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If, as Forest Gump liked to say, stupid is as stupid does, then our favorite Kryptonian is a prize idiot in Superboy #105 (June 1963).  On the other hand, we might just find there’s method to the madness of “The Simpleton of Steel.”

Jerry Siegel pens this 8-pager, illustrated by the super-talented team of Curt Swan and George Klein, who also provide the cover art.

The story: Superboy rescues a group of trapped coal miners but in the process he accidentally unearths a chunk of red kryptonite, triggering the familiar “tingling” that precedes the strange and unpredictable effects that troublesome element produces.

Shortly afterwards, our hero spots a crowd gathered on a Smallville street corner and looking “pretty upset.”  Upon investigation he finds that Tommy’s Custard Stand has an urgent problem: a “gadget” in the custard-making machine has broken, and customers aren’t getting their custard!  Luckily Superboy arrives before the National Guard is alerted, and with a quick burst of his heat vision, he manages to fuse the broken part back together.

Unfortunately the procedure has the side effect of melting all the custard, so we’re back to square one.  Tommy’s customer’s are not amused.

Hey, lady, your 7-year-old is the one with a caveman’s grasp of grammar,  so let’s not go casting any stones, shall we?

Unfortunately, screwing up something as important, as vital, as life-or-death serious as frozen custard for the learning disabled is just the kind of thing that can ruin a crimefighter’s career for good, and sure enough the news of Superboy’s humiliating failure spreads quickly through the (apparently gossip-starved) town of Smallville.

I guess it’s true you’re only as good as your latest super-feat.  Sure he saved us from that giant asteroid last week, but today he ruined a kid’s custard.  The moron oughtta be run out of town, I tell ya.

Later, a “distant swamp” catches fire (as swamps so often do) and for some reason Chief Parker considers it an important matter, summoning Superboy to do something about it.  He does do something, just not what you might expect.

As if melted custards and distant swamp fires weren’t enough Earth-shaking crises for one day, the president of the Smallville Bank and Trust summons Superboy with a real emergency:  “One of our tellers is ill and didn’t report to work!  Please help out by counting those bills quickly!”  (What a great town this is.  “Superboy!  Superboy! Help! I can’t get these stubborn grass stains out of these pants!”)

As luck would have it, two crooks named “Specs” McGurk and “Scarface” Malone are loitering about in the bank, and while they and other (legitimate) customers look on in amazement, Superboy goofs yet again, this time counting the bank’s money so fast he sets fire to it with super-friction, accidentally destroying $10,000.

As an embarrassed Superboy exits the bank, the president deduces that Superboy’s earlier exposure to Red Kryptonite must have rendered him a dimwit.   As a result, true blue Lana Lang sees the chance of a lifetime…

“Specs” and “Scarface”  follow Lana to her home, where they pull guns and demand the notebook containing Superboy’s identity.  When Lana screams, Superboy flies in through a window and hauls the crooks away.  However, they manage to convince Superboy that they are not crooks but in fact are Secret Service agents, a claim they “prove” with the aid of toy badges purchased from a dime store (and rather conspicuously labeled, “Made in Japan”).

Taking the duped Boy of Steel aside, they seek to exploit his sudden stupefaction.  “We learned gamblers fixed the auto races tonight!” they lie.  “If you were to make Rainbow Car No. 8 win, their car would lose and they’d be taught a lesson!”  This sounds reasonable to Stupid-Boy, who cries, “I’ll do it!”

The crooks place their bets on the No. 8 car, but their plan backfires on them when the witless Superboy “helps” their car in utterly unsubtle fashion:

Frustrated, the crooks try a new approach.  “Memorial Day’s coming soon,” they say. “Legionnaires are selling artificial poppies to help veterans in need! Go bring us a few tons of real poppies from China.  The public deserves something better than fake poppies!”

