Superman Through the Ages! Forum

You know - explanations that fans come up with for gaps and other things in the original material. The majority of theories of this type are pure mental coprophagy (there was one especially awful fangirl that posited that Superman and Supergirl were secretly married years before Crisis, and horribly enough, wrote fanfiction to this effect) but here are a couple good ones out there.

My favorite Superman theory was one created by Al Shroeder, who said that Kryptonite radiation is harmless in and of itself, but contact with invulnerable Krypton matter causes it to break into secondary waves, which ARE harmful to living things. This explains why Kryptonite is not dangerous to Kryptonians when they have their powers removed - something that no other explanation for why Kryptonite works sees fit to take into account.

Great Rao also had a really, really great theory about how Kryptonite came from on Earth-3: the explosion of Krypton sent some particles of it into that universe (which we know to exist, considering Earth-3 Ultraman's Dad was in the Phantom Zone on Earth-1). This leaves open the very scary possibility that Ultraman might come to Earth-1 and start exposing himself to tons and tons of the stuff.

There was also that book THE SCIENCE OF SUPERMAN, and the idea that Superman can only see in the Infrared when he uses his Heat-Vision, which is a fascinating limitation.

By far the most dementedly hilarious - and famous - Superman theory was by Larry Niven in "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex," which I am amazed has not been put on this website somewhere. It features the greatest quote ever: "Meanwhile, thousands of flying sperm were flying over Metropolis." This almost matches what may be the most unintentionally hilarious moment in comics history, in Bill Mantlo's CHAMPIONS where Black Goliath rips off Stilt-Man's leg and then beats him with it. I swear, when I read that, I laughed so hard I couldn't breathe.

My all time favorite has to be the one Phillip Jose Farmer gave in TARZAN ALIVE! where he figured that the strange race of apes that raised Tarzan (who possessed things like true spoken language, the beginnings of culture, meat-eating, and animism) were not in fact "true" apes but may have been partially human anthropoids: possibly Australiopithecus Robustus or Paranthropus. If the "apes" were proto-humans, it would explain why one of them would kidnap Jane, clearly sexually attracted to her.

There also is the Transformers fan explanation for how Transformers like Megatron and Soundwave were able to change size without violating the law of conservation of matter, and explains where things "go" like Optimus Prime's trailer when he transforms to robot mode. Each Transformer has a "subspace" pocket (not unlike Sidewinder from the Serpent Society, or the Miracleman Family), where they can keep things like extra mass or a tractor trailer. This theory is so sound, and so widely accepted that I think the recent 2000s comics actually mention subspace pockets!

Then there are all the assorted theories about where Ultron's brain engrams came from. Kurt Busiek put this matter to rest forever back in an astonishing and shocking way back in "Ultron Unleashed," and gave one hell of an explanation, too, but it was fun watching people go back and forth on this while it was up in the air. At one point, everybody was considered: from Baron Zemo, to Captain America, to the idea Hank Pym and the Wasp had an aborted child.

One of my theories was the idea that the nearly identical powerhouse super-robots found in every civilization of the the Marvel Universe, from the Indestructibles of Rigel, the famous Kree Sentries, the ITT (Integrated Techno-Troid) that protects the Skrull Emperor, and Galactus's Punisher unit, all were originally a single technology used by the race or races that became the Elders of the Universe, and thus the technology diffused and spread, like the first people that used the wheel.

Phillip Jose Farmer put forth the idea that L. Horace Holly from SHE was related to Monk of Doc Savage's Fabulous Five (explaining their baboonlike ugliness) but it was one other Doc Savage website (a link to whom alas, I have forgotten) that put forth the idea that the pair of them might have gotten their weird looks from the fact they're related to H.P. Lovecraft's Arthur Jermyn, whose great-grandfather had children by a female ape from a city deep in Africa populated by Ape-Human hybrids. Is it possible this unnamed lost city may be Tarzan's Opar?

