Krypto #47: Does He Prefer Superboy or Superman?

From: Adventure Comics #304 (January 1963)

In this story, Superboy is surprised to find an adult Superman before him. It's not time travel. This newly arrived Man of Steel claims it's all because of Red Kryptonite. The Kents quickly adopt him as a second son, and soon, the two boys are competing to see who will give Ma and Pa the best Anniversary gift. Will it be Superboy's three Superman robots, or Superman's serum that gives the parents super-powers like his? Clark uses a dream projector to confirm it's the latter while they sleep, so when Superman says one of them must leave Earth because the paradox of having the two of them in one spot will make the solar system explode, the teen version of our hero decides it's better if he were the one to go. Let's just ignore the 36-hour time limit on Red K effects for this story, okay? So, big question, on which side of this does Krypto come down?
He loves young Clark, but recognizes he must be the adult Clark's dog now. Which is nonsense. With the pup of steel spending most of his time in space, and Superboy being SENT to space, the dog should remain HIS. But no one really likes Superboy, nor do they trust him to stay away, because SuperMAN throws him at a solar system with a red sun. Powerless, he will never return.
And all this time, Krypto lets it happen. He doesn't even notice the clue which makes Pa Kent - the real hero of our story - suspicious.
Fake glasses!? That's right. This isn't a Superman duplicate. It's really Roz-Em, a criminal who used his uncanny physical similarity to Jor-El to steal forbidden weapons on Krypton, was exiled for his trouble, found he had powers when his saucer prison left Krypton's system, and found his way to Earth. But wait, Krypto's back and he brought Superboy with him!
So did he know all along? Did he choose correctly after all? Not exactly. See that action figure in his mouth? Seems like Krypto is really PA KENT's dog...
Yes, it was Jonathan Kent who gave the dog a secret message hidden in a bone. Krypto was "plenty smart" to get it though. Just not THAT smart.

Comments

Pete said…
Oh, the Silver Age! If any of the stories made sense we wouldn't love them as much. Thanks for another great Krypto post!
Anonymous said…
I do like superboy.