As Superboy flies off to China to carry out the plan, the crooks look on and gloat…

Wow, am I the only one who finds it a bit jarring to start a story with a broken custard machines and “dumb kid” gags only to veer off into the realm of illegal narcotics?  I’m just imagining a young reader in 1963 asking, “Mommy, what’s opium?”  Anyway, Superboy returns with a train car full of Chinese poppies and the crooks hand him the address of their “big shot pal” with orders to leave deliver the poppies to his warehouse.  Just then, real G-Men appear and take Specs and Scarface into custody, as Superboy reveals “my simpleton behavior was just an act!”

It turns out that the Red Kryptonite Superboy encountered in the mine “affected me only slightly,”  and not in a way that affected his super-brain.  Turning the situation to his advantage, he pretended to have been rendered thick-headed, to trick the crooks into tipping their hands.  The earlier “swamp fire” had been started by Superboy himself, and the money destroyed at the bank was “old, worn-out currency scheduled to be destroyed by the mint, anyway!”

Okay, eww.

With that settled, the crooks are carted away and all we have left to settle is the little matter of a denouement with Lana.

So now who’s the simpleton?  BAM!!

This is a perfectly nutty story, as I’ve come to expect by now from Silver Age Jerry Siegel.  At a mere eight pages, it flashes by with agreeable speed, and as “hoax” stories go, it’s less outlandish than many.   It was nice to see Lana in on the plot, as otherwise the whole “write down your secret ID” scene would have reflected very, very badly on her.  As it is, a number of her girlfriends cheer her on, (”Here comes your big moment now, Lana!  Gee, he’s sure become an awful lamebrain!”) Indeed, most of Smallville comes out badly here, making a fuss over stuff that really doesn’t matter and calling Superboy every name in the book.

The art is beautiful, but anyone who’s been here before already knows of my fondness for the Swan/Klein team.  Here they manage to bring to life a varied cast of characters of all ages and walks of life, from kids to old-timers, “pillars of the community” to gangland thugs. Smallville may not be the most loyal or patient town, but in the hands of Swan and Klein it sure looks real.

As Forest Gump might say, comics are like a box of chocolates; you never know what you’re going to get.  This time out, what we got was extra nutty, but still a treat.  But we’re poking around in the Silver Age, so proceed with caution.   You could bite into the one with that icky orange stuff in the middle at any time…

Kryptonite is a tricky thing.  On the one hand, a hero as powerful as Superman needs something to ground him, to keep him from becoming completely invincible and thus unrelatable.  On the other hand, when you make a hero’s nemesis a mere hunk of rock, and make that rock accessible to every two-bit thug and grifter on Earth, you run the risk of swinging too far in the opposite direction, and rendering your hero utterly impotent.

Beyond that, there’s the inherently undynamic nature of facing off against an inanimate mineral.  Superhero tales are spun around battles, conflicts, pulse-pounding showdowns between good and evil, so having  a bullet-racing, locomotive-beating, building-leaping dynamo like the Man of Steel crawl around on the floor for panels on end in front of an inert cobblestone is a pretty big letdown.

Perhaps this helps explain Jerry Siegel and George Papp’s introduction of the Kryptonite Kid in “The Dreams of Doom!” (Superboy #83, Sept 1960).  Maybe they figured creating a kryptonite-powered villain, a walking, talking, taunting bad guy who gives off deadly green-K radiation, would create more interest than a struggle against a lifeless rock.  Personally, after reading the story, I prefer the rock.

The story opens with Clark Kent in bed (glasses and all), tossing and turning in the throes of a horrible nightmare.  In the dream, a green-skinned youth dressed in a pink wife-beater, gym shorts and shower cap taunts Superboy, his green glowing dog at his side: “Ha, Ha! My dog and I will drive you and your pet away from Earth! Our Kryptonite bodies will destroy you both!”

The next morning, a shaken Clark relates his nightmare to Ma and Pa Kent, who reassure him it’s just a dream.  Later, Krypto returns from space and that night he sleeps with Superboy (who goes to bed in costume! Guess he wet the pajamas the night before).  The dream returns, only this time both Superboy and Krypto experience it.  Drawing a picture of the green boy and dog the next morning, Superboy asks Krypto, “if I sketched correctly what you dreamt, bark three times!”  Sure enough, he gets a “Yip! Yip! Yip!” in reply (why it had to be three barks, I don’t know).

