Spinner Rack: "Lex Luthor, Imp!" - Part 2

Through an overly complex process that I will not repeat Lex manages to duplicate Mxyzptlk's powers in himself. This leaves Superboy to battle two irrepressible imps. When we left off, Superboy had long hair and smashed a couple of statues into cornflakes.

Meanwhile, Mxyzptlk and Lex Luthor are in the middle of a childish argument that is basically about who can out-imp whom. Lex is still trying to live down his mistake of giving Superboy long hair instead of baldness and claims that he can outperform Mxyzptlk. Mxy responds, "If you can — then I am a ring-tailed baboon!"

To which Lex responds, "Hello baboon! I'm Lex Luthor!" Mxyzptlk is so insulted by the things Lex Luthor has said that he decides to torment Superboy as proof of his own superiority. He turns Superboy into a monkey, at which point Lex turns him into a jackass. Superdonkey uses his heat vision to carve Kltpxyxm into the sidewalk.

Lex Luthor has no idea why he would do that and reads the name out loud. This keeps Mxyzptlk from reading his name backwards and sending him back to the fifth dimension and does not affect Lex Luthor in any way. But it does give the imp an idea. Mxyzptlk turns Superboy back into Superboy and decides to make him public villain No. 1.

Mxyzptlk instructs Superboy to change the name of Smallville High School to Benedict Arnold High. Superboy's compelled to obey the magic, but he's no dummy and figures out a way to add a little something extra to the name. He names the school Benedict Arnold High Kltpxyxm. Mxyzptlk reads it out loud, which includes saying his name backwards and he pops into the fifth dimension. As Superboy explains, he just instructed him to write Benedict Arnold High and didn't say anything about words after that.

One down and one more to go. Mxyzptlk may be out of the picture, but Lex is still very much a factor. And unfortunately, he still has Mxy's powers. He needed the imp to be physically there in order to grab the powers, but he does not need his presence to retain them. Superboy reasons that Lex would lose his powers if he said his name backwards. Lex orders Superboy to change the name of the high school to Lex Luthor High School. Superboy obeys, but he is not beholden to Lex the way he is to Mxy and changes it to Rohtul Xel High School.

Lex reads the sign out loud and is angry that Superboy spelled his name backwards. Unfortunately, nothing happens to Lex. Superboy is perplexed. How will Lex lose his powers if reading his name backwards doesn't help? It turns out that Lex was also concerned that saying his name backwards would rob him of his new magical powers. Because it didn't, he is ready to make Superboy's life a living hell.

"Jumping catfish!" says Superboy. Jumping. Catfish. That just doesn't seem like a good interjection. At least "Suffering Sappho" had a tie-in to Wonder Woman’s mythological roots in ancient Greece. I don't even think they had catfish, let alone the jumping kind, back on ole Krypton.

While Superboy worries about Lex and speaks of leaping piscis, Lex carves a giant likeness of his face in a mountain and writes "Smallville's Greatest Hero" beneath it. That takes a pretty good ego. If you got magical powers, what would you do with them? What is the primary thing you would do? And would it be to make a giant replica of your face with that slogan beneath it on a mountain? Because I have to admit that is probably the last thing I'd do. It's simply not my style. The other weird thing is that this absolutely looks like one of those panels they draw that replicates the cover of the comic book. It screams cover to have Lex Luthor shaping a mountain into a monument while flying through the air and wielding magic. But in this comic, despite it being the opener, it is not the cover story. Perhaps it was written for an older book and is reprinted here.

Meanwhile, where is Superboy in all this? He is back at Lex's apartment looking at the supercomputer, specifically at the ticker tape. "So this is the information the computer gave Lexy-boy that told him how to make it as an imp! Well, he pulled one goof … And I've got him!" I am unsure what the goof is, but what shocks me is that the ticker tape shows us the same numbers that the ray gun showed us. This means that he fed the numbers from his gun into the computer and the computer (that Lex spent months building) spat the same numbers back at him. How does that make any sense at all? I have to stop thinking about this.

Lex has moved on from mountain carving and is on a crime spree. He rips the roof off a Smallville bank and like in all comic books, the roof comes off in one cohesive piece, exposing the bank within. While he flies toward the bank he makes sure to tell us his future plans. "Ha, Ha! When I open a bank, I really open it! After I'm through here, I'll loot Fort Knox, then steal the British crown jewels, and … Huh? Why is Superboy laughing?"

And Superboy is certainly laughing. He tells Lex that when he gained magical powers, he lost his brilliant mind. Lex thinks he's bluffing but Superboy continues to taunt him. He tells them that he doesn't even think he could decode the message from one of his recent cases. All I have to say is that Lex obviously has lost every brain cell he ever had. He gets goaded into reading off of the sheet of paper when he knows that Superboy is doing everything in his power to take away Lex's power.

But read it he does. It is a bunch of numbers. As soon as he finishes reading the list of numbers there's a big pop and he loses all of his magical powers. I am as shocked as Louis was to find gambling at Rick's Café.

So what were the numbers? Superboy explains it to Lex and to all the readers: "You decoded the numbers the computer said would take away your magic! Those were the numbers in the ‘code message’ I gave you! R is the 18th letter of the alphabet, O is the 15th, H is the 8th … When you read those digits, you said your name backwards … In numbers! That was the only way to lose your powers!" I sure hope the little kids followed that.

Meanwhile, in the fifth dimension, Mxyzptlk watches the finale on the giant screen. Because Lex’s powers are gone, the bank is all put together and any magic he did was undone. I am assuming that the mountain is now back to being a mountain. Still, Lex vows, "But I'll get Mxyzptlk's powers again, the next time he shows up!"

Mxyzptlk's thoughts are pretty clear. "That's what he thinks! I'll use my magic to wipe out his memory of how to do it! No one muscles in on Mxyzptlk!"

A battle between Lex Luthor and Mxyzptlk made for some pretty interesting reading. For even more fun, come back next month. I promise bushels of DC Silver Age goodness!

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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.