Super-Menace

[JulianPerez]

Good theory. This MAY mean that there is Gold Kryptonite on Earth-3 (since Gold Kryptonite came from the Gold Volcano on Krypton) but not Red Kryptonite which was created by being altered through a weird space cloud; if the portal was at Ground Zero at Krypton's explosion, no Red Kryptonite could exist in Earth-3's dimension (and heaven knows what it would do to Ultraman).

The only possible problem I see with this is that all of Earth-3 Ultraman's encounters with Kryptonite were on Earth. Remember, he had no powers when he emerged from his rocketship and gained them through exposure to Kryptonite (presumably, he can only gain one power per Kryptonite sample). The reason there is so much Kryptonite on Earth is because Kal-El's rocket kept a space-warp open between Earth and the remains of Krypton, which is why the stuff is found in abundance.

You'd have to have a similar explanation for why Kryptonite is present on Earth (3). Clearly there isn't as much as on Earth-1, because Ultraman doesn't have a ridiculous number of powers.

Incidentally, this may be an explanation for why Superman in early JLA stories under Fox and Sekowsky had very strange powers: maybe for a time, it was Ultraman in disguise, using Superman's reputation and their physical similarity to perform crimes (and as a part of his disguise was shoehorned into League stories). Ultraman might have gained his Other-Earth Vision power some time before revealing it to the other members of the Crime Syndicate. Remember, one of the powers Superman demonstrates in the League stories is the ability to see into other dimensions.

[Permanus]

Incidentally, this may be an explanation for why Superman in early JLA stories under Fox and Sekowsky had very strange powers: maybe for a time, it was Ultraman in disguise, using Superman's reputation and their physical similarity to perform crimes (and as a part of his disguise was shoehorned into League stories). Ultraman might have gained his Other-Earth Vision power some time before revealing it to the other members of the Crime Syndicate. Remember, one of the powers Superman demonstrates in the League stories is the ability to see into other dimensions.

Coming up with a Mopee of your own, Julian?

[Great Rao]

The only possible problem I see with this is that all of Earth-3 Ultraman's encounters with Kryptonite were on Earth. Remember, he had no powers when he emerged from his rocketship and gained them through exposure to Kryptonite (presumably, he can only gain one power per Kryptonite sample).

Then the Kryptonite on Earth-3 must have gotten there because it was caught up in the wake of baby Ultraman's rocket ship when it was launched from the Earth-3 Krypton.  Either that, or there was a similar space-warp phenomenon as happened with Kal-El's rocket.  Not too far-fetched considering all the other odd parallels between the 2 universes.

[davidelliott]

Incidentally, this may be an explanation for why Superman in early JLA stories under Fox and Sekowsky had very strange powers: maybe for a time, it was Ultraman in disguise, using Superman's reputation and their physical similarity to perform crimes (and as a part of his disguise was shoehorned into League stories). Ultraman might have gained his Other-Earth Vision power some time before revealing it to the other members of the Crime Syndicate. Remember, one of the powers Superman demonstrates in the League stories is the ability to see into other dimensions.

Huh?  I don't remember this!  Reference, please?

[JulianPerez]

Incidentally, this may be an explanation for why Superman in early JLA stories under Fox and Sekowsky had very strange powers: maybe for a time, it was Ultraman in disguise, using Superman's reputation and their physical similarity to perform crimes (and as a part of his disguise was shoehorned into League stories). Ultraman might have gained his Other-Earth Vision power some time before revealing it to the other members of the Crime Syndicate. Remember, one of the powers Superman demonstrates in the League stories is the ability to see into other dimensions.

Huh?  I don't remember this!  Reference, please?

On this forum we had a conversation about this:

http://superman.nu/smf/index.php?topic=2559.0

What is particularly interesting about Superman and his participation in these stories is that Superman's powers work in very weird ways. For instance, in JUSTICE LEAGUE #11 (1962) Superman uses his Super-Memory to obtain information from one of the Lord of Time's holograms. Now, what's weird is that to use his Super-Memory, Superman sits there and concentrates, and there are these concentric circles around his forehead, like Aquaman using his Aquatic Telepathy or Magneto's magnetism.

What's also weird is that in the very next issue, JUSTICE LEAGUE #12 (1962), Superman is able to use his Telescopic Vision to see through to other dimensions.

Telescopic Vision does not work that way!

Klar points out some interesting stuff as well in that thread: JLA in the early years was a Julie Schwartz book, when Weisenger ruled Superman with an iron fist, and so he and Gardner Fox were inexperienced with the character - which is why Superman's powers seemed to work so strangely.

[TELLE]

don't try either unless you want a headache

the incredible force of the explosion caused a dimensional tear into the Earth-3 universe.  During the explosion, a smattering of Kryptonite chunks from the Earth-1 Krypton were violently forced through the tear.

