Reign of the Supermen #548: Super-Cool Cat

Source: Superman vol.1 #182 (1966)
Type: The real thing (since retconned)
Jerry Siegel's last Superman story Part 3 of 3. To recap the last two Reigns then... When Clark Kent was publicly blinded, Superman goes off to find a new secret identity. After a stint as a mobster's butler, he goes to England and becomes a monocled, but somehow very popular disk jockey, so popular he is asked to pick "the next big thing". He rejects the would-be Beatles he's presented with, including a trio of criminals dressed as convicts, and goes out on the street where he finds, well, THE find. Meet Clive Duncan, who dresses as Superman, rubber mask and all, plus furry gloves and tail, and uses suction cups on his feet to sing at a 90 degree angle.
Naturally, he must become "Clark the K"'s pick to play at the town fair, and of course, this means the criminals must take him out if they want to be upgraded to stardom.
No worries, Superman can take his place and perform, singing his big hits "Super-Muscles is the Cat's Meow" and "Super-Duper, Party-Pooper" with the added benefit of special effects created by his super-powers.
Clive wakes up in time to take his bow and will surely become famous now (I love music too much to want to live in the DC Universe, yo). Backstage, Superman corners Limehouse Lew and drums him out of show business. All's well that ends well, and that's why, to this day, Superman is England's greatest her---

Wait. No. That's not how it ends at all. There's another page here...

So it looks like Clark went on being a disk jockey for some time, but "one day", he's mobbed by female fans with DJ fever.
Exposed! By this point, Superman is so used to jettisoning secret identities, he doesn't even try salvaging Clark the K. But he'll reap the rewards before he leaves it behind.
Could have just flown away, Kal-El. Didn't need to suck the air out of all the girls and leave them brain-damaged. Anyway... as he flies back towards the U.S., he super-senses that the guinea pigs blinded when Clark was have recovered their sight, which gives him permission to return to work at the Daily Planet.
Well that's lucky. His friends all embrace him, the same friends who let him go off to live his blindness without help, and OF COURSE his job is still waiting for him. Not the case for Jerry Siegel whose legal wranglings with DC meant he'd been fired.

Comments

SallyP said…
Well, I'll be gobsmacked.
LiamKav said…
Cor strewth matey, what's this all aboot?

(Seriously, the accents are hilarious.)
wordsmith said…
Siskoid, I just noticed this, but when Jerry Siegel rejoined National/DC in 1959, one of the first (if not THE first) stories he wrote was "How Perry White Hired Clark Kent", which is reprinted in "Showcase Presents: Superman, Vol. 1"; now you're telling us that the last story Siegel wrote was about how Superman went looking for another job. I don't think these are coincidental.

Thanks for continuing this series, I'm finding it both fun and educational.
Siskoid said…
Wow, I hadn't realized! Yeah, definitely no coincidence.