The next day, a construction crew is putting in a new playground for the kids of Smallville when they encounter a huge, buried boulder and have to stop.  Superboy and Krypto come to lend a hand but suddenly the mysterious youth and canine from their nightmares appear in the verdant flesh.  In a deadly variation of “the Midas Touch,” the green youth touches a playground slide and turns it to solid Kryptonite.  Beating a hasty retreat, Superboy and Krypto try to take cover in a length of lead pipe, but their foe transmutes the lead to Kryptonite, as well.

The green youth exits the scene, confident he can kill Superboy at his leisure, and reminding him of the warning in the dream; get off the Earth or die.  I should mention here that the boy remains unnamed throughout the story.  Later (although I couldn’t tell you exactly when) he would become known as “Kryptonite Kid,” so that’s what I’ll call him here.

Really spooked now, Clark sends Krypto off to find a good hiding place while Clark himself “hides” in his secret identity, heading off for school.  However, a telepathically transmitted voice tells Clark he will not be going to school today, and a cloaked figure is seen poking out from behind some bushes to touch the school building, which turns — every brick of it — into Kryptonite.  Clark is forced to return home, only to find the Kent’s house, and several others on the block, turned to Kryptonite as well.  Meanwhile in a nearby alley, Krypto is about to dig into a yummy-looking pile of bones when the Kryptonite Dog appears and turns the bones into Kryptonite.

Desperate for a chance to regroup and make a plan of action, Superboy and Krypto rendezvous at “the abandoned Terrill Trailer Camp” on the edge of town, but the Kryptonite Kid locates them with his power of telepathy and moves in for the kill.

I have to say there’s a certain charm to having a super-villain ride a bicycle on his way to a murder.  Note also that Siegel takes care to mention the bike is stolen.  This is logical as of course Kryptonite Kid wouldn’t have his own bike since he’s not from Earth (as we’ll soon learn).  Plus, it helps establish his bonafides as a baddie; if there’s one thing a young reader is sure to hate, it’s a bicycle thief.  Boo! Hiss!  Of course a car would have been faster, but we can’t have him stealing a car since he’s too young to drive, and we don’t want to encourage such dangerous notions, now do we?  Besides, everyone know riding a bike is better for the environment, and you don’t get any “greener” than the Kryptonite Kid.  Hahaha…ahem.  Thanks, folks, I’m here all week.

Cornering Superboy and Krypto, the Kryptonite Kid entertains himself by embuing household items with green-K radiation and throwing them at our beleaguered heroes.  Since time is of the essence, Superboy is sure to stop and explain to us what’s happening.

Superboy seems sure to cash in his chips, but first he wants to know “why?” and so his tormentor explains: Confined to a prison planet for a term that would have claimed “the best years of my life,” the alien juvenile delinquent had volunteered for a dangerous experiment in which he was shot into space in a probe with “a laboratory dog’.  Somewhere on their journey they passed through a strange green cloud and emerged with green skin and the ability to change objects to Kryptonite.  Since the only practical use for this new power would be to kill Kryptonians, they traveled to Earth with the aim of taking it over after the death or exile of Superboy.  Just to twist the knife, they had used their power of telepathy to transmit dreams to Superboy and Krypto warning of their arrival and advising them to clear out.  Since the warnings went unheeded, our heroes will be killed.

This is it, then.  Out-maneuvered and helpless before his foe, Superboy has reached the end of the line.  Or has he?  At the last moment, Kryptonite Kid and his dog disappear — Pop! Pop!  and our heroes are saved.  But how?  Suddenly the young Mxyzptlk pops into view and takes the credit for the last-minute rescue.  Understandably confused, Superboy asks why Mxy — having sworn revenge after their initial encounter in Superboy #78 — didn’t just let them die.

Frankly, I’m not even sure this qualifies as a story.  Superboy is defeated before he begins, outmatched by a foe who embodies Woody Allen’s adage that “eighty percent of success is showing up.”  Only in his case it’s more like 100%; he has only to arrive and the fight is over.  Never does either “combatant” throw a single punch.  The “hero” of the tale spends the entire time running away and at the end he’s saved by a deux ex machina.  Pretty lame.

