Superman Through the Ages! Forum

I am liking this story.  How often do you run across an undiscovered classic nowadays?  :-)

Meanwhile, I didn't find reference to this when I searched, so I thought I'd mention that the line "Each one is better than the next" in the third panel of the prologue page should probably be "Each one is better than the last".

I read that and started laughing.  I wondered if it was supposed to be Mort Weisinger in a trenchant mood?   :P  (Maybe a little before his time as editor, though...)

(I am a long-time fan of this site who finally registered for the forums. Sorry that my first forum post was a nitpick.)

More likely Whitney Ellsworth as Ye Old Ed. But Im sure Rao's Raiders can tell you exactly.

Glad you picked up on that!  The prologue piece was written by Bob Rivard, as a story promotion idea (http://superman.nu/promo/), designed to go online before the story itself did.  When I was lettering it, I noticed that the logic in that line was backwards, but I also thought it was really funny so I left it in.  I don't know if Bob wrote it that way intentionally or not.  The editor was never named and is not intended to be anyone in particular.  Just a generic Big Editor, more along the lines of Perry White (this is, after all, the first Perry White story), while the office boy is obviously inspired by Jimmy Olsen.

As far as the accuracy of the promo piece - it supports the popular legend that the K-Metal story was rejected because Superman reveals his identity to Lois.  I don't think that's what really happened, but I thought the piece was a lot of fun, so we went with it.

The K-Metal script went all the way through the editorial process, it was completely illustrated, the finished story just ended up never being published.  There doesn't seem to have been any real intentional decision behind this - I think it was just an accident of history:

I've looked through a lot of the original artwork, the editor's notes in the script, and an editorial letter about the story written to Jerry.  And there are many objections to this tale - but they are all mundane, practical objections.  

For instance, when Superman reveals his ID - Lois sees him do it, but a bunch of gangster henchmen are there as well.  An editor wrote a note in the margin by the description of the henchmen saying that "others" shouldn't be in on the secret - ie, that those henchmen shouldn't be in on it along with Lois.

Also, a "violet-ray" machine figures in the plot, one editor wanted the story re-worked so that Superman uses his X-Ray vision instead (at which point, his vision power would then fail, being the first indication of his power loss) but someone else would use the machine.  This change would have involved completely rewriting and redrawing most of the story, especially the already incredible pages where Superman discovers his power loss (in a different way) and agonizes over it.   But a different editor just wanted the violet-ray machine changed to an X-ray machine.

There are also notes that "Gizzard and Buzzard" should be named "Gizard and Burrel" instead.

Then there's a panel in the finished artwork for page 20 that shows Lois Lane in the act of passing out.  She has an open hand, but an editor wrote on the artwork that he wanted it redrawn as a clenched fist.

I think there were far too many nits being picked with this story, many of the proposed changes were no better  than the "problems" they were trying to fix, so the whole thing just fell through the cracks.  In other words, yes, there were many editorial objections to the tale - but not the big objections that people are assuming.

More an example of DC editorial politics as usual.  If the story was ever "pulled", it was because it was an editorial mess, not because of the overall plot.  Kind of a shame.

:s:

Wow, it is interesting how mundane the reasons are for things not happening...sort of like real life in a lot of ways... 8)

I agree with that.  The concerns revealed in those editorial notes are very interesting.  Thanks for the inside scoop, Great Rao.  :)