Ugh, so needy! Die with a little dignity!

Man, I knew "As the World Turns" was a soap opera, but totally conflated whatever its opening was, with the one for "Days of Our Lives." Just a smidge of soap opera in this one, though: from 1979, Action Comics #499, "As the World Turns...For the Last Time!" Written by Cary Bates, pencils by Curt Swan, inks by Vince Colletta.

The storerooms at GBS are getting crowded, as it's not just Superman changing to Clark Kent in there, now there's Vartox as well, to his new secret identity "Vernon O'Valeron," security guy. A secretary finds them both in the storeroom, which probably would get some ugly rumors started; except the poor girl walks in on Lana Lang and Vernon not five minutes later. Vartox had this ID for about twenty minutes and already had a girlfriend, but there was no time to waste, since earth was going to explode soon. Somewhat surprisingly, Vartox doesn't keep the usual code of silence about his ID, and tells Lana everything, starting with how his world Valeron basically exploded out from under him. I honestly forget all of his massive grab bag of powers, I guess invulnerability was in there somewhere? But, now so was survivor's guilt.

Meanwhile, Superman investigates a story that comes through the teletype; about a small town in Wisconsin suddenly convinced the world was going to end. Feels like there should be a "go Packers!" joke there...Superman tries to calm the people down, and they immediately assume he's lying to "spare them from the truth." The mob piles onto Supes, some even trying to hang on to him as he flies away; and more apocalypse-panic continues to sweep the globe. Which, Vartox admits, is probably on him: his "hyper-powers" were psychic, and the dread he felt was bleeding out to the rest of the planet. (Supes and Vartox have most of this conversation, while trying to keep a "Eurasian" general from bombing his own populace, to give them a peaceful death!) In the Fortress, Vartox explains, he had accidentally picked up an unknown space element, that reacted explosively to oxygen: Valeron's atmosphere had a higher oxygen content and blew up sooner, but the result was still going to be the same. Or not, since Superman checks the oxygen in the room with his x-ray vision, and it was fine? Had the guilt just gotten to him?

The desperate Vartox sucker-punches Superman: Supes knows Vartox had an edge on experience, but Vartox knew he couldn't outlast Superman in a longer fight. He had to take Supes down quick, with a "hyper-brain blast!" Then, to try and convince Superman he was sane, Vartox...dresses up like Jor-El, and stages his plea to a manikin Kryptonian council, that the planet was doomed and they had to act now. Yeah, that seems...like a dick thing to do, really. Superman smashes his way outside, but then notices, hey, oxygen was exploding out there; why wasn't it in the Fortress? 

Working together, the heroes realize radioactive fragments of Valeron were countering the space element, so they have to gather a lot of the exploded planet, and scatter microscopic fragments of it over earth, until the chain reaction stops and oxygen was safe again. (Traditionally, wouldn't the radioactive chunks of Valeron be like Kryptonite to Vartox? Valerite?) While earth is saved, it's still not an entirely happy ending; as Vartox opts to go into space, and find another world that needs protecting. (Yeah, 'cause he did a bang-up job on the last one...too soon? Too mean!) He says a sad goodbye to Lana; but he'd be back.  I bought this from the quarter bins because of the cover, but I had read it before. See if I remember not to buy it again...maybe.