all in, storing them in his lungs compressed by super pressure, and flies them back to Earth (in multiple trips) to restore its atmosphere.
• He seeds the clouds with "special minerals", causing rain that creates new oceans and lakes.
• Flies to "remote worlds all over the galaxy" to find plant and animal life to transplant to Earth, making sure they can survive there.
• Finds another planet populated by cavemen and kidnaps a man and woman (sealing the cave they were in with heat vision) and flies them to Earth
• Survives a blast from Luthor's drone, which had absorbed nearly a million years worth of "evil psyche-energy" from all over the universe
• Is unharmed by the "dreaded Magnor comet", which the future robot that healed him said would "disintegrate anything in its path... even you!" The same comet disintegrated Luthor's drone.
• Is propelled so far into the future he goes past the end of time and time loops around back to 1970, where he arrives right after he left, back to his normal age.

Spoiler: The physics of this are hilariously wrong

Spoiler: As are the physics of this

Spoiler: Disabling a future spaceship with precision vision

Spoiler: Stops the robots that were going to destroy the Earth

Spoiler: Slightly more realistic than what he did in the splash page

Spoiler: Continuing to fix Earth

Spoiler: You've just doomed them and their incestuous descendants to a miserable death, you know that?

Spoiler: I guess the comet wasn't that dangerous to him after all...

Spoiler: Well that's one way to end the story

Feat Catalogue (non-Superman):

- In the timeline where Superman disappeared in 1970, Lex Luthor lived to old age in the year 2000, and built a drone weapon to which he transferred his "evil psyche-energy" to. The drone continued to absorb "evil psyche-energy" from dead evildoers throughout the millennia to power itself, until it was powerful enough to (almost) kill Superman

Spoiler: The man sure knows how to hold a grudge

Weirdness:

• Superman was aged 100,000 years in issue #385 due to using the defective Legion time bubble. However, he soon ditched it, and all of his subsequent trips further into the future have been under his own power, which doesn't cause him to age. Yet the story is treating it as if he does age the equivalent of the time he travels into the future. I guess maybe you could say the Time Trapper is responsible for this, if you have to speculate.
• Apparently "rainbow suns" that give off many different colors of light are a thing, and more common in the future.
• A future "Galactic Sanitation Department" sends giant, moon-sized robots to carry off and disintegrate the dead Earth
• A single couple, even if they are aliens, will not have enough genetic diversity to repopulate the planet. The 'new human race' will die off from inbreeding in a few generations.
• Superman directly states that he wishes to die and attempts to commit suicide. Pretty dark for this era of comics, especially with the CCA in play.
• Whatever the deal was with that "Magnor Comet", it not only had the ability to disintegrate everything its tail touched, but it also propelled Superman faster than he had ever flown before, to the end of time in the future
• See the last feat. This is one of the weirdest implementations of the cyclical time idea I've seen in fiction.

Superdickery:

• Attacks and vandalizes a spaceship in order to force it to land for repairs and rescue a few astronauts on a nearby planetoid, instead of just taking them to safety himself, or asking the ship's crew to help.
• Vandalizes and obstructs two robots that were just doing their jobs, because he had a sentimental connection to the now-dead Earth and didn't want to see it destroyed.
• Kidnaps two aliens from another planet to try to repopulate Earth, even though it wouldn't work (see Weirdness section)

Power Tracker:

- The end of time/time loop feat is kind of hard to analyze. If you wanted to go for an extreme high-end interpretation, you could say he survived the death of the universe in a Big Crunch/Big Rip/however it happened, thus making it a universe level durability feat, but I don't think that's warranted, as he was traveling through time (and being sent faster than he had ever been before by a weird comet). The fact that the timeline of the DC universe is explicitly shown to not be cyclical in other stories also throws a wrench into things. You could just chalk it up to a DeM plot device, but I think it at least shows that he is capable of exceeding the normal bounds of space and time (shown similarly in the famous scene where he chased after Supergirl and was stopped by the Spectre). In other words, he can transcend the normal timeline/flow of the universe, but that doesn't exactly translate into a quantifiable feat. So I'm still putting him at High Herald Level.

LOSH Story

Notes:

- Superboy leaves the team in this story and becomes a reserve Legionnaire

Feat Catalogue:

• The Legion gets a "warp-transport", which is a machine that can seemingly open instant portals to any planet in the universe
• Karate Kid judo chops a table in half
• After Superboy, Supergirl, and Mon-El can't extinguish a "weird chemical flame" with their super breath, Element Lad stops it by transmuting the oxygen in the air around it to "carbon dioxide foam"
• Brainiac 5 built a computer that can defend itself against any attempt to sabotage it with an appropriate weapon, such as using a ray of Green Kryptonite radiation against Superboy
• Superboy somehow created a fire that wasn't extinguishable by normal means to burn all of the other Legionnaires' resignations, and forged one from Dream Girl at super speed so fast that no one else in the room notice (including other super speedsters)
• He also summoned the Legion of Super-Pets with super ventriloquism. It's unknown if they were already in the 30th century, or if he somehow called them through time, though.
• Mon-El carved a statue of Superboy and Element Lad transmuted it to gold

Spoiler: Like the Stargate but even better

Spoiler: Not quite sure how he was able to do all of that...

