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The Thirteen All-Time Coolest SUPERMANStories of the Silver Age (Part Two)

Secret identities.

They're one of the classic conventions of the American mainstream adventure comic; time-honored and true. Right up there with such codicils of the four-color catechism as The Origin Story; The Evil Arch-

Nemesis; and those miserable, lying advertisements assuring the whey-

faced younger reader that he (or she) can readily amass enough personal monetary wealth to retire by age twelve, if only they sell enough GRIT ("The Nation's Newspaper") door-to-door.

One of the all-time great "secret identity" stories of the Silver Age was the rather straightforwardly entitled "Why Superman Needs a Secret Identity" [ACTION COMICS #305; October, 1963; author uncredited; Curt Swan, penciler]; a tale in which the logistical necessity of Keeping One's Cape and Tights Safely Tucked Away From All Prying Eyes is laid out in frightening (and fairly plausible) detail.

DAILY PLANET reporter Clark [Superman] Kent and youthful "cub reporter" companion Jimmy Olsen -- while visiting ailing editor Perry White at Metropolis General Hospital -- are jointly taken hostage by a nitro-wielding hold-up artist by the rather fanciful name of Benny the Blaster; the latter whom is threatening to "blow us all to smithereens" unless he is afforded access to said hospital's stash of rare "radium capsules."
.
"I could stop him by switching to Superman," a silent Clark groans, inwardly; "... but that would reveal my secret identity! My career would be ruined! Yet... I can't risk letting innocent people die! I'll have to disclose my secret...!"

The author then proceeds to state the case for a "secret identity" in the first place, by "[going] back to an imaginary day in Smallville, where Superman, then known as Superboy, first established his secret identity of Clark Kent."

Sick at heart over how their selfless adopted son is relentlessly teased and bullied, re his (seemingly) habitual "cowardice," Jonathan and Martha Kent approach their alien foundling- child and inform him "Clark, we're tired of having folks think of you as a timid weakling! We want the world to know that you're the mighty Superboy, and that we're proud to be your parents!"

"Mother! Dad!" a plainly flabbergasted Clark responds. "Revealing my secret identity may be risky! But if that's what you really want, I'll do it!"

(... and, hey maybe it's just your wide-eyed and critical Unca Cheeks' status as a Daddy-type person, his own self, which leads him to forward the observation, here...

(... but does anyone else notice the sub-text inherent, in this particular? "We're tired of having folks think of you as a timid weakling!" This scenario is all about how the elderly Kents are being eaten alive with shame and mortification over being known [and reviled] as the parents of Smallville's Leading Wussy-Bear. They're the ones who are making their love and approval conditional, upon his no longer "embarrassing" them. All of a sudden, like, I mean.

(Boyoboy... some swell, loving and supportive parents here, huh...?)

In any event the teenaged Clark obediently drops Bombshell Numero Uno upon the slack-jawed, hayseed populace of Smallville; to a resultant chorus of thunderstruck great-day-in-the-mornings and well-I-nevers...

... and -- no more than a scant few weeks later -- some nameless underworld gunsel is using the elderly Kents for a little retaliatory target practice.

"So, you Kents are Superboy's foster parents, eh?" the gangster snarls. "Now I know how to even the score with that super-squirt for helping to nab me and my gang!"

"I should have known," a grief-stricken Boy of Steel later confesses to Smallville's Police Chief Parker; "... that as soon as I revealed that I was Clark Kent, the underworld would strike at my defenseless loved ones!"

"Yes, Superboy!" Chief Parker responds, displaying all the natural warmth and understanding in times of profound personal crisis as, say, Hannibal Lecter. "Once you disclosed your secret identity, it was bound to happen!"

("... yes... and so, I suppose, was this -- !" I like to imagine a rage- choked Superboy snapping in turn, popping an uncomprehending Parker's head from his geriatric shoulders like an overlarge pimple, and straightaway embarking on a raping-and-murder spree the likes of which the backwards Smallville has never seen; leaving the bucolic burg a steaming and blood-spattered crater, in the process. But probably that's just me.)

Several years pass, between panels; and we cut to the sight of a (now) adult Superman, toting a valise and apartment hunting in the midst of beautiful downtown Metropolis.

"... and so I'd like to rent a four-room apartment," the Man of Steel informs a fawning and revoltingly servile landlord; "... with the windows facing the street." To which the burgher in question smartly responds, in turn [Pick One]:

A.) "Of course, Superman! I have just what you need! And because you're the world's greatest hero, I'll furnish it for free!"

