DC Database
Register
Advertisement

"The Revenge of Luthor": This story is reprinted from Action Comics #259.

80-Page Giant #1 is an issue of the series 80-Page Giant (Volume 1) with a cover date of August, 1964. It was published on June 4, 1964.

Synopsis for "The Revenge of Luthor"

This story is reprinted from Action Comics #259.

While out on patrol, Superman spots a meteor about to strike an airplane, and stops it. However, he realizes too late that it's Red Kryptonite, and it causes his powers to fade. Superman then crashes on the ground and passes out. When Superman comes around he is shocked to find Superboy has appeared in the present, after confirming each others identities Superman moodily tells Superboy to wait at the Fortress of Solitude for him so that their secret identity is not compromised.

When a series of crimes are committed, Superman goes into action only to have the situation bungled by Superboys untimely interference causing the Man of Steel to scold his past counterpart, and wonder if the Red Kryptonite had not made his past self stupid. Learning of the situation, Lex Luthor captures the easily duped Superboy with a Kryptonite cage and then sends a robot duplicate filled with Kryptonite to capture Superman.

When the two revive, they find themselves in a cave where Luthor has both Lois Lane and Lana Lang hostage, he demands that Superman and Superboy fight to the finish to free the women. However, when both prove to be indestructible, even when battling each other, he has Superman look away as Superboy enters one of two lead lined lockers. Telling Superman to look again, he tells Superman to pick the locker that has Superboy inside, but to choose wisely, because picking the wrong locker would expose him Kryptonite and kill him. As Superman begins making up his mind, he hears Superboy tapping out which locker he is in, but wonders if he can trust the Boy of Steel. Just then, Superman wakes up in the desert, realizing he dreamed the whole thing as a result to his exposure to Red Kryptonite. He wonders to himself, what would have happened if the this situation really presented itself.

Appearing in "The Revenge of Luthor"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

Antagonists:

Locations:

Items:


Synopsis for "The Old Man of Metropolis"

This story is reprinted from Action Comics #270.

Visiting Midvale Orphanage on assignment for the Daily Planet, Clark Kent writes about the children who are up for adoption. Naturally, Linda Lee (secretly his cousin Supergirl) of course does everything imperfectly so as not to entice any would be adoptive parents to adopt her. However, she gives him an essay she wrote titled "My Career as Superwoman" which explains how when Superman retires due to old age, she will be the adult Superwoman and take her place.

Returning home and recuperating after a previous exposure to Kryptonite, Clark awakens when he sees a run away rocket. Changing into Superman, Clark smashes into it and it explodes. When he lands he finds that he has been transported to the future and he is now an old man. He soon discovers that Supergirl (now Superwoman) has taken his place, and that the years of exposure to Kryptonite has deteriorated his super-powers. Changing into his civilian guise, Superman goes to the Daily Bugle, to learn that it's now being run by Jimmy Olsen, Perry is dead, and that he's been retired for years after revealing his secret identity. Insult to injury, Superwoman's alter ego Linda Lee has taken up Clark's old job, and he needs to wear glasses to read.

Realizing that he's all but forgotten, he decides to pay a visit to Jimmy at home and is surprised to find that him and Lucy Lane are married and have children. Jimmy gives Superman his signal watch, because he doesn't need it and suggests that Superman use it whenever he needs help from Superwoman. Superman further disturbed to find that his old nemesis Lex Luthor has reformed and become the mayor of Metropolis, this fact revealed to him by Superwoman. When he spots Krypto being nabbed by a dog catcher, Superman tries to call Superwoman to help his old pal, but the device breaks in his hands. Buying a hover vehicle, he flies to his Fortress of Solitude to find that Superwoman has also taken control of the location, putting all his old souvenirs in storage, also forgotten. Returning to Metropolis, he finds a chunk of Kryptonite and picks it up, a police officer spots him and arrests Superman due to a law making possession of Kryptonite illegal due to the fact that it can harm Superwoman.

Locked up in a cell with his old adversary Bizarro, Superman finds that his old nemesis is just as old and forgotten as he is. Superman is then bailed out by Lois Lane who tells him that they never married and that she wasted her youth waiting for Superman to propose to her. Suddenly, Clark wakes up and realizes it was all a dream, however, taking this possible future with some thought, Clark arranges for a delivery of flowers to Lois Lane in the name of Superman.