Besides being the grossest thing I've ever read on this forum, the idea if used in an actual story would never be questioned.  There's all sorts of dimensional rifts and stray holes all over the DC multiverse.

Is a parallel universe the same as a dimension?  These are questions I wish some of our more quantum-ly oriented members would answer in Supermanica.  Could the Flash vibrate into the Phantom Zone?

I like both the idea of Superman doppelgangers existing in secret for decades and the idea of a Superman secret police chasing down Batman (kind of like what I've read about that Alex Ross series where Batman and Lex Luthor are the anti-metahuman militia or Kurt Busiek's Morgan Lafey world where Hawkeye and Captain America work to free the other Avengers).

[Aldous]

How can you not like this story? I knew I'd brought it up before, and I found this that I wrote on the first page of the DCMB "Superman in the Sixties" thread:

One story I do have is the Super-Menace one from 1960, drawn by the great Swan-Klein team, and written by Siegel.

Yet another bit of tinkering with Kal-El's Earthward journey sees him have an encounter with an alien device which accidentally creates a duplicate of the baby, spaceship and all. We know where Kal the original landed, but the duplicate baby lands elsewhere and falls into the hands of gangsters Wolf & Bonnie.

While Clark Kent is being raised to be law-abiding and generous, the duplicate Kal-El, seemingly possessing all the powers of the original, is raised by Wolf & Bonnie to be a super-crook. All the while, the kid thinks his gangster parents love him and are proud of him, but they secretly care nothing for him and are just manipulating him.

As the Kal-El we know grows to adulthood, and becomes famous, his super-duplicate (who is immune to the effects of Kryptonite) grows up in secret, his "parents" fostering in him an intense hatred of, first, Superboy, then Superman. The adult duplicate can hardly contain himself, but Wolf insists he wait till Wolf himself gives the OK to attack Superman and reveal Super-Menace's existence.

Wolf eventually makes a deal with a syndicate of crime lords to become their president if he has his Super-Menace son destroy Superman. They give the OK, and Wolf sends his "son" to attack Superman. For Super-Menace, it is the realisation of his life's ambition, to kill Superman for his "proud father".

Once Super-Menace has left, Wolf boasts that he and Bonnie "pretended to love that freak" for their own selfish ends. The super-criminal, however, has looked back with his super senses and heard every word.

Knowing his parents never loved him, but just used him, Super-Menace flies into an even greater rage, partly fuelled by intense jealousy at Clark's loving upbringing.

Superman meets his super-duplicate and they do battle. At one point Superman notices, with x-ray vision, that his duplicate is not human, but a "force manifestation" -- an unearthly force manifested in human form. This bit of news devastates Super-Menace and intensifies his jealousy. He uses Kryptonite to bring Superman to death's door, but he can't bring himself to finish off the Man of Steel. Super-Menace is surprised to find he takes no pleasure from watching Superman die. "Maybe Wolf and Bonnie Derek didn't extinguish the last spark of decency in me..."

In a stunning piece of reasoning, Super-Menace decides that if his parents lied about loving him, they could have lied about everything, including their justification for Superman's murder. He releases Superman from the Kryptonite trap and confronts his parents.

"My life could've been a blessing, but you, with your rotten cunning, twisted it into... something terrible..."

Superman, recovering from the Kryptonite, arrives in time to see Super-Menace abandon his human form and become pure energy -- the blast of force killing Wolf & Bonnie.

I also wrote:

I forgot to make a point of mentioning one of the most bizarre props in any Superman story ever -- the little Lone Ranger-type burglar mask worn by Superman's duplicate.

I suppose you have to have read this comic as a kid to appreciate it. Maybe it's a bit like the Composite Superman concept -- just a neat idea to make an exciting Superman story. I still find this one just as entertaining as ever.

[Aldous]

Is a parallel universe the same as a dimension?  These are questions I wish some of our more quantum-ly oriented members would answer in Supermanica.  Could the Flash vibrate into the Phantom Zone?

I still see Flash as a physical super-character, using his power to go from one physical realm to another. Maybe Earth 2 is much closer to us than the Phantom Zone... I suppose they are all "dimensions". I have never expected a lofty scientific explanation for what a dimension is (as used in DC Comics); a "dimension" is a way of referring to a "parallel universe", but one is not the definition of the other. I take "dimension" to mean an aspect, another angle on the "universe", because for me the universe is everything, Earth 1, Earth 2, Time, the 5th Dimension, and the Phantom Zone. Earth 2 is another dimension of the universe; I don't see it as another universe. (When people say "multiverse" I still think "universe" because I just make the umbrella bigger to suit.)

Back to Flash being physical: I would think he could in theory get into the Phantom Zone by himself, but he wouldn't be able to get out. He is the master of physical vibration, but none of that is possible (or even exists) from within the Zone, at least as I remember it.