Action Comics #242

ACTION COMICS #242 (1958)
by Otto Binder & Al Plastino

Modern Superman readers, or even those of the Silver Age, are probably quite used to seeing the Man of Steel fighting all sorts of incredibly dangerous threats.
But try to imagine what it must’ve been like in 1958: for twenty years Superman had fought regular crooks, losers like Prankster or Toyman, or harmless nuisances like Mr. Mxyzptlk.
Even villains like Luthor typically needed Kryptonite to be a challenge to him.
And then…

Little known fact, we already had commercial spaceflights in 1958.
For comparison: this was published one year after Sputnik, and three years before the first human in space.

Unfortunately this happens right after Brainiac reaches Earth for the first time, so he thinks the rocket is some kind of defense against his attack.

Another little known fact: in 1958, you could skydive from orbit with no problem.
Also I hope that’s a coloring error and he’s wearing gloves.

Unfortunately, once Superman attempts to stop the flying saucer he bumps against the whole reason Brainiac is such a threat: his force field.

With Superman unable to stop him, Brainiac steals Paris!

Among others.

Brainiac’s hobby for stealing cities is a classic that will span multiple continuities, but the reason behind is is not what you would expect.
So, uhm, why go through all that trouble of bringing the cities to your planet instead of just conquering and ruling Earth, Brainiac!?

It’s hard to overstate just how different this is from previous Superman villains. Typically he doesn’t even have to try getting serious!

“When throwing rocks doesn’t work, try throwing bigger rocks”.
The Man of Tomorrow, ladies and gentlemen.

In order to sneak inside Brainiac’s ship, Superman allows Metropolis to be shrunk down.

Laugh all you want, but that’s a yellow fly-swatter: Green Lantern would’ve been toast.
(if the Silver Age version had already been created, of course)

Superman hides into another bottle, which BY SHEER COINCIDENCE is the former capital of Krypton. Not only that, but BY SHEER COINCIDENCE he meets his father’s college roommate!!!

Conveniently, this guy knows how to restore Kandor to its original size.

No visit to Kandor or Krypton is complete without a tour of its insane fauna.
I’m always amazed that Krypton is the birthplace of beings indistinguishable from humans and dogs, but also of incredible monsters.

Ever wondered how the Sun works in a bottle city?

One of the things that make less sense of this story is the implementation of suspended animation.

Not just because Brainiac will eventually be revealed to be a robot: this makes no sense in the story itself.

The scientist was Jor-El’s roommate, implying he’s as old as Jor-El would be if Krypton didn’t explode. So if, say, 30 years have passed from the explosion of Krypton… it really looks like 30 years have passed for both Kandor and Superman, so why would it take more for Brainiac?
I suppose the distance between his planet and Earth could be much higher than the distance between Krypton and Earth, or maybe Krypton was 30 light-years away and the ship is not traveling faster than light… but this seems at odds with how the Superman universe works, even this way back.

Anyway, Superman uses a rocket provided by Kandor to reach the top of the bottle, where he uses Checkov’s Mole to escape.

He then uses the controls to restore the Earth cities to regular size (as well as teleporting them back to their original place, but that’s not explicitly stated).
But there is one final problem: there’s only enough energy left to restore either Kandor or Superman, but not both.

Superman is ready to sacrifice himself to save Kandor, because he’s not devolved into The Worst yet, but the choice is made for him.

Thank you for making the choice for the other 999,999 Kandorians, professor Kimda.
It’s incredible that the character has other appearances, because I expected him to be lynched once he got back into the bottle city.

Did we ever get a “what if?” story about Superman actually pressing that button and remaining in his shrunken size, with Kandor relocating to Earth? That might’ve been fun to see.

And apparently Brainiac only ever stole Kandor before reaching Earth, because Superman just lets him go (!!!!) and takes Kandor to the Fortress of Solitude.

I’m sure Brainiac will not bother anyone else ever again, Superman.

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Historical significance: 10/10
Both Brainiac and Kandor are MASSIVELY influential additions to the Superman mythos!

Silver Age-ness: 10/10
This screams Silver Age in every single panel.

Does it stand the test of time? 7/10
I might have a soft spot for Brainiac, but this still holds up remarkably well if you’re willing to look past the style of the era. Ironically, Brainiac himself is the weakest part: he’s just a generic alien conqueror, although with a couple of twists.

 How close is this to the modern character? 4/10
Brainiac shrinking cities is iconic of the character, but it’s become a small part of his mythos now. Even the impenetrable force field is more associated to Brainiac 5 than to the original Brainiac.

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Before we address the history of Brainiac, let me cover the white monkey in the room.

“Koko the space-monkey” has about a dozen appearances, being phased out once Brainiac began to be considered a more deadly threat.
You might remember from all the way back of my review of Action Comics #276 that he’s destined to cause the death of Brainiac.

The most overt homage to Koko was during the Reboot Legion of the 90s: when the team was stranded in the 20th century for a while, for a bunch of issues Brainiac 5 was stuck with a white test lab monkey also named Koko.
I found the sitcom shenanigans funny, although the bit was run into the ground after a while.

Subsequent attempts to integrate a serious Koko with the serious Brainiac were not as well done.

Back to Brainiac himself: his origins are actually heavily inspired by the character of Romado from the Superman comic strips, who also shrank a city from Krypton and kept it in a bottle.

The story arc in question ran from April to August 1958; Action Comics #242 was published in July of the same year, meaning the comic strip was being used as a proof of concept before the comic book (not an unprecedented thing at the time).

Props to lewstringer.blogspot.com for the scans of the strips. I wasn’t aware of this origin until I started the research for this review!

Brainiac proved popular enough to become a recurring villain. But it also required a retcon that messed up his origins.

As for why, well, nobody bothered to check if the name Brainiac was already used by anyone!

Unfortunately, by the time that happened, Brainiac 5 had already been introduced as Brainiac’s descendant… leading to the awkward introduction of Brainiac 2.

 This doesn’t make much more sense either… Brainiac 2 hated the original Brainiac, as did his entire planet at this point, so having the title continuing for generations until Brainiac 5 is weird.
Not to mention that, to explain why we get from Brainiac 1 to 5 in a span of 1,000 years, we got the additional explanation that the people of his planet have a long lifespan.
(the planet is typically called Colu, but in older stories it’s Bryak)

But THAT doesn’t work with the original story: if Brainiac has such a long lifespan, why did he need to go into suspended animation? Even letting aside the retcon about him being a robot, that makes things needlessly complicated.

Eventually DC decided to scrap the entire attempt to make Brainiac look humanoid.

Over the years, new versions of Brainiac have gone back and forth an incredible amount of times.
He’s an alien, then he’s an alien who turns into a robot, then he’s a robot who fakes being an alien… rinse and repeat continuously.

Much like Lex Luthor alternates between “evil scientist” and “evil businessman”, Brainiac alternates between “green bald alien who shrinks cities” and “evil alien robot”; he does it so much that he showed up in BOTH versions in Super-Friends.

Modern interpretations include the Brainiac symbol (three circles in a V pattern) introduced by Superman: The Animated Series. It’s so linked to Brainiac nowadays that it’s been integrated into the Brainiac 5 lore.

 

I’m still waiting for a robot version of the monkey. Come on, they’re going to do it eventually!