Friday, October 05, 2007

40 Years Ago Today From DC Comics -- Superboy #143

Superboy #143 (On Sale:October 5, 1967) sports a really wonderful Neal Adams cover, his first for the "Boy of Steel."

"The Big Fall" is written by E. Nelson Bridwell and drawn by Al Plastino. Plastino is another guy who is on his way out at DC. He has about six more months of work before he is let go after drawing Superman and the Superman family for 20 years, a victim of a style that cannot change with the times.

The second Superboy story, "Superboy's Civil War Time Trip" is a reprint from Superboy #91 by Jerry Siegel and George Papp. A Smallville celebration of the hundredth anniversary of the Civil War through a re-enactment includes the Kent family, Lana Lang, and Lex Luthor. Superboy travels into space to stop an alien missile, but when he returns to Earth he sees Clark Kent participating in the play. Knowing that it can’t be the real Clark, he watches and thinks that the explosion sent him into the past where he is seeing the real Civil War.

The people involved resemble the future residents of Smallville, except Clark is a spy, and the Luthor duplicate is a hero. Superboy tries to alter history, but in each case he is thwarted by fate.

Edited by Mort Weisinger.

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