Superman Through the Ages! Forum

What happens when SUPERBOY discovers the FORBIDDEN WEAPONS from KRYPTON?

Find out in "The PHANTOM SUPERBOY!" (http://superman.nu/tales4/phantomsuperboy/)

(http://superman.nu/superboy-lives/tomorrows-lesson/chapters/images/zone.jpg) (http://superman.nu/tales4/phantomsuperboy/)

A tip-of-the-hat to Mark Alfred for sending in this one!

:s:

That's a great story --it had everything including huge chunks of Smallville life mixed in with Krypton stuff.  The highlights include the young Superboy unwittingly killing a giant lizard he creates: "a victim of his own savage ferocity" (talk about blaming the victim --sheesh!).  And I love how SB says, "that fool robot" --like the robot can help it!

Also the first appearance of Zod and his plans to rule the planet; and the introduction of the PZ ray projector.

And of course, fans of "Superman Versus Atom Man" will see the ending to this tale coming an "empty doom" away. :wink:

Cool story, Rao. I'd love to see more Phantom Zone related stories.

This is one of those stories I've been wanting to see for a long time but could never find. As usual, I'm very grateful that a site like this exists and give many thanks to Great Rao!

It's always fascinating to see the way that Weisinger is still "establishing the rules" in the stories from the late 50s/early 60s. In this story, for example, Superboy shouldn't be able to tear open the giant metal box, since it was made of kryptonian metal and should therefore be even tougher on Earth than his skin is. A few years later, it's likely that someone (probably E. Nelson Bridwell!) would have  had to explain a way around this problem in the letter column. My theory? The metal the box was composed of actually fell to Krypton as a meteor from some other region of the galaxy, and Jor-El found it to use in his experiments.

And the no-prize goes to ..... the Continental Op!  Great detective work, C.O.! :D

I'm not sure about this, I can see how its molecular substance would be denser, but does inanimate matter get powers from a yellow sun?  And if Silver Age Superman can survive an exploding sun, wouldn't that make any kryptonian metal the strongest matter in the entire universe?

No-Prize.... hey that's Marvel talk!

You are ban...


;)

 :P

just kidding

The DC editors would often ridicule the no-prize notion, I know, but what was the response when they couldn't wriggle out of a goof-up?

In the Sixties, Weisinger didn't really feel the need to explain his way out, but he would take the opportunity to make some kind of pun... like if someone wrote in, "Superman was drawn with two noses on the last page of the story!" ,the answer might be something like "Obviously, one of those was Clark Kent's nose for news!--Ed."

In the Seventies, E. Nelson Bridwell and later Bob Rozakis took over writing the letter columns. They would usually try to work in a pun AND come up with an explanation for the "mistake".  Something like "Chameleon Boy was impersonating Superman on the last page of the story but gave himself two noses. Because a Legionnaire NOSE two are better than one!--ENB".

Ah, simpler (cornier) times.

And if the boo-boo was "legitimate", Mort & the gang would just "fess up" and mea culpa or plug a like minded story appearing elsewhere that month in the Superman family line o' mags.

After the Crisis and the MOS, DC Comic come up with "Baldy" to give to people--a postcard that has Post-Crisis Lex Luthor's ugly mug on it.