Thursday, August 12, 2021
I feel like this cover's happened to Superman like a couple dozen times.
But that's probably true for any orphan, maybe. From 1974, Action Comics #440, "The Man Who Betrayed Krypton!" Written by Elliot S. Maggin, pencils by Curt Swan, inks by Bob Oksner.
We open with Michael J. Coram, who dresses like millionaire Dracula and approaches a lot of kids with offers. No, not like that! Well, maybe, we don't see him 24-7 or anything; Coram recruits kids for his "Think-Tankers," his R&D for crime. He would fund promising students, turns them into masters of their various fields, and put them to work on things like anti-Superman weapons. Today, it's a "brain-beam" to attack his reasoning ability! Soon enough, Clark Kent hears a voice calling him as Kal-El, and meets the ghosts of his parents on a hilltop outside Metropolis. Like many orphans, I think Supes is probably constantly worried that he would somehow disappoint Jor-El and Kara, so he's a easy target for this one, as they tell him this earth crap is for the birds, and he should be building a new Krypton.
As Superman takes off into space to start mashing asteroids together to make a new planet, Coram's high-tech crime syndicate starts looting Metropolis right and left. Coram even demands air time on WGBS to announce his takeover of Metropolis, when Superman returns--for revenge? No, for the chosen people for New Krypton, like Coram and his Think-Tankers! Supes had quickly realized it was a scam when his parents called him "Kal-El," they would have just called him by his first name. Apparently Krypton doesn't do that thing where your parents call you by both names when you've really done messed up. Superman knows that was kind of a close one, though.
And he apparently forgot that he'd already built a new Krypton. Admittedly it was filled with robots of Kryptonian citizens but, waste not want not Kal.
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