Appearing in "The Old Man of Metropolis"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

Antagonists:

Other Characters:

Locations:

Items:

Vehicles:

  • Flying Newsroom
  • Rocketmobiles (In dream sequence only)
  • Yacht (Mentioned only)

Synopsis for "Clark Kent, Alias Super-Sister"

This story is reprinted from Superboy #78.

Superboy is patrolling the skies of Smallville when he encounters a spaceship piloted by a woman. The spaceship is out of control and is about to crash when Superboy comes to the rescue. Superboy is critical of the pilots flying skills because she is a woman and makes a number of condescending remarks. The woman pilot introduces herself as Shar-La. She is from a planet where women are in charge. Shar-La takes offense to Superboys remarks and showers him with rays from her ring. At first Superboy doesn’t detect that there is anything wrong but then he realizes that he has been changed into a girl. Shar-La supposedly returns back to her world leaving Superboy stuck in female form. Superboy then starts having to dress like a girl. He befriends Lana Lang and changes his identity to Super Sister. Clark introduces himself as Claire Kent and starts to attend school along with Lana. Lana immediately starts to suspect that Claire and Super Sister are one and the same. Super Sister continues to perform super feats and rescues. He notices that he is developing an intuition for rescuing females. Martha Kent explains that it is a sixth sense that women have for detecting danger. Super Sister comes to the aid of a water show performer and prevents her from getting fired. He earns the sympathy of Shar-La who never left the planet. She reveals that her ring only hypnotized Superboy into believing that he was a female. Superboys female adventure was just a dream that never took place. She says goodbye to Clark who has learned his lesson to respect women and returns back to her home planet.

Appearing in "Clark Kent, Alias Super-Sister"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

Antagonists:


Other Characters:

  • Arrow Girl (carnival performer)
  • Maloana (Island girl)

Locations:


Items:


Vehicles:



Synopsis for "The Superman Book That Couldn't Be Finished"

This story is reprinted from Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen #29.

While visiting a publisher of a successful book company, Jimmy Olsen gets the idea to write a book about himself and Superman in various adventures. However, this proves to be easier said than done, as Jimmy tends to write himself into a dead-end each time. His first tale ends with Superman saving Jimmy from an atomic blast, but the entire world gets wiped out, leaving them with no crimes to fight. The second story finds Jimmy transported to Camelot where he teams up with Merlin who gains powers just like Superman, but he scraps that story as well because he cannot find a place to fit Superman in the story.

Further stories where Jimmy tries to find out Superman's secret identity, and another where Superman travels back in time and poses as historical strong men such as Hercules and Atlas also end up being equally as unsuccessful as story ideas. Completely stuck for ideas, Jimmy convinces Superman to take him to the future to the point where his story becomes a best seller, which appears to be the year 1959. Jimmy takes a copy of his book to the past so that he can use it to write the fated best seller.

Appearing in "The Superman Book That Couldn't Be Finished"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

Antagonists:

  • Black Knight (As an illusion only)
  • Delilah (As an illusion only)
  • Dragon (As an illusion only)
  • Nemean Lion (As an illusion only)
  • Professor Baxter (As an illusion only)

Other Characters:

Locations:

Items:

Vehicles:



Synopsis for "Ma and Pa Kent Adopt Supergirl"

This story is reprinted from Action Comics #275.

At the Fortress of Solitude, Superman shows Supergirl a tableau of him with his adoptive parents Ma and Pa Kent. This upsets Supergirl, who hopes to someday have an adopted family of her own. Returning to Midvale Orphanage as Linda Lee, Supergirl has a dream about her being sent to Earth in a rocket by her cousins parents, in the place of Superman.

The dream depicts a story where Supergirl is found by Ma and Pa Kent who raise the girl in Smallville. Her childhood is similar to that of Superman growing up as a baby. As a teenager she attends high school as Linda Kent and wants to get the attention of Bob Benson, who ends up being Lana Lang's boyfriend. She ends up getting stuck with Lex Luthor on dates instead.

She begins a career as Supergirl, preforming super feats and daring rescues and becomes the iconic protector of Smallville in the same way her cousin did. Later, a new rocket from Krypton crashes on Earth and she gets her very own super-pet: Squawky, the Super Parrot. Being spurned by Bob as Linda (who sent her an awful note calling her a drip), she wins his affections as Supergirl.

