Krypto #1: Birth of a Super-Pup

From: Adventure Comics #210 (March 1955)

It begins, a new era of Superman Family coverage at the SBG, the Age of Krypto! Now, with both Reign of the Supermen and Snapshots of Jimmy Olsen, the idea was to showcase variants of those characters - those Supermen and Jimmies that had been transformed into ants/turtles, came from parallel worlds, were cast in live action productions, etc. That's not what I want to do with Krypto the Super-Dog. No, this is meant to be a full-on index series where each of the Kryptonian pup's adventures is chronicled, as much as possible in order of appearance, and maybe more besides.

Krypto was given life by Otto Binder, Curt Swan and Sy Barry in late 1954, the issue cover-dated March 1955, and the story titled "The Super-Dog from Krypton". The cover and splash page give the game away, but you never know. We're not technically in the Silver Age, but the Superman Family was already doing a lot of hoax stories already, and Superboy/man had been visited by many fakers before, people he only THOUGHT were from Krypton. Maybe there's a simple explanation for all this. So the first continuity appearance of Krypto is actually on page 2, as a dog about to be taken to the Smallville pound.

He's very quick to obey the dog catcher, but just as quick to leave the party... and allow all the other dogs to escape. No biggie, this is clearly a job for Superboy who collars all the other dogs efficiently and fix the truck. But the white dog who engineered the prison break is nowhere to be found, so Clark goes to work at Pa's store. While he's there, crooks rob the store and he's powerless to do anything without blowing his cover, but when the criminals head for their car, that stray dog attacks them.

A bullet-proof dog? Their bullets spent, they are picked up by the police, and Clark finds the pup gnawing at a gun.

Clearly, this isn't normal. And fans of the Dog of Steel will have noticed by now that the original look for Krypto had a pink snout and more cartoony eyes. Also, hideous claws, brrr. I wonder when the completely white look will become the norm; we'll see, I guess. Superboy goes for the dog, but it flies off. Does it have all of his powers? Super-licking, check. X-ray vision, check. Super-intelligence, check. Krypto uses the latter to sense Superboy's puzzlement and lead him to his crashed rocket ship. (At no point does he have human-like thoughts or behavior, however, that will also come later.) In the craft, Superman finds a letter written in Kryptonese that details the dog's origin.

So let me get this straight. In the craft that never came back to Krypton, there's a letter from Jor-El saying the craft never came back to Krypton. Uh-huh. Normally, that would have me doubting the story (hoax incoming?) AND Kryptonian "super-intelligence", but maybe it's psychic paper that updates its own story. Have we ever met a Kryptonian journalist? Maybe their papers update themselves with news stories. Maybe there's something ironic about Clark Kent becoming a reporter, a job that's completely redundant in Kryptonian society. But for now, we can enjoy Superboy having his very own parallel-evolved dog. Yay. But the celebration is short-lived, because that dang mutt is a menace, chasing after planes and ripping their wings out. He doesn't mean to Superboy can't really leave him unattended. Not without a big chain.

Question: Does Superboy not take normal showers, or can he only clean himself with acid and such? How does bathing your dog in lava make sense? Maybe it's the only thing that gets rid of Kryptonian fleas. WOW. Has anyone ever done a story about Kryptonian insects escaping into Earth's atmosphere? That could be terrifying. Well, Krypto breaks his chain and brings Clark a girder to throw. All well and good, but Clark is forced to get rid of it in view of Lana Lang.

It wouldn't be a Super-story of the era if the dog didn't cause secret identity problems. AND fixed secret identity problems. After a strong reprimand, Krypto gets his own cape and becomes part of a trick - along with a light magnesium ladder - to fool Lana.

And this is a role Krypto will be asked to play often over the next couple decades. But all of Superboy's time be taken up fixing the problems a super-powerful dog is likely to cause? No, because Krypto takes another runner... into outer space.

You know how much energy dogs have. So Clark is content to let the dog roam the universe - if you're wondering why Earth suffers so many alien invasions, maybe it's because Superboy's dog is always doing stuff in their "yard" - he's sort of glad he's gone. Sort of. Read between the lines, kids. The story isn't saying you should let your dog loose outside city limits. But will Krypto return? The story leaves the door wide open without committing to a permanent addition to the cast.

Alas, Adventure Comics didn't publish letters pages back then, but we can probably infer a good reaction from readers based on the fact Krypto would return just 4 issues later when such letters would technically have been published.

I'm not a dog person, but I AM a Krypto person. Who's with me? Those that are, see you next Saturday!