How did I get so many damn comics at the toy show?

It only took about an hour to blow through my budget at the recent little toy show, and while I did grab a couple figures--including two Supermen!--I bought another ton of dollar comics. Including this one, which I had seen the homage to in Deadpool Team-Up #883, but maybe not the original! From 1971, Superman #240, "To Save a Superman" Written by Denny O'Neal, pencils by Curt Swan, inks by Dick Giordano.

With Superman's powers weakened, he's still able to save a young mom and two kids from a skyscraper fire; but the building's owner demands he try to save the building as well. No dice, and the Planet's headline the next day was "Superman Fails!" This encourages crime, in the form of the "Anti-Superman Gang," who decide now is the time for bold action. Superman seems to be doing a lot of walking around here, but after getting taunted by some construction workers, he wonders if those "ingrates" have forgotten all the good he did. Hearing a bank robbery, he considers letting "the smug citizens...solve their own problems!" but relents and leaps into action. He's slower, though, and catches not one, but three cannon shells!

Superman recalls the mysterious double that drained his powers, and throws the vault door at the gang, capturing most of them and recovering the cash. Still, he feels he's "growing puny!" But, there might be help: from the pages of Wonder Woman, I-Ching meets Clark Kent at the Planet. He knows Clark is Superman, because of...inscrutable Orientalism, that's why. Still, an office boy/spy notices the meeting, and makes a call to the mob; which tells him to follow "Charlie Chan." That night, at I-Ching's, he has Clark change to Superman, then tries treating him by "liberating his essence," which seems like letting his soul out of his body. I-Ching is supposed to sound sage and wizened, but his plan strikes me as straight-up Dr. Nick.

But, the goons arrive and overpower I-Ching, then one is brave enough to pistolwhip the unconscious Supes. Which actually bruises him, but does bring him back to his body. Now powerless, Superman still fights, since he won't let them kill I-Ching, and his invulnerable suit still offers him a little protection. He rallies to defeat the goons, and considers it "his greatest victory!" But were his powers gone for good...?

This was the sixth chapter of what would later be collected as Kryptonite Nevermore: it ran from #233 to #242, although it appeared to miss a couple months. A nuclear accident had turned all the Kryptonite on earth into iron--and by this point in the series, there had been a lot of Kryptonite on earth--but a weird sand duplicate of Superman had appeared, and his powers had been affected. A lot of touches feel like they were inspired by Marvel books, too: his public opinion problem seems very familiar. Also, I need a new copy of the Walt Simonson Superman Special from 1992, a quick version of that storyline. Probably without I-Ching, if I recall.