Sometimes, when I read early eighties Superman comics, the only thing I can think is, "Crisis on Infinite Earths couldn't come soon enough." It took care of this issue: from 1982, Superman #371, "Kandor Lives Again!" Written by Len Wein, art by Curt Swan and Dave Hunt.
Which coincidence goes too far: sometime after restoring the inhabitants of Kandor to normal size in another dimension, Superman builds a replica of the bottle city. Later the same day, a group of alien refugees from a far-off planet, start squatting there. The aliens, the human-looking Sh'str, tried to escape their homeworld's sun going nova. They thought they could integrate with the humans they resembled, but once they got here they realized they were flea-sized compared to the earthlings. Superman uses the micro-wave tunnel he used to use to shrink or enlarge the Kandorians, but can only enlarge two of the Sh'str at a time. As Clark Kent, Superman helps them integrate into human society, but they first develop a case of the sniffles, which escalates into devolving into violent cave-alien types.
Bringing the mutated Sh'str back to the Fortress of Solitude, they nearly crush the faux-Kandor, but Superman uses white Kryptonite--which kills plant life--to kill the germs and bacteria in their system and return them to normal. Supes vows to keep trying to help the little aliens, who keep their new home's old name, Kandor. Yeah, I don't think they're seen again, before the Crisis. Must not have caught on.
In the back-up story, things get even crazier: Supes is "drilling" holes in the universe, creating hyperspace warps, when he accidentally flies too close to a violet star going nova--lot of novas today--and develops mind-over-matter abilities, with which he creates cash a couple of times. Crazy. From "Mind Over Money!" Written by Bob Rozakis, pencils by John Calnan, inks by Pablo Marcos.
Also this issue: Superman fights the Purple Pile-Driver!
And not for the first time, either! That...that's not a metaphor or anything, the Purple Pile-Driver had actually appeared before.
AFAIR, the Sh'str never caught on, and never made another appearance. Maybe the script writer missed the Silver Age stories, and hoped to bring back the Superman Emergency Squad and Look-a-Like Squad, or Nightwing and Flamebird. But the new Kandor was not from Krypton, and lacked any emotional connection to Superman's past.
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