{"id":931,"date":"2010-05-01T16:39:19","date_gmt":"2010-05-01T21:39:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/?p=931"},"modified":"2021-01-25T15:54:55","modified_gmt":"2021-01-25T20:54:55","slug":"more-silver-age-superboy-antics-look-anywhere-theres-earth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/?p=931","title":{"rendered":"More Silver Age Superboy antics: No matter where you look, there’s the Earth."},"content":{"rendered":"

by Robert Gillis 5\/2010<\/em><\/p>\n

What was so special about the silver age of comic books? Read about it HERE<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

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(Click any image to enlarge)<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a gem from a Superboy story from Superboy #106, dated 1963, called, \u201cThe Lair of Brainiac!\u201d Our story so far: Baby Superman (Kal-El to you Marvel readers) has been kidnapped from Krypton before it exploded, and Brainiac and his goons take baby to their home solar system with its yellow sun, and of course, Kal-El gains superpowers and all hell breaks loose.<\/p>\n

In panel 1, Brainiac (Thank you, Basil Exposition) explains why Kal-El has super powers and compares their own yellow sun as being IDENTICAL to the planet Earth, so Kal-El says, \u201cMe look for Earth,\u201d and casually looks up, across intergalactic space, and not only looks in the exactly correct direction (out of 360 degress x 360 degrees) and not only finds the right galaxy, the right quadrant, the right solar system, the right planet, but Earth just happens to be facing in the right direction so that the baby sees freaking SMALLVILLE, Kansas, just as Jonathan Kent is bowling! Because, yeah, the universe is a small place and the odds that the kid would look in the right direction are, oh, I don\u2019t know, a gazillion billion million zillion infinity to one, but this was the silver age.<\/p>\n

And just in case he\u2019s unsure, one of the THREE members on the team says to the other guy, \u201cJonathan Kent is one of the best players on our team!\u201d Are they being introduced or something?<\/p>\n

To make this even stupider, when Superboy tells Ma and Pa Kent about seeing Pa Kent bowling before he even came to Earth, the Kents don\u2019t say, \u201cHoly spit! That\u2019s preposterous!\u201d They don\u2019t say, \u201cThe odds against that would make even the most reckless gambler cringe!\u201d Nor do they say, \u201cThat\u2019s pretty hard to believe, considering how big the universe is, and how many unlikely events would have to line up exactly right for that to happen.\u201d Nope, they just shrug it off as something that happens every day, and say, \u201cLet\u2019s see what happened next.\u201d<\/p>\n

See, this is what happens in the silver age: The preposterous became so commonplace that people didn\u2019t even notice.<\/p>\n

Next up is Superboy #80, 1960: Supergirl has traveled back in time to meet her cousin Superman when he was Superboy and be his playmate (it’s nowhere near as dirty as it sounds) and they play tag, race around the galaxy, and stop a robot invasion of Earth in four panels (really) but later, Supergirl realizes\u2026<\/p>\n

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\u2026That Future Superman is a dipshit. And his younger self seems to agree. Future Superman wouldn\u2019t be mad that Supergirl is screwing with the space-time continuum, possibly changing history, nope, he\u2019d be furious because a) IF Superman was delirious B) PERHAPS from Kryptonite fever, he MIGHT ACCIDENTALLY reveal a Supergirl is coming to Earth\u2026 um, sometime in the future\u2026<\/p>\n

Just, wow.<\/p>\n

Plus, I\u2019d pay real money if in panel two Superboy said, \u201cSuperman will exile you from Earth permanently? Wow, I grow up to be a real tool!\u201d<\/p>\n

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\nAnd from Adventures Comics #384: Superman: \u201cIf it happens again, I may have to demand you turn in your uniform and\u2026\u201d {emphasis mine} \u201c\u2026 LOCK YOU UP IN THE FORTRESS FOR YOUR OWN SAFETY!\u201d<\/p>\n

Once again, Superman = Complete TOOL.<\/p>\n

God, I loved the silver age of comics!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Robert Gillis 5\/2010 What was so special about the silver age of comic books? Read about it HERE (Click any image to enlarge) Here\u2019s a gem from a Superboy story from Superboy #106, dated 1963, called, \u201cThe Lair of Brainiac!\u201d Our story so far: Baby Superman (Kal-El to you Marvel readers) has been kidnapped […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[155],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comicbookhumor"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=931"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7189,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931\/revisions\/7189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}