Superman Through the Ages! Forum

Anybody remember the story about the evil metal controlling bacteria (heh early nanotech) that Jor-El sent off into space only to have them come to Earth and possess a Superman robot, and then an army general, and then try to possess Superman himself? If anyone remembers this can you give me a book number?

I recall that two-issue story.  The bacteria were a form of commensals.  The man infected and merged with the Superman robot was General Derwent.

I have the books at home so I can give you the issue numbers when I get home tonight.

Ah thanks much CK, I read the first one when I was like 8 years old and haven't read/seen it since.

Superman (1st series) #328 "Attack of the Kryptonoid", Oct. 1978 & Superman (1st series) #329, Nov. 1978 "I Have Met the Enemy -- and It is Me!".

Writer: Martin Pasko (formerly Martin "Pesky" Pasko when he used to be a fan writing into lettercols)

Artists: Curt Swan and Frank Chiaramonte.

Editor: Julius Schwartz.

Trivia: Second issue had a Mr. & Mrs. Superman story as back-up.

ok, now go and add that as an entry :)

Must ... buy ... this... issue!

It's up to you, Telle.

But I consider this Mr. & Mrs. Superman tale to be as lame as the rest besides the wedding story.

The basic theme is Clark and Lois combine their savings to buy a car, Clark is ga-ga over their new car, car gets stolen overnight, and Superman tracks down the car thieves.  A minor subplot is that Lois might have divulged Clark's secret ID on a tape recorder in their stolen new car.

It really was a lame story and I do not recommend it.

Again, your call.

The writers (in the 70s) seemed to write as though kryptonian medical science were no more advanced than earth in the 1970s.

For the most part, that was true.  Though we had exceptions like Superman constructing a Kryptonian revitalizer to revive a dead alien humanoid.

In the 1960s, the Kandorian scientist, Reg-En, invented an instant healing ray that he used on Superman's Flame Dragon bite wounds. (It actually didn't hit me at first that 'Reg-En' was a play on 'regeneration' until rereading that story years later. D'oh!)

Brainiac took notes about Kryptonian mind control devices used on their mental patients.

I think the inconsistencies of Kryptonian medical science span the entire supermythos and not just the 1970s.

Kryptonian science & technology was centuries, or several millenia (at least) in advance of earth.  Even scientists/science fiction writers like Isaac Asimov would be unable to do it justice.  Consider this example the old tv series "Voyage to the bottom of the sea",  produced in the 1960s & took place in the 1980s.  They had their characters using slide rules.  They couldn't predict the pocket calculator, which hit the market by the early-mid 1970s.  And of course next to nobody can predict all the breakthroughs & paradigm shifts that our science & technology will go through in the next 25, 50, or 100 years.  Or the next several centuries or millenia.  Jules Verne supposedly predicted late 20th century society, science, & technology.  In a story that was unpublished for over a century.

Did anyone else groan at that? :lol:

Heh.  I've groaned at a LOT of Silver/Bronze Age Superman stories!  ;)