Unca Cheeks the Toy Wonder's Silver Age Comics Web Site!

Fair warning, one and all: some of the scanned comics images you're about to see, on this very page, may well end up transmogrifying even the most stout-hearted of Superman devotees into card-carrying, dues-paying members of The Anti-Superman Revenge Squad.

Last chance for any stragglers during today's tour: Turn. Back. NOW.

Fine, then. Just don't come to me all emotionally devastated and guppy-faced, then, at the end of the program.

"The Fattest Girl In Metropolis" -- just recently reprinted by DC Comics, Inc., as of this writing -- is as good a place to start as any, I guess. [See panel reproduction, below]

Boy... talk about water retention, huh...? [*rimshot*]

Sorry. That won't happen again. Scout's honor.

While reporting on a local scientist's newly-crafted mechanism devised for the enlargement of fruits, veggies and other foodstuffs, ace investigative Daily Planet reporter Lois Lane wanders her none-too- careful way directly into the path of said invention's field of effect. She awakens the following morning, and is flabbergasted to discover that she has gone -- overnight, mind, now -- from a size six to a size six hundred, and is beginning to exert a terrible and inexorable effect on the local sea tides.

Naturally, the plucky professional's first thoughts are: "Omigawd... I look like Shelley Winters in The Poseidon Adventure!"

No, no; juuuuusssssssst kidding. Her real, actual first thoughts are: "I can't let Superman see me this way! I... I'd die of shame!" (Even then, you see; even THEN, she knew Our Pal Kal for the wonderful, loving, supportive guy that he truly is and was. Oh... there's no fooling a veteran news hound!)

As it turns out, longtime friends Jimmy Olsen and Perry White are every bit as warm and caring as The Big Blue his own bad self, upon her taking them into her corpulent confidence. A solicitous Jimmy, for instance, ushers Lois towards a seat, while helpfully observing: "Here, you'll need this extra-strong chair."

Biting back the wholly understandable urge to sit on the cub reporter's head while wolfing down a quick eight or ten Taco Bell El Grande meals, Lois sets about soldiering forward in her day-to-day affairs, whilst simultaneously undertaking the (sorry) elephantine task of shedding her unwanted ubertonnage. At the end of an arduous week of non-stop exercise and rigorous self-denial, she is rewarded with a net loss of... one pound. (Apparently, the excess girth is comprised of white dwarf star matter, or something. I mean: one friggin' POUND -- ?!?)

Eventually, however, we (and Lois) discover the horrid, unspeakable truth of the matter: Superman, himself, is DIRECTLY responsible for Lois' pachydermical plight!

No lie: it seems that Lois -- shortly before her unfortunate encounter with the nutsy scientist's make-'em-bigger ray -- had the misfortune to witness the tail-end of a gangland execution, and was the only person in all of Metropolis who might therefore be able to "finger" the killer in question.

In order, therefore, to better "protect" Lois from underworld reprisals... The Man of Steel decided to disguise her (in effect) by transforming her -- against her will, mind; saans her own foreknowledge -- into the female equivalent of the late Sidney Greenstreet. After all, as Superman points out: "I knew you wouldn't consent if I told you..."

(This example underscores of Superman's lesser-known super-powers: that of super-paternalism. "I know what's best for you, ultimately. You silly little minx you." And people wonder why it took these two sixty years to tie the freakin' knot. I'm just sayin'.)

The story ends with a vengeful Lois exacting her own (last time; I swear it) "pound of flesh," in turn, by forcing a sheepish Superman to blow Clark Kent's entire paycheck on a gargantuan (and high-caloric) feast at the most expensive restaurant in town. Oh, yeah: this is one healthy relationship, all right. You betcha.

For sheer, naked cruelty, however... you'd be hard pressed to top the Machiavellian evil on display in the next segment of our little atrocity exhibition: the immortal "The Sleeping Beauty From Krypton."

This one, I'm afraid, is almost certainly going to redefine the concept of "hellish and unending agony" for the vast majority of you reading these words. To you poor unfortunates, I can only offer, in turn, a quiet, heartfelt: I'm Sorry.

Best to pull the tooth quickly, then: game show contestant Lois Lane (a gal's just gotta keep busy, don'cha know -- !) wins "an authentic Kryptonian dress" and "a working one-man rocket ship" (!!) for being able to answer more Superman-related trivia questions than any other panelist. (Oddly enough, these are precisely the two things most modern-day fanboys would most covet, under similar situ. However: that's another discussion, for another time. DON'T SEND E-MAIL -- !!)