B.) "You, ummmm, realize, of course, that this is... ahhhhh... a restricted neighborhood, don't you? Not that I have anything against your 'type,' of course. Loathsome alien vermin. Don't touch the DOORKNOB, f'chrissakes -- !"

C.) "Wellllll... just so long as those two buxom, jiggly female roommates of yours are willing to swear that you're gay, Mr. Tripper... oh, what the heck! Three's company, I suppose --!"

D.) "Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Just pony up those nekkid Wonder Woman pics, like you mentioned over the phone... and the place is yours, cowboy."

Naturally enough, the Man of Steel finds himself being much put-

upon, in the days and weeks to follow ogled by hordes of curious rubberneckers, whenever he steps out for a quick bite to eat; pouty-faced neighbor children imploring him to track down stray kittycats and parakeets; that really weird guy from the apartment down the hall, always simpering if he can "borrow your old tights; just for an evening or two, mind." Stuff like that, there.

Things finally come to an unfortunate head, however, the day a smug and smirking Lex Luthor utilizes his awareness of Superman's home address to ambush the unsuspecting Man of Steel with "Kryptonite bullets," just prior to knocking over a nearby jewelry store.

"While I'm lying here, recovering from the shock of those Kryptonite rays," the pain-wracked super-hero groans; "... Luthor is pulling off a jewel robbery! He'll be gone before I can catch him!"

"Soon" [the following caption helpfully provides] "... Superman is summoned to the governor's office," where the unsmiling politico remonstrates a shame-faced Man of Steel.

"Superman," he scolds; "... I must say I think it was reckless of you to live in Metropolis without a secret identity! Other criminals will try to trap you, the way Luthor did!"

"You're right, Governor!" an abashed Superman meekly concurs. "Because I have no secret identity, crooks can watch my every move! I'll have to do something about it!"

So saying, then the shame-plagued Kryptonian exiles himself to the remote arctic fastness of his newly-erected "Fortress of Solitude; there to exist -- forever alone; forever apart -- from the throngs of humanity he has so selflessly sworn to protect and serve; emerging solely to thwart this super-criminal, or that natural disaster...

... and then retreating, once more, into perpetual, self-imposed solitary confinement.

At this unhappy juncture, the story's author provides us with yet another "What If --?" scenario; this one beginning with the arrival of an adult Clark Kent upon the Metropolis scene.

After winning himself a place on the staff of THE DAILY PLANET as an investigative reporter, the Man of Steel's life (to this point) follows the same well-worn meta-fictive path so familiar to us all regularly scooping lithsome fellow reporter Lois Lane; a fast friendship with the young and irrepressible Jimmy Olsen; a torrid, mutually self-destructive sexual affair with cantankerous editor Perry White; etcetera, etcetera...

... right up, that is, until the unfortunate moment when a blundering Jimmy comes t-h-i-s c-l-o-s-e to bumping into an identity-swapping Superman, in a dimly lit PLANET stockroom.

"Hold it, Jimmy!" a panicky Man of Steel manages to blurt, seconds before young Olsen's finger finds the light switch. "This is Superman speaking! I'm changing to my secret identity! Don't put on the light! I don't want anyone to find out who I really am!"

"Okay, Superman!" the plucky, good-hearted youth readily agrees. "I wouldn't dream of trying to unmask you! I'm one of your greatest fans!" (Well... certainly the most abomiably attired, at any rate. I mean a green, checked sportscoat and a red BOWTIE? Mother of God -- !)

"But, one day, at the Jimmy Olsen Fan Club," the following caption ominously intones; "... the cub reporter makes a slip..." (Oh, dear God... he's taken up knitting again...!)

(... and, by the by "Jimmy Olsen FAN CLUB"?!? Isn't the notion of a "fan club" dedicated to the honoring and/or emulation of a professional "hanger-on" and perpetual brown noser kinda sorta the four-color equivalent of -- oh, say -- an "Andrew Ridgely [the lesser-known half of brief-lived '80's pop group WHAM!] Fan Club"? How about a "John Oates [Daryll Hall's all-but-mute former sidekick] Fan Club"? What... wasn't the Tito Jackson Fan Club taking any new applications for membership, that week? I mean... geeeeeez...!)

"Jimmy," one of the lifelong virgins clustered about the preening li'l bow-tied goober breathlessly enthuses; "... as Superman's best friend, do you know his secret identity?"

"Well... errrr... yes!" the shameless and inveterate liar lies, shamelessly and inveterately. "Of course, I'm sworn to secrecy, but I can tell you that he's... errr... someone who works at THE DAILY PLANET!"

Unfortunately for the lying little sack of... ummm... freckles in question that peculiarly ill-considered boast is overheard by a spy (posing as a janitor) working in the employ of one "master con man" Steve Barnes.

