Showcase Present Superman: Part 7

This is the seventh 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! While I may mock, I love these stories and the character of Superman. This is great stuff! The cover scans are from the Comic Book Database.



Action Comics #245



"The Shrinking Superman"



Tagline: "Superman shrinks because he wants to, not because he has to."



This story starts, like many others, in the offices of the Daily Planet. Lois is dressed in a parka because, you see, Superman has agreed to take her to see his Fortress of Solitude for a newspaper feature. Smart huh? Let's take a reporter to our secret hideout so she can share details with the world. Here are some of the thing Lois gets to see while she is there:

• His "Super Tool-Chest" ie a box of giant tools
• A bowling alley with 100 pins instead of 10
• An "atomic powered robot" that he uses to try to beat the crap out of him
• A super-creepy room devoted to Lois Lane, herself. Instead of being creeped out, she is very flattered.

Kandor, the shrunken Kryptonian city that Superman keeps in a jar (ah...I love foreshadowing)

A crystal ball which is really a two-way TV set that can contact Superman

Superman leaves Lois all alone to look around while he goes to some appointements (if I know Superman, it probably has something to do with orphans. While looking at Kandor klutzy Lois knocks the jar over and it cracks open. So, obviously a devious criminal, Zak-Kul breaks out. He is then able to re-enlarge himself (he musta used one of those emails I'm always getting) and use an "Electronic Plastic Surgery" machine with a Superman button to make him look just like our hero. He then takes the clothes off of a Superman mannequin to complete the disguise.

Lois realizes pretty quickly that Zak-Kul is not Superman thanks to a message from the real Supes on the crystal ball. The criminal immediately tells Lois his plans to shrink Superman. He then cuts off another Superman mannequin's head that falls and knocks her out. When she comes to she is able to get the shrinker/enlarger and is faced with two Supermen. You would think at this point Lois would be happy about having another option for marriage, but no, she has to figure out which is the real Superman.

She asks one simple question about some lame criminal and has made a decision, so she blasts a Superman with the shrink-ray. Turns out it was the real Superman. You see, he faked not knowing about a criminal for fear that if Zak-Kul were found out he would start a Super-Fight and wreck his temple to himself. Superman is then shoved back into the jar using tweezers. Zak-Kul, for no apparant reason decideds to assume Superman's identity and begins to save people, and even asks Lois to marry him. Score!

So, they live happily ever after. Well, no, you see, Lois still wants to know his secret identity. Fake-Superman gets nervous, so he decides to kill Lois by making her drive off of a cliff. And then...Superman swoops in a saves her. You see, he shrunk himself down so small that he fit between the atoms of the jar (FYI criminals, now you can all get out of Kandor!). He then re-embiggened himself and rescued Lois, who promply rips up the marriage license that she carried with her at all times. Phew, another marriage averted!