Lois decides to use said props (which had been previously utilized, we

are informed, in service of the filming of that cinematic classic: The Krypton Story (Why am I picturing this as a Hope and Crosby vehicle, I

wonder...?) to effect a wee prank on Superman; gulling him into believing that she is, in fact, "Rama [...] your baby-sitter when you were an infant on Krypton!"

The Man of Steel -- who, apparently, missed out on seeing The Krypton Story during its intial "run" in nickelodeons and burlesque houses, nation wide -- falls for this line of okey-doke likke a fat man on a freshly waxed tile floor... even to the extent of informing the stunned "Rama" that: "I hide my super-identity under the guise of a newspaper reporter! I'm called... Clark Kent!"

Exactly one panel later, however -- while flying off to do something- or-other elsewhere -- The Big Blue Goombah slaps his forehead; does a classic "spit take"; and realizes that "Rama's" story has more conceptual "holes" in it than does the average episode of BAYWATCH NIGHTS. He does a long-range telescopic/x-ray scan of his (ostensibly) long-lost "babysitter," and discovers that he's just confided Big Secret Numero Uno to none other than... well. You know.

Okay. Now: here's where things really get silly.

The following morning, a jubilant Lois is confronted by none other than an equally-enraptured Superman, who confides to Lois (remember: this is the woman he [purportedly] LOVES he's talking to) that he's truly, madly, deeply smitten by the woman of his alien dreams.

With cold, clinical calculation, he leads the starry-eyed and breathless reporter to believe that the warbled checklist of his lady fair's finer points all point, irrevocably, to Her, and Her Alone ("She's got eyes like yours... she's got a cute little nose like yours... and a mouth like yours..." Thank Christ this was a Comics Code-approved book; otherwise, he might well have continued trekking southwards, itinerary-wise, until...

...well. Let's not even go there, all right?)...

... only to drag her soaring hopes by their metaaphysical heels into the nearest emotional back alley and slit their pretty little throats for them. "... and she has blonde hair! Her name is Rama!" [See panel reproductions, below]

(We won't even go into the large-scale "kink factor" inherent in a grown man professing his intent to marry his former BABYSITTER, f'chrissakes. A SIXTY-YEAR LONG courtship, folks. Did this guy have... y'know... issues to work through, here, or what --?!?)

All but choking on her own righteous indignation, an enraged Lois informs the smug super-guy that she is his "beloved Rama"... and: that she's already mentally polishing up that Pulitzer Prize, re: the secret of his dual identity. Nyaahh, nyaahh.

At that point, of course... Clark Kent happens to come sauntering by, a-whistlin' and a-grinnin'.

Now: Our Lois is anything but a chowderhead or a dunce, smelling-a- big-blue-rat-wise. (Lord only knows that she's had plenty of experience, over the years.) Instantly divining that one of the two individuals standing before her must be one of the ubiquitous "Superman Robots" -- and did you ever pause to marvel at what gargantuan sort of ego would compel a man (any man) to construct a veritable standing army of simulacra, anyway? I mean: you never saw Wonder Woman or The Atom paying creepy homage to themselves like that, by golly! -- Lois frog-marches the grinning, testosteroned duo into a nearby x-ray laboratory (boy... that Daily Planet! One hell of a newspaper, ain't it...?), in order to determine which one of the two has an oversized "wind-up" key jutting out from between his shoulder blades.

As it turns out... the correct answer is: neither one of 'em! "Clark Kent" is, in actuality, none other than -- waaaaaiiiit for it -- The Batman, who is (judging from the eeeeeeeevil grin he's sharing with an equally saturnine Supermaan, at the story's end) only too happy to help a fellow he-man super-hero put some snippy little ditz of a dame in her "rightful place!" [See panel reproduction, below]

You just gotta wonder what those early, Silver Age Justice League of America meetings were like, with these two jokers bellying up to the ol' spandexed bar:

SUPERMAN: "Hey! WonderBra Woman! I've got a quarter here in my pocket for ya! Why don'cha... you know... reach in there and fish that bad boy out...? Heh-heh-heh."

BATMAN [making lewd gesture]: "This ain't no Doric column in my pants, sweetcheeks; I'm just happy to see ya! MWAH-ha-ha-haaaaa -- !!"

SUPERMAN [sniggering]: "Heh-heh-heh... he said 'column'...!"

Okay. Convinced, yet...?

Well... either way: why not join me on the third (and final) page of this little auto-de-fe...?

You just know that I've saved the very worst for last.

"Sadism; Sweethearts; and the Silver Age Superman: PART ONE"

"Sadism; Sweethearts; and the Silver Age Superman: PART THREE"

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