Reign of the Supermen #322: Red K Statue

Source: Action Comics #283 (1961)
Type: Object/Red K transformationsWe haven't gone down to the Silver Age in a while, and I know you're dying to know what that Red Kryptonite inukshuks supposed to be so... HERE WE GO!

It's all the result of a Silver Age (translation: nonsense) plan by two Durlans working for the 30th century Legion of Super-Outlaws.
After escaping noting, the first thing they do is deploy two color-coordinated meteor-attracting antennae on a deserted island, bringing loads of both Green and Red Kryptonite down to Earth with them. You'd think they'd use their powers and the Green K to immediately kill Superman, but noooooooo, that would be too simple! Instead, they use melt down three different pieces of Red K into a statue, put a Superman jersey on it, and bringing their Green K to the mainland, place a call with Jimmy Olsen to lure Clark Kent/Superman to the island. It works (Jimmy, Lois and Clark will follow any lead), and Clark is soon faced with his Kryptonian-distorting effigy. He wishes fog would cover any transformation and fog appears! He's gotten super-wish powers from the Red K! Sending Jimmy and Lois on their way, he discovers there are two other Red K rocks in there, so two more transformations to go. He thinks he COULD wish for world peace with his wishing powers, but instead resurrects Sherlock Holmes and his two sets of parents.
Jor-El immediately finds a way to cure Red K poisoning and the wish powers go away BEFORE Superman can actually ask for that world peace thing. And of course, everyone he wished into existence disappears too. As the Durlans curse their luck (but apparently not their poor planning skills), Superman develops another transformative problem:
Prefiguring Reign #135's Atomic Superboy (3 years from now, and yet at least 10 years before... who said Red K never affected him the same way twice?), Superman has to use super-ventriloquism to keep his mouth from breathing fire. And then the third transformation is piled on top of the second: He can read thought balloons!
Not that he didn't know Lois was already thinking that. Is there anything ELSE on her mind during this era? Anyway, Superman's been asked to guard the Kennedy-Khrushchev conference in a condemned bunker, but he may not be up for it.
So much for world peace!!! Or have you guessed it? The two Durlans have taken the place of the two Cold Warriors and had the Green K in another room. Thanks to his mind-reading powers, Superman immediately realized they were fakes, and it's off to Takron-Galtos with those guys.

Lesson: You cannot fight fire with fire. Even if Silver Age Superman's plans are always ridiculously convoluted, your own complicated attempts are doomed to fail.

Comments

Radagast said…
Moral of the story: to defeat Silver Age Superman, make as simple a plan as possible. He'll never see it coming.
Siskoid said…
It just might work!