Episode #88: Happy Birthday, Otto Binder!

Note: The basic biographical information was gathered from wikipedia, since I could find no other web sites with biographical information about Otto Binder. The information about his comic book career was gathered from the web sites dcindexes.com, comics.org and comicbookdb.com.

Otto Binder was born on August 26, 1911 in Bessemer, Michigan. H was the youngest of si children. His family had emigrated from Austria, beginning with his father in 1906. His family would come to America by 1910. They settled in Chicago by 1922. Otto and one of his older brothers, Earl, wrote science fiction stories under the pseudnym of Eando (E and O) Binder. Their first published story was The First Martian, to Amazing Stories in 1930. The brothers did not earn enough money from writing to live on, so they worked many jobs to support themselves. Earl would eventually find work at an ironworks. Otto continued using the Eando pseudonym throughout his career. Otto would also write stories for Mort Weisinger, at the time editor of Thrilling Wonder Stories, as well as Ray Palmer, editor of Amazing Stories. Palmer would become the namesake of the silver age Atom, named by science fiction agent turned DC Comics editor Julius Schwartz.

Otto was best known as a comic book writer. Another older brother Jack, an artist, got him a job writing stories for the Henry A. Chesler comic book packaging shop. Jack would outlive his youngest brother, living until 1988. Otto's first credited published story was In The World Of Time, as Eando Binder, in Top Notch Comics #1, Decembr 1939, for MLJ (later Archie) comics. He would become a key figure in Captain Marvel stories for Fawcett Comics. After writing for a number of Fawcett minor characters, Binder and artists Marc Swayze and C. C. Beck created many members of the Captain Marvel family, including Mary Marvel, Uncle Dudley, Tawky Tawney, Black Adam, Mr. Mind and Dr. Sivana's evil and good children.

Binder wrote for a variety of publishers but would spend most of his career writing for DC Comics, after Fawcett Comics finally quit fighting DC Comics' lawsuit and closed their comic book company. DC would later buy Fawcett's characters, as they did with many defunct publishers. His first DC story was the Green Arrow story The Archer From Sherwood Forest in World's Finest Comics #33, May/June 1948. He would write for a variety of characters and titles for DC before becoming a major contributor to the Superman family during the silver age, under te editorial guidance of his od science fiction editor Mort Weisinger.

He wrote all three stories for the first issue of Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen, September/October 1954. He also wrote the last two of the three stories of the first issue of Superman's Girl Friend Lois Lane, Marc/April 1958.

Otto Binder also introduced a number of Superman's supprtng cast: Krypto, in Adventure Comics #210 (March 1955), Brainiac: Action Comics #242 (July 1958), Bizarro: first in Superboy #68 (October 1958) and the adult version in Action Comics #254 (July 1959), Elastic Lad Jimmy Olsen in Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen #31 (September 1958), Titano the Super Ape in Superman #127 (February 1959), Lucy Lane (Lois' sister) in Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen #36 (April 1959), Supergirl in Action Comics #252 (May 1959) and Beppo, the Super Monkey in Superboy #76 (October 1959).

Binder's longest lasting contribution was probably the Legion of Super-Heroes, who premiered in the twelve page story The Legion Of Super-Heroes in Adventure Comics #247 (April 1958). The story was popular with readers, who inspired DC Comics to return to the Legion in Adventure Comics #267 (December 1959). They would return in a smattering of stories of various titles before appearing monthly beginning with Adventure Comics #300 (September 1962). They have been in almost continuous publication in various titles since. They have returned to publication with the new Adventure Comics #1 (504), October 2009. Many writers and artists have expanded the Legion in both membership and scope, but they built on the foundation laid by Otto Binder and the artists who drew his stories, including my favoirte Legion, and Superman, artist, Curt Swan.

Otto Binder died on October 13, 1974 at Chersterton, New York at the age of 63, leaving behind a very crowded Superman Family.

