From: Superboy #75 and Adventure Comics #264 (September 1959)
"How Krypto Made History!" from Superboy #75 is really the first Krypto solo story, and though Superboy appears, HE'S actually the guest-star. It begins with a game of tag between the two Kryptonians, ending when, chasing each other through the Earth's crust, Krypto gives up on the game to retrieve a dinosaur bone. But yuck, it's turned!
Now, even if we've seen Krypto grab dino-bones from natural history museums before, the educational part of this story reveals that these petrified and no longer edible. Krypto's solution is to fly so fast he breaks the time barrier, just like Superboy apparently once told him could be done. Surely he can find dinosaurs back in time. But even if he can reason this out, he's still a dumb dog who doesn't know anything about history. Did he travel far enough? Looks like it:
Ah. No. Dumb dog can't differentiate a live animal from a still statue. It's 1927 though, so Krypto can interfere with Babe Ruth's record, or actually, insure it by scaring a pigeon that was about to collide with his 60th homerun. Next stop, the American Revolution, where he melts an ice cake in the Delaware river thinking it's a dinosaur's hump, thus saving Washington's boat from crashing into it. This is followed by a stupendously stupid sequence where Krypto lands in th Netherlands and gets his tail all muddy in a puddle. So what does he do? Correct: stick it in a muddy dyke's hole (no double entendre, I swear):
That's right. He's just made it possible for the legend of the little Dutch boy who put his finger in the hole to be created. Hey, it's the DC Universe. History will reveal legends to be true. Like Robin Hood, whose life Krypto next saves. And Arthur Pendragon, who needs Krypto to loosen Excalibur from the stone for him (see splash panel above). And FINALLY, Krypto reaches the Cretaceous (a hop, a skip and a jump from the Middle Ages, apparently), but Superboy snatches him before he can get his teeth around a fresh, juicy bone. Damn it! And why? Because he needed Krypto to accept a golden bone aware from Smallville's mayor (inedible, of course). An important event and "there's no time to lose". Except we're dealing with time travel. What's the damn hurry?! So Krypto is real depressed by now, CAN Superboy find him some non-petrified prehistoric bones? Why yes!
Oh yeah, right. You can't eat paleontological treasures! So it's dog biscuits for you, Krypto. As it's now apparently impossible for you to go back to the past to get what you want, even if you know exactly where to go. Sigh.
In Adventure Comics #264's "The Helpless Hero", Krypto stays in the objective present to help his master when the Teen of Steel's powers go awry. To help oil drillers (Superboy, oil lobby shill) without the villain distorting his powers, Clark secretly calls Krypto to bore a hole in his place. But the tricky Zall-Dix can affect Krypto's abilities too!
There. Settled. Calling Krypto is cheating.
Comments
(My mum's little terrier once ate a frog. She was then violently sick. The dog, not my mum. A week later she did the same thing again. Dogs are idiots.)