Alternatively, it's possible both Monk and L. Horace Holly may have gotten their apelike appearance from even further back. There's a story that St. Peter Damian in the 11th Century found a Count Gulielmus whose pet ape became his wife's lover. On seeing the count and his wife together, the ape attacked him.

Of course, "The Master Hypnotist of Metropolis" was originally a fan theory - I think it was an idea of Beppe Sabbatini's, who later went on to script some stuff for DC. I quite like the idea of the Kryptonian lenses in Clark's glasses somehow giving off this low-level hypnosis to make him look quite different from Superman.

Another one that springs to mind was something I read in the Incredible Hulk letter column ages ago, in which one reader rather reasonably asked himself where all the extra muscle comes from when Bruce Banner transforms into the Hulk. I can't remember the exact details of his explanation, but I think it had to do with drawing gamma radiation from another dimension and turning it into muscle. Hmmm.

It's interesting that readers are so encouraged to come up with this kind of explanation in comics - think of the Marvel No-Prize, which was awarded precisely for explaining plot holes and inconsistencies. I can't think of any other form where the readers (or viewers or listeners) are so ready not only to forgive these flaws, but also to patch them up.

I have another fan theory that I came up with a while back:

As we already know, the Guardians of the Universe had a plan to breed the ultimate Green Lantern - this plan would have reached fruition with the offspring of Jor-El and Lara.   Here's the new part:  Another element of the Guardians' plan was that this "super" GL would eventually become the leader of the Green Lantern Corps and bring it to new heights, ultimately taking on, and defeating, all threats to life and to civilization - specifically the growing threat of Darkseid's search for the Anti-Life equation.

Darkseid forsaw this fatal impedence to his power, so he destroyed Krypton in order the thwart the Guardians and prevent the success of their plan.

However, you can't fight fate.  Unbeknownst to him, the infant Kal-El did survive due to the incredible skills and sheer determination of his father - Jor-El...

I never really knew how people found out about fan theories.  Now, certainly, with the internet, but in the "old days" how did people know what other fans thought?  Was this the kind of stuff that filled those old fanzines?

As for PJ Farmer, I never really liked the way he kept tying together all the fictional characters of past, present and future in one huge family tree.  To me, it dimishes the importance of the individual to suggest that some genetic destiny accounts for his or her greatness, and it belittles the human race as a whole to limit all greatness to one or two bloodlines.  It turns fictional heroes into a sort of aristocracy, which is anathema to my American upbringing and actually runs counter to the raison d'etre of many of the characters involved.  (Similarly, I always hated those cruddy old 70s "documentaries" that suggested space aliens built the pyramids.  Not because it's goofy "science," but because it insults the Egyptians.  Frankly I'm more impressed by the notion they did it themselves).

As far as the gorilla kidnapping Jane, the suggestion of "rape by ape" (dibs on that as a band name!) was a common theme in pulpy lit of that era (see "King Kong," among others).  There's no rational explanation for it, it's just a popular plot device.  With probable racial undertones, as the Tarzan books pretty much promote white supremacy, when you get right down to it.

I remember an old collection of fan articles on Star Trek that explained pretty neatly how Spock could have been born, despite the fact that a red-blooded mother could never carry a green-blooded fetus to term.  It was kind of disappointing to see that work unused when they showed a normal birth in "Star Trek 5."  Then again, a lot of things in that film were disappointing...

Kind of.  In talking with fans of that era and reading up on the subject it was fanzines.  It was fans writing to each other after getting addresses from the letters pages.  It was APAs.  It was fans meeting at cons and discussing things.  Most rumors started from people talking to pros at conventions and the circulating them through the above methods. 

Probably the biggest problem with this explanation is that Australopithecus was an upright savanna dweller, and the largest species (bosei and robustus) were mostly robust in the jaws and teeth for grinding grasses.  Tarzan's apes were massively strong and large, and very adept in trees with long arms.