Superman Fan Podcast can be found at http://supermanfanpodcast.mypodcast.com/ , http://www.gcast.com/u/Billy_H80/http_supermanfanpodcast_gcast_com_rss_xml.xml , http://archive.org/ and most other podcast aggregaters. Send e-mail to supermanfanpodcast@gmail.com . The podcast theme is Plans In Motion composed by Kevin MacLeod, part of the royalty free music library of http://incompetech.com/ .

My Pull List is my spoiler free comic book review blog of the titles I read every week. It can be found at http://mypulllist.blogspot.com/ . Send e-mail about this blog to mypulllist@gmail.com .

Superman and all related characters are trademark and copyright DC Comics.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Superman Fan Podcast and, as always, thanks to Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.

An Imaginary Summer 2009, Part VII: The Amazing Story Of Superman Red And Superman Blue!

Our final imaginry story for the sumer of 2009, The Amazing Story Of Superman Red And Superman Blue was first published in Superman #162, July 1963, published on May 2, 1963, a 12 cent issue for 32 pages. The cover was drawn by Kurt Scaffenberger, and the 24 page story was writen by Leo Dorfman, pencilled by Curt Swan and inked by George Klein. It has been reprinted in The Greatest Superman Stories Ever Told, DC's Greatest Imaginary Storis and Showcase Presents: Superman Vol. IV.

Superman Red and Superman Blue were revised in "electric" fashion in the 1990's in Superman comics, appearing this time in regular continuity, but the less said about them the better. If it would have been any other character I would have dropped the titles until Superman returned to his traditional costume. But I had a complete run from Man Of Steel in 1986 up to this point and I wasn't going to quit now. Eventually, thank goodness, Superman lost the static electricity and returned to hs iconic uniform.

But back to the original, and by far better, silver age story, which filled the entire issue in an era when each Superman issue usually contained three separate and distinct stories. Part I was titled The Titanic Twins. It began with the staff of the Daily Planet getting raises, posted on the bulletin board for all to see. Everyone got a raise, that is, except for Clark Kent. His double duty as Superman apparently interfered with his ability as a reprter to get scoops for the Planet; a small Marvel style touch in a DC comic. He changed into Superman and flew to his Fortress of Solitude, where he was met by Supergirl. Together they had what we would today call a video conference with the leaders of the bottle city of Kandor. After they expressed their gratitude to Superman they expressed some concerns over some super deeds that Superman had not completed. First of all, the Man of Steel had failed to restore Kandor to its normal size. He had also failed to find an antidote to kryptonite poisoning. Last but not least Superman had failed to end crime and evil on Earth. The leaders of Kandor didn't want much. As icing on the cake they proposed giving Superman a six month time limit, and if he had not succeeded, trading places with a Kandorian who would become the new Superman and he would try to solve these super problems.

Desperate times called for desperate measures, so Superman used his untested invention, the brain evolution machine. Powered by all of the varities of silver age kryptonite, it did not work as Superman expected. After he began suffering excruciating pain the maching exploded. Afte the dust cleared two Supermen stood in front of Supergirl, one in a red costume and the other blue. And so they called themselves Superman Red and Supeman Blue. Despite this malfunction the machine had increased the intelligence of both super intellects. Two super brains are indeed better than one.

The Super Twins went to work right away. They solved the problem of repairing Brainiac's enlarging ray. They took the bottle city of Kador into outer space, where the Suermen fuse fragments of hper-magneton into a planetoid that attracted all of the fragments of kryponite to the planet. the fusion process reversed the irradiation of the kryptonian fragments. On this New Krypton, complete with atmosphere, continents ad oceans, Kandor was restored, and as a bonus its citizens possessed super powers because of their proximity to a yellow sun. Seedlings from their nurserie restore Krypton's foliage, and the Kandorians use their super powers tofuse the mountains into a new Jewled Mountains. After Kandor expressed its thanks to the Supermen for restoring them to normal, Superman Red reminded them that with super powers they were not "normal". The Science Council met to discuss the matter.

