Krypto #49: Freaky Friday

From: Adventure Comics #310 (July 1963)

You won't believe this one... So Lana's dad is this big shot archaeologist, right? And he's just come back from an ancient city with mystical artifacts, and having returned to Smallville, is working hard to translate the inscriptions on them. But he's got opponents at the university who don't want to see him promoted and are doing everything in their power to discredit his work. That's not how peer review works, but the politics are real enough... Anyway, one of the inscriptions he HAS translated is on a spinning globe which promises to exchange the minds of two beings who happen to face it when the globe stops spinning. Hogwash, says tenured a-hole Dr. Keighley. And on the basis of THAT assertion, Lang is "suspended". If it's such hogwash, then how does he explain THIS:
Superboy starts acting like a dog, and Krypto a boy, but the story, like Lana, seems confused as to what "mind exchange" entails.
Because that's not just her, misunderstanding what's happening. Superboy and Krypto haven't switched bodies. Krypto is a dog with a human mind, and Superboy acts like he's a dog. A misbehaving dog.
And so he must suffer the indignities of being a dog, while Krypto lords it over him.
Now, it should be seen as VERY suspicious that the next few adventures have the two Kryptonians coming in surprising proximity to Dr. Keighley. For example, a construction worker falls off a beam outside the building where a vote is being held about Lang's promotion, Superboy catches him like a dog would!
Yes, "victims of hypnosis" was his explanation for the mind switch. Conspiracy theory much? Those damn vapor trails made me see a talking dog, am I right? THEN a kid gets lost in the forest and Superboy tracks him down with his super-nose (even though, biologically, Krypto still has his dog-like senses) and brings him home. The kid? Keighley's son.
Say whaaaa---? Now he MUST believe. And does. So we can all stop pretending, can't we?
Yep. It was all a hoax managed through super-ventriloquism and Superboy gulping down doggie treats for the Langs' sakes. The translation was real enough; the magic effect wasn't. But, you know, for this plan to really work, Superboy had to push that guy off the beam, right? And get the kid lost in the woods in the first place. Sinister.

Comments

wordsmith said…
I think the freakiest part of this issue was the Legion story, in which, at one point, every Legionnaire save Superboy died.