Weirdness:

• Karate Kid says that the Andromeda galaxy is a million light-years from Earth. In reality it's around 2.5 times that far. I classify this as weird because Action Comics had actually been getting interstellar distances fairly accurately for a while, even correctly converting miles to light-years and light-years to parsecs.
• Apparently there's a law in the 30th century that all private clubs with more than 25 active members can't be tax-exempt, so the Legion has to drop one of their members or pay all the back taxes they owe.
• The Legion of Super-Pets is directly namedropped, and they all appear together (for the first time in this title, I think)
• It's probably explained in other Legion stories, but I'm a bit confused as to how Superboy and Supergirl are able to be on the same team in the future, and yet when she first landed on Earth, Superman (who would have already met her as Superboy due to time travel) didn't know her.

Superdickery:

• The Legion immediately decides to try to get around the law by kicking out a member, without even considering the option of just paying their taxes.
• Timber Wolf throws Chemical King into the air and juggles him with his feet, just because he wanted to quit first
• Karate Kid chops a table in half just out of anger because some other Legionnaires wanted to quit the team
• Superboy tries to sabotage the other Legionnaires' attempts to resign, as well as attempting to sabotage Brainiac 5's supercomputer

Power Tracker:

- Nothing too notable, although it was never explained how exactly Superboy did that weird stunt with the resignations.

 

[Endless Mike]

Action Comics #388

Notes:

• This issue was made to be as intentionally weird as possible (see Weirdness section)
• We see "the latest Apollo mission" landing on the moon, but it's not made clear which one it is. Going by the publication date of the comic, it was probably meant to be either Apollo 12, or the then-upcoming Apollo 14.
• A response in the letters column says that the iceberg near Metropolis in issue #384 was created by the Flash villain Captain Cold. This is probably just a joke, though.

Feat Catalogue:

• Blitzes the duplicate Mxy, moving him so fast he doesn't realize what is happening
• He was off visiting another galaxy, which is why he wasn't on Earth when it was duplicated
• Creates and polishes a giant mirror (not stated what materials he used, though)
• Creates a duplicate of the duplicator ray and uses it to return Earth to the proper dimension, sending the duplicate Earth back to that other dimension.

Spoiler: It might be hard to spot the feat here among all of the weirdness

Spoiler: I guess that's one problem solved...

Weirdness:

• Some scientist created a weird duplicate Earth where everything is messed up and nonsensical, and it displaces the real Earth into another dimension. Listing every weird change would take too long, but to quote just a few from the wiki: "He returns to find a whacky parody-world in which Sgt. Rock is still fighting World War II, but seeking revenge on that Earth's Superman for beating him out for Lois Lane's hand; where Lex Luthor's hair grows when he gets mad; and where Bizarro is a genius while Mr. Mxyzptlk is a dummy." Aquaman also has the face of Alfred E. Neuman, the mascot of MAD Magazine
• The duplicate Earth comes with its own duplicates, even of extraterrestrial beings like Superman, Supergirl, Mzyzptlk, Brainiac, and Bizarro, as well as duplicates of Legionnaires from the future.
• The duplicate Superman also returned from a mission where he had to eat a green mold on Uranus (don't ask), possibly indicating that not just Earth, but the solar system and maybe the entire universe was duplicated
• In the weird WWII scenes, we still have cringy Japanese stereotypes who switch their ls for rs.

Superdickery:

- Superman destroys the scientist's duplicator machines, just because he doesn't want him to experiment with them again, even though he might be able to fix them and do something productive with them

Power Tracker:

- It's unlikely that the duplicate Mxy was as powerful as the real one (unless he actually was the real one, due to the 'all Mxys are the same' retcon), but being taken by surprise by Superman's speed is something we have seen from the actual Mxy at least once before. Anyway, Superman is still High Herald Level.

LOSH Story

Notes:

- This is a reprint of a story from Adventure Comics #302, from back in 1962. Even then, this story was a flashback, showing the Legion's earlier days

Feat Catalogue:

• Sun Boy can generate the heat of a star
• The Legion used anti-gravity belts to fly, before they had their flight rings
• Sun Boy melts a metal statue of himself before it can tip over and crush some people
• Cosmic Boy uses his magnetic powers to raise a damaged "sub-oceanic liner" to the surface of the ocean and fly it safely to shore
• It's also stated that, when he had his powers, Sun Boy's "radiance was once as great as a star's", which is actually a lot more impressive than just generating the heat of a star
• Sun Boy manages to restore his powers by provoking a fire-breathing Kryptonian animal to attack him.
• Some villains use a freeze ray to solidify rain into a chunk of ice the size of a mountain (must have been a lot of rain)
• Sun Boy melts the giant iceberg instantly, then does the same to the freeze ray
• Uses lower-intensity heat to force the criminals to surrender
• Superboy and Ultra Boy build lifelike robot substitutes for themselves, with all of their powers (although probably not as strong as the originals) and the robots also have the ability to travel through time

Spoiler: Statements about Sun Boy's power being equal to that of a star

Spoiler: This could have gone wrong so easily...

Spoiler: Melts a giant chunk of ice

Weirdness:

• After losing his powers, Sun Boy tries to regain them by first standing in an atomic reaction chamber, and then standing on top of an erupting volcano. His teammates point out how foolish this is, but they don't stop him.
• Some criminals smuggle a "wonder pill" to ther friend in jail, which allows him to temporarily become intangible mist and escape.
• In the 30th century, the planet Lurna is home to "Kryptonian flame-beasts", because their eggs once landed there... somehow
• Sun Boy guesses that a powerful enough heat source from a living being will restore his powers, and risks his life based on that. Also, the reason that Superboy and Ultra Boy's heat vision didn't work to restore his powers was because they were actually robots, sent as substitutes because the real Superboy and Ultra Boy were celebrating Pete Ross' birthday in the past, and the robots were damaged when traveling through time, causing them to forget they were robots
• The super advanced robots used old-fashioned tape decks. I love how that kind of goofy future tech was envisioned by people in the past.