-I always hated the "Superman as Saviour" stories, especially when they made the pleasant mythic overtones of the story (Superman as foundling/orphan/alien) too overt.  I prefer an accidental/evolutionist history for Superman rather than the genetically engineered/prophecy idea.  Sorry, Great Rao.

-Fave science/theory: I like all fan theories, no matter how dopey.  I dislike some of Philip Jose Farmer's myth-stitching for the reasons stated by Nightwing but I do like the idea of the Omniverse --the fan effort to link all superhero and sci-fi universes together somehow (there was a zine by that name edited I think by Mark Gruenwald?).  I also like the Background Energy Mass theory of superpowers that explains shape-changing, super-strength and other physics-defying aspects of superheroes.  I haven't seen the math on this (and wouldn't understand it if I did) but I'm willing to trust it and champion it and put it on a level with all that super-string and dimensional talk that quantum physics types go on about.

-My own pet theory concerns the Legion of Superheroes and why they act and dress like a bunch of teenage rejects from a bad science fiction pulp circa 1950.  Y'see, in the future humans are so advanced and powerful that they are incredibly bored and must mentally inhibit themselves in order to keep from going crazy.  Some of them who maintain vaguely humanoid shapes and pretensions affect the form and mental attitudes of a bunch of teenage rejects from a bad sci-fi pulp circa 1950, dressing like superheroes and pretending to have girlfriends and life-threatening adventures.  A form of intellectual cosmic slumming --Michael Moorcock's Dancers at the End of Time meets 20th Century comic book nerds.

Another fan theory on Superman I liked was by Al Shroeder, where he said that Superboy and Abin Sur probably met, and it may have been Abin Sur who taught Superboy how to navigate in space.

A lot of the things that people take for granted as being a product of the internet and the internet age have been around for a VERY, VERY long time. There are fanzines and Amateur Press Associations, for sure, but fanfiction is also very, very old...as old as the sixties and seventies, when they were mailed around in manilla envelopes. 

Even erotic fanfiction has been around for a while. There's an apocryphal story that Shatner was shown a very early Kirk/Spock slash fiction story on the set of Star Trek's second season...and consequently went absolutely ape!

Similarly, the term "Mary Sue" is not a product of the internet age, but goes back to an especially legendarily horrible late sixties Star Trek fanzine.


Interesting, but making Darkseid responsible for the destruction of Krypton seems totally wrong for the same reason that making anyone responsible for it (e.g. Black Zero) seems wrong: because the tragedy of it all was that it was senseless nature or the gods or fate, instead of being an act of malice and genocide.

Also, Darkseid is a schemer and a plotter. Something as unsubtle as blowing up a whole planet is within his power but just not his style.

But you are asking the right questions: because of all the factors you mention, to what extent did Darkseid take an interest in Krypton? Was he watching it? Was it possible he had contact with the planet, maybe even with someone like Jor-El? It would be interesting to know the answer. Even if Darkseid wasn't responsible for the destruction of Krypton, he would certainly take an interest in Kal-El as the sole survivor. It's very likely that Darkseid and Superman met a considerable amount of time before.


Don't forget letters columns. As Permanus pointed out, those things are fantastic because of how great they are in creating a sense of community. Some of the more interesting details are present in lettercols: for instance, the explanation for why Lana Lang never suspected Clark Kent was Superman because they jumped from Smallville to Metropolis. "Pete Ross moved from Smallville to Metropolis too. Does that make HIM Superman?" The editor responds. "Lots of small-town kids move to the big city."


Awww, c'mon! I always loved those spooky seventies shows like IN SEARCH OF... with Leonard Nimoy. In fact, I wanted to start an IN SEARCH OF... fansite a while back, though I thought better of it as I wasn't sure how to upload movie clips.

First, there was the ultra, ultra spooky synthesizer music, made all the more frightening because they usually synched it up to pictures of the Easter Island heads or whatever.

Then you had the way Leonard paused before important words and then repeated them. as in: "We begin now the search." (Dramatic Pause) "The search...for Bigfoot."