"Your hunch worked, boss," Barne's undercover snoop later informs him. "Olsen finally blabbed! He said Superman's someone connected with THE DAILY PLANET! Maybe he's Perry White!"

No. Seriously. He actually says that.

"Good work," the scummy, swarthy Barnes chortles, by way of reply. "The crime syndicate has a standing offer of a million bucks for Superman's secret identity!"

Surreptitiously replacing the mirror in the newspaper's stock room with a trick "two-way" mirror (on the grounds that [it says here] "it's the one place where Superman could change identities"), Barnes and his gangland cronies quickly ascertain for themselves the true nature of the Man of Steel's dual nature.

"Gentleman," a triumphant Barnes gloats; "... there's the answer to the mystery! Superman is Clark Kent!"

"Wow!" one of the mobsters yodels, gleefully. "We'll trap him with this Gold Kryptonite! It'll take away his super-powers permanently!"

(For those of you playing along at home "Gold Kryptonite" was merely one within an incredible array of variant forms of the irradiated planet-

stuff, back in the Silver Age day. Green K, of course, was the "baseline" form of the element near-instantaneously lethal to any and all Kryptonians. Red Kryptonite -- Unca Cheeks' very favorite of 'em all, incidentally -- mutated Kryptonians in various and unpredictable ways; White Kryptonite destroyed all known plant life and vegetable matter; Blue Kryptonite gave "Bizarro" life forms the whim-whams; and Gold Kryptonite rendered all Kryptonians instantaneously [and permanently] powerless.)

(Some even less well-known forms of Kryptonite included Orange Kryptonite, which caused Kryptonians to babble on and tiresomely on about some hyper-dimensional sort of being known as "The Great Pumpkin"; Pink Kryptonite, which engendered in Kryptonians a terrible and overwhelming fondness for old Broadway show tunes and Peter Allen records; and Plaid Kryptonite, which compelled Kryptonians to frantically wolf down entire barge loads of haggis and say "hoot mon" a whole lot, for no particularly lucid reason. So now you know, then.)

Well Superman and the Gold Kryptonite are cunningly maneuvered into close proximity with one another; and -- everybody wang chung tonight -- the Man of Steel is metamorphosed innto the Man of Warm Cookie Dough.

"Superman," a tearful Olsen later snivels; "... because of me, you had to hang up your costume forever! *Choke*! The world will always remember me as the man who betrayed Superman, and caused him to turn into an ordinary mortal!" To which an understanding Man of Steel benignly replies [Pick One]:

A.) "Don't blame yourself, Jimmy! No one in the world could keep a secret like that!"

B.) "Don't blame yourself, Jimmy! No one with fewer than forty-six chromosones to their name could keep a secret like that. Frickin' pinhead."

C.) "Don't blame yourself, Jimmy! [grabs Olsen by the arms] Let me do that for you! [rips one arm free of Olsen's torso; blood geysers everywhere] I blame him... [rips other arm off]... I blame him not. [rips off a leg] I blame him..."

D.) [ramming the hunk of Gold Kryptonite down a frantically struggling Olsen's gullet] Eat it! EAT IT, you bow-tied little bastard! EEEEEEAAAAAAAAAT IIIIIIIIIIIT -- !!"

We are then treated to one final possible secret identity scenario; one in which a desperate Clark Kent -- still confronted by the nitro-waving Benny the Blaster (remember him...?) -- elects to disarm the felon, even at the cost of his dual identity.

"That's right, Perry!" a glum Superman confesses, after his outermost garments have been shredded by nitro blast, revealing the tell-tale blue body stocking and trademarked big red "S." "I stopped this hood from making a hold-up... but, in doing so, I had to expose my disguise! Now my Superman career is ruined!"

"Ridiculous, Superman!" the gruff editor-in-chief barks. "Did it ever occur to you that all you have to do is get yourself a new secret identity? Then you can start your career all over again!" (D'OOOOHHHHH -- !!)

Eschewing such eminently logical occupational possibilities as Nude Car Hop; Racehorse Doper; Sexual Performance Artist; Ninja Ballerina; and Professional Circus Geek, the (now) rootless Man of Steel eventually settles upon the not-altogether-unreasonable notion of establishing himself as a uniformed police officer.

"You're a fine-looking group, men," a police academy instructor informs the next day's raw recruits (including a wigged and moustachioed Superman), winking broadly and blowing the occasional kiss. "But before you fill out your applications, we'll give each of you a physical, to see if you come up to department standards!"

