Superboy 89

SUPERBOY #89 (1961)
by Robert Bernstein and George Papp

Now that’s a goofy cover. Is that thing supposed to look intimidating or just stupid?

It’s also a weird choice for a cover; we’ll see later in the story why it doesn’t make much sense.

The first page looks WAY better… I don’t know why they didn’t use this scene for the cover.

We start with Superboy discovering a rocket-ship is about to hit the planet, which in the DC Universe shouldn’t really surprise anyone.

Inside the rocket ship he finds a guy in a red costume. After getting him out of the ship, he finds a handwritten note in “Kryptonese” that gives some pretty convincing clues about the fact that the ship’s pilot is, in fact, Superboy’s older brother.

Then, just to hammer on the clues, he finds that he also has a medallion in Kryptonese Metal ™ with the names of Superboy’s biological parents.

I hope that image is supposed to represent a closeup of the medallion, not its real size. Otherwise that would be a pretty huge medallion, about he size of the guy’s chest.

The only thing missing is an explanation from the guy, but naturally he has amnesia.

Superboy takes him to the Kent house, where Superboy’s brother has a weird question: why do his parents look too young to be their parents?
(also take note at him being 18, it will be important in a Legion story)

I don’t know. Assuming Kryptonians age similarly to humans, I could definitely buy Jor-El and Lara being in their late thirties, so it’s not impossible that they would have a 18 year old son.

It’s also weird that we’re dwelling on this, since Superboy already gave an explanation earlier: his brother was in suspended animation during the trip to Earth, so he was already 18 when he left Krypton and hasn’t aged since.

Apparently he decided it made too much sense because he comes up with a different explanation.

Note that his idea about Kryptonians aging faster on Krypton comes out of nowhere despite him knowing pretty much everything else about the planet.

Also this leads to problem with Jor-El that comes up repeatedly in the Silver Age every time they bring up him building many other rockets: if creating a ship to leave Krypton was so easy, why did he and his wife stay there to die!?

Anyway, we’re already at page 7 and the new character doesn’t even have a name.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the worst origin of a superhero’s name.

I really like Mon-El, but the idea behind his name is just idiotic.
Strangely enough, I don’t think his secret identity of Bob Cobb has ever been used again in the Silver Age.
I’m not sure WHY he needs a secret identity in the first place, but I suppose it’s a law in the Silver Age.

The first sign of trouble is that Krypto the super-dog doesn’t recognize Mon-El:

As a reminder, Krypto’s origin is that he was the family dog that Jor-El sent into space before Superboy. Which means:
A) Jor-El and his wife are the only members of the family not to escape Krypton on a rocket
B) Jor-El could’ve easily killed the family dog if anything went wrong

Later there’s another sign of trouble: Mon-El’s belt is made of a metal that isn’t found on Krypton.
So he studied all the elements of Krypton but he only has “theories” about how fast they grew?

He could ask him about it.
Or he could EXPOSE HIM TO LETHAL RADIATION.

Potential alien homicide aside, we take a brief detour to Clark Kent taking a test at school.

Admit it, “Superboy goes back in time to sneak up on a girl taking a bath” isn’t something you were expecting from this story.

He discovers that the origin of the Cinderella story is, in fact, an Egyptian queen called Rhodopis.

Sounds legit.

Wait, if nobody knew the origin of the story, how DID Superboy decide to go specifically to 4,000 BC to investigate? And how did he get SPECIFICALLY to the exact moment in time that was the origin of the story!?

I’m still convinced he just wanted to spy on the girl taking a bath.

The teacher has her doubts as well.

Sounds legit. BECAUSE IT IS: this is really the earlies known variant of the Cinderella story!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhodopis

I couldn’t find a reference to explanation for the mistake in translation, but Clark is absolutely right!

I did not expect this from a Silver Age comic.
Quick, back to something stupid! Right in the next panel.

Ah. Now that’s the Silver Age I recognize.

That was a surprisingly entertaining diversion. Let’s go back to Mon-El, now working as a brush salesman.

Uhm, Clark, why were YOU using X-Ray vision to look into her purse?
Also, why is it a problem if she reads the 3.50$ sticker even if she pays 0.77$? Wouldn’t she be glad that she paid much less?
No wonder Mon-El never went back to being a salesman. He just sucks at it.

And I’m pretty sure that the next thing he does is impossible.

Clark isn’t taking this well.

What do you mean “your girl”!? You CONSTANTLY go out of your way to get her stay away from you!

I think Clark’s gonna kill someone.

We’ve been quite light on action. How about a bank robbery?
How about A BANK ROBBERY WITH CATAPULTS?

Superboy stops the robbers in no time flat, but Mon-El suddenly feels weakened.

That’s enough to make Superboy go completely J. Jonah Jameson on him.

That “change of atmosphere” involves playing baseball and fighting a giant two-headed jack-in-the-box that spits fire.

I love how Superboy’s explanation sounds completely logical: yes, you WOULD expect that kind of thing to come out of nowhere, in the Silver Age.

Superboy arranged the whole thing, including a fake meteor shower of Kryptonite, to expose Mon-El’s faking being Kryptonian.

He’s right and he’s wrong: Mon-El isn’t a Kryptonian, but he wasn’t faking, as he explains once he conveniently recovers his memory.

His origin story is that he crashed on Krypton and Jor-El sent him to Earth since he knew Krypton was about to explode.

I have to give it to Jor-El, it must’ve been tempting to save his wife instead of this complete stranger. That’s actually neat, but the story completely misses the chance to show this as a heroic act.

Back to Superboy, this time there isn’t an easy fix to his mistake: Mon-El is about to die.

But there is something to at least put the problem on pause: the Phantom Zone Projector.

Mon-El is sent to the Phantom Zone, and Superboy promises to let him free once he’s Superman.

He won’t. But Mon-El will return very, very soon to join the Legion of Super-Heroes.

And that’s the end of the story.

In the letters page, the writers once again get unnecessarily smug towards the readers.

 

There’s also a second story where Superboy is deputized as the only cop in Smallville because the entire police force is under quarantine due a virus outbreak.

That’s a little too topical for a story from 1961.

 

Historical significance
This is so radically different between two categories that I have to split it.
Superman significance: 4/10
Mon-El will be used again in Superman stories, but just a couple of times. As far as the Superman books are concerned, he’s barely a footnote.
Legion significance: 8/10
Mon-El will become one of the essential members of the team. Not only this is his origin story, it will become a vital part of his character.

Silver Age-ness: 10/10
Convenient amnesia, casual time travel, bank robbers with catapults, a a giant two-headed jack-in-the-box that spits fire. ‘Nuff Said.

Does it stand the test of time? 7/10
It’s a mixed bag. There are quite a few interesting ideas, but the extreme speed of this era really does the story a disservice.
Still: the clues about Mon-El make sense (for the most part), Superboy’s paranoia getting the better of him is pretty believable without breaking character, and there isn’t a happy ending: Superboy simply screws up and ruins a guy’s life.

Kryptonite, baby
Superboy keeps a box with Kryptonite in his house. In case he needs to murder some Kryptonians, I guess.