Spoiler: Weird plot twist

Superdickery:

- The Legion kicks out Sun Boy now that he no longer has his powers, and forces him to take all of his memorabilia with him (so they can't even honor him as a past member?)

Power Tracker:

- Having the same energy output as a star should put Sun Boy at least at Low Herald Level, in terms of energy projection/generation. Of course it depends on what type and size of star his power is being compared to. We'll see what other feats we can find from him as we go on.

 

[Endless Mike]

Action Comics #389

Superman Story

Notes:

• The opening narration says "Everyone knows that Superman is the strongest, fastest, most superbly conditioned being on all the Earth!" The Flash and several others would probably have something to say about that...
• Apparently Metropolis has a baseball team known as the Majestics
• A group called the Intergalactic Police, or "Galactopol" for short, are mentioned in this story
• This issue also features a few pages showing Superman's rogues gallery, including several villains we haven't seen for a while like the Toyman, the Puzzler, and the Prankster

Feat Catalogue:

• Zooms into a stadium during baseball practice and catches a ball shortly after it was thrown
• When trying to hit a baseball with a bat, he swings it so fast that the ball makes a hole through the bat (very questionable physics here)
• Using a bronze bat, hits a baseball so fast into the sky that it catches on fire from air friction
• Outmaneuvers and defeats a professional British soccer team by himself
• Headbutts a soccer ball so hard it flies through the net and up into the sky
• KO's a bunch of boxers wearing steel armor with a light tap from his boxing gloves
• Knocks a punching bag into space
• Using a steel racket and specially designed tennis ball, he plays a game of tennis against himself at super speed, then hits the ball into orbit
• Aims a basketball and somehow makes it fly through an obstacle course of multiple rings, into the basket, and then out the window and into space again
• When playing American football, scores 50 field goals in 3 seconds, kicking the balls far into the sky, and one into space again
• Uses x-ray vision to find out that an alien probe ship is rigged to explode with enough force to destroy the Earth if any living being gets close to it. It was also implied that this explosion wouldn't hurt him, but he didn't want to trigger it because of the danger to the Earth
• He aimed all of the balls he kicked/threw/launched into space to exactly intercept the 'intake tubes' of the alien craft
• Uses telescopic vision and super hearing to spy on the aliens in another star system to confirm they fell for his trick
• Invented a "mutation gas" that can mutate living things exposed to it into different forms. He specifically designs it to mutate only a specific type of alien life, although he says it might have negative effects on humans too.
• Switches the rigged sports equipment with the original ones at super speed so no one can see

Spoiler: Most of this was completely unnecessary

Feat Catalogue (non-Superman):

- I'm not sure if this counts as a feat, but I'm noting it anyway. In the Rogues Gallery pages, Mr. Myxzptlk seems to break the fourth wall by talking to and attacking the Prankster, even though they were not actually in the same location, but just being presented as entries on a list

Spoiler: Not sure if this means anything or not

Weirdness:

• The basketball session is reminiscent of a certain infamous part of an infamously bad game also starring Superman...
• Superman's plan was to try out for various sports, and launch various balls/equipment into space, precisely targeted to land on the sample collectors of an alien probe. He had previously filled each of the balls with a dangerous mutation gas, in order to trick the aliens into thinking that Earth's atmosphere was inhospitable for them so they wouldn't invade. This didn't require that ridiculous sports ruse at all. He said he was worried about "being monitored", but if the aliens controlling the probe didn't realize it had sports balls stuck on it, somehow I doubt they were that shrewd
• The alien probes are always activated exactly 72 Earth hours after reaching their targets... despite not being from Earth
• The reason he let the kid strike him out was because the baseball he put the gas in was starting to break, and if he hit it he would release the gas and possibly harm the people around him

Spoiler: Please don't remind me of Superman 64 and its ring stage...

Superdickery:

• Uses heat vision to vandalize a Babe Ruth statue, stealing its baseball bat (he says he'll repair it later, but that doesn't make it okay)
• Although it was all part of another overly complicated plan to stop alien invaders, he says he wants to quit being a crime fighter and tries out for the Metropolis Majestics and shows off, then gets struck out by a little kid and acts like a sore loser over it and decides not to join the team. He then tries a bunch of other sports and ends up quitting them all because he says they are boring or not challenging enough.
• As part of his plan, poisons and mutates a bunch of alien animals

Power Tracker:

- Not much to say, still High Herald Level.

LOSH Story

Notes:

Feat Catalogue:

• Chemical King sets some plants on fire, since fire is a chemical reaction, so he can do that
• Chemical King then reacts in a split second to pull Shrinking Violet out of an immobilizing ray right after it's disabled and before the rock walls around her are smashed together by Cosmic Boy's magnetism
• Cosmic Boy uses his powers to fix the tunnel after closing it
• Cosmic Boy was able to make an ore-bearing cliff wall magnetic enough to attract and trap a super strong robot
• Chemical King then froze the nitrogen in the air around him to become liquid nitrogen
• Shrinking Violent unscrewed the robot's head while at small size and tossed it away
• She was later able to shrink enough to slip between the molecules of a pane of special glass and alter the robot's voice so it would shatter the glass when it spoke

Spoiler: Shrinking to sub-molecular size

Weirdness:

• The robot villain in this issue says he has a "zutronic" brain, whatever that's supposed to mean
• He was constructed by four mad scientists on a special prison planet, which was meant to hold criminals who had crippled and handicapped themselves, so it had no security. So they could just steal equipment and build this robot.
• In the flashback, the robot says that the air around him was turned into liquid oxygen, but in the Legionnaires' recounting of events, they say it was liquid nitrogen. The robot's memory was later shown to be faulty, though, so that could explain it.