Naturally, the identity-cloaked Kryptonian meets (and exceeds) all possible expectations, in the days to follow doing one thousand push-

ups at a time; shattering all academy obstacle course records, whilst lugging a two-hundred pound weight under one arm; devouring entire cattle cars full of doughnuts (glazed; jellied; and cream-filled); viciously nightsticking frenziedly shrilling suspects like so many helpless baby seals; all the really important stuff like that, there.

"I can't understand it," a perplexed medico stammers, at one point. "I bent the needle trying to make a blood test on this man! He's got the hardest muscles I've ever seen!"

(They don't have actual medical schools in the DC universe, you see. You just show up one morning, in a reasonably clean white coat or jacket -- maybe bringing your own stethescope along; maybe not; sometimes, they just give one to you, if you ask nicely enough -- and ding!ding! ding! You get to play golf every Wednesday, and park wherever the hell you want to park. Remind your snide and snotty Unca Cheeks to tell you all how one becomes a practicing attorney in comics, someday.)

This exercise being as much object lesson as it is actual story, however bad luck once more comes down on the ol' super-guy like a heart attack; this time, in the form of the standard police academy application papers.

"I can't answer any of these questions," a frazzled Superman gulps, confronted by same. " 'Mark Trent' never existed until yesterday... so how can I obtain a birth certificate or diploma to establish that he had a past?"

(Were it your devious and uncaring Unca Cheeks asking the question, mind... the immediate answer, self-supplied, would easily have been "Hello... Batman? The Big Blue, here. I needs me some top-o'-the-line fake I.D. ... muy pronto! Or else I go to my old pals at the papers about you and that quasi-retarded li'l 'Bat-Mite' kid you've been hiding down in the ol' Bat-Cave. Filthy freakazoid." I'm just sayin', is all, here.)

I guess some of us are just Too, Too Gosh-Darned Noble for that sort of hard-headed pragmatism, however; and so we're treated to repeated shots of an increasingly down-at-the-heels Man of Steel, wandering from interview to ill-starred job interview; to the subliminal tune (presumably) of Roger Miller's mournful "King of the Road."

At length, however inspiration (albeit of a dim, palsied sort) strikes the valiant vagrant.

"I've got it!" a (by now) clearly delusional Superman thinks, whilst shuffling his disconsolate way along Metropolis' "economically disadvantaged" side o' town. "I'll disguise myself as a hobo on Skid Row! I don't need references for that!"

... at which point the head of Human Resources for "Skid Row, Inc." sidles up to the beard-stubbled Man of Steel, and informs him that they'll need to see some references.

Okay. Maybe not, then.

The sequence ends with one of Metropolis' beat cops rousting the Derelict Do-Gooder ("Since you have no identification, and no visible means of support... the law says I've got to jail you as a vagrant!"), and ignominiously slamming him straightaway into the nearest pokey.

"So you see, Dear Readers," the following caption intones; "... that once Superman discards his Clark Kent disguise, it's not easy for him to find a new identity!"

The story finally winds down with a quick return to our introductory dilemma; with Supes and Jimmy being held hostage by the nitro-armed Benny the Blaster.

Using his heat vision to "soften the glass of [a nearby] syringe... and then stretch it into a long, thin, 'L'-shaped straw that is so transparent, it's practically invisible" (it says here), the quick-thinking Man of Steel surreptitiously slurps up Benny's nitro, right in the proverbial nick. (... and your bug-eyed and staring Unca Cheeks couldn't make up something as full-bore nutty as that if he sat down and bloody tried.)

"The bottle didn't explode!" James Bartholomew Olsen ("Master of the Painfully Obvious") exclaims. "It must've been empty!"

"URRPP!" a sly and smiling Superman belches politely, behind one hand.

Dearest God, but I just flat-out adore the Silver Age!

Be hear bright and early two weeks from now, campers... and your genial ol' Unca Cheeks will tell you all about the time when dat balding baddie, Lex Luthor, beat the holy living crapola out of a frantically backpedaling Man of Steel.

With his bare hands, no less.

Like I said be here.

"The Thirteen All-Time Coolest SUPERMAN Stories Ever" PAGE THREE

"The Thirteen All-Time Coolest SUPERMAN Stories Ever" PAGE FOUR

"The Thirteen All-Time Coolest SUPERMAN Stories Ever" PAGE FIVE

"The Thirteen All-Time Coolest SUPERMAN Stories Ever" PAGE SIX

"The Thirteen All-Time Coolest SUPERMAN Stories Ever" PAGE SEVEN

"The Thirteen All-Time Coolest SUPERMAN Stories Ever" PAGE EIGHT

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