[Superman Fan Club] PRESENTS: The Issue a Week of Superman Silver and Bronze Age Challenge of the Superfans! Week 6

Challenge of the Superfans WEEK 6!!!

Welcome to Week 6 of a very special challenge / contest reading one single issue a week from the currently- digitized DC Universe Infinite collection of Silver and Bronze Age Superman and Family comic!

This time around: Bronze Age!

New Adventures of Superboy #28 (4/82)

New Adventures of Superboy #28 Sar-Ul and Ralsa of Krypton claim to be Kal-el’s parents, and fun ensues!

Note in the voting below when you have looked over this issue by noting “yes.” Your icon will appear so we can track who is the most SuperFan of all in the coming months!!!

I flipped through New Adventures of Superboy #28
  • Yes I did
  • Oops, I did not

0 voters

The Challenge of the Superfans standings as of December 29th 7:20 pm ET:

Do YOU have what it takes to show Superman and Family Silver and Bronze Age comics your ardent support…and be the best SuperFan ever???

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@Clucktrent

@rudirepulsion.17860

@rexrebel

@bar-el

@thepringles1.19584

@CaptainYesterday

@patterson65.37405

@AlexanderKnox

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Speaking of Superman, for the first time ever I had a dream last night where Clark Kent appeared in the dream and for some reason I was blabbing about him being Superman, he was asking me to please not do that. He was sitting down and we were in a room with other people.

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Please pass the mashed 1982 Superboy story, guess I’ll dive in first:

  1. What a stunningly tragic and sad concept:

Superboy (and apparently Superman) has severe memory losses due to “repeated Green Kryptonite exposure”??!!??

Yikes! This really disturbed me, especially having this happen to someone still in their teens. First I heard that one…unless of course I’ve heard it before, but some food additive I’ve been consuming might have removed the memory…

  1. Almost as disturbing, in both the Superboy and also the 'Dial H for Hero" story,

criminals are caged / trapped WITH NO FOOD, WATER OR BATHROOM FACILITIES!!!

Geneva Convention, anyone?

  1. I really kinda dig that mini space cruiser, looks like Supercar of my youth!

  1. Again, from the “non” Superman and Family mini story at the end, Dial H for Hero, it took a few seconds for me to get the villain’s name / pun:

Free aside: I really was not a fan of census takers knocking on my door a year and a half ago at the start of the pandemic long before vaccines or other therapy was available, trying to get us to open the door and chat with them close up (at least ours was oblivious to “social distancing” at the time).

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First off I loved this issue and how crisp the art is!

Kinda interesting to read these outdated biological theories.

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So I’ve never heard of Sar-Ul and Ralsa before. Have they ever come back for an encore?

I really want to open a gym specializing in this.

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wow, SuperFan Syncronocity!!!

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That’s horrifically sad! Brought up many questions for me that almost took me out of the story!

Reminds me of the Thunderbirds!

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I think issues #27 and #28 are their only two appearances.

Cover for #27

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Cary Bates is one of my all time favorite comic book writers and Kurt Schaffenberger is an artist I really like.

Between green kryptonite affecting his memory to amnesium exposure and the Legion’s hypnosis ray making him forget details of the future, I’m surprised he can remember his locker combination.

We get a Jehoshaphat AND a Land o’ Goshen. 10/10

“Vibratory villainy” let’s see Tom Taylor drop that into a story.

I’ve never been too angry to eat dinner. I’m not missing out on corn on the cob because my son makes a dumb decision.

Repressed childhood memories of martial arts lessons save the day!

The Senses Taker was created by Eugenio Ocasio Jr of Puerto Rico. So the pun is even more remarkable.

Red Devil can become a number of types of demons. Right in the middle of the whole D&D Satanism scare. Ooooops.

That was a good ending to the Dial H story where the villain thinks he’s getting help and he winds up trapped.

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My favorite story of this particular series is issue 50 when the Legion shows up, but yeah it’s true, Superboy’s brain should be mush with all that going on …I wasn’t thinking about the whole Legion making him forget his trips to the future gimmick.

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Concerning the art, the artist is the one that drew a lot of those older late 50s early 1960s Lois Lane comics we enjoy, Kurt Schaffenberger.

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Kurt is my favorite Lois Lane artist of all time.

And I agree #50 is my favorite issue of the series as well.

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Ah memories. I loved Dial H For Hero as a kid, the concept was so cool. Read all the Chris King and Vicki Grant stories back in the day. Had forgotten about this one since it has been literal decades since I read any of them, so it was a fun trip down memory lane. Although it baffles me I didn’t question how goofy their plan was back then. A kid reading comics in the 80’s I was just down with whatever clearly.

Red Devil was also a cool character with a cool design. Could have totally seen them giving a hero like that run of his own title back in the day.

As for the Superboy story AKA the reason we are here, lol. I enjoyed it, while obviously the writing was dated, it was a neat idea and didn’t fall victim to a completely nonsensical resolution like a lot of Bronze Age Superman and Superman family stories of the era did. AKA having a story with an interesting concept only to wreck it with some nonsense solution that doesn’t hold up under scrutiny.

Also loved the art work, love that old school Bronze age art style. All in all a good bokk.

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Thanks for checking this out, @DanTheManOne1 . Hope you’ve been doing well since your appearance with the mods on Youtube almost 3 years ago!

I actually don’t recall reading this series at the time. In 1982, I had been teaching for a year in a suburb of Philadelphia after being a professional student for 7 years or so. I had been buying comics at Fat Jack’s Comicrypt off Sansom St in downtown Philly for 4 years or so, running into Dean Mullaney of the new Ecllipse Comics and buying indie stuff like that.

1982 DC comics my wife and I followed:
Camelot 3000 12 issue maxiseries!
Firestorm
Arion
Swamp Thing
Teen Titans
probably Justice League and Legion.

I’ve been looking for any “in color” anthology / collection of the original Dial H for Hero that could also include this run that started in Adventure before it was cancelled in the early 80’s, but no luck so far.

I collected China Mieville’s Dial H during the New 52 explosion, and really enjoyed the writing and artwork on that as well.

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Pretty sure the Chris King and Vicki Grant era of Dial H For Hero has not been collected anywhere except maybe the DC Comics Presents they were in I think is in the Showcase Omnbuses, not in color though obviously.

I had wondered if the fact they used fan creations might not have been an issue with re-prints. Obviously the form gave permission to use them but thought maybe that didn’t cover them indefinitely (not like collected trades were a thing in the early 80’s) but they do have these Superboy issues so apparently not. Probably just no real interest.

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I have the Showcase Dial H for Hero, maybe I should just color it in with my colored pencils LOL.

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I enjoyed the Superboy story and the art stood out as being really crisp. They must have cleaned it up.
Superboy’s inner conflict was interesting. I’m glad they weren’t really his parents (though DC has done questionable things with Jor-El since).
I didn’t read the Dial H story. The concept interests me but this story just didn’t grab me.

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No problem, @clucktrent . Superboy was definitely the point of this selection.

It’d be fun to compare this with the real deal, but frankly I don’t see a lot of this particular series in comic book stores or the summer flea markets I like to go to to buy comics.

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New Adventures of Superboy #28 came out forty years ago this month.

Also out that month…

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Interesting, one of the Bronze Age series we’re reading for this challenge no less…hmmmm

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