When Lex Luthor stumbles upon Supergirl's true identity, he decides that he should do Linda a favor and prove to Bob that she is really Supergirl. Giving Bob a compact with Uranium dust in it, he tells Bob to give it to Supergirl as a gift, and then find Linda later with a Geiger counter to see if her compact sets it off. This plan works, and Bob suddenly proposes to Linda. Remember how poorly he treated her before, Supergirl rejects him.

Linda wakes up from her dream wondering how strange they are and wonders what future dreams might bring.

Appearing in "Ma and Pa Kent Adopt Supergirl"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

Antagonists:

  • Bob Benson (In dream sequence only)

Other Characters:

Locations:

Items:

  • Compact
  • Geiger Counter
  • Ma and Pa Kent Statues
  • Uranium

Vehicles:

Synopsis for "The Super-Brat from Krypton"

This story is reprinted from Superman #137.

Years ago when Jor-El shot Kal-El into space to escape the destruction of Krypton, the boys ship collided with a derelict space satellite, activating it's duplication ray, making it make an exact duplicate of the craft and Superbaby inside. As we all now, the true Superbaby was found by Ma and Pa Kent, however the craft carrying the duplicate was found by mobsters "Wolf" Derrek and his wife Bonnie. While the Kents raised Kal-El to be a model law-abiding citizen, when the Derrek's realized that they had a super-powered child in their hands, decided to teach it to become a super criminal. They raise the boy (dubbing him Super-Brat) to hate the law, and become a thief, however Wolf instructs the young boy to avoid being seen until Wolf says it's okay to reveal himself to the public. Super-Brat would spend his baby years helping the Derrek's crush their enemies and gain untold wealth through ill gotten means.

Growing up to a teenager, the adolescent Super-Bully would continue to honor Wolf Derrek's orders, however he would secretly cause disasters to make his hated duplicate, Superboy go into action and clean it up. He would continue to help the Derrek's and other criminals secretly. During this time, a Kryptonite meteor crashes near the Derrek home, and all are pleasantly shocked to find that Kryptonite has no effect on the Super-Bully. The boy would spend the convening years dreaming of growing up to become Super-Menace and finally get to destroy Superman. Later, learning Superboy's secret identity, he would try to spoil it by making him accidentally crush a diamond in his hand in class. However, Superboy would quickly reassemble it. Jealous that Superboy has a girlfriend like Lana Lang, Super-Bully disguises himself as Clark Kent when Superboy goes off on a mission to get a date with her. When she tries to expose "Clark" as Superboy with a chunk of Kryptonite, it has no effect on Super-Bully, who leaves because he doesn't like "tricky girls." Later still, while spying Superboy's returning to his civilian identity and spotting Krypto, Super-Bully is determined to steal the dog for his own. He tries to do this by posing as Superboy, however Krypto picks up on the deception and chases Super-Bully away.

Years later, now a full grown man and calling himself Super-Menace, the duplicate of Superman has grown to become bitter and jealous of Superman's celebrity, and having loving parents, while he had to remain in the shadows and was considered a freak by his adoptive parents. After trashing the Superman Museum, Wolf finally allows Super-Menace to attack Superman, which the angry Super-Menace enjoys to finally get the opportunity to destroy his hated double. During the fight, Superman uses his x-ray vision and learns that Super-Menace is comprised of a strange energy force, and isn't even Kryptonian. Hating Superman even more for having a real body, the Super-Menace tries to destroy Superman by causing a Uranium explosion, but it has no effect. Super-Menace finally gets the upper hand when he sucks down a bunch of Kryptonite meteors down. Watching Superman die, the Super-Menace begins to realize that killing Superman would not bring him joy and would not have given him the things he desired: love, recognition and respect, and so at the last minute he saves Superman's life. Returning to the Derrek home, Super-Menace renounces his evil ways, and before Superman can stop him, he changes his body back into it's energy form, killing both of the Derrek's and himself in the process.

Appearing in "The Super-Brat from Krypton"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

Antagonists:

  • Super-Brat/Super-Bully/Super-Menace (Flashback and main story) (Single appearance; dies)
  • "Wolf" Derek (Flashback and main story) (Single appearance; dies)
  • Bonnie Derek (Single appearance; dies)

Other Characters:

Locations:

Items:

Vehicles:

Notes

Trivia

Originally planned as Superman Annual #9 (8/64).[1]


See Also

Recommended Reading

Links and References

  1. The Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide, 30th Edition (2000). Eighty Page Giant, p. 419. HarperCollins Publishers, New York. ISBN 0060957344.
Advertisement