Last month saw Part One of the battling alter-egos and I've decided to do the clichéd thing – give you a Part Two. I hate being this predictable but there are still a couple of comics on which I want to shine a spotlight. Granted, you won't get a panel of Clark Kent relieving himself on a piece of Kryptonite (see last month, and no he wasn't actually relieving himself. It was his spiffy belt!), but you will get a panel of a giant, disembodied, one-eyed brain and Clark with a giant lumpy head! That has to be worth the price of admission.
“Clark Kent Monster!”from Superman 209 is the kind of story that makes me proud to read comics. It is so gosh-darned goofy it's irresistible. It opens with an alien craft causing tidal waves. There are, of course, many ways to confront a danger like this. Superman could try to communicate with the occupants of the craft. He could fly it back into space and throw it toward another galaxy, or he could forego asking questions and simply ram it. Supes chose option 3. He rams that bad boy and out pops a giant, disembodied, one-eyed brain. Yeah, baby, now we're reading a comic!
Superman and the brain (sounds like a new sitcom) immediately start to fight. The brain sends out “mento-bursts”so fast Superman can't avoid them all. He gets hit (and feels it “slightly”) but the mento-burst bounces off Supes and destroys the brain. The brain is gone and Supes has a headache. However, when he lands in an alley to change into his secret identity, his Clark clothes are gone. At that moment, Clark Kent shows up. He looks mean and has a red glow. Clark says he's no longer willing to be second fiddle and tries to leave but Superman moves to stop him. Instantly, Clark floods Superman's head with intense heat, bringing the superhero to his knees. Clark is more powerful than Superman!
Glowing Clark heads to the Daily Planet where everyone is impressed by his new macho attitude, though the red glow does cause some consternation. He hooks up with Lois Lane, stops some crooks with his mental powers and is proclaimed a hero. He returns to the Planet wearing glasses and a Superman costume with CK in the logo instead of S. It appears he was testing his powers in Clark's office and destroyed everything in it. He knocks out Perry White and heads off to confront Superman.
CK no longer glows, but his skin is red. He subdues Superman easily. While Supes works on escaping the trap, Mento-Clark makes an announcement to the Earthlings, his brain and hands now huge and lumpy. Superman grabs Mento-Clark, takes him into space and defeats him (I'd explain how but it's complicated and the important part is that Lumpy the Brain is destroyed). The real Clark gets a little kiss from Lois in the last panel so he's probably thinking it was fortunate that a giant, disembodied, one-eyed brain showed up that day. I know I'm happy about it.
The final book is Superman 219 with its story, “Clark Kent, Hero and Superman, Public Enemy!”(Final book in the sense that these are the ones I’m covering. There are more examples out there but I'm not going to ruin all the stories. That would just be mean.)
The story opens with Clark Kent heading out to work and getting mobbed by admiring fans. He manages to shake them so he can switch to Superman and replace the roof supports of the Superman museum. Instead of being jam-packed with admirers, no one is in the museum except a security guard. Supes' “popularity has dropped to zero”according to the guard. Soon Superman realizes he's lost a week of his life – a week that will probably explain what turned everything topsy turvy.
One of the weird things about all this is Superman's jealousy of his own secret identity. There is no Supes on CK battle in this issue but you get the feeling Superman would love to pop Clark in the kisser for stealing his thunder.
Knowing he's lost a week, we get a long section of scalloped edged panels (that's how you know it's a flashback, of course) showing what happened. Clark Kent and Lois Lane were kidnapped by aliens in full view of the world. Superman refused to even try to save them because they had a Kryptonite ray. “Take the reporters – it's no skin off my nose! Just leave earth and never come back! Why throw away my life trying to help them?”It's weird enough that Superman and Clark Kent are standing next to each other, but Supes acting like a coward? What is going on?
Things get even weirder when the spaceship takes off and then lands again. Out walks Clark Kent holding two aliens by the scruffs of their little green necks. Now we know why Clark is a hero and Superman is the goat, but what was going on? Superman sees a microscopic trail left by the aliens so he follows it and finds a planet with giant dogs and a whole bunch of pint-sized Clark Kents.
Apparently, a cosmic cloud turned the population into blobs of protoplasm (boy howdy, I hate when that happens! Darn those cosmic clouds). They pointed their three-dimensional-space-scope on a planet, picked a “specimen”and committed it to the body mold's guidance banks. The specimen was none other than Clark Kent. At first the population was pleased to be non-blobs-of-protoplasm, but soon they wanted to know just who was the guy they all looked like (they don't mention if there are women who look like Clark). They were not impressed by CK's cowardly ways so they turned him into a hero using a Superman robot to seal the deal.
Like all the Clark Kent vs. Superman stories, there's always a perfectly logical explanation as to why it happened. “A giant, disembodied, one-eyed brain took over my clothes”or “An alien race of protoplasmic blobs turned their entire population into my secret identity.”It may be status quo for silver age Superman, but for me it's heaven in four colors.
Joanna Sandsmark — A former writer for DC Comics and TV’s Weird Science, Joanna Sandsmark is also the author of The Wisdom of Yo Meow Ma, A Girl’s Best Friend, 10 Spiritual Lessons You Can Learn From Your Cat, 10 Spiritual Lessons You Can Learn From Your Dog and Explore Your Destiny With Runes. If you'd like to learn more, including a detailed bio and more information about Joanna's books please visit her Web site or visit her blog.
This is a guest article. The thoughts and opinions in this piece are those of their author and are not necessarily the thoughts of the Certified Collectibles Group.