Superdickery:

Power Tracker:

- This is the smallest size we've seen Shrinking Violet become in the issues we've covered so far, maybe we'll see even better feats from her as we go on

Action Comics #390

Overall Notes:

- This issue featured a guide naming all of the "mistakes" in the alternate Earth in issue #388. This was actually supposed to be published in the following issue, # 389, but it took until this one for some reason.

Superman Story

Notes:

• The POTUS appears again in this story, who at the time would have been Nixon
• We see "the world's largest jetliner, the Panor 949" in this issue. This vehicle is fictional.
• The eruption of Krakatoa in 1883 is referred to in this issue as "the most titanic volcanic explosion ever recorded", although the eruption of Mt. Tambora in 1815 was around 4 times as powerful, just not as well-known.
• A Kandorian contacts Superman, saying it's a "double-red alert". The same term was used in an early episode of Star Trek TOS, several years before this comic came out, but I don't think it was ever used in the franchise again after that. Possible inspiration there, though.
• Apparently Superman's invulnerability normally protects him from exhaustion or sweating, but he can do both of those when he feels intense fear

Feat Catalogue:

• Hears a radio broadcast (he still has this power, if you recall)
• Uses super ventriloquism to summon one of his robots from his Fortress, thousands of miles away, while on a plane
• Uses heat vision to cut an opening in the plane's hull so the robot can enter, and uses super breath to prevent the plane from depressurizing until he can seal it back up again.
• Travels 6 hours back through time by 'fading away' - this technique we've seen before a few times
• Uses X-ray vision to see the secret weapon buried 10,000 feet underground, and how an earthquake released a radioactive element that caused a short-circuit that released it accidentally
• Returns to the present
• Flies back to the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa and tanks it unharmed
• Travels back to the impact that created Meteor Crater in Arizona and tanks that too
• Returns to the present again
• He previously hypnotized himself to erase his own memories of the SEM (Superman Elimination Machine) device so he doesn't know where it came from or how it works
• When a Kandorian explains how he helped Superman work on preparing the device, his memories return
• Uses an alien helmet he had in his Fortress to mask his brainwaves so the SEM can't detect them, and it self-destructs
• Uses a device to temporarily shrink himself to enter Kandor

Spoiler: More of the stationary time travel

Spoiler: Leads the thing on a wild goose chase through time

Spoiler: Figures out how to defeat it

Feat Catalogue (non-Superman):

- The device threatening Superman in this issue was actually designed by Jor-El on Krypton. Like other Kryptonian things, it has similar invulnerability, and this thing can also keep up with Superman in flight, and follow him when he travels through time. It could also pursue him to another galaxy or another dimension. It was originally armed with some kind of Kryptonian weapon but apparently Jor-El disarmed it, yet they still figured it would be effective against Superman since he was subconsciously afraid of it

Spoiler: So you just put it somewhere in Kandor and forgot about it...

Weirdness:

• The secret plan was apparently to have this powerful but ultimately harmless thing just keep chasing Superman around until he died of fright.
• Jor-El disarmed the weapon but didn't dismantle it for some reason.

Superdickery:

- Either Superman believed that this weapon would scare him to death, or he chose it because he knew it had no actual capacity to harm him, so therefore he gave the US President an emergency weapon against him (in case he went rogue) that wouldn't actually work.

Power Tracker:

- His subconscious fear seemed to weaken him, but without that he's still High Herald Level.

LOSH Story

Notes:

Feat Catalogue:

• Element Lad transmutes some criminals' ray guns into helium
• Saturn Girl extracts all the information she needs from a criminal spaceship captain's mind with telepathy
• She then reads another criminal's mind and transfers all of his conscious and subconscious knowledge to Chameleon Boy, so he can imitate him perfectly
• She scans the rest of the criminals' minds and finds the one they need to investigate
• Some artificial "humanoid" creatures "grown from chemicals" have the ability to not only regenerate, but every piece of them broken off becomes a new one
• Karate Kid and Timber Wolf try to fight off the humanoids, but they just end up creating more of them
• Element Lad turns the ground under the humanoids into mercury so they sink in it
• Saturn Girl reads a scientist's mind and plants a telepathic suggestion for him to hire her as his assistant

Spoiler: Scans a guy's entire conscious and subconscious and downloads it into someone else's brain

Spoiler: Transmutes the ground into mercury

Spoiler: Telepathic suggestion

Weirdness:

Superdickery:

- While imitating a criminal, Chameleon Boy has to kiss his girlfriend to remain undercover. The dickish part is that he thinks to himself "and why don't I get more assignments like this?"

Power Tracker:

- Aside from a bit more varied applications of Saturn Girl's powers, there's nothing all that notable here.

