SupermanFan.Net

It’s time we revisited the 70s. This was my recap of Kneel to Your Conqueror, Superman. Here I’ve included scans from the comic.

Brilliant art by Swan and Anderson, and a crisp, compact story by Leo Dorfman.

The story opens…

Clark is sent by Edge to tape a video special about an institute of top scientists. Crossing a mountain range in his mobile TV van on his way to the institute, Clark is caught in a powerful earthquake. His super-vision reveals that the epicentre of the quake is directly under the scientific institute, threating to topple the complex off the side of its mountain home.

Clark switches to Superman and does some nifty (and beautifully-drawn) repairs to some unstable underground caverns, then flies up to the institute to calm what he thinks will be scientific staff in a panic.

But the staff of the institute are perfectly calm. The earthquake was halted by Superman at precisely the moment predicted by Rufus Caesar, the greatest mathematical genius in the country, top advisor and strategist for the Pentagon and space administration, among others.

Superman joins Caesar at Caesar’s own estate where the scientific mastermind reveals he is fanatically obsessed with Superman. Superman is his idol, and Caesar has a Superman souvenir collection containing various extraordinary items, including the damaged head of a salvaged Superman robot.

Superman asks, “And what’s this empty platform for?”

Caesar: “I’ve reserved it for the most valuable trophy in my collection. I hope to get it someday soon.”

Superman is flattered by all this hero-worship from such a brilliant scientist. He is handed damaged optical lenses from the salavaged head of the Superman robot.

Caesar: “If you glance through them with your x-ray vision, you might recharge their vision powers!”

Superman: “I’d be happy to try.”

Superman fits the optical lenses headpiece over his head and activates his x-ray vision.

He is suddenly in agony and literally frozen to the spot, the optics headpiece having been rigged by Caesar to amplify Superman’s own vision power into a paralysing force.

Caesar then attaches scientific devices to the Man of Steel, designed to siphon off Superman’s powers (much like what was happening to Superman in the “Sandman Saga,” but this time, rather than it all being due to an act of fate and nature, the power-drain would be deliberate and calculated).

Seated at another device, Caesar (to the protests of his manservant) begins to deliberately siphon the powers of Superman into himself.

Firstly, with Superman fighting the drain mentally, Caesar absorbs the Man of Steel’s super-strength. The mad genius goes from being a scrawny, skinny little man to one “pulsing with super-strength!” He squeezes lumps of coal into diamonds to test his super-grip.

As he had told Superman: “This transvector…will siphon off your powers and feed them into my own body. I want to be a hero like you… someone all Earth admires… a super being…”

Against Superman’s helpless rage, he then drains the hero’s vision powers.

Superman: “Everything’s going… black…”

With telescopic vision, Caesar sees a damaged cable car in imminent danger of falling, taking the passengers to their deaths. Superman is beside himself with worry, but as Caesar says, “Worried, eh, Superman? No need to! As an old fan of yours, I know exactly what to do!”

He absorbs flying power next and goes sailing around the room, euphoric. Then, intending to smash through the wall to fly to the rescue of the cable car, Caesar nearly kills himself in a devastating collision with the wall of the room.

As his constantly disapproving manservant says, “Master… you were too hasty! You forgot… you haven’t acquired invulnerability yet!”

Caesar, nursing an injured head, decides to absorb all of Superman’s remaining super-powers without delay. But first he dresses himself in a superhero costume of his own design, based partly on the garb of Superman and partly on the dress of an ancient Roman Caesar.

Caesar: “…I am about to become…emperor over all the Earth!”

He says to the helpless Superman, “With my brain and your powers, people will be idolizing me as they did you! The whole world will be shouting… HAIL CAESAR!”

Superman (thinking): “I did this! By allowing people to hero-worship me, I inspired him to become an egotistical, power-hungry maniac!”

Now Caesar attempts to drain all of Superman’s remaining powers - but it appears Superman, by using all his will power to try and stop the siphoning, is interfering with the power drain.

Caesar: “Ah… you’re fighting me, Superman! But not even your superb mentality can stop the siphon effect of my transvector completely! I can feel your powers ebbing… slowly into me!”

Superman: “Then I do have some control over the power flow!”

With the transvector mechanism shaking and humming, Superman takes the opposite tack - he relaxes, and lets his power flow freely and mightily through the machine into Caesar.

Caesar’s body begins to shake and swell, literally ballooning with the intake of super power. “My body… can’t take this ghastly pressure!” The power flow into Caesar reaches a critical point. “My molecular structure can’t adjust quickly enough!”

He barks at his manservant to throw the cut-off switch, but in the panic the manservant messes with the wrong switch which activates the “reversal relays.” The power begins to flow rapidly back into Superman.

Breaking free of the paralysis, Superman rips himself from the mechanism and speeds off to save the cable car.

When Superman returns to apprehend Caesar, it turns out that the power drain back into the Man of Steel took Caesar’s own brain and life energies with it, leaving Caesar a wasted, mindless vegetable.

Much later, Clark and Morgan Edge are discussing the video feature Clark made about the scientists, which included the sorry story of Caesar. As Clark is leaving the office, Edge ponders Superman’s triumph over Caesar: “Yes, [Clark's] pal, Superman, may be smart enough to stop ordinary criminals… but when the time comes, he’ll be no match for me.”

Kneel to Your Conqueror, Superman
Story: Leo Dorfman
Pencils: Curt Swan
Inks: Murphy Anderson
From:
Action Comics #404 (September 1971)
All Favourites Comic No. 98 (1973)

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 12th, 2008 at 6:53 PM and is filed under Aldous, review. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.