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The Thirteen All-Time Coolest SUPERMAN Stories of the Silver Age (Part Three)
Longtime site regular (and correspondent deluxe) Quentin Long once took your long-suffering and startled Unca Cheeks to e-mail task, for opining that his own private, personal listing of The Twelve All-Time Coolest DC Comics Super-Villains did not include (amongst its rostered nominees) one Lex Luthor, Esq.
Said omission, I hastily point out, should by no means be taken as evidence that the aforementioned criminal chrome dome properly resides anywhere but amongst the very uppermost echelons of the DC Comics super-villainous "elite," where the tires meet the tarmac. Your Unca Cheeks readily admits that -- when it comes to giving comics' Big Blue Butt-Kicker the run for the proverbial money -- Lex "I-Can-Create-
Anything-Except-Hair-Dammit" Luthor takes a back seat to nodamnbody, baybee.
He's bad.
He's bald.
... and he once kicked the holy living Kryptonian poo right outta a certain self-styled, self-satisfied "Man of Steel."
With his bare hands, no less. 
"The Showdown Between Luthor and Superman!" [SUPERMAN #164; October, 1963; author uncredited; Curt Swan, artist] opens up with a sullen Lex Luthor fuming over the manifest indignity of his once again being ensconced within prison durance vile, post one of his every-other-
month drubbings at the hands of You-Know-Who.
"It's time the long feud between Superman and me was settled, one way or another!" the smooth-pated stinker resolves. "I'm going to have it out with him, once and for all!"
Nonchalantly transforming the prison's license plate stamping press into an unstoppable mechanical tank-juggernaut (is this guy good, or what?), Luthor idly smashes his way through the massive, reinforced concrete walls of his not-so-gilded cage, and sets about the grim business of setting Operation Make Superman My Ho' into vile effect.
"A few nights later," the following caption helpfully provides; "... as Metropolis' families watch a popular western TV series..."
... the proles of the Great Unwashed are treated to a very, very special
Casey Kasem Long-Distance Dedication from "Lexi" to "Kal," with
hugs and smoochies.
"Superman has never yet dared meet me, Luthor,
man-to-man, on even terms!" the huffy heavy indignantly avers.
"I challenge him to meet me in a fair fight, without his
super-powers to help him!" (Also, to make things completely fair
and equitable the Man of Steel has to shave his scalp completely pink.
And start wearing "sensible" shoes.)
Utilizing the high-level, all-but-incomprehensible technical wizardry known only to practically anyone who's ever worked for a commercial television station; owned a ham radio license; or managed to string two Dixie Cups together sans adult supervision, Luthor's snide commercial asides continue to liven up the (otherwise) drab Metropolis television schedule over the course of the following days.
"That detestable Luthor is just needling Superman for his own purposes," loyal girlfriend Lois Lane all but splutters, in response to yet another broadcast broadside courtesy of Radio Free Luthor. "Superman will ignore his challenge!"
This Superman promptly does, by promptly skulking off to the nearest available
stretch of deserted rooftop; promptly stripping down to his trademarked skintight
skivvies; and promptly commandeering the local television station's facilities
to shoot back a calmly reasoned "... oh, yeah? Well your mother -- !"
"On a world like Krypton, which has a red sun," a torqued-off Man of Steel informs his nemesis; "... I'd have no super-powers! I'll build a space ship that will take us to a similar planet, in a solar system which revolves around a red sun!"
"If you win there and best me," Luthor assures him; "... I'll return
with you, and serve out my time in prison! But if I win, I'll leave
you on that world and return alone!" (Well... I believe half
of that, at any rate. And you lot, out there...?)
"Soon," we are breathlessly informed, "the ship lands on a desert-like world; and, after building a crude ring out of petrified logs..." [Pick One]:
A.) "... the happy couple quickly decide to go whole hog, and construct a crude split-level cottage home out of petrified logs for themselves. Complete with an extra-special 'Naughty Room.' "
B.) "... the cunning Luthor quickly constructs a crude cudgel out of a petrified log. And calmly proceeds to club an unsuspecting Man of Steel from behind like a crude baby seal."
C.) "... the scheduled mano-a-mano is called off, tragically, due to the duo's combined inability to agree upon the proper means of construction for a suitable crude wooden referee."
D.) "... 'Stone Cold' Steve Austin shows up, and promptly pimp-slaps
the both of 'em into dual comas."
"The gravity of this planet is greater than Earth's," a shirtless Superman calmly exposits; "... but those 'gravity shoes' I made give you exactly the same powers of walking that I have on this Krypton-like world."
(... "walking" is a super-power, now? Geez-o-pete...
!)
"That's good!" Luthor chirrups, agreeably. "I've waited a long time for this moment!"
Said "moment," in plain point of fact, turns out to be nothing less than the
king-hell granpappy of all butt-whippings, as a gleeful Lex Luthor wades
in and sets to pounding a startled Superman like a big, alien tent peg.
