These Explosives are Dangerous! YOU Keep 'Em!

A bit of questionable strategy from Superman Family #167, courtesy of contributor Robert Gillis!

Basically, the upshot is that Superboy went on a mission with all his robots but one.  Pete Ross manages to break it, which is either a testament to his clumsiness or the shoddy workmanship of the robot.  Anyhoo, Pete realizes he must replace said robot.  Thusly:

I'm not sure why there's nothing else to do with an excess supply of explosives, but then again, I've never had an excess supply of explosives.

But I wouldn't do this with them, either:

Yes, Pete stores them in the Kent house.  Because Ma and Pa Kent will be perfectly safe with explosives "much too dangerous to keep around" up in their attic.  What could possibly go wrong?

Good one, Robert!  Thanks again!

Here's an interesting house ad:

Pathos?  Really?  So are you supposed to put on a Smiths album while you read it?  That's an odd selling feature.

But here's an even more unusual marketing technique:

Coupons?  Really?

So you know I had to find out exactly what those coupons were for.  And here they are:

Yeah, as a small child, nothing would seal the deal for me like a coupon for rug shampoo or Blistik.  I'm not even sure the NuGrape soda ad is for soda.  The fact that the coupons were still in the comic 60 years after publication leads me to believe that particular campaign didn't sell a lot of comics.

See you Monday!

Glub Blub Wednesday!

And so, with a tear in our eye, we come to the final pages of Robert Gillis's look at Lois Lane #42. You may recall Robert wondering who would possibly marry Lois and Supes now that they were both teenagers and didn't live in the Ozarks.  Who?  Well, I'll let Robert answer that question:

 A blind man, of course! 

Superboy sees that the Justice of the Peace has a metal splinter in his skull, causing his blindness:

So Superboy rewires the radio to um, um, magnetically rip the piece of metal out of the guy’s skull. Um, harmlessly. Um, yeah. Um, you know, this is why you don’t wear any metal in an MRI. The metal would kind-sorta explode out of your head exactly like a bullet. I saw that episode of “House.” It was gruesome.

So the Justice of the Peace, winner of “Least dramatic response to getting your sight back, ever,” notes that he can see again, and then refuses to marry the kids, because everyone who works in the Smallville Municipal Court System knows these “March and April” romances seldom work.

And by the way, why was the blind guy surprised that Lois and Superman were kids? Certainly their voices changed as well? Sheesh.

12 year old Lois has another scheme! The young couple flies to the S.S. Andovia. She’ll get her old friend Captain Pushover, er, Hobson, to marry them.

Captain Hobson probably understands this kid is really Superman, considering they flew in and all, but he accepts the absurdity of the situation pretty quickly. “Hmmm… This is very irregular…”

“…But for old time’s sake, I’ll perform the ceremony, Lois!” Doesn’t he know these marriages between 12 year olds seldom work?

 I love how the other crew members and officers are standing there, smiling like this wedding is a GOOD thing. Awww, two 12 year olds getting married by the captain. Isn’t this romantic?

Lois: “I’ve got to give myself credit for outwitting Superman for once.” Nice.  Reveling in how you forced someone to marry you: Just the sort of thing a bride should be thinking of on her special day.

Golly, how will Supeman get out of this one? By causing waves to crash into the ship and nearly kill everyone! 

Then, for good measure, he rocks the boat until everyone is sick!

And for people who are sea-sick, these people sure talk a lot. I’ve been sea-sick, and you don’t talk much, except to say, “Get the hell out of the way!” as you race to the side of the boat.

(I was seasick once, and it was one of the most miserable experiences of my life.  If I didn't have reason to dislike Superham before, I certainly do now! - adam)

Lois and Superman are now TODDLERS, but the honorable Dudley Diggs, Esquire, takes the case and convinces a COURT JUDGE to sign the marriage license for… wait for it… wait for it… Two FOUR YEAR OLDS.

Doesn’t the judge know these “February and February” romances seldom work?

For the record, the wedding couple is registered at Babies R Us, Baby Gap, and the Pampers aisle at your local market.

 How do you put a wedding like this together so quickly? Besides Perry, Lucy and Jimmy, who are all thee wedding guests? They’re all dressed up, tuxes and gowns, the church is full — WTH? And I LOVE Lucy’s comment, “It’s weird… But the marriage was ruled legal, and they’ll both be normal tomorrow, so we might as well just go ahead.” God, I love the Silver Age. These two are BABIES and people just shrug.

And of course, the ultimate irony, Lois can’t say her vows, because she has regressed to a baby and cannot speak. I can’t believe there isn’t a lawyer in the church saying this sort of thing happens all the time and have someone get power of attorney to speak for Lois.

So, the next day, the reset button has been pressed, and Dr. Light tracks Lois down and gives her some drug that cured her. Whatever.

Of course she destroyed the picture. Of course she wants to marry Superman fair and square. Of course everything is back to normal.

Thank God that’s the last time anything weird would happen in a Lois Lane comic! Um, except for the very next issue, when a short circuit in her electric typewriter sends Lois into a parallel universe. Really. First story in issue #43!

Wow, that was classic, and Robert's commentary rocked our worlds, didn't it?  Well, don't get too spoiled, poppets, because I'll be back tomorrow with the usual lackluster posts.  See you then!

Let's Try it Again Thursday!

Well, Dear Ones, for reasons I don't really know, the Lois Lane panels didn't get bigger, so I'll work on that and re-post it at another time, because Robert Gillis's commentary on it is hilarious, and I don't want you to miss out.

Instead, let's take a behind-the-scenes look at how we come up with some of the CMNS magic, shall we?  I think that one of the most beloved and will-be-sorely-missed features of our little funhouse is Fun with Out of Context Dialogue! (tm!)

So, you say to yourself, "What could there possibly be to that?  Isn't Adam just some moron who reads something from the perspective of a thirteen year-old and writes something like 'That's what she said'?"

Well, yeah.  But there's a process.


Consider:

Yes, that is some mighty good stuff.  And we could stop right there.

But should we?

If you're going to take over for me as one of the least-respected bloggers on the web, you've got to know where that line is between "Okay, I'll admit that's funny," and "Well, now you're just being stupid."

Consider again:

Yeah, right in the zone.  It's cheating to take artwork out of context, but when you have that kind of payoff.... well, you knew what you were in for when you came here.  Look at that: "Superboy's Sister," the "meat coming up," how "wonderful it is having Superboy for a brother."  Yeah, that just get's more and more perverse as you take in all the details, but it's still funny. See?  There's a line.

So, I can only hope you, my treasured reader, can appreciate how incredibly hard I've worked over the years, turning pages until my fingers bled, reading terrible comics until my eyes hurt.

Well, okay.  I didn't actually find this one.  David from Confessions of a Superman Fan found it.  But you get the idea.  Love me!  LOVE ME FOR WHAT LITTLE TIME WE HAVE LEFT!

And thanks, David!

See you tomorrow!