Part II, The Anti-Evil Ray, began with Kandor deciding that they wanted to return to their original solar system. The two Supermen, anticipating this decision, had already put New Krypton on a trajectory. there was no metion of how the planet would retain a normal climate, but hey, this was silver age science.

With two birds killed with one stone, the Super Twins returned to the Fortress of Solitude. They did extra duty finding the merpeople of Atlantis a waterworld of their own, at the request of Lori Lemaris. The Atlanteans traveled to their new world thanks to a water bridge created by the Supermen. Then they built a series of anti-evil ray satellites around Earth. Not only did it work on every criminal, escaped convict and dictator, but it even worked on Brainiac's alien invasion space armada. The anti-evil Luthor then invented a concentrated serum that cured every disease known to man, when drops were dropped in every river and body of water by the two Supermen. Not only did it cure every illness but it also cured Luthor's baldness. The anti-evil effects even reached into the 5th dimension. Mr. Mxyzptlk created a monument to Superman and Supergirl on a mountainside near Metropolis. But much to their surprise they discovered Supergirl allowing the Phantom Zone prisoners escape their etherial prison.

Part III: The End Of Superman's Career began with the revelation tha the Phantom Zone prisoners were cured by the anti-evil ray as well. They wished to migrate to New Krypton, to be joined by Supergirl herself. The Legion of Super-Heroes appeared with a spaceship that the Kryptonians could use make the voyage. After saying their goodbyes, there was nothing left for the Supermen to do but get married, but to who? As it turned out, Superman Red loved Lois Lane and Superman Blue loved Lana Lang, so everyone was happy. At the double wedding, Lucy Lane joined her sister at the altar and married Jimmy Olsen, since she would not break her promise to not get married until her sister did.

After the honeymoons Superman Red began to miss New Krypton, so he and Lois moved there. Superman Blue was content to live on Earth, but retired to devote himself to science. He left his Superman robots to perform rescues during natural disasters, since crime no longer existed on Earth. The two Super families had twins, a boy and girl each. The boys looked like their dads and the girls had the same hair color as their respective mothers. This story was a different version of a last Superman story, two decades before Whatever Happened To The Man Of Tomorrow.

Next Week: Happy Birthday, Otto Binder!

Superman Fan Podcast can be found at http://supermanfanpodcast.mypodcast.com/ , http://www.gcast.com/u/Billy_H80/http_supermanfanpodcast_gcast_com_rss_xml.xml , http://archive.org/ and most other podcast aggregaters. Send e-mail to supermanfanpodcast@gmail.com . The podcast theme is Plans In Motion composed by Kevin MacLeod, part of the royalty free music library of http://incompetech.com/ .

My Pull List is my spoiler free comic book review blog of the titles I read every week. It can be found at http://mypulllist.blogspot.com/ . Send e-mail about this blog to mypulllist@gmail.com .

Superman and all related characters are trademark and copyright DC Comics.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Superman Fan Podcast and, as always, thanks to Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.

Episode #86: An Imaginary Summer, 2009 Part VI: The Death Of Superman!

The featured story of this episode was first published on Superman #149, November 1961, and appeared on newsstands approximately on Septeber 14, 1961. It was the third Superman story titled The Death Of Superman but it was the only one labeled as an "imaginary story". All three were released under the editorial guidance of Mort Weisinger.

The first two Death Of Superman stories were:

The first of three stories in Action Comics #225, February 1957, published around December 27, 1956. The cover was drawn by Al Plastino and showed Superman lifting up his uniform shirt to show the internal parts of a robot, built with then modern 1950's electronic parts. The writer of the twelve story is unknown, but Wayne Boring pencilled the art, which was inked by Stan Kaye.