"Some 'Superman' you are without your Kryptonian powers," a mocking Luthor exults, upon a.) turning a few Kryptonian teeth into loose, bloody Chiclets; b.) blackening a nicely convenient Kryptonian eye; and c.) introducing a wayward Kryptonian breadbasket to the ol' Lex Luthor Meat Tenderizer.
"What a fool I was to accept Luthor's challenge to fight him man-to-
man!" a pained and reeling Superman moans, inwardly. (Well...
duh. I mean just look at the guy, willya? He's
got arms like frickin' Popeye, f'chrissakes! Obviously, somebody's
been availing himself of the Metropolis Prison's weight-and-exercise room, afternoons
and weekends. I'm just sayin', here.)
Scrambling out of the makeshift arena quicker'n a FOX television programming executive from a public library, the pain-wracked Man of Wadded Kleenex Tissue seeks asylum in the (comparative) safety of the surrounding desert desolation; but the buff baddie -- already having tasted first blood -- pursues his opponent with shark-like ingenuity and implacability.
A blinding sandstorm springs up, battering the Superman into near-
insensibility.
"If I don't find shelter and water soon," the hero opines, bleakly; "... I'll die!"
Meanwhile -- cagily curled up within the welcome shelter of a nearby cave opening -- The Big "L" is keeping his spirits up by thinking far happier thoughts.
"Without his super-powers," a smirking Luthor posits, "Superman will perish in this storm! When the storm abates, I'll find him dead... then I'll bury him!"
As luck of the dice would have it, however -- boxcars for The Big Blue; snake eyes for Cap'n Rogaine, here -- the former manages to blindly stumble his way out of the storm, and into the ruins of a nearby abandoned alien city.
"This city looks much like the cities of perished Krypton,"
a staggered Superman muses, all agog. "But... it's deserted! Dead!"
(So in other words... it looks exactly like "the cities
of perished Krypton," then. Krypton being all... whaddyacallit... perished
and suchlike, I mean.)
Firmly in the grip of thirst- and exhaustion-induced delirium, the Man of Massive Internal Bleeding begins to hallucinate wildly; imagining that the surrounding ruins are peopled by [Pick One]:
A.) ... the ghosts of his long-dead Kryptonian forebearers, placidly traipsing to and fro.
B.) ... thousands upon thousands of Lois Lane look-alikes. All nudenudenude.
C.) ... thousands upon thousands of Pa Kent look-alikes. All nudenudenude.
D.) ... ... thousands upon thousands of Giant Turtle Olsen
look- alikes. All nudenudenude.
Luthor, in the meantime -- having safely weathered the alien sandstorm, and now eagerly combing the desert for the bleached bones of his (ostensibly) fallen foemen -- chances upon a nearby city, his own bad self...
... only this one is anything but abandoned, really.
"This must have been a great scientific race," the villain muses, whilst be-bopping his way unmolested amongst the curiously uncurious agrarians of this alien society; "... but perhaps a great war, eons ago, wiped out their civilization, and they've returned to the stone age! This pump was to pump water from underground to the fields, but they don't know how to operate it, and carry water by hand!"
(Y'know... not being a super-scientific criminal ubergenius, his own self your perpetually techno-befuddled Unca Cheeks doesn't wanna gainsay a certified Mensa poster boy out of hand, or nothin'...
(... but it's a freakin' w-a-t-e-r
p-u-m-p, awright? If these no-necked alien
goobers can't handle the how-to involved in one o' these babies... then
how flippin' "scientific" could their worthless hinders have been, anyway?
Huh? Huh -- ?!?)
A marauding flock of "monstrous scavenger birds" elects to swoop down out of blind nowhere, at that precise moment -- the better to scatter the shrilly-shrieking alien wussybears, and ravage their yummy alien crops; and the quick-thinking Luthor (who's got this whole "water pump" business down stone cold, bay-bee) scatters 'em and sends 'em squawking with a few well-aimed blasts of pressurized H2O.
"They're grateful that I saved their crops," a sneering Luthor observes, whilst basking in the massed adulation of the admiring alien throng. "They don't know I only did it so they'll help me find Superman!"
Leading their newfound Savior of the Month to the long-abandoned alien equivalent
of Fibber McGee's overstuffed closet, the ridiculously trusting and benevolent
weenies leave the balding baddie alone with great, heaping double handfuls
of super-cybernetic geegaws and gimcracks; amongst which is (as a smirking Luthor
smugly observes) a "lesson machine, used to teach children long
ago" at super-speed. (Call it the Silver Age comic book equivalent of
being "Hooked On Phonics," if you like.)
"It's strange," Luthor later observes, as the (now-)intelligible aliens take to cheering and huzzahing their merry little lungs out on his behalf, once again. "I never had a crowd cheer me before... and I rather like it!"
Suffused with the heady feeling of newfound noblesse oblige, Luthor the Good promptly sets about the business of providing his bestest alien buddies with all the water they can gargle and then some, via the staggeringly brilliant ploy of Hitting the "On" Switch On a Massive and Convenient Robotic Earth-Moving Machine Or Three.