This is astonishingly easy to parody. As in, "Here we come to Fort Ross in California, where many a cap was popped into many an Indian. But was a cap ever popped in the behind...the behind of Bigfoot?"

I also loved how Leonard Nimoy was never willing to really "rough it." The camera crews went over to the godforsaken armpits of the earth, but Nimoy was always somewhere comfortable in a jacket sipping brandy. The furthest he ever went in the series that I can recall was at a coffeehouse within sight of the pyramids.

I mean, how often did they do this: "The search...the search for Bigfoot has taken us here...here, to this four-star lodge..."

There have been other "Unsolved Mystery" shows, but it never got better than Spock trying to show how Greek temples in the Aegean from the air create a Maltese Cross or something.

One especially hilarious episode (at least in a black way with the 20/20 foresight of our globally warming world) was one where they tried to argue that soon, an Ice Age will rock mankind.

My favorite part of IN SEARCH OF... was how they vascillated between theories that are considered "out there" even by the terrifyingly low standards of crackpot historians (such as how they tried to argue that an alien black hole transponder is below the Bermuda Triangle, or how without the slightest trace of irony, they referred to the Tiahuanaco ruins as "Earth Base One"), to conservative historical pieces (they were talking about the Vikings in America for instance, back when this was a "fringe" theory).

My personal favorite episode was the one on Coral Castle, where supposedly a 4'11", crazy Latvian immigrant used his mind powers to create a palace to a dead girlfriend. I say favorite, because I worked at Coral Castle for a summer to make some pocket money.

My favorite part of the tour was where, on behalf of the park, we were supposed to emphasize to visitors that Ed was NOT a spy for the Axis powers. They deny it just enough that it became plausible.


I don't necessarily have a problem with all these characters being related, but PJF had a tendency to replace one straightforward idea with a complicated theory that negates his original premise. He started off TARZAN ALIVE by saying he was going to treat Tarzan as having really happened, and says that some of his feats of strength must surely have been exaggerations by his author. Okay, I can buy that.

But then he goes into an explanation that because Tarzan wasn't massive, he must have mutated muscles. Wha - ?

If I do have any misgivings about the PJF explanations, it is that it points out how ruthlessly Anglo-Saxon Protestant the entire heroic community is. This is true without PJF having to point it out, but if you can have everybody be related it brings the point home further.


Well, Spock's "natural birth" in that scene doesn't necessarily mean he wasn't laboratory created and then placed in his mother's womb to develop.

The original TREK fan magazine, pre-Next Generation, was one really great source of speculative essays. My all-time favorite was one where they speculated what sort of home planet the tribbles must have.

One that was in the PJF mold was where they speculated Doc Savage might be a Vulcan. Doc Savage had strength that dwarfed even that of very strong men; his hearing was beyond human range (which is not entirely possible to attribute to exercises), he used a variation of the Vulcan Neck Pinch, he was very logical and never showed strong emotion ever, and never showed strong interest in women. There are moments (see THE CZAR OF FEAR, among others) where Doc did something very much like the Vulcan Mind Meld: he gets information by a criminal by gripping the crook's face (!) and then asking questions. Doc, like Spock, has weird powers over women (see "The Omega Glory").

That's the one major thing I hated about Philip Jose Farmer's Tarzan and Doc Savage books - but not for the same reasons as you, Nightwing (incidentally I agree with your reasoning, though).

I didn't like Farmer's drawing up family trees and making out that Tarzan and Doc Savage were related to all these fictional characters, in books that claimed that Tarzan and Doc were real people.

I also felt it demeaned Tarzan and Doc Savage, and thought it very ironical that Farmer should write about canonical and non-canonical stories, and yet reference a massive amount of outside literature, not relevant to these characters, or even written by ERB!

JulianPerez writes:


Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of those theatrically released schlockumentaries like "Chariots of the Gods," the kind of things poor old Orson Welles would narrate to pay off his bar tab.