 

[Endless Mike]

Action Comics #391

Superman Story

Notes:

• Another one of those "imaginary stories", later retconned to take place on a parallel world.
• First part of a multi-part story
• I think this cover was also featured on Superdickery.
• We see a "Hall of Ancestors" in the Fortress of Solitude, showing some of Superman's ancestors, although it's unknown if these are canon for the Earth-1 version.
• A response in the letters column says that Superman didn't continue to age as he traveled forward through time after he stopped using the defective time bubble in issue #385.

Feat Catalogue:

- As this is an imaginary/alternate universe story, the feats here aren't canon and don't really apply to the Earth-1 versions of the characters

Weirdness:

• The premise of this story is that Batman and Superman both have teenage sons. We see the mother of Superman's son, but she isn't named, and doesn't even have her face shown.
• Batman and Superman live in two large homes connected to each other at the midway point between Metropolis and Gotham City
• On another planet, there's what is called the "rarest plant in the universe" that produces different musical rhythms and styles from each of its flowers.

Superdickery:

• The cover
• Superman shames his son in public when Batman's son gets a medal for rescuing the mayor
• Batman also mocks Superman for his son being a fuckup
• We see that this version of Superman has also captured a bunch of alien animals and put them in cages barely large enough for them to fit in his Fortress
• Permanently removes his son's powers with Gold Kryptonite

Spoiler: Just look at the expression on Batman's face

Power Tracker:

- Nothing to note, as this is an alternate reality that is not canon to the Superman we've been following so far.

LOSH Story

Notes:

- Continuation of the story from the last issue

Feat Catalogue:

• Saturn Girl creates a mental barrier to prevent another Saturnian from reading her mind
• Brainiac 5 quickly analyzes material from the humanoids and determines their chemical composition, despite being stuck in what he calls a primitive laboratory
• Element Lad defeats an entire army of the humanoids, changing some to neon gas, others to tissue paper, and others to magnetic lodestone so they repel each other and fly away, more to bismuth so they crumble, and others to sand. Doing so much of this so quickly exhausts him, though.
• Timber Wolf uses his super strength and endurance to carry the exhausted Element Lad on his back through miles of jungle
• Having regained only a bit of power and stamina, Element Lad is still able to change more of the humanoids to water
• Brainiac 5 uses his own forcefield belt to nullify a larger forcefield and bypass it
• Saturn girl punches out another Saturnian girl
• Brainiac 5's personal forcefield protects him from a ray gun, and he is able to physically smash a large forcefield generator
• Still exhausted, Element Lad transmutes the gold and jewels in 3 large chests into lead and rocks. However, he passes out after this.

Spoiler: Element Lad vs. an army of humanoids

Spoiler: More transmutation, and Brainiac 5 bypasses a forcefield

Weirdness:

Superdickery:

Power Tracker:

- We see what appear to be some pretty clear limits for Element Lad here, as transmuting an entire army nearly leaves him completely wiped out for hours. However, I think he got stronger later on.

Action Comics #392

Superman Story

Notes:

• Continuation of the imaginary/alternate reality story from the previous issue
• In this story, they use something called a "micro-wave tunnel" to adjust their size to travel in and out of Kandor. I'm not sure if the same thing exists in the main continuity or not.
• As of this issue, the name of the letters column is changed from "Metropolis Mailbag" to "Where the Action is"

Feat Catalogue:

- Again, this is an alternate reality, so feats don't apply to the Earth-1 Superman

Weirdness:

Superdickery:

• After permanently removing his son's powers, Superman refuses to tell his wife what happened, and she has to go get Batman to confront him before he does
• Deliberately uses his powers to sabotage his son's attempts to win a sports competition
• Realizing he made a mistake by removing his son's powers, he transfers his own powers to him, but he doesn't tell him, even when they are facing a dangerous monster

Power Tracker:

- Nothing to note, as this is an alternate reality that is not canon to the Superman we've been following so far.

LOSH Story

Notes:

• Saturn Girl debuts a new costume in this issue, designed by a reader
• Mon-El also becomes the new Legion leader in this issue, with Element Lad as second in command (decided by reader votes)

Feat Catalogue:

• The Legion headquarters has an "energy-grappler" that seems to create a net of solid energy to trap and immobilize unfriendly spaceships
• The Legion also has a "detention sphere" that creates a forcefield to suspend prisoners forty feet in the air, in the middle of a giant chamber, with "magnetronic rays". Brainiac 5 designed it to be virtually escape-proof.
• Saturn Girl and Princess Projectra manage to break out of the detention sphere by using their flight rings, although it nearly exhausts them. They also react fast enough to reverse directions before being pasted against the chamber walls, which would have happened at that velocity
• Saturn Girl used her telepathy to make Princess Projectra believe she had lost her powers
• Brainiac 5 invented a "truth disc" that can be placed on someone's neck to determine if they are lying or not
• Princess Projectra manages to pass the Legion's test and figure out what's going on, and expose the ruse

Spoiler: Power of the flight rings, and a reaction feat for their users

Weirdness:

- Saturn Girl and Princess Projectra seemingly find themselves in a version of the world where they were never Legion members, and instead the two newest members are gender-swapped versions of themselves. The alternate Legion suspects them of being spies, but couldn't they just ask "Saturn Lad" to read their minds to find out that they're telling the truth? Saturn Girl was in on the ruse, but Princess Projectra could have thought of that.

Superdickery:

- The whole 'alternate universe' scenario was just a test created by Brainiac 5 and the other Legion members for Princess Projectra, but it seems more like a dickish prank. Even the mission they were sent on was a setup, where Chameleon Boy knocked them out with a weapon.