"The robots can't find any other source of water in
this planet," however, to the super-genius' obvious consternation and chagrin.
"Yet I can't let these people down, when they think I'm a hero!"
(See? I told you they were stoooooopid.)
This would be an almost incalculably brain dead moment for a certain Man of Steel to come waltzing onto the scene; tanned, rested and ready to pick up where they both last left off, Hitting Each Other In the Head-
wise...
... so, naturally
"I found your tracks when I returned to the ship and trailed you here, Luthor," Superman announces. "We can finish our fight now!"
"Is this stranger your friend, Great Luthor?" one of the aliens fawns, adoringly buffing the baddie's bald pate to a high sheen with a silken cloth.
"No," Luthor growls, by way of reply. "He's my enemy!"
"If he's the enemy of our great hero," the amassed alien branch of The Lex Luthor Fan Club snarls, as one; "... he must be evil! We will kill him!"
Luthor, however, staves off the lynch mob with but a wave of one languid hand.
("No! Let go of him! I have vowed to fight him on
even terms, in single combat!") ("Besides... I kinda like
the way it feels, massaging those Kryptonian gums with my knuckles eighteen
or twenty times, in quick succession.")
"To keep us on even terms," Luthor informs a clearly confused Man of Steel, "I'll have these people show you a set of their ancient inventions! You can study them tonight, and figure out how to use them... as I'll use my set against you!"
The following day, then -- in front of the proverbial packed house of lustily-cheering supporters chanting "Lex! Lex! He's our man! If he can't do it, nobody can!" -- the two lifelong enemies tear into one another with one inexplicably designed and constructed alien dingus after another.
"That's an anti-gravity tornado he's released at me," a severely freaked-out Man of Steel observes, as the preternaturally violent and pointless festivities get well and truly under way. "I'll counter it fast by creating a bigger one, with the same instrument!"
It's a tough act to follow, certainly; this "anti-gravity tornado" business... but attempt to follow it they do, with such undeniably twisted weapons as a harness which shoots out "tiny shooting suns"; a "ring [...] which spreads out a wall of dark force that no heat, light or energy can pass"; and "an automon bloodhound," among others. [See paage reproduction, above]
(Jeeeeeeeezus! What sort of interstellar sickies even bother cobbling
up waysick stuff like this in the first friggin' place, anyway?
I mean no bloody wonder they all immediately "took" to Lex Luthor
like so many lonely teenyboppers to Ricky Martin and The Backstreet Boys, combined!
The whackjobs on this mudball would probably make the Borg wet
themselves in stark, unreasoning terror!)
Be that as it may, however said "automaton bloodhound" is but scant heartbeats away from picking out one of the juicier bits of the Man of Steel's jugular for a quick mid-afternoon snack; with a sweating and panicky Superman (doubtless) beginning to wonder just why exactly whatever it was he saw in this whole "fair fight under a red sun" business in the first bloody place.
"It's strength is tremendous," Superman's mind races, desperately; "... and if its jaws reach my throat, it's all over! It must be powered by a self-contained battery... if my hands can only find the control panel...!"
Rather than going to all the time and trouble inherent in retitling their long-running flagship series KIBBLEMAN, the editorial Powers That Be at DC Comics, Inc. opted to let our hero find the silly old control panel; occasioning a thoroughly unsportsmanlike impulse on the part of spoilsport Luthor.
"Your cleverness has saved you so far," the follicularly-challenged fink rasps, lunging towards the prone and exhausted Man of Steel; "... but I can still use my bare hands!"
This, Luthor quickly proceeds to do; throttling the supine super-hero in the dust of the alien arena...
... only to (inexplicably) loosen his grip, at the critical moment; allowing Superman to deck Luthore with a last-ditch haymaker, in turn.
It seems, you see, that the hairless hardcase has allowed himself to become all warm and fond-ish, like, over the adoring and unwashed rabble of this insignificant little interstellar mudball; and intentionally allowed the Man of Steel to whomp him upside de haid bone, in order that the latter might more readily be persuaded to provide much-needed reserves of precious water for the pinheaded little plebes.
"Later, in his prison on Earth" the story concludes, "Luthor receives a present!"
"I took this photo through a super-telescope in my Fortress," a sappily grinning Superman informs the recidivist rogue. "It should interest you!"
"A great statue of me," that sentimental old super-baddie blubbers; "... on the one world where I'm a hero! It was worth coming back to prison for!"
Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Let's just hope it impresses the holy
heck out of the guys in the prison shower room tomorrow night, Pink Boy.
... but this wasn't the only time we were to visit The Planet of the Hopeless Feebs, kids and kidettes.
Oh, no no no no no.
Be right back here in fourteen, then... and Unca Cheeks will tell you all about that one, as well.
Don't make him unleash the automaton bloodhounds on any stragglers,
now.
"The Thirteen All-Time Coolest SUPERMAN Stories Ever" PAGE ONE
"The Thirteen All-Time Coolest SUPERMAN Stories Ever" PAGE TWO
"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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