I liked the Nimoy show, too, and I think they've been repackaged recently for the cable market, without the now laughably dated insert shots of mutton-chopped Nimoy in his plaid sportcoats and groovy turtlenecks.  One segment that still sticks with me was about extra-sensory perception or something and they got on the subject of phantom pain, the phenomenon where amputees feel aches in limbs they no longer have.  As an experiment, they cut a leaf in half and placed it under some sort of heat-sensitive spectrometer that showed not only the living half, but also the half that was missing!  It was as if the plant, too, "thought" it was still whole and kept maintaining some sort of aura around the space that used to contain its missing half.  Really weird, creepy stuff!


That's the one I'm thinking of! They used to put out mass market paperback collections of the best articles.  Some of it was quite well done, and ahead of its time, what with all the "pop essay" books on the market these days (one of which I just contributed to!).

There are a few fan-generated ideas that made it into official Trek lore, like Sulu's first name "Hikaru" (an alternate suggestion wasn't nearly as catchy...Walter!) and, if I'm not mistaken, Kirk's birthplace being Iowa. 


This foolishness even made it into a couple of early licensed Trek novels, the "Phoenix" books.  I remember thinking it was pretty sick.  But it is interesting to ponder that some women out there actually fantasize about two guys getting it on.  I mean, we all know guys are into girl-on-girl action, but you don't hear much about the reverse.  ???  Also it's interesting to note that by the time of the first movie this kind of stuff had gained such a foothold that Roddenberry was compelled to include a foreward from "Captain Kirk" in his novelization of the film, where Kirk basically said, "I don't know where these rumors get started, but trust me I much prefer girls to guys.  Not that there's anything wrong with that..." :D

Anyway, if you're tracing the roots of erotic fan fiction, you can take it back another few decades at least, to the "Tijuana Bibles" that featured sexcapades between and among Clark Gable, Clara Bow, Popeye, Betty Boop, Superman and Wonder Woman, you name it.


Ha! Nice way to turn it around so somehow Doc is derivative of Spock and not the other way around!  ::)

I also seem to remember an attempt to tie Spock to Sherlock Holmes.  And someone, maybe Farmer, once speculated that Spock's mother, whose maiden name was Amanda Grayson, was a descendent of a certain Boy Wonder.  Where does it all end???


Ha!  But where with Spock the interviewee goes blank and says, "My mind to yours...", when Doc does it he goes, "Ow, ow, ow, OWWWW!!" :D

I've been thinking about the Kryptonite implications of Superman perhaps being able to "will" his powers away in a post-IC context.  He might be able to avoid having Kryptonite kill him by turning off his powers.  It's not as if he's learned to consciously control doing this, so it could have interesting twists.  Recall that initial exposure to Kryptonite in the comics simply led him to not having powers and didn't kill him outright.  One could retcon those ancient stories by simply saying that he unconsciously willed his powers away rather than let Kryptonite kill him. 

Yes, that would be scary.  :)

I'm afraid that was my idea.---Al

Whoops! Anyone have any tips on extracting a foot from a mouth?

hey don't feel too bad, just think of poor Al, he gets one really bad idea, and that's the one DC decides to try and make canon!

 ;)

Even though it was an idea that would never really get off the ground (and understandably so), it was a clever idea.

Despite its cleverness, I never liked it because it made the Superman/Kent situation so dull. It disregards the genuinely intriguing psychology behind the fact that Lois, among others, cannot (or will not) see Superman behind those glasses.

If the explanation is simply that Superman has a completely different face to Superman (in terms of other people's perceptions), well..... there goes most of my interest in the most interesting of all secret identities.

Actually, I think it's a good idea! Well, I did when I first read the story.

People complain about the lack of "reality" in classic Superman, but one of the most subtle and adult realities in comic's history is that people don't recognize Clark as Superman or the other way around because people are not good at seeing what they aren't looking for.