In the story Lois was captured by bank robbers but was rescued by Superman, who was unaffected by the kryptonite possessed by the gang. Superman confided in Lois afterward that the real Superman had died two years earlier and that he was a robot secretly taking the deceased Superman's place. Perry and Jimmy overheard the conversation, but all three of Superman's friends swore to keep his secret. Criminals learned the secret anyway and eventually destroyed the robot in an ambush. While the world mourned Superman Clark Kent visited an attorney's office and given an envelope labeled to be opened after Superman's death. The letter inside was written by an armored car robber who revealed the secret location of the loot. After police recovered the money Clark returned to the Daily Planet offices. He told Perry, Lois and Jimmy that Superman was still alive. They found him outside the Daily Planet building. He explained that he faked his own death in order to recover the money from the bank robbery.

The second such story was the eight page third story from Superman 118, January 1958, published around November 7, 1958. The cover, which featured this story, was pencilled by Curt Swan and inked by Stan Kaye. The writer for this story was also unknown, but the art was done by Al Plastino.

A member of the mob, disguised as Superman, attended a costume ball. The imposter danced w ith Lois Lane and apparently convinced her that he was the real Superman. He pretended to be weakened by Lois' glass slippers, which he claimed were made of kryptonite. Later he attempted to steal the slippers when the real Superman appeared. The imposter used the kryptonite slippers against Superman and took the weakened Man of Steel to the criminal's hideout. The criminals exposed Superman to the kryptonite slippers until he appeared dead and dumped his body in a river. The gang then attempted to rob the Daily Planet building but are captured by Superman. It was revealed that the slippers were not really made of kryptonite and Superman faked his death to uncover the gang's plot.

There is no reprint information about either of these stories. The featured story of this podcast has been reprinted in three current collections: The Greatest Superman Stories Ever Told, DC's Greatest Imaginary Stories and Showcase Presents: Superman vol. III. The cover was drawn by Curt Swan and inked by George Klein, who also drew the story art. What was unusual about the cover was that, for such a somber subject as Superman's death, the background color was a bright pink. The story was written by Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel. This story was mentioned way back in episode #1: My Top 10 Favorite Superman Stories. Jerry Siegel's work for DC Comics during the 1960's was the subject of both parts of episode #3: Honoring Jerry Siegel: His 1960's Superman Stories.

Part I of the story was titled, surprisingly Lex Luthor, Hero! The splash page showed a parade for Lex Luthor in downtown Metropolis, who stood on a small stage carried by Superman, who flew Luthor over the parade route. The story opened with Luthor walking through the prison yard. He spotted an unusual rock and then hits a prison guard. Luthor was put on the rock detail, which, as it turned out, was what he wanted. The first rock he broke up was the unusual rock he had previously spotted. He smuggled some bits of the rock into his pocket and examined them more closely in his prison cell that evening. He determined that the rock was "Element Z". On the next day Luthor convinced the prison warden to let him perform some experiments in the prison lab, under heavy armed guard. Luthor presented a test tube of a serum that the warden sent out to an independent lab. Later that day the warden informed Luthor that the lab had confirmed that Luthor had invented a cure for cancer (such were the abilities of scientific labs in the silver age.). Superman then searches outer space until he collected enough "element Z" to create enough serum to cure every cancer patient on Earth. He then testified on Luthor's behalf at his parole hearing. After Luthor was paroled from prison Superman flew Luthor to his former lair. After conducting a press conference at his new lab in an office building, Luthor was visited by two mob henchmen, which ends part I.

Part two was titled Luthor's Super-Bodyguard! Superman rescued Luthor from the mobsters' assassination attempt, and then gave Luthor a signal watch similar to Jimmy Olsen's. After two other attempts on Luthor's life, Superman built an orbital laboratory for Lex. The mob shoot a missle toward Luthor's space lab, which was detonated by Superman. He then built a special signal missle for Luthor in case of another emergency. About a week later Luthor fired the missle. When Superman boarded Luthor's space lab he was exposed to a kryptonite ray machine built by Luthor. Superman was strapped to a table, where his skin turned green from kryptonite poisoning. Luthor opened a window to another room, where Perry, Lois and Jimmy were held by
Luthor to watch Superman die. Lex Luthor used some of his equipment to confirm that Superman was indeed dead and left Superman's friends with Superman's lifeless body on Earth. Luthor then pirated a radio signal to inform the world that he had murdered Superman. While the public mourned the criminal world celebrated.