Spoiler: She might be able to have a mental breakdown... so let's fuck with her head!

Power Tracker:

- Saturn Girl is able to use her telepathy to either block Princess Projectra from using her powers, or make her believe that her powers aren't working (it's not that clear). It's an interesting new application of her powers.

 

[Endless Mike]

Action Comics #393

Superman Story

Notes:

• This story featured the "Star of Asia", supposedly the world's largest diamond. There actually is a "Star of Asia" in real life, but it's a sapphire, not a diamond. The actual largest gem-quality diamond in the world is the Cullinan Diamond.
• At the end of this story, there is a narration bubble simply saying "Kirby is Coming". I'm not exactly sure, but this may have been an announcement that Jack Kirby was returning to work for DC, as that happened around this time, shortly before he created the New Gods. Don't get your hopes up for seeing Darkseid in this thread any time soon, though.

Feat Catalogue:

• Uses super hearing to detect a "supersonic signal beam" from a stopwatch in a stuntman's outfit, then uses X-ray vision to figure out how the escape mechanism works, in the split second before he uses it
• Uses heat vision to weld a suit of armor shut around him, then uses it again to get out, all without making it look like the armor was damaged at all
• Precisely melts a car's wheels and tires with heat vision from a distance
• Knocks out over a dozen criminals spread across a large room in an instant by individually slapping each of them at super speed.

Weirdness:

• This is another cover that's a complete lie, it shows the stuntman's son begging Superman not to save his father because he "gave his word", but no such thing happens in the comic.
• A stuntman and ex-criminal somehow has access to a "hyper-chemical" stored in a false tooth, which can create a "cryogenic effect" that can "crystallize" steel, allowing him to escape from his jail cell. (Technically it was Superman in disguise using his ice breath to imitate that chemical, but the chemical itself was implied to exist).

Superdickery:

Power Tracker:

- Nothing noteworthy, so still High Herald Level.

Backup Story

Notes:

• It seems that, as of this issue, they've moved the Legion stories to the Superboy title and are now printing different types of backup stories in each issue of Action Comics. This one shows when Superboy officially changed his title to Superman.
• While still going by Superboy, Clark attended Metropolis University
• Part of this story is similar to the events of Action Comics #8, where Superman demolished a slum so apartments could be built in its place. In this story though, he's not as much of a dick about it, getting permission first, making absolutely sure everyone is evacuated, and doing some of the rebuilding himself.

Feat Catalogue:

• Uses arctic breath to freeze the surface of a swimming pool, trapping several delinquents inside it, then flies them in the chunk of ice to a different location and uses heat vision to melt them free, all without harming them.
• Scans the city with telescopic vision to find where the same delinquents had taken some food they stole
• Goes on a nondescript "vital mission in space" and apparently succeeds as he returns to Earth the next day
• Demolishes a block of abandoned housing and uses the rubble to build a school, all in seconds (or he could have, if he didn't stop to reflect on what he was doing partway through)
• Reshapes a bronze bust of himself into one of someone else using his bare hands

Weirdness:

Superdickery:

• The splash page shows Superboy basically telling a woman to piss off for asking him to help poor people living in a slum. In the actual story, his response isn't that much better.
• After demolishing a slum and starting to use its wreckage to build a new school, he decides to just let the government do it instead over a period of months, when he could have done it in seconds. He also left these people homeless.

Spoiler: Screw poor people!

Spoiler: Don't rely on me, rely on the government! In a few months you'll have a school, but still no homes!

Power Tracker:

- This is a flashback to earlier in his career, but he should still be High Herald Level.

Action Comics #394

Notes:

• This cover was featured on Superdickey, for obvious reasons
• Lampshading one of his own catchphrases, when Superman travels underground quickly, he says "now here's a switch... this time it's down, down, and away!"
• This issue features a page with short profiles and biographies on the penciler and inker of the title at the time, Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson.

Feat Catalogue:

• Uses x-ray vision to spot the source of an explosion underground before the explosion is finished
• Lifts a partially sunken ocean liner and flies it to a shipyard in seconds
• Saves a crashing plane, a derailing train, and a building damaged by lightning
• Digs a giant hole on an empty lot and builds a bank there (bigger than any other in the country) at super speed
• Holds a lot of different conversations on multiple telephones simultaneously by picking up and hanging up the receivers at super speed.
• Digs underground on an island and finds an oil gusher
• Built a rocket disguised as an oil well - shaped trophy, that was designed to blast off and drill through the ceiling of a counterfeiting facility to reveal its location
• Uses telescopic vision to spot the rocket, and near-instantly flies to its location
• His x-ray vision is able to tell apart counterfeit bills from the real thing, despite them supposedly being "undetectable" to anyone else
• He searched "everywhere" (on Earth, presumably) for the counterfeiting facility with his x-ray vision but couldn't find it because it was in a lead mine.

Spoiler: Engineering and sensory feats

Weirdness:

• The crooked billionaire apparently made his fortune by counterfeiting, but he continued to do so even after he legitimately owned tons of businesses, which would be unnecessary and just make him more likely to get caught.
• When using his x-ray vision to examine counterfeit bills, it causes them to "light up with a radioactive glow". It's never explained why.
• Another lying cover. He does burn the counterfeit money with heat vision at the end, but there is no one objecting to that course of action.

