World’s Finest #183

World’s Finest #183 (1969)
by Leo Dorfman & Ross Andru
cover by Irv Novick

If you’re surprised about Superman being accused of committing crimes, you haven’t been paying attention to his Silver Age appearances.

This is one of the few stories where you know EXACTLY the date of the events, because the teaser page shows the cover of a special edition of the Daily Planet from January 23^rd 1969.

Well that’s definitely more exciting than the front page of the New York Times of the same day, I’ll give them that.

But we actually begin in the timestream, where the Time Patrol has just told Batman that Superman is going to ruin the future.

They want Batman to help them arrest Superman, and they can’t just drop Kryptonite in front of him because apparently Superman just got himself a Kryptonite Detector.

We don’t know yet WHAT Batman was shown to convince him Superman is a criminal, but it’s going to be tough for him to convince Robin.
Unless Robin has been itching for an excuse to fight Superman.

Seriously Robin, what do you have against Superman!?

Ah yes, the best way to contact Superman, the famous Super-signal.
Guys, when I was complaining about heroes needing better ways to call each other this isn’t what I had in mind!!!

Naturally this idea of a Kryptonite Detector comes from nowhere and goes precisely nowhere, but… why ISN’T this part of the standard lore?
Considering the truly absurd levels of technology just laying around in the DC Universe, I have to assume this simply isn’t technically feasible… there’s something about Kryptonite radiation that makes it impossible to reliably detect it at a distance.
But in THIS story not only it’s possible, not only it was created by Earth scientists… but Superman didn’t even think to either A) create a duplicate or B) have the scientists make one for Supergirl!?

This was all just a distraction to take down Superman. So who took the picture for the Daily Planet!? That one shows Batman using Kryptonite, but in the story it’s Robin.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, is when the story goes absolutely bonkers.
Yes.
NOW.

I find it fascinating that writers in the 60s and 70s seem to have absolutely no idea whatsoever about what the United Nation actually DOES.
The Security Council is NOT a courtroom!!!

If this was Marvel, Superman would immediately get Matt Murdock as a lawyer.
You would expect, from a team-up book, for his lawyer to be someone we know. I’m not a big Batman expert but there must be SOME lawyer that shows up in his stories, right?
Or maybe you could use the Atom’s wife? She’s a lawyer!

But nope! The Security Council… which I remind you IS NOT A COURTROOM… appoints a delegate because she just happens to ALSO be a lawyer.
And why exactly is it relevant that she’s supposedly the most beautiful UN delegate?

Well luckily enough her beauty is entirely irrelevant to the story. And she’s also apparently one of the few people to question the Time Patrol’s integrity.

They reveal that just two days into the future, Superman will be exposed to Red Kryptonite that will make him permanently evil because of reasons.

Evil Superman will do some light rampaging…

…and then create a satellite shaped like himself (WTF!?) that will cover the planet with a Devolution Ray™.

So, uhm, I’m not a lawyer or anything but… I don’t think this is a solid defense against “it’s just hearsay”.

ESPECIALLY since Batman’s narration points out that the time machine that brought him there barely functioned!

See? Told you it wouldn’t hold up in court! Even though THIS IS NOT A COURTOOM.

The evidence is that once the Time Patrol agents remove their masks… they’re apes.

Yeah maybe we should’ve called a real lawyer instead of a UN delegate.

Guys, I know you trust Superman, but this is kind of ridiculous.

Just last time he took the opportunity to hide in another solar system! Then again, World’s Finest in this period doesn’t seem to be in continuity WITH ITSELF.

And so Superman goes into the future, witnessing the effects of the Devolution Ray™ and then conveniently being sent back to the present by the sunspots.
For the longest time sunspots kind of had whatever magical effect you needed to continue the story.

Here’s a thought: if you’re worried about the fact that you can’t judge Superman before he commits a crime… why aren’t you arresting Future Evil Superman and judge HIM!?
We also run into the problem that, by pre-Crisis rules, you can’t change history: if Superman is fated to turn evil in two days, no matter what you do he WILL turn evil in two days!

Also if Superman turns evil because his personality is changed by Red Kryptonite, what’s the point of calling character witnesses!?!?

While Marvel typically shows the President in the shadows, DC tends to show the actual President at the time. According to the Daily Planet this is either January 23th 1969 or at most a couple days later, so this SHOULD be Nixon (who was inaugurated January 20th 1969).
Except he looks nothing like him.

While the story was written and penciled before the inauguration, I doubt it was before Nixon won the election in November 1968. But the fact that the President doesn’t look like Nixon at all makes me wonder if it was penciled earlier, because deciding to represent a generic President would go against the DC tradition.

The President of this story doesn’t even resemble the other two major 1968 candidates, Hubert Humphrey (left) or George Wallace (right).

It’s a pity because I definitely would’ve mined this issue for memes.

But despite the testimonies of Superman benefitting mankind, he’s still declared guilty… despite the protestations of the delegates’ shoes.

“So we’ve just declared the greatest hero in the world a criminal and we know he’ll turn insane in less than two days. Let’s go get some lunch together with the time traveling apes”!

You would expect the Time Patrol to just imprison Superman, but they have other plans which require a tiglon (which is a real thing).
I don’t know enough about wild animals, but I’m pretty sure  they’re not uncontrollable rage monsters.

And then the time traveling apes LOBOTOMIZE HIM!!!

Yeah, uhm, I must’ve missed the part of the Comics Code that allows on-panel animal cruelty!

The apes plan to lobotomize Superman (!!!) and this makes exactly zero sense because either:
A) history cannot be changed so lobotomizing Superman won’t work
B) if history CAN be changed, just lock up Superman so he won’t do the experiment OR take away Red Kryptonite so he doesn’t have anything to experiment with!!!

So Batman goes on with the lobotomy (!!!!) which results in… this.

Except this was ALWAYS the apes’ plan: all they wanted was to turn Superman evil.

But Superman has already figured out the Time Patrol is not what it seems.

Looks like the perfect opportunity for a game of Guess The Stupid Ending!
Who are the Time Patrol agents?
A) Malfunctioning Superman and Batman robots in disguise
B) Brainiac and Lex Luthor in disguise
C) Mr. Mxyzptlk and Bat-Mide in disguise
D) Two Bizarros in disguise
E) Evil time-traveling apes without a disguise

And the answer is… possibly the least absurd option, funnily enough.

And their plan to turn Superman evil would’ve worked too, if Lex Luthor hadn’t been hungry.

To recap, the plan was as follows:

1) invent time travel
2) fake being future apes
3) convince Batman that Superman will turn evil
4) convince the United Nations to declare Superman guilty
5) convince Batman to help them lobotomize Superman
6) turn Superman evil
7) ?????
8) revenge!

But wait, IT’S EVEN DUMBER THAN THAT!

And this results in the Superman and Batman flags to be shown at the United Nations.
SOMEHOW.

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Historical significance: 0/10

Silver Age-ness: 10/10

Does it stand the test of time? 0/10

Did Robin actually do anything? Surprisingly yes

Did Superman really need Batman? DEFINITELY NOT