ACTION COMICS 309 (1964)
“The Superman Super-Spectacular!” by Edmond Hamilton & Curt Swan
“The Untold Story of Argo City!” by Leo Dorfman & Jim Mooney
This is pretty infamous for real-world reasons.
We begin with Superman rescuing a space capsule for the President, then flying to the White House to talk with JFK’s shadow.
It turns out that the President has been keeping Superman busy because he wanted to surprise him with a nationally televised party.
He’s being celebrated as “America’s greatest hero”, which is kind of weird since they shouldn’t know he’s American.
All of Superman’s friends have been invited, so he’ll have to make an appearance as Clark Kent.
We begin a parade of Superman’s friends, starting from the letter P with Chief Parker.
For the letter L he gets a threesome.
Having Lois and Lana in the same place is never good news.
Thanks to a gadget from Professor Potter they are prepared to spot a Superman robot, so that option is not available to substitute for Clark Kent.
This time even the Kandorian “look-alike squad” won’t be of any help.
Next is a grown-up Pete Ross, in a very rare appearance outside of Superboy stories.
Turns out that he was inspired by Superboy finding an oil well to help a poor family…
…into becoming a rich geologist.
Kind of random, but it’s not like Pete was dripping with personality.
Next is the Jimmy Olsen Fan Club, who wants to donate a chunk of gold (!!!!) to charity.
Except it’s Gold Kryptonite! Luckily for Supes, the Legion chooses THIS moment to show up.
With Chameleon Boy around, Superman wants to use him to impersonate Clark Kent… but the Legion has to leave immediately.
YOU’VE GOT A TIME MACHINE!!!!!
Perhaps Batman can lend a hand?
Nope! He’s the next guest!
Or maybe he’s Bizarro!?
Naaah. He’s just being a dick.
So Superman can’t use a robot, a Kandorian, Chameleon Boy or Batman to impersonate Clark Kent.
But he shows up anyway.
So that just leaves… John Fitzgerald Kennedy himself!!!
I mentioned at the beginning that this story is kind of infamous.
That’s because this comic hit the stand a week after JFK’s assassination! It was too late to recall it.
Superman’s quote “If I can’t trust the President of the United States, who can I trust?” will also be made fun of several times in modern times.
Moving to the Supergirl story, she visits her old orphanage.
Thinking about her adoption, she ends up dreaming about her biological parents a lot.
If you know anything about Superman’s mythos you can probably see where this is going, but it’s suitable haunting.
She discovers that her dead parents are ghosts in another dimension thanks to the help of her telepathic horse. Only in comic books something like this can make perfect sense!
Since Supergirl is NOT an idiot in this issue, she suspects this might be a trick from the Phantom Zone criminals.
She decides to investigate by going into the Phantom Zone herself.
Well I said she’s not an idiot, not that she’s a genius.
The criminals won’t help her find her parents. The only prisoner who is not hostile is Jer-Em.
Unfortunately Jer-Em can’t tell anything to Supergirl because the other criminals actively interfere with his telepathy, so she has to use Superman’s Chronoscope ™.
She uses it to discover more details about her origin story. First, we’re given a reason for why Argo City survived the destruction of the planet.
And we discover that her father didn’t believe Jor-El when he said Krypton was going to explode.
Now, according to Supergirl’s origin story, the Kryptonians just lived in Argo City waiting to die.
But it turns out that they built an engine to move the city to another planet!
Not only that: everyone got superpowers once the city passed a yellow sun!
Wait wait wait. What do you mean by “I’d almost forgotten”???
First of all: who forgets the power to fly!?
Second: Superman had super-memory at the time, why not Supergirl!?
Here’s where we discover who Jer-Em was: a religious fundamentalist.
Now that’s some questionable logic… the gods will be angry if you orbit a yellow sun, but they’re happy for you to use the powers given to you by that sun!?
Sounds religious.
Before sending their daughter to Earth to save her from Kryptonite poisoning (the shield has been damaged by asteroids), her parents tried to escape to another dimension… the Survival Zone. It didn’t work.
We get a glimpse at what happened to Argo City after Supergirl left, and it’s not pretty: everybody is dying of radiation poisoning.
But here’s the big revelation… Supergirl’s parents are still alive!!!
And yes, they were trying to contact her when they were giving her nightmares. 
Supergirl vows to figure out a way to save them.
Historical significance
Superman story: 6/10
I usually don’t consider the real world impact for the historical significance, but in this case I’ll make an exception.
Supergirl story: 10/10
Obviously Supergirl finding out her biological parents are still alive is very important.
Silver Age-ness
Superman story: 10/10
Between the Legion having no time to use a time machine (WTF!?) and Batman’s ridiculous prank, we don’t even need the random Gold Kryptonite to reach this score.
Supergirl story: 8/10
Obviously it utilizes a lot of Silver Age technology and jargon, but there are so many little things to integrate them with something at at least resembles logic. Still, we have the Chronoscope ™ and the idea that Supergirl just FORGOT she once had powers.
Does it stand the test of time?
Superman story: 6/10
For the most part it’s harmless fluff. Superman giving his secret identity to the President is a relic of a more innocent era.
Supergirl story: 8/10
Most of the comic is dedicated to exposition, but it’s GOOD exposition.