Showcase Presents Superman: Part 14

This is the fourteenth of numerous posts on Showcase Presents: Superman. I hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed the stories.Now, this won't be like most comic blogs with scanned pictures posted throughout. Mostly because I don't have a scanner, but the stories should speak for themselves, but also because I want to go through the whole book in the next few weeks, and I want non-comics readers to enjoy the kookiness that us comics readers understand from the Silver Age. While I may mock these stories, I am not making anything up, this is all straight from the comics! I love these stories and the character of Superman. This is great stuff! The cover scans are from the Grand Comics Database.


Superman #126


"The Spell of the Shandu Clock"


Long Story Short: There is no supernatural, and a Superman story is never as interesting as it first looks.


This short back-up story is kind of dark and gloomy looking, like an old EC horror story. It starts with a "tense" audience watching Shandu, a master illusionist, while he performs a show. Shandu causes a table to burst into flames and begins to float when Superman flies in, exposes his tricks (like that Breaking the Magician's Code guy), and calls him a fraud. Shandu admits he cheated this time, but claims that he will prove it to Supes.


Superman then goes to the Daily Planet and Perry White tells him that Shandu died at sea, and left a message for Superman that he will prove that the supernatural is real from beyond the grave. He then asks Superman to take Jimmy and Lois to Shandu's house for a story. We then learn that Shandu built a supernatural clock before he died. When they get to the house they see a giant, hideous clock, and when it a metal Superman rings a gongs, Superman falls into a trance.


He then flies off into a distant valley and smashes a boulder with his head in front of some shocked cowboys. When he makes it back to the clock he decides he wants to see what's going on inside, but can find nothing unusual about the interior. The metal Superman rings the gong again, and yet again, Supes falls into a trance. This time he burns a hole into a pile of sand (seriously). Jimmy, Lois, and Perry all gather together to worry about what will happen if Superman is in a trance when the Fallon Gang activate their new "crime machine." I don't know what this is, but they "invented" it. Cool. I want one.


Anyway...Superman decides he needs to destroy it, so he makes a giant hammer. I have no idea why he needs that, but there you go. He is unable to follow-through though, due to an invisible force holding him back. Before Superman can figure out how to destroy it, he tells Lois to leave him alone and then the gong rings again. This time the Fallon Gang is watching and they decide to used their "Sonic Vibrator" hi Googlers! to zap Metropolis National Bank.


Superman then shows up, but he is covered in metal. It's the Superman from the clock. The crooks blast him with the vibrator and the metal breaks off. Ah, of course, like all of these old Superman stories, it's just a giant prank. The Superman in a trance was a robot, and Shandu was a fake. They were all working together just to capture the Fallon Gang. Well, that was a lot of build-up for another fake out. Oh well.