Superdickery:

• Digs a tunnel through a billionaire's basement to intercept some crooks trying to rob him. He usually fixes things like this afterwards, but not this time, he just left it (possibly because the billionaire was boasting how he didn't need Superman's help to stop the crooks because of his expensive security system).
• Another one of those stories where he becomes a cheapskate and starts charging money for his heroics. Of course it's part of another unnecessarily complicated plan to catch a criminal - we've seen this exact plot before. He also rips open a steel safe to get some of the money and, again, doesn't bother fixing it. And even though he gives all of the extra money to charity at the end, he still bilked a lot of people out of their money.
• As part of his scheme to play the role of a rich miser, he donates only $5.00 to a charity for wounded veterans

Power Tracker:

- Still High Herald Level.

Backup Story

Notes:

- This time, the backup story is just another Superman story.

Feat Catalogue:

• While a car he's in falls off a short cliff, he leaves it, switches to Superman, and catches it before it hits the ground, then saves a bunch of other cars at a speed "faster than the eye can follow". Afterwards he switches back to Clark Kent before anyone can see.
• Uses super breath (while whistling) to guide a crashing car and prevent it from getting severely damaged and injuring its driver

Weirdness:

- Some daredevil who enjoys running people off the road in his car equipped it with some kind of weird light-reflecting medallion that would cause anyone who saw it to automatically swerve to the right... and somehow Clark figured this out just by seeing the direction in which all of the cars turned and came to this conclusion.

Superdickery:

• Decides to just embarrass a dangerous criminal instead of arresting him for some reason, leaving him to continue endangering people's lives if he wants to.
• Drives an antique car down a parkway at 20 miles per hour, holding up traffic behind him, and gets a ticket for it

Power Tracker:

- Nothing to note here, so still High Herald Level.

 

[Endless Mike]

Action Comics #395

Notes:

- There's an ad in this issue for Jack Kirby's then - upcoming New Gods and Forever People series. Awesome.

Feat Catalogue:

• We see a flashback of how Superman first built his Fortress of Solitude in the Arctic
• We see a tour/layout of the Fortress, including the alien zoo, "security weapons", space communications room, robot storage room, Kandor, "secret identity vaults", super-weapon armory, "super-lab and workshop", super-computer (I thought he had more than one of those), trophy room, Krypton memorial room, and "friendship galleries" (with sections dedicated to Jimmy Olsen, Lois Lane, Perry White, Lana Lang, and Clark Kent)
• Using Kryptonian technology, he can apparently create "memory tapes" to record his memories and let him replay them with perfect fidelity (but I thought he already had a perfect photographic memory?)
• While heading back to Earth from a mission in deep space, he made a detour to a remote jungle planet because he spotted a wrecked spacecraft on its surface with his telescopic vision, across an interstellar distance.
• Digs a cave faster than the eye can follow
• Uses telescopic vision and super-hearing to spy on some alien "amazons"
• Mines a bunch of "ergonite" from an alien planet for the amazons

Spoiler: Some more details on the Fortress

Weirdness:

• The cover of this issue proclaims "A GIRL MIGHTIER THAN SUPERMAN?" as if that's some unprecedented thing. Pretty sure we've seen that several times already in just this title, such as when Supergirl was technically "mightier" than him when Mxy made her immune to Green Kryptonite.
• Besides that, it's not even true in this case, because the girl in question, Althera, is shown to have super strength much less than Superman's, barely being able to lift the rock she is shown easily lifting on the cover (so it's another lying cover, too)

Superdickery:

• We see Superman's intergalactic zoo again, where he captures alien animals and keeps them in small cages
• Finds himself falling for Althera, the leader of the space amazons, even though all he knows about her is that she and her crew are here to capture slaves for their home planet
• He eventually dumps her once he finds out that she has feathers instead of hair on her head, as she is descended from a race of birdlike aliens. Is that racist?
• Even though Althera and her race are shown to be slavers and conquerors, Superman decides to help them out anyway, not bothering to try to free their slaves or prevent them from looking for new ones or anything.

Spoiler: I'm fine with dating women from other planets, but feathers are a dealbreaker

Power Tracker:

- High Herald Level, again.

Backup Story

Notes:

- This is another Superman story, this time featuring Supergirl (if you missed her)

Feat Catalogue:

• Smashes some icebergs that were threatening to destroy an oil platform
• Carries half of the gold from Fort Knox through the air to a different part of the country, and then back again
• Figures out Supergirl's trick and resists the hypnosis

Feat Catalogue (non-Superman):

• Supergirl is able to temporarily fool Superman with a disguise and fake "magic"
• She is able to temporarily hypnotize Superman into believing that he has lost his powers, as well as giving them back to him for brief periods, although it no longer works when he realizes what's going on
• She also uses x-ray vision to make the 'credit card' appear to glow

Spoiler: Who needs villains when you have a cousin as dickish as you?

Weirdness:

• Supergirl disguises herself as an old fortune teller named "Madame Mephisto", who gives Superman a 'magical credit card' that can supposedly grant him 3 wishes, as part of a test to see if either of them can be hypnotized into committing crimes. Very weird way to go about it. Her plan also didn't even make sense, as she didn't try to directly hypnotize him to commit a crime, but rather tried to blackmail him into committing one.
• The US Government just lets Superman take half of the gold from Fort Knox because he promised he would bring it back. Huh?