The concept of a Kryptonite-powered foe had been used before, and with considerably greater impact, in the person of “Atom Man” on the old Adventures of Superman radio show.  There, hero and villain engaged in a titanic, weeks-long battle of wits and brawn culminating in a spectacular fight to the death in the skies outside Metropolis.  Here, Superboy crawls around groaning in front of a kid pretty much the way he would have in front of a lifeless chunk of Green-K.  Big deal.

Nonetheless, it’s kind of amusing to see Superboy cowed by the threat of a Kryptonite sliding board, chair, ash tray and phone book.  It prefigures the ensuing overuse of Kryptonite in countless Justice League adventures and Super-Friends episodes, where the problem of what do with a team member more powerful than the rest of the team combined is solved with an endless parade of Kryptonite rays, sprays, gases, mists, showers, beams, bullets, swords and so on, ad nauseum.

Kryptonite Kid would return for what amounted to a glorified cameo as the adult Kryptonite Man in Superman #199 (1976), in which Superman takes him out with a single punch.  Interestingly, he’s able to do this because he’s temporarily without super-powers, reinforcing the notion that non-powered Kryptonians are invulnerable to Kryptonite.  Later still, the Kryptonite Man would appear briefly in Alan Moore’s “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow,” where he is killed by Krypto at the cost of the dog’s own life.

Bonus points for the George Papp art on “Dreams of Doom,” but on the whole the Kryptonite Kid isn’t much of an addition to the Rogue’s Gallery, as evidenced by his subsequent dearth of appearances.  You have to wonder if even Siegel was that interested in the guy, considering he can’t even be bothered to give him a name.  Incidentally, I still have a lot to read, but so far (”Death of Superman” notwithstanding) I have to say Jerry Siegel is shaping up to be my least favorite Silver Age Superman writer.

Everyone’s favorite cub reporter becomes a cold-blooded killer in Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #103 (July 1967) as writer Leo Dorfman and artist Pete Costanza relate “The Murder of Clark Kent!”

Things begin innocently enough as Jimmy leaves his apartment for another day at the office, only to be accosted by a swarm of paparazzi  asking “how does it feel to win the big prize?”

As the startled Jimmy is escorted to a waiting limousine, he runs through the possibilities with his usual humility.  “They’re probably giving me the Pulitzer for my story exposing that gang of jewel thieves,” he thinks, “or maybe I’ve won the Nobel Peace Prize for using a barrier Superman built to stop a missile war between two rival planets…on the other hand, I might be getting an “Oscar” for the role I played in that Superman movie…”  After a few minutes, it’s getting harder to decide what award he won’t be given.

Before he can decide whether he’s earned the presidency or the Papacy, Jimmy’s reverie is broken as the limousine pulls to the curb to take on another passenger…

Jimmy’s fellow honoree is French scientist Dr Denise Dunois.   She left her lab coat at home, so there’s little indication she’s a brilliant scientist, but you can tell she’s a hot French babe because Costanza draws “motion lines” that have her scooting along the sidewalk with her ankles together as her derriere wiggles.

Anyway, we at least know Jimmy’s prize won’t be coming from any feminist groups when he blurts out, “What kind of award did you win, doll?  Miss Universe of 1967?”  Brilliant scientist or no, Dr Dunois is still a woman, so of course her response is a blushing “You flatter me, Jimmee!”

Jimmy and Dr Dunois are driven to a heavily-guarded mansion, where they’re appalled to find a row of statues honoring the world’s worst villains; John Dillinger, Lucretia Borgia, Mata Hari, Adolph Hitler, Emperor Nero and Genghis Khan among them.  A mustachioed dandy named Maximo takes them to a theater, places golden laurels on their heads and seats them in “thrones of honor,” explaining that they will be treated to live re-enactments of “some noble past deeds of the past which helped inspire today’s awards.”  However, the acts depicted are among the most heinous of history; the stabbing of Julius Caesar, John Wilkes Booth’s assasination of President Abraham Lincoln, the murder of Mahatma Ghandi (who because Costanza is drawing him looks an awful lot like Dr Thaddeus Boddog Sivana) and, incredibly, the killing of JFK.

