587 – Not Composite Superman

In World’s Finest #74 (Nov 1954), an alien with the abilities to shape-shift and absorb powers lands on Earth and causes a panic. Batman and Robin corner it and find out that the alien is good-natured and wants to be a hero, so takes Batman’s appearance. This leads to a confrontation with Superman. Which somehow […]

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584 – Not Bizarro

In “The Phantom Superman!” from Action Comics #199 (October 1954), Luthor creates a living duplicate of Superman with a “three-dimensional materializer” and an “atomic transformer”. This duplicate is completely grey, lacking in color, but has all of Superman’s abilities for a few hours until the charge wears out. Luthor then sends the duplicate out into […]

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582 – Wayne Steel

In World’s Finest Comics #73 (September 1954), Batman and Superman have settled into a nice rhythm of working together. In the course of this adventure, Bruce Wayne mentions to Clark that he had been inspecting the Wayne Steel Foundries when he stumbled onto a crime. Wayne Steel joins the ranks of Wayne Motor Co in […]

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581 – Superboy Pre-Atomics

In Adventure Comics #206 (September 1954), DC finally addresses the time continuity problem they have in Superboy, with a panel showing that atomic experiments had just begun when Superman was a boy, meaning all of Superboy’s adventures have taken place in the 1920s / 1930s (despite having more modern cars, robots, etc). I can’t remember […]

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577 – Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen

Another fixture of the Silver Age debuts in July 1954: Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen. This comic book appeared largely due to his popularity in the “Adventures of Superman” television series. It features Jimmy Olsen getting into trouble with lots of appearances of Superman (only two panels of a brown-haired Lois Lane in this first issue […]

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573 – World’s Finest Mix-Up

In World’s Finest #71 (May 1954), DC changes the format of its comic from a giant 68-page grab-bag of stories for only 15 cents, to a 28-page comic for only 10 cents. With the number of stories drastically reduced, DC came up with brilliant idea to take the Superman-Batman team-up story and make it the […]

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572 – The Return of the Evil Kryptonians

Four years after defeating and exiling U-ban, Kizo and Mala, Superman faces off again against the three evil Kryptonians in Action Comics #194 (May 1954). After their prison ship collides with an asteroid, the trio are freed and Mala decides to head to Earth to get his revenge on Jor-El’s son, Superman. Mala disguises himself […]

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568 – Time Spins Away

In “Captain Kent the Terrible!”, a story from Superman #89 (March 1954), time travel has become an effortless thing for Superman. Spinning around faster than the speed of light, he travels back into the past to investigate a story about a “Captain Kent” that the Compass, a rival newspaper, has dug up. Of course, it […]

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560 – More Swan Superman

In Action Comics #189 (Dec 1953), the formidable team of Edmond Hamilton (writer) and Curt Swan (penciller) team up again – so it seems like I was wrong that Swan left DC soon after “The Mightiest Team in the World!“. The story is kind of meh, but what I love about it is the breath […]

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