Wednesday, May 5, 2010

*Gulp!* I S-Saw YOU, Dad! Wednesday!

Here's a showcase of Silver Age stupidity from contributor Robert Gillis from Superboy #106:


It doesn't take a lot of knowledge of the back story to see what's going on here. Superman, as a baby, is scanning the entire universe for the Earth. Not only does he find it, but

(a) He just happens to see his future-but-n0t-yet-foster father at a bowling alley;
(b) He is somehow able to hear what is being said. I realize he has super-hearing and all that rot, but how can he focus his hearing like that?;
(c) That's a weird thing for his Pa Kent's bowling partner to say, don't you think? I mean, who is he talking to that he feels the need for such expository dialogue?

Ugh! All the silliness of the Silver Age, in two short panels.

And the reaction of Ma and Pa Kent to this silliness doesn't help, either:

You say you were not only able to find Earth in all the universe, but you happened to pick Smallville Kansas out of all the Earth as the place for you to look at and out of all of Smallville, you just happened to pick out your father while he was bowling? Sounds reasonable.

Eeesh. Someone give me a Moment of Comic Book Greatness (tm!) to get that out of my mind:


Yeah! Booster Gold v2 #15, where two of the worst-named yet successful heroes ever meet each other and criticize one another's terrible code names. That's awesome! Geoff Johns may one day have a blog as bitchin' as mine if he plays his cards right....

See you tomorrow!

3 comments:

Elizabeth said...

"Booster Gold" has always sounded to me like a limited-edition card pack for Magic: The Gathering.

"Elongated Man," on the other hand, is what happens when you've got stretchy powers but you woke up late on the day they were handing out superhero names.

Anonymous said...

You would think that for someone so smart people call him "Brainiac"
he would've invented pants.

LissBirds said...

I rather think Booster Gold has a nice ring to it! But Elongated Man...that's just awkward.

Well, at least Superboy didn't see his potential adoptive father on the john or something...