Jimmy angrily confronts Maximo, who explains, “Brutus, Booth and the others are an inspiration!  But you’ll top them all, Olsen!”

First of all, it’s quite a production that includes an actual working automobile on stage, but the really disturbing thing here is the tackiness of this reference to Kennedy’s death a mere four years after it happened, and while having Lee Harvey Oswald — even if he’s not named directly — referred to as “an inspiration” may establish Maximo’s bonafides as a prize rat, it also leaves a bad taste in the mouth even 40 years on.  During his three years in office, JFK became almost an unofficial supporting player in the Superman titles, showing up more than any other sitting president before or after, and even subbing for Clark Kent once to protect Superman’s identity.  The way his death is trotted out here veers the tale from merely stupid to just plain unseemly, and it never really recovers.

Jimmy demands to know why Maximo would compare him to the worst killers of all time, and is pointed to yet another scene on stage, a dramatization showing Jimmy killing Superman with a kryptonite ray gun.  Jimmy angrily responds that he would never do such a thing, but then a strange mist enters the room, and when Superman unexpectedly appears, Jimmy grabs the ray gun and shoots him with it, then beats him up before coming to his senses.  Of course “Superman” is revealed as a crook in disguise.

Maximo explains that breathing in the mist caused Jimmy’s attack on “Superman”, but says he’ll kill the genuine article of his own volition, without mind control.  He then shows Jimmy films illustrating how Superman has been “double-crossing you for years” by giving all the best “scoops” to Lois Lane.  “Did your super-chum ever tell you the location of his fortress?” presses Maximo.  “Did he ever reveal his other identity to you?”  When Jimmy protests that Superman can’t share these, his biggest secrets, Maximo answers, “Batman knows them…and Robin…and Supergirl!”

To “prove” Jimmy secretly hates Superman, Maximo has him grab the handles of an “Emotion Analyzer,” which he explains, “works like a lie detector”.  The “Emotion Analyzer” is essentially a trumped-up version of the old coin-operated “Love Detector” machines found at fairs and in front of K-Marts, with a needle that points to readings from “Love” to “Hate” with a few stops in between.  When Jimmy holds the handles and thinks of Superman, the needle jumps to “Hate” and Maximo crows, “The Analyzer never lies.”  Well, there you are, then.

For whatever reason, Jimmy decides to play along.  “Okay I admit it, I’d give plenty kill Superman!”  Just as he utters this (faked) sentiment, Maximo uses a remote control to send a signal to the golden laurel on his head (if you forgot Jimmy’s wearing the laurel, that’s okay, since Costanza does too about half the time).  An electronic impulse causes Jimmy to repeat his words over and over…”kill Superman…kill Superman…” and thus brainwash himself.   Maximo commands Jimmy to go the Daily Planet and retrieve a “secret list of kryptonite caches” from the desk of Clark Kent.

Luckily for Maximo, there’s a butterfly handy to demonstrate the power of his shock-gun.  Not so lucky for the butterfly, but considering it flies about as awkwardly as Dr Dunois walks, we’ll look on it as a mercy killing.

At the office, Jimmy pries open Clark’s desk and finds the list of kryptonite caches, only to be discovered when Clark walks in the room demanding, “Jimmy what’s the idea?  That list could mean disaster if Superman’s enemies got hold of it!” (Exactly.  So it’s a good thing you keep it in a desk and let the world know it’s there instead of, oh I don’t know, maybe stashing it in a vault in the Fortress of Solitude and not telling anyone.  Or better yet, using that super-memory instead of writing the blamed list in the first place)

Jimmy turns the anti-butterfly gun on Clark, apparently killing him.

Of course we know Clark’s not really dead, just playing possum.  Besides, what real killer would say “Holy Cats”?

Maximo and his men pack Clark into a crate and throw it off a cliff into the sea.  Once underwater, Clark breaks out of the crate and changes to Superman but instead of pursuing Jimmy and the crooks he flies off into space on “a far more vital mission” he just remembered.  Uh-huh.

