From: Superboy #71 (March 1959)
What kind of shenanigans are these?! They're what happens when Superboy uses his super-intelligence to build a device that allows him to read his dog's mind, with the very risk, because DESIGN FLAW, that Krypto's brain waves could overwhelm his brain and force the two of them to switch bodies.
And not only is that what happens, but Krypto actually does in on purpose! Because if there's someone in these stories who's even more of a glory hound than Superboy, it's Krypto, and Krypto wants the recognition only being people will bring. And as soon as his mind is transferred into Superboy's body, he destroys the machine so his master can't flip the switch, promising he can repair it later. But of course, he doesn't have the technical know-how. Superboy is trapped in a dog's body. Mad with the power to walk upright, Krypto fiddles with the trophy case to make sure his doggy awards are better displayed, and melts a Superboy robot into dog shape with his amazing vision powers that don't make any damn sense(TM).
Ma Kent asks Superboy to give Krypto his bath before dinner, but Krypto raids Martha's perfumes because "nothing is too good for his dog body", and...
So that's your life now, Superboy! Don't worry, Krypto will go on being a hero in your stead. Like so:
After that, he walks into a grocery store and starts chowing on dog food. The big dilemma now, of course, is that Krypto is totally making a fool of Superboy. Silver Age stakes! But Superboy's own habits die hard, and he goes on being a hero too, solving, for example, the case of the "Gunner Gang" that trains a dog to fire a machine gun into a witness' window.
Superboy is being made a fool of by the very creature he's made into a hero?! Oh the angst! But truthfully, Superboy really should stop feeling like he's in competition with his own dog. So then Krypto wins a costume contest by dressing up as an upright dog, and then he steals a museum's dinosaur bones and tries to bury them...
But bam! There's a chunk of kryptonite buried in the ground and Krypto is knocked out. Superboy, who apparently spends all his time scouring Smallville with X-Ray vision, sees what's happened and saves his old boy by jumping into molten lead and rescuing Krypto with his eyes closed. But enough is enough. It's time to put his plan into motion so he can get his body back.
He's off! And Krypto realizes he doesn't want to be a person all his life; he wants to be a dog again! And the shock of that realization somehow frees his soul from Superboy's body, so Superboy-as-Krypto jumps out of the bushes to complete the "contact" returning everyone to normal. That dog that left for space? The robot one that seemed completely frivolous before.
And everyone learned a good lesson. (No they didn't.)
Comments
Barking.