Part three was titled The Death Of Superman! Superman was shown in a glass coffin, wtih people from around the world paying their final respects to the Man of Steel in a Metropolis chapel. Among the mourners were world leaders as well as aliens from other worlds. Superman's closest friends said goodbye to Superman, starting with Lois Lane and her sister Lucy, Perry, Jimmy, Lori Lemaris, Lana Land and even Krypto. Supergirl, in her secret identity of Linda Lee said goodbye to her cousin, and was joined by the founders of the Legion of Super-Heroes, Lighning Lad, Cosmic Boy and Saturn Girl. At the bottle city of Kandor the flag of Krypton was flown at half mast. At a secret location Lex Luthor celebrated with members of the criminal underworld, where Luthor described every gory detail of Superman's slow and painful death from kryptonite poisoning. His celebration was suddenly interrupted by what appeared to be Superman crashing through a wall. The disguise was ripped away to reveal Supergirl, who announced her presence to the world by capturing Luthor and taking him to Kandor to be tried for Superman's murder. Luthor pleaded guilty but tried to make a deal with the Kryptonian judge. If he would release him, Luthor would discover a way to enlarge Kandor to its normal size. The judge rejected his offer and sentenced Luthor to eternity in the Phantom Zone. The story ended with Supergirl, flying with Krypto taking her cousin's place as Earth's protector.

While some of Siegel's 1960's DC stories do not hold up well, this one ranks as one of his best, except for one piece of bad dialogue, "I'm h-horribly weakened and ... pained ... by the rays!", during Superman's death scene. The twists and turns of this story lulled me into a false sense of security, along with Superman, so that Luthor's ultimate plan to kill Superman is shocking, as is the clever way Luthor accomplished it. Fortunately for Superman Luthor did not discover this plan in normal silver age Superman continuity.

Next week, for the last "imaginary story" for the summer of 2009: The Amazing Story Of Superman Red And Superman Blue!

Superman Fan Podcast can be found at http://supermanfanpodcast.mypodcast.com/ , http://www.gcast.com/u/Billy_H80/http_supermanfanpodcast_gcast_com_rss_xml.xml , http://archive.org/ and most other podcast aggregaters. Send e-mail to supermanfanpodcast@gmail.com . The podcast theme is Plans In Motion composed by Kevin MacLeod, part of the royalty free music library of http://incompetech.com/ .

My Pull List is my spoiler free comic book review blog of the titles I read every week. It can be found at http://mypulllist.blogspot.com/ . Send e-mail about this blog to mypulllist@gmail.com .

Superman and all related characters are trademark and copyright DC Comics.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Superman Fan Podcast and, as always, thanks to Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.

Episode #85: An Imaginary Summer, 2009, Part V: Superman: Speeding Bullets!

Superman: Speeding Bullets was one of the first, if not the first, Superman story under DC Comics' Elseworlds imprint. It was published on September 14, 1993, and the cover proce was $4.95 for a 48 page single issue story with a cardboard cover. The cover and story was drawn by Edwardo Barreto, written by J. M. DeMatteus and colored by Les Dorscheid. I could find no information about the letterer on the web sites dcindexes.com or comics.org.

The cover was a recreation of the cover of Superman #1 from 1939, but with much darker colors. And Superman struck the same pose as in the classic cover, except that in this case he was dressed in a Batman costume. The only difference was that the cowl was a full face mask, and the bat symbol was inside a yellow pentagon shaped shield.

The story opened with a familiar scene of baby Kal-El's rocket, which is shaped like the rocket from John Byrne's Man Of Steel #1. It flew away from a planet Krypton which has been reduced to green glowing rubble. The rocket flashes through space in another familiar scene until it landed on Earth. But instead of being found by the Kents, the rocket was found by none other than Thomas and Martha Wayne. The rocket in this story had apparently landed near Gotham City instead of near the Kent farm in Kansas.