Superdickery:

• Supergirl trolls Superman by pretending to be a fortune teller, hypnotizing him to mess with his powers when he needs them, and making him think that he is being blackmailed by a villain into stealing half of the gold from Fort Knox.
• Despite figuring out what's going on, Superman still proceeds to actually take the gold from Fort Knox, and then dump it on the disguised Supergirl as a prank, thus appearing to have murdered "Madame Mephisto"

Power Tracker:

- High Herald Level, a bit hard to rank him when he was hypnotized into losing his powers though, since he still had his invulnerability.

Action Comics #396

Overall Notes

• There's a 1 - page feature in this issue showing some of the changes made to Superman and his mythos since the beginning of the Golden Age, including how his powers had increased.
• There's another feature giving quick profiles and biographies of writers Leo Dorfman, Ross Andru, and Mike Esposito

Spoiler: Showing some of the differences between the Golden and Silver ages

Superman Story

Notes:

• This is another Imaginary Story. According to the wiki, it was not assigned an alternate universe designation, so it could take place in some parallel universe, we just don't know which one. That said, it's not canon to the Earth-1 Superman.
• This is actually part 1 of a multi-part story that will be continued in the following issue.

Feat Catalogue:

- As this is an Imaginary Story, there are no canon/relevant feats here

Weirdness:

- This story takes place in the fantastic, distant future of the 1990s... as imagined by people in the early 1970s. Having grown up in the 90s myself, I never noticed things like:

• Astronauts exploring Saturn's rings (and even landing on them... WTF?)
• A "giant marine laboratory on the ocean floor"
• All cars replaced with hovercars
• Construction workers equipped with "Anti-Grav Pulse Rays" that can catch falling debris
• Bulletproof glass cages that emerge from the sidewalks outside of banks to catch robbers
• Automatic "fire sensors" on lampposts that can summmon firefighting helicopters "within instants", that can instantly douse a burning fuel truck.
• "Modern climate control" that melted all of the ice in the Arctic - which was apparently a desirable thing
• It seems their predictions for the future didn't include inflation or an increased cost of living, as the crippled Superman is able to buy an entire bag of groceries with just $5.00.
• Upon seeing Superman in a wheelchair wearing his costume, everyone automatically assumes it's really him, instead of someone just wearing a Superman costume...

Spoiler: That's totally how Saturn's rings work...

Spoiler: Ah yes, the 1990s... I'm sure we all remember this

Superdickery:

Power Tracker:

- The crippled future Superman in this story still has some powers, but I probably wouldn't put him above Low Street Level at best.

Backup Story

Notes:

- This time, the backup is a "Tales of the Fortress" story, featuring Superman but focusing on the Fortress of Solitude.

Feat Catalogue:

• There is a model of Krypton's star system in the Fortress of Solitude, including its red sun (not actually emitting the same kind of radiation, though). The planets are held up with antigravity technology, which was given to him by the JLA.
• Some aliens use a device to gather power from Superman to reheat the core of their planet. They describe his power as "limitless", but that's pretty obviously hyperbole.
• Fakes his death by stopping his heart temporarily
• Uses an "electronic super-scope" that "amplifies his microscopic vision to the Nth degree" to see that the miniature alien planet overloaded and exploded.
• The power the aliens absorbed from him overloaded their planet, causing it to explode. Notably, the explosion was visible to the naked eye when Superman was back at normal size, despite the planet apparently being insanely small... see the Power Tracker section for my thoughts on this

Spoiler: I'll just present the whole context of the feats here

Weirdness:

- The aliens that kidnap Superman in this story were actually microscopic beings whose planet was the size of a tiny mote accidentally placed into orbit around the model of Rao in the Fortress. They shrink him and bring him to their planet.

Superdickery:

- Hypocrisy: When some aliens show up to capture Superman, he's offended by the idea, and says "collect me like some specimen for a zoo? Think again!" Apparently forgetting that he has done that exact same thing to countless alien creatures

Power Tracker:

This is another one of those weird feats that's hard to interpret clearly. We don't know how small the alien planet was, but we have the following facts:

• It was small enough that it floated for years in the Krypton model of his Fortress without him ever noticing it
• He was said to have been shrunk to "infinitesimal size" (seems hyperbole, but if you take this line literally, this would be a feat of beyond infinite power)
• He needed a special machine to enhance the power of his microscopic vision in order to see the remains of the planet (and he can normally see atoms and subatomic particles with it, IIRC)
• The narration referred to the alien planet being inside a "tiny microcosmic universe".

The feat is, of course, that the energy the aliens drained from Superman (while he was miniaturized to their scale) caused their planet's core to overload and explode, and the explosion was bright and loud enough to be obvious at a normal scale. Using up this amount of power did weaken Superman somewhat, but only temporarily.

I suppose a super high-end interpretation would say that the explosion, scaled up to normal size, would have wiped out an entire normal - sized universe, or a significant portion of one, but I don't feel this is justified. Not only was the size of the planet not firmly established, but there are also the facts that:

• The aliens said that the energy had started a chain reaction at their planet's core, meaning it wasn't solely Superman's energy (although even the total mass-energy content of an earth-sized planet wouldn't be nearly enough to create an explosion of the size required for the higher-end interpretations of this feat)
• We see that the planet was blown into solid fragments, large enough to have hills and buildings on them, not completely blasted to atoms or less like would be expected from an insanely powerful explosion like that. Then again, Silver Age DC is hardly consistent with this kind of thing.

Overall, maybe I could call this above High Herald Level (not sure to what extent), but it's still very vague and would need more to corroborate it. So I'm still leaving him at High Herald Level for now.