Damnit, Silver Age, I told you to quit it!

I suppose some DC fans and creators would love to have the silliness of the Silver Age buried and forgotten, and I may even have thought that at one point. But now, I see it as a necessary element, like a vital ingredient in a complicated recipe. And then I see something like this and my opinion may swing back the other way. From 1975, Superman Family #172, featuring "The Cheat the Whole World Cheered!" Written by Cary Bates, art by Kurt Schaffenberger; "Love Me, Love My Beast!" Reprinted from Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen #85, written by Bill Finger, pencils by Curt Swan, inks by George Klein; and "The Kiss of Death!" Reprinted from Action Comics #364, story by Otto Binder, art by Kurt Schaffenberger.

In the Jimmy Olsen story, Shara, a pretty redhead from space, arrives with a horribly ugly pet, Gnor. Jimmy gets picked to be her guide, and despite the usual shenanigans they hit it off, even if Jimmy can't get rid of Gnor long enough to make his move. Lucy Lane shows up to tell Shara to step off of her turf, and finds her dying of earth germs. Or so Lucy tells Jimmy...seriously, it's suspicious as hell, I thought Lucy helped Shara have a little "accident." Later, Lucy takes a depressed Jimmy, still walking Gnor, to visit Professor Potter, whose latest invention turns them old. Gnor then passes his "leash" to Professor Potter, who unmasks to reveal he was really Superman: Gnor was a parasite that sucked the life out of his "owners," and for good measure Shara had been an android, that still fell in love with Jimmy. When she was "dying," Shara told her story to Lucy, who got Superman to help; and he had faked their aging so Gnor would look for a new host. Gnor then explodes from absorbing too much super-energy. Recapping this has felt like a fever dream, and I didn't even mention Gnor making the wiener horse...

Also this issue: the television event of the season, the long-awaited wedding of Lois Lane...to Lex Luthor! Presumably, so she could keep her monogramed towels. When mysterious satellites threaten earth and Superman and the JLA are unavailable, Lex Luthor asks for a presidential pardon so he could be free to save the world. Lois comes along, and ends up doing most of the work when Lex is knocked unconscious, but also begins to see Lex in a new light. Thankfully, Lois doesn't appear to be doing this to make Superman jealous; although Green Lantern has to make an appearance to keep Superman from throwing Lex back into jail. Supes is kicking himself for not paying more attention to Lois, as Lex appears ready to become a super-hero, and Lois writes Supes a letter before the wedding.

That night, someone gets caught trying to break into Lex's house: Lois, trying to recover the bugs and cameras she planted, since she didn't buy Lex's story for a minute. She's right, of course, but Lex is a step ahead of her: if Lois won't go through the wedding willingly, she can be hypnotized instead. Then, during the ceremony, Lex plans on using an "invisible beam" to compel Superman to blurt out his secret identity on live TV. Which works! Superman admits to being...Arnold Nadakowski? Well, yeah, his agent made him change it: it's talk-show host Johnny Nevada! He and Superman had switched places for just such an occurrence, since Supes had disguised as him in Action Comics #442! Lois karate-chops Lex to wrap this up, and she and Supes get into it in front of 80 million viewers. (Lex's truth-ray seems like a pretty useful invention; possibly even more so than the "time-dispenser" he used earlier; so of course he never uses either again as far as I know.)

Finally, in a Supergirl story, a killer has already killed two brides with "The Kiss of Death!" and Linda Danvers could be next! She takes the place of the third potential victim and pretends to die, but then finds the killer is really an executioner, tracking three escaped murderers from his alien water-world. Linda had stashed the third criminal in the Fortress of Solitude, but she's killed while trying to escape when she falls in a big vat of liquid helium Superman apparently just has lying around. The Fortress is apparently not OSHA compliant.

I think I had seen some scans from this on Twitter recently, and until I looked it up I kinda thought these might've been reprinted more than once. Those DC reprint packages should be obligated to include one of these every issue, just to keep them from getting too full of themselves.