The Waynes retreat from Gotham's high society to raise their unusual son. This scene was told in several pages which resembled pages from a photo album. Martha indulged Bruce, in a good way, nurturing him with an unconditional love. Thomas served a good counterbalance by developing Bruce's mind. The scene shifted to years later and the familiar and tragic scene outside the Monarch Theater when the Waynes were murdered in front of their son. The story took a different turn from the traditional Batman origin when the grieving Bruce lashed out at the murderer Joe Chill with heat vision. He would be found dead in an alley the next day, burned almost beyond recognition.

After the funeral Bruce was shown years later, sitting in his father's study. Alfred brought his breakfast, at 9:00 p. m., as was Bruce's longstanding habit apparently. Bruce read the nespaper, which prominently carried an article about Lex Luthor moving to Gotham, a year after a tragic chemical factory accident in which he had been injured, and been in seclusion ever since. Bruce then went into a room he kept locked, which was wallpapered with newspaper articles of violent crimes over the years. He was overcome with grief and ran outside the mansion. When he heard an unfamiliar noice inside, he found two hooded burglers with machine guns who threatened Alfred. Bruce threw one out the window and zapped the other with heat vision. The violent scene brought back the memories of his own parents' murder, and he asked Alfred what was he.

Alfred took Bruce into a cavern under the mansion, where Dr. Wayne had put the spaceship that had brought his son to Earth, as well as his journals filled with his speculations about his son's origin. Bruce flew into the cavern, sure about his life for the first time.

The next scene occurred in a dark office. Two henchmen were trying to tell a mysterious person who sat behind the desk what went wrong with the rbbery at the Wayne mansion. Tired of their excuses, the mysterious person breoke the necks of the henchmen. The scene ended with a darkened face, whose only visible features were green eyes and an unusually large red-lipped mouth producing an insane laugh.

Several months later the Gotham Police Swat Team were responding to a sniper on a rooftop. The sniper if foiled by Batman, wha made his first appearance. This Batman was invulnerable to bullets and prevented property damage by holding a live grenade and allowing it to explode in his hands.

The next day Bruce Wayne interrupted a business meeting to stop a takeover of the Wayne corporation. Bruce then went to another of his holdings, the Gotham Gazette, led by Editor-In-Chief Perry White, with none other than Lois Lane as staff reporter. Bruce became as clumsy as Clark Kent around her.

Lois was picked up by Luthor's limosine, who wanted to have a talk with Lois. We learn that Luthor bought the Daily Planet after the Metropolis paper published stories alleging that Luthor had murdered his own parents as a teen, and lost the subsequent libel suit. After Lois rejected Luthor's pass, she was dropped off in the worst part of Gotham, and was about to be attacked by a gang. she was rescued by Batman, but rejects her savior because of his brutality.

That evening Lois is writing a column criticizing the brutality of Batman, stating that he had the potential to be much more. She was met by Bruce, who informed her that he did his best work at night. After a short conversation they kiss for the first time.

The next day Luthor barged into the Gazette offices into Bruce's office, exposing himself as the Joker, transformed by the chemical disaster the year before. Luthor used his disguised umbrella to blast Bruce out the window. Luthor/Joker kidnapped Lois and took her to the top of a building, thanks to a small helicopter-like contaption on his back. Batman swooped out of the sky and carried Luthor away, tearing off the portable holicpter. He then dropped Luthor to his doom. When Batman heard Lois whisper "No," he flew down and caught Luthor, taking him to jail. Batman flew back at super speed to defeat Luthor's heavily armored commandos. He flew back to Lois, who admonished him that with his great powers, he could be a symbol of hope, then pulls off Batman's mask and seemed to indicate that she knew Bruce was Batman.

