Reign of the Supermen #212: Super Jor-El

Source: Superman vol.1 #113 (1957)
Type: PrecursorSuperman wasn't the first Kryptonian in his family to take up the good fight with powers beyond those of mortal men, as we discover in the very comic that originated his Kryptonian name! In this one, Superman finds one of his father's "mind-tapes", complete with reader helmet, inside a big ball of kryptonite. It tells the tale of how Jor-El found out that Krypton was about to blow. And here you thought a great scientist would have discovered it by himself.

In point of fact, was he discovers is a planetoid with engines heading for Krypton in a collision course.
To save his world, Jor-El says teary goodbyes to his family before shooting himself out of an electric cannon!
Return tickets are for chumps! Come on Krypton, start working on that space program already! He lands nose-first into the planetoid, actually the moon of the planet Vergo, set free to find a planet with a uranium core to throw into their dying sun and kick start it. Jor-El quickly discovers he has powers on this planet on account of the different gravity and atmosphere, and to hide himself, he puts a worker robot's frame on like a second skin. As Superman correctly points out, THIS IS EXACTLY THE SAME AS HIS OWN SECRET IDENTITY!
Hey, I didn't call Clark Kent a passionless robot. He did. And because Superman is grasping at every straw to "connect" with his "birth father", he too must have a pesky Lana/Lois type trying to uncover his identity. In Jor-El's case, it's the Vergoan Queen Latora (an "L", of course) who could get him into trouble with Lara.
After he saves her life, she spills the beans about her plans, and that they chose Krypton because it's doomed to explode anyway. Jor-El's super-kiss makes her renounce the current plan, giving her some 50 years to find another suitable planet. Jor-El, for his part, flies back to Krypton and soft lands like it ain't nothing (well, this is also a story in which Superman blows a giant airtight glass dome, puts in on Metropolis and sucks all the air out to kill an evil scientist's creeper plants). Did I say 50 years? There are at least 20 left for Superman to fly out to Vergo and fix their sun with scrap uranium, getting his father's reward from Queen Latora.
Kissing your dad's old mistress is as good a way to "connect" with the old man as any. Right?

Comments

Anonymous said…
Same fahter, same son, uh?

Roger
Love that last line about connecting with your old man by sampling his leftovers. Funny stuff. Too bad they can't bring all that back ago in current continuity.