Maximo’s flunkies are sent off to retrieve the kryptonite from the locations on Clark’s list, while back at the gang’s headquarters, Dr Dunois’s involvement is finally explained.  It seems she’s invented a “time-coil” that allows “any non-living matter” to be sent through the time barrier to the date of one’s choice.  Demonstrating the device, she projects on the wall an image of Paul Revere on his famous midnight ride through Boston on the night of April 18,1775.  When Revere’s horse suddenly loses a shoe, Jimmy sees a chance to test the claim that objects can be sent through time.

Of course, the “horse-shoe” magnet Jimmy finds just happens to fit Revere’s steed perfectly, and why wouldn’t it?  Revere continues on with his ride and America is saved, earning Jimmy a big kiss from Dr Dunois.

Maximo offers to clear Jimmy of Clark’s murder if he’ll persuade Superman to travel back in time to 2pm, Dec 22, 1439.  “And don’t worry,” he says, “you know nothing in the past can harm him!”  Jimmy agrees, but on his way out to his meeting with Superman he stops at the gang’s “Anti-Superman Arsenal” and grabs a mysterious “Gamma Weapon,” which based on comments he’s overheard “could probably wipe out Superman!  I must keep it out of their murdering hands.”

At the Daily Planet, Jimmy is confronted by Superman, who tells him Clark hasn’t been seen in two days and produces Clark’s clothes and glasses, which he says he found floating in the sea.  He asks Jimmy what he knows about it as  he is “believed to be the last person to see him alive!”  For a moment, Jimmy panics and reaches into his briefcase for the Gamma Weapon to kill Superman, but then thinks better of it.  Instead he produces a faked documented created by Maximo and tells Superman it bears the account of an explorer who claimed to have seen the Abominable Snowman on Mount Everest in 1439.

Clark, he says, was trying to verify the authenticity of the document to save the reputation of a historian who’s presented it as genuine. Superman agrees to check it out and flies off to the past.

Using Dr Dunois’ device, the gang peers into 1439 to see Superman heading for a trap on Mt Everest.  It is revealed that Dr Dunois was forced to send the stockpile of retrieved kryptonite to that exact time and place, where it lies hidden beneath the snow, waiting to kill Superman while he’s trapped centuries away from anyone who could possibly rescue him. Just as he lands, the image from the Time Coil is lost, but the villains still rejoice, certain he’s dead.

Jimmy snaps and tears into the villains with fists flailing.  Overwhelmed by his berserker rage, they retreat to the Anti-Superman Arsenal and begin using their weapons against Jimmy and Dr Dunois.  Jimmy remembers he still has the Gamma Weapon and throws it at them, but to his disappointment it only seems to stun them (remember, though, that he thought it would destroy Superman, so we can assume he was willing to kill these guys).  Then Superman shows up, to the great surprise of Maximo, and does his customary mopping up.

Jimmy reveals that he re-wrote the document used to lure Superman into the past.  Superman caught on immediately when he saw that the scroll, supposedly written in 1439, called the peak “Mt Everest,” a name it wouldn’t get until 1844.  A line that read “Beware! Evil eyes are watching” tipped him off that he was being monitored,” while the line, “Doom awaits you at ye top of ye mighty mountain” warned him there would be a trap.  Meanwhile, as the scene unfolded on the Time Coil, Jimmy had sent a secret signal to Dr Dunois…

Acting quickly, she had used the device to move the kryptonite one day forward in time, making Everest safe for Superman to land on.

Superman congratulates Jimmy for getting out of his pickle, but confesses he was worried when his x-ray vision spotted the Gamma Weapon in Jimmy’s briefcase earlier in the story, knowing (somehow) that it would have turned him into “a prehistoric Kryptonian caveman.”  Racing to the next room, they get a surprise…

Jimmy confesses to the murder of Clark Kent, but Superman assures him Clark is not dead. Sure enough, Clark meets Jimmy later at the Planet offices and explains that he was only stunned. I confess I half-expected him to say the ray was deflected by a butterfly he kept in his shirt pocket.