The story ended with a red-caped figure flying over the daytime sky of Gotham, instead of the night. the last page showed Bruce Wayne in a familiar yet slightly different costume as Superman.

Next week: for part VI of an imaginary summer, 2009: The Death Of Superman!

Superman Fan Podcast can be found at http://supermanfanpodcast.mypodcast.com/ , http://www.gcast.com/u/Billy_H80/http_supermanfanpodcast_gcast_com_rss_xml.xml , http://archive.org/ and most other podcast aggregaters. Send e-mail to supermanfanpodcast@gmail.com . The podcast theme is Plans In Motion composed by Kevin MacLeod, part of the royalty free music library of http://incompetech.com/ .

My Pull List is my spoiler free comic book review blog of the titles I read every week. It can be found at http://mypulllist.blogspot.com/ . Send e-mail about this blog to mypulllist@gmail.com .

Superman and all related characters are trademark and copyright DC Comics.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Superman Fan Podcast and, as always, thanks to Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.

Episode #84: An Imaginary Summer 2009 Part IV: Mr. & Mrs. Clark (Superman) Kent!

Mr. & Mrs. Clark (Superman) Kent was the first story DC Comics subtitled as An Imaginary Story. It was published in Superman's Girl Friend Lois Lane #19, August 1960, published on June 28, 1960 (one day after my own birthday three months later). Curt Swan drew the cover for this Mort Weisinger edited issue, which was inked by Stan Kaye. It illustrated the story featured in this episode, which was the third and final story of the issue. The cover declared #1 Of An Imaginary Series!" The story was the first of a mainstay of DC's "imaginary stories", what if stories of Superman married to one of the loves of his life. It was written by Jerry Siegel and drawn by the definitive Lois Lane artist of the silver age, Kurt Schaffenberger. This story was reprinted in DC's Greatest Imaginary Stories.

The story began by showing how Lois finally came to be married to Superman. When she refused Clark's proposal because she only had room in her heart for Superman, Clark decided to reveal his secret identity to her. He decided the way to keep her safe was for her to maryr Clark and seem to give up her infatuation with Superman. The only danger would be if a villain discovered his secret identity. Just as he did in the Kent home in Smallville, Clark/Superman had a secret tunnel under the house so that no one would see him fly out of the Kent home. This simple but clever story showed some of the trials of being married to the secret identity of a super hero. Lois had to hold her tounge with the wives of her affluent neighbors, who looked down on her reporter husband, who was not important enough for their high society. She even had to keep her secret from her own sister Lucy, for her safety, shown in a sad scene of Lois having to throw an item from another world into the fireplace as if it was worn out. And even a super hero husband was not safe from the wrath of his wife when female celebrities threw themselves at him.

The story was a good look at super hero celebrity. When the high society neighbors looked down on Clark, it reminded me of Stan and Joanie Lee telling about people's reactions when they found out he wrote and edited comic book stories ("We never let our children read those.) And the sex appeal of super hero celebrity has been a temptation for celbrities forever. While Siegel's 1960's stories have been uneven, especially some of his Legion Of Super-Heroes stories, this was one of his better stories of this era, along with another imaginary story, The Death Of Superman, from Superman #149. This Lois Lane story holds up even today, which puts it on my list of the better silver age superman stories.

Superman Fan Podcast can be found at http://supermanfanpodcast.mypodcast.com/ , http://www.gcast.com/u/Billy_H80/http_supermanfanpodcast_gcast_com_rss_xml.xml , http://archive.org/ and most other podcast aggregaters. Send e-mail to supermanfanpodcast@gmail.com . The podcast theme is Plans In Motion composed by Kevin MacLeod, part of the royalty free music library of http://incompetech.com/ .

My Pull List is my spoiler free comic book review blog of the titles I read every week. It can be found at http://mypulllist.blogspot.com/ . Send e-mail about this blog to mypulllist@gmail.com .

Superman and all related characters are trademark and copyright DC Comics.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Superman Fan Podcast and, as always, thanks to Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.