Wow, Al, that was your idea?  :o

Just out of curiosity, when you say you're "afraid" it's yours, does that imply you aren't so keen on it anymore?  My opinion's on record, but it'd be interesting to know yours with the benefit of hindsight.

Thanks to this thread and other texts I keep coming across, I'm now learning just how much of DC lore was suggested by fans.  Does anyone else think that would never happen again?  I mean besides the fact that today's typical reader probably isn't capable of a more interesting idea than "Power Girl loses her top," you have to wonder if the threat of litigation wouldn't throw a wet blanket on the whole thing.  Over at my James Bond site, people are forever asking me to forward their movie scripts to the producers, and even if I could (I can't!), the producers would send them back unopened since they're unsolicited.  There's just too much risk that if you use an idea, or even a similar idea, it could come back on you in court.

I just think comic book publishers would run away from suggestions today or if they did accept them, they'd require all kinds of signatures certifying that rights were being waived.

Of course I'm assuming they didn't require all that in the 60s as well.

I do agree, but not for the same reason.

I don't think fans of the current generation are any stupider orsmarter than their predecessors are, at least judging by past and present lettercols. You think leching after female characters openly is a new quirk? You should check out old FF lettercols sometime. Holy Christ! For some reason, they come off as a million times pervier because they're trying to be as polite as possible. "P.S. - Could you tell Jolly Jack to put Sue in more tight Angora sweaters, please?"

The strangest part about all this is that as far as comic femmes go, Sue Storm is really nothing special. I really, really disliked the recent FANTASTIC FOUR movie because of how brainless and cliche it was...but I can't bring myself to dislike the casting of Jessica Alba, something that brought as much righteous fan wrath as a miscasting. My reasoning is that Sue Storm, as presented in the Lee/Kirby comics, was a pre-feminist character, and she just wouldn't fly for a contemporary audience, and the creators would be expected to make the character more palatable in a movie adaptation. The casting of a feisty, firecracker Latina girl is one such response to this problem.

Back to what I was saying...the reason I think there probably won't be any fan input in the near future is because creators no longer value fans. This is a generality, of course, and some creators are genuine class acts (Bob Rozakis and Dan Slott come to mind) but the "feedback culture" that previously existed is no longer present, and creators no longer value the sense of community that things like letters pages and incorporation of fan theories have. This is ironic, because the fan community is at the moment cozier and smaller than it ever was. Letters pages are all but gone from contemporary adventure comics.

Warren Ellis wrote an article about how he felt letters pages were a bad idea because (get this) it kept comics from being more like movies - ignoring the fact comics are at their best when they're being COMICS.

Furthermore, this entire move to distance and remove comics from their community is entirely one-sided and 100% the fault of management and creators. All their fault. Fans still love to get in touch with writers and tell them what they think - I know I for one got a real thrill when Martin Pasko responded to some emails of mine, for instance. However, today, creators get away with reviling or stereotyping fans more than ever before. I strongly feel that Chuck Austen's "nobody wants to touch them naked" comment should have ENDED his career. J. Michael Straczynski especially enjoys using personal attacks against people that just don't like his work.


Quite right. I don't know the whole story, but I understand there was some pretty nasty shenanigans involved with a fan suing over a character in THUNDERBOLTS, which is why that comic has pretty much never been reprinted. My God, never before have I ever treasured so much my individual issues of anything.


Yeah, they did. Remember DIAL H FOR HERO? The back of each story contained a sheet for readers to suggest their own characters. It also included a form saying "I agree that my sole compensation for creating a character will be a mention and a T-Shirt."

My favorite part was one issue where they had the H-Dial characters show up. "Hypnotella, Mistress of Mesmerism created by...Jack Roscoe, Chicago, IL, Age 11." Or "Aquarian created by Sidney Mintz, Buffalo, NY, Age 13." One particular superguy had written beside it, "Power-Cat created by Harlan Ellison, Age 42."

Hahahahaha. Incidentally, I barely remember, but the Harlan Ellison character was the LEAST interesting one in that issue.