And thus ends the story.  I think it’s safe to say that, like the devolved Maximo and his cronies, we are all a tad mentally diminished for having experienced it.  At this point, we are at least 3 years away from the arrival of Jack Kirby on the Jimmy Olsen title.  It must have seemed like an eternity for anyone around at the time.

In Action Comics #349 (April 1967), Superman encounters a mysterious foe known as “The Mummy,” eventually revealed as an even greater threat, Dr. Kryptonite.

The story (possibly written by Leo Dorfman, guesses the Grand Comics Database, and definitely drawn by Wayne Boring) begins with an introduction to Intercrime, the “international crime syndicate and foe of Interpol.”  In the organization’s secret lab, a devious project is being launched, and though it’s been christened “Project Green,” we can already guess it would not win the approval of Al Gore.

Months later,  Intercrime’s S.P.E.C.T.R.E. -like attempt to hijack a U.N. plane full of “doomsday weapons” is thwarted by Superman, and the evil organization’s top man is furious (like all good evil geniuses, he’s bald of course, and the hijack if successful would have netted him…say it with me now in your best Dr. Evil voice…”one MILLION dollars.”)  Eager for some positive news, he demands to know what progress is being made on Project Green, so the doctor in charge takes him to see for  himself.

As the doctor reveals, the plan is to create a Kryptonite Man by gradually replacing every drop of blood in a crook’s body with liquid kryptonite.  As they visit the volunteer patient, however, “a severe physiological reaction to the kryptonite ions in his bloodstream” kills the man.  The doctor is confident, however, that with modifications the process will work, and volunteers himself as the next guinea pig.  If he succeeds, he’ll pocket a 2 million dollar reward.

That’s right…I’ll live like a king! A king, I say! Pretty girls and all the coconuts I can eat! Mwahhahahaha!  Untold months later, the process is complete and the evil scientist presents himself to the assembled heads of Intercrime, ready to launch his attack on the Man of Steel.

As a test of his new powers, “Dr. Kryptonite” decides to lure Krypto into a trap; if he can weaken Superman’s pet, he reasons, he should be able to defeat the Action Ace as well.  Krypto is easy enough to locate; the lead story on the front page  of the Daily Planet (in giant type, naturally) reports that Krypto will be attending the graduation ceremonies at “K-9 College,” a school for dogs (another slow news day in Metropolis, I guess).

From his thought balloons, we learn Krypto is more than an honored guest at the graduation; he apparently was the instructor at the school, teaching the other dogs to run an obstacle course and to defeat human sparring partners in the role of “intruders.”  After the ceremony, Dr. Kryptonite, dressed like one of the “intruders”, pretends to sneak into an administration building (where, no doubt, the rest of the dog faculty take their breaks for coffee and Milk Bones), making sure to do it in plain sight of Krypto.  The super-dog responds as expected, zooming in to stop the “burglary.”

Okay, time out.  Are dog training secrets really so valuable that criminals are out to steal them?  And if Krypto’s the teacher, what good would any course notes or curriculum materials do you, when they’d all be “written” in paw prints?  Also, this is as good a time as any to mention that Wayne Boring draws the most hideous, gruesome dogs in all of comics.  Krypto has a weird, elongated body, the neck of a horse, bulbous eyes, the face of a gargoyle and a tongue that hangs five inches out of the end of his mouth every. minute. of. the. day.  The other dogs in the story look exactly like him, just different colors.

Anyway, Dr Kryptonite removes a glove and Krypto is immediately weakened.  Dr K takes him back to Intercrime HQ and considers killing him before deciding he’s worth more as bait to lure in Superman.

That night, Superman is putting on a demonstration wrestling bout against multiple foes when a surprise contestant enters the fray.  Wrapped from head to toe in bandages (which Superman notices are “saturated with lead, so my X-ray vision can’t see who he is”) and calling himself  “The Mummy,”  the mystery wrestler  unwraps one lead-wrapped finger, exposing a bit of kryptonite skin, and makes short work of Superman.

