What's This? A miniature city.
The facts: The Bottle City of Kandor first appeared in Action Comics #242 (July 1958) in a story by Otto Binder and Al Plastino. It survived Krypton's destruction thanks to Brainiac and allowed Superman writers to explore Kryptonian culture without the use of time travel or other such devices. (Note that the Superman newspaper strip had already done the idea, with a bad guy called Romado - who also had a pet white monkey called Koko - in Brainiac's role, and the city dubbed Dur-El-Va.) Kandor, forever sitting in the Fortress of Solitude became a recurring feature, even spawning its own heroes like Flamebird and Nightwing. The city and its people were restored to normal size a number of times, most prominently in 2006 (launching the New Krypton storyline, where it sat on Mars), but the couple reboots would take care of that.How you could have heard of it: Kandor is currently an important feature in the Supergirl comic. In alternate media, it had appeared in Super-Friends, Smallville, Legion of Super-Heroes, Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Krypton, My Adventures with Superman, and Harley Quinn!
Example story: Action Comics #400 (May 1971) "Duel of Doom!" by Geoff Browne, Curt Swan and Murphy AndersonCool splash... except it's a "rerun" of past events being played to students at the University of Kandor. You know, just pro-Super propaganda to keep the Kandorians from asking about the timeline for deshrinkification. The kids are plenty stoked, the boys shining Superman's boots, the girls sticking up for Supergirl instead. Sexism is alive and well in Kandor:For Yllura's final exam, she goes out of bounds to the crystal hills beyond the city - Brainiac really drew a wide radius - and does the painstaking work archaeologists are known for to unearth the past.Uhm... Well, it gives her access to a cave (she says "what luck!", so I'm not giving her an "A") filled with carvings and inscriptions (some of which she might have destroyed) made by a prehistoric demon-worshipping cult. But what about Arvor? He's made himself a flight belt:That's nothing new to Kryptonians, though. What he's actually testing is an electronic infra-scope that gives him mental visions that allow him to fly blindfolded. But while he X-rays the entire city, he fails to check on his batteries and plunges to his death. Or into a lake with currents that take him underground to, you guessed it, the very caves Yllura is exploring (attracted to her screaming her head off at the gargoyles surrounding her).Arvor's stone actually breaks the statue and the holographic projector inside, but it short-circuits the lights and the kids are suddenly smothered in darkness. So we expect the girl to be scared of the dark and the boy to save her and prove his superiority, right? Well, maybe in the 60s, but this is 1971! The year Siskoid would be born and women were growing into their own power, even in the comics. Yllura is, in fact, the smart one here.Arvor's tech manages to get them out of the tunnels and he says Superman's X-ray vision couldn't have done any better. Nor Supergirl's, right? The couple decides that it doesn't matter which, they work best together, as do they. Days later, they both graduate, and share the award. Superman and Supergirl, of course, drop in to hand out diplomas.In many ways, a Kandor story is a Krypton story - even the teens are geniuses and superscience abounds, they don't even restrict the story to the city and have lots of countryside with weird stuff happening - with the one difference being that the citizens fawn over Superman, just like the residents of Metropolis. It's all parades and trophies, so I guess we know where Superman gets it from.
Who's Next? A guy with a gong.








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