Oh, no, I actually still think it's a good idea---and much more palatable than no one recognizing Superman with a pair of glasses on, no matter HOW good an actor Supes is. Marty was VERY good to work with, but he made one suggestion to the artist, Curt Swan, which I think was fatal; he suggested they draw Clark with a receding hairline and much uglier than Supes. What I conceived of was sort of like Thor/Don Blake---much skinnier and less well-built, but still basically a handsome, thinner version of Superman. 

The difference is that Clark Kent is who we identify with---so if you make him too ugly, you're basically saying to all the readers, you're ugly too...

Again, I thought it was a good idea, and made good use of a super-power that had been around for years and basically hadn't been used well---super-hypnotism...and by tying it with the Kryptonian glass in the glasses, even made it somewhat plausible. Just make Clark more handsome.

Thanks for filling in those details, Al, that's very interesting.

I think you're right that what tipped me over into the "against" camp was the fact that "Clark" was made ugly.  Up until then I just had my skeptical "hmmm..." mindset going, but those pictures put me over the edge.

Up to a point I do like the idea...for instance if the glasses didn't put out any particular alternate image of "Clark," but merely acted as a focusing and intensifying device for Superman's willpower.  He's thinking, "I am not Superman," and everyone else is going, "You are not Superman."  You know, like Ben Kenobi doing his "these are not the droids you're looking for" routine.

The problem with the glasses generating an alternate face for Clark is that it doesn't work within the rules of Superman's world.  As I noted on my site way back, there's no way this gimmick would fool a camera, which has no mind to fog...it's sees what's there, period.  Likewise when Bruce Wayne or JFK or whomever disguises himself as Clark, it should be the "Clark" humans see...prompting Kal-El to ask, "Who the heck are you supposed to be?  I don't look like THAT!"

The bigger issue is that there's a subtext running through the mythos from the days of Jerry and Joe, and that is the notion that Lois Lane must accept and love Clark in order to win Superman, something her superficial nature doesn't allow her to do.  But if the "Clark" she knows is an artifice, an illusion, a mask, then this "test of character" is never quite fair, is it?  So what if she does grow to love Clark?  What she sees doesn't really exist, so she's accomplished nothing.

But again, I do like the idea of the glasses as an aid to hypnosis, or if nothing else just as a device that dulls the inquisitiveness of people around Superman.  In that light, Lois' constant attempts to prove they are the same man would actually be an indication that she's brighter than the average person (instead of dumber, which is how she usually came off)...if her mind can fight a force which so completely fools everyone else, including Luthor, then she must be pretty sharp, right?

I still like the idea, but Nightwing is right in the sense that it didn't really work when Clark was an anchorman appearing on national television every night.

Having said that, Superman's form of hypnotism seems to work on television too, since he uses a great big floating TV screen to wake everybody up in that very story, and it is established that an artist working from photographs still perceives Clark as looking quite different from Superman. I don't quite buy that, since the hypnotism involved depends on the Kryptonian lenses; the idea would have worked better when Clark was just an anonymous reporter who stayed out of the limelight.

To me, I think it was a very creative idea, and interesting.

I also think it was a terrible idea... ;D  But hey, its all comics, LOL...

All joking around, I think it is super cool that they actually used one of your ideas. I mean I would have that issue framed in my home if I were you! (maybe you do) That said it still was a bad idea, IMHO.  ;)

I still remember the letter that Al wrote afterwards; something to the effect of "WA-HOOO", I believe.

(I think I originally confused Al with Beppe Sabbatini because his now-wife, formerly known as Barbara Long, once expressed curiosity as to what Beppe might look like. All those letterhacks, boy, them were the days. I used to read the letter pages in American comics quite studiously, because in Europe there wasn't the same tradition of actually writing and commenting about a specific issue; in Sweden, where I grew up, you'd pick up a copy of The Phantom and the letter column would be: "I really like The Phantom. He is cool. He's even cooler if you read him while listening to the latest ABBA record."