Wuxtry! Wuxtry! Superman Snuffs Clark Kent!

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OK -- to satisfy those amoral aliens' decree that he kill someone or they will destroy Earth, Superman has tried to kill himself with Kryptonite; his friends have tried to kill themselves for him; and now Superman's Clark Kent persona has been sacrificed, in front a a worldwide TV audience.

Will that satisfy the outworlders?

Evidently so, even though we also discover that they knew Superman was Kent all along.

The whole thing was a bet between Sorban and Rokk over a lucky Prothey Tail, whatever that is. The bet was whether or not they could force Superman to kill somebody, thus breaking the Superman Code. Yes, these evil psychos caused all this grief and emotional torture for Superman and company over for a wager over a good-luck charm!

Not only that, but Sorban, the winner, is victorious because he bet that Superman wouldn't commit murder.

Over such a silly, worthless thing, Superman's Clark Kent disguise is now history.

What next? Stay tuned ...

Superman, the Hypocritical Heel!

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After sprinkling fairy dust -- oops, I mean cactus juice -- over Lana Lang and rescuing her from the fatal crystalline effects of Professor Potter's flawed suspended-animation device, Superman is running out of options, and time.

The Earth only has a few hours left before the mind powers of the evil aliens Sorban and Rokk crush it into cosmic dust.

The only way to stop that outcome, they've told Supes, is if he -- the defender of life on Earth -- if he kills somebody!

Well, he's tired of endangering the lives of his friends, and risking the lives of all Earth's people, by dithering around. There's one option left.

Thus it is that the world soon sees Clark Kent chained to a petal pole at Ground Zero of an A-Bomb test. Moreover, the automated cameras are wired for sound, and pick up Kent's howls that it was Superman who chained him there!

The last panel of this page from Superman 171 depicts an awed TV audience seeing Kent swallowed up in the explosion.

Now, you and I, dear reader, know that CK is really Superman. But what will the aliens do next? Has this ruse satisfied their dictate?

See you soon for the answer!

A Baptism Into the Andes Cactus Church?

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When last we left Superman, Sorban and Rokk had thwarted his attempts to kill himself to fulfill their demands that he slay somebody -- anybody -- on Earth, or else they willblow up our world. When Superman tells his Planet pals about the evil edict, Lois gets the idea to sacrifice herself by using a new suspended-animation invention of Professor Potter's.

As you can see in today's page from Superman 171, Lois is too late! Lana had beat Lois to the punch as sacrificial lamb -- only to be expected, perhaps, since Professor Potter is, after all, Lana's uncle.

And, as with many of Potter's inventions, this one has a slight problem -- instead of slipping you into a short century-long nap, it instead turns you into a very-dead crystalline statue of yourself. Professor Potter's Perfectly Petrifying Panjandrum!

Of course, both Lana and Lois knew that the device was a one-way ticket to eternity -- how else could they fulfill the aliens' death wish?

However, Superman's super-vision reads through Potter's notes to discover the antidote to crystallization, a certain rare Andes cactus. Just look at Superman squeeze that cactus!

And look at Superman baptize Lana with cactus juice. Well, he has saