Superman – Page 20 – Comics Archeology

Action Comics #351 (1967)
By Otto Binder & Wayne Boring
cover by Curt Swan

The original Captain Marvel was such a sales rival to Superman that DC Comics basically sued Fawcett Comics into bankruptcy.
DC would later acquire the rights to Captain Marvel and integrate him into their universe in the 70s… but for some reason, they created a cheap imitation to fight Superman.

And if you have any doubts that he’s Discount Shazam… just take a look at the teaser page.

We begin with all the criminals of Metropolis coming together to agree on a Crime Chief.
Given that the “judge” is using a gun as a gavel, you can already tell how serious this story is going to be.

I wonder where those meetings take place.

And then Zha-Vam shows up to nominate himself Crime Chief, because he has all the powers of Olympus.
Sounds legit.

Are those mobsters from Krypton? How are they seeing the arrow hit a meteor and know exactly how fast it’s traveling?

Following a tip, Jimmy Olsen and Clark Kent later visit the place that Zha-Vam wrecked.
That’s a surprisingly off-model Clark, something surprising given that Wayne Boring used to be the main Superman artist.

Zha-Vam is going on a crime spree. Why does he even need to take over the mob if he’s already invincible and does everything by himself?

Once Superman shows up, he finds a very rare Silver Age physical challenge.

Superman’s incredibly random skepticism when it comes to magic never ceases to amaze me.
One of your villains is Circe, you should DEFINITELY know Greek mythology is real in your world!!!

Given that both characters are completely invulnerable, Zha-Vam has to resort to his best Colossal Boy impression.

By the time Superman is back on Earth after Zha-Vam threw him into space, he finds a taunt waiting for him.
Zha-Vam didn’t even steal the gold!

Action Comics #352 (1967)
By Otto Binder & Wayne Boring
cover by Curt Swan

You couldn’t tell by the cover that it’s the follow-up.

It starts with Superman showing off.
This is stated to be “a full-size replica” of the Empire State Building, but I’m guessing they completely botched the proportions.

And if you thought THAT replica wasn’t as big as the original, the Great Pyramid has it even worse.

The exhibition is interrupted by Zha-Vam, who has started to copy the powers from other pantheons.
Awkward to have him with SOME permanent powers while others have to be activated.

WHY WOULD SUPERMAN AGREE???

Come to think of it, shouldn’t Greek gods and creatures be represented with Greek letters?
If I’m not mistaken the Greek word for Gorgon is Γοργόνα, so shouldn’t the G be a Γ instead?
And why am I bothering wasting logic on this story?

Zha-Vam is kind enough to hand Superman the solution on how to break free.

After giving it some thought… after all it’s not like he can do anything else…

…he finds the solution. It’s magnets.

Which give him the power to TELEPATHICALLY USE A TYPEWRITER.

I don’t know what is most insane… the fact that IT WORKED, that saving his secret identity is more important than breaking free from the spell, or that Clark’s story basically boils down to gossip.

Well that was completely pointless. Let’s return to the dumb contest.

Except FOR ONCE Silver Age Superman actually shows HE HAS A WORKING BRAIN and goes for Zha-Vam’s belt instead of indulging in his stupid contest!!!

It doesn’t work, AT ALL, but at least he tried!

I swear Superman must have also pressed K for Koalemos, the Greek god of stupidity.

Credit where it’s due, the effect is graphically interesting.

I don’t care if he’s doing this for the good of humanity. This is SO lame.

If Silver Age Superman were around today, he would 100% follow the most random instructions from the worst AI chatbots.

This is not the last chapter, so Superman’s plan is not going to work.
But to guess why… welcome to a surprise round of Guess The Stupid Twist!
Why can’t Superman defeat Zha-Vam by exploiting the Achilles weakness?

A) the A on the belt refers to a different god
B) Zha-Vam has the power of Achilles but not his weakness… for no reason
C) Zha-Vam has the power of Achilles but not his weakness… for a very dumb reason
D) the heel is randomly covered by Kryptonite
E) Superman is still sleeping from the previous effect of the Morpheus power

I have seen many, MANY stupid Silver Age stories in my reviews.
This one of the extremely rare occasions that made think “oh come on, that’s dumb even for the Silver Age”.

Yeah this storyline REALLY needed three issues.

Those are some weird thought balloons.

Action Comics #353 (1967)
By Otto Binder & Wayne Boring
cover by Wayne Boring

At this point I’m also praying ALL the gods to put an end to this storyline.

We begin with Superman casually doing one of the dumbest sci-fi projects I’ve ever seen.

Just how random are Zha-Vam’s powers???

Sure we have people flying faster than light and building bridges between worlds, but talking in space? That would just be silly.

Unable to get past the shield (!!!), Superman decides to travel to the past and meet the gods of Olympus.

Is it just me or are the Superman stories of this period kind of obsessed with humiliating him as much as possible?

Turns out that the gods of Olympus predicted that they would no longer be worshipped in the 20th century, because everyone will worship Superman.

So Zeus has Prometheus build a new hero, sculpting him from clay.
That’s a reference to Greek myth, where Prometheus created the first humans this way.

At least Superman learned that Zha-Vam does have a weakness.

You’d expect Superman would use that… but instead he challenges Zha-Vam to another fight.
Where we learn that his belt can also copy the powers of mutants, because Cyclops in mythology didn’t shoot eye beams!!!

But Superman ALSO has a belt with random god powers, courtesy of his time trip.

This results into, what else, a Big Dumb God Battle.

This is a comic including the term “Kryptonite Sock”, by the way, so I’m well past trying to understand why SOME letters channel the powers of gods and others just summon them.

And that’s how Zha-Vam is eventually defeated.

Well… Zha-Vam WAS more powerful than Superman, considering he needed outside help to defeat him.

Historical significance: 0/10
Superman will meet Zha-Vam’s ghost in 1969.

If you’re wondering how Zha-Vam could even HAVE a ghost if he was an artificial construct… that’s not really his ghost, it’s a creation of this guy.
That also covers why I’m not going to review that issue.

Silver Age-ness: 1,000,000/10

Does it stand the test of time? 0/10
This was bad. Really, really, REALLY bad.
Zha-Vam is incredibly annoying, and his character is all over the place… if he was created to be worshipped as a better hero, why take over the mob to steal? Especially since that angle is completely dropped after the first issue?
Most of the god powers are uninteresting, Superman is way dumber than usual, and even the artwork is shockingly below standards for 1967.

What else was in Action Comics #351 through #353?

The first two issues reprint (in separate installments) one of the most terrifying horror stories ever conceived: Jimmy Olsen #57, where he marries Supergirl.

Action Comics #353 is already in the period where Supergirl is attending college.
I’ve said many many times that while she graduated before Spider-Man, her series had the opposite direction… it began sucking.

The story ends with Supergirl being kidnapped by aliens who use her super-brain to become the 1967 version of ChatGPT. Don’t worry, she gets free in issue 354.
The story is by Otto Binder, who in addition to being a comic book writer was also an accomplished science fiction writer, so no wonder he predicted the future in his own way.

Interesting letters: a surprisingly rare snipe at the competition by the readers.

Superman WAS outselling Marvel at the time (selling twice as much as Spider-Man), although Batman was the highest selling book of 1967.
What WERE the best-selling Marvel books doing those 3 months, looking at the same cover date?