The next day The Mummy calls a press conference to announce how he defeated Superman, and Clark Kent attends.  Removing his bandages, The Mummy is revealed as Dr Kryptonite, who tells the assembled journalists he is “a scientist…an admirer of Superman.  I was searching for a Kryptonite antidote when my experiment backfired.”  In the rear of the room, Clark is overcome by the Green K radiation and falls to the floor.  Using his super-breath to draw the discarded “mummy” bandages toward him, he wraps himself from head to toe, counting on the lead shielding to protect him from the Kryptonite.

In the following week, a crime wave hits Metropolis, and at every turn Superman finds himself running into Dr Kryptonite, who apparently just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, again and again.  First, Superman is unable to pursue bank robbers when Dr K turns up (”I just came in to make a deposit!”).  Then he has to break off his pursuit of escaped convicts in a stolen armored truck when Dr K shows up on the same stretch of road in his convertible (”But I was just going out for a drive!”)  Finally, Superman is unable to stop the theft of a new Navy weapon when Dr K appears on a nearby boat (”I just happened to be fishing here!”)

Incidentally, here’s a look at that top-secret weapon:

Yes, by Gum, this time those boys in the lab have outdone themselves!  Those Commies will never expect a satellite that travels underwater!  I know what you’re thinking; how are we going to get high-altitude photos of Soviet installations now?  Not to worry, our next project is an Army tank on stilts!

Tired now of toying with Superman, Dr K prepares his end game.  He sends Krypto’s cape to the Daily Planet along with a note to Superman, telling him to come to Crater Mountain if he wants to save his dog.  Suspecting a trap, our hero first dons a lead suit with a TV camera on the outside and a monitor within, allowing him to see without eye slits.  Dr K is ready for him, however, and uses a laser rifle to cut open the lead suit “like a super can opener”.

As Krypto looks on, his helpless master is beaten silly by Dr Kryptonite until the unexpected (and timely) arrival of a flying saucer.  Aliens emerge and Superman recognizes them as residents of “the vegetation world, Flordis, which I once visited.”  The aliens approach Dr Kryptonite, saying, “There he is…the captive king who fled our homeworld! Earth’s environment must have altered his shape, but his green color shows his chlorophyll make-up is still unchanged!” They subdue him with “compulser rays” and stick him in a cell to return him to their world as Superman and Krypto look on.

Okay, this is one of those times I really wish comics came with sound, because Superman’s voice has got to be dripping with false sympathy there.  I mean, look at him, clearly standing up (as he has been since two panels ago) and saying, “Love to help you, pal, but I’m just too weak to get up!”  Wow, that’s cold.  What do you want to bet he never bothers to make a follow-up visit to Flordis again, either, even though he’s already told us he knows how to get there?

As the ship flies away and Dr Kryptonite’s cries for help echo in the sky, Superman turns to Krypto: “What’s he complaining about?  He wanted to be a king, didn’t he?….What irony! Because he was green, as they are, they thought he too, was a plant being!”  Yeah, mighty cocky there, Supes, for a guy who was having his head handed to him before that last-minute reprieve from left field.  Just be grateful those guys didn’t stumble across the Hulk first…or Kermit.

Anxious to show what a tough guy he is despite losing every single fight in the story, Superman yells out a threat to his tormentors at Intercrime, as psychotic hellhound Krypto makes his best “scary” face.  Or maybe it’s his friendly face, with Boring it’s hard to tell:

Luckily, this time there actually was someone watching on a monitor somewhere, but trust me the old “yelling threats at unseen foes” routine made for some pretty awkward moments in the long haul.  In fact, it’s pretty much why Lana Lang eventually stopped agreeing to dinner dates in nicer restaurants.

So, what to say about this story?  I applaud any effort to come up with an opponent who’s a physical match for Superman, but the “battles” in this story are so lopsided they always disappoint.  Superman never once gets his licks in and “triumphs” at story’s end not by strength or brainpower but sheer, dumb luck.

In all, this Mummy tale is more trick than treat.  Extra Halloween points, though, for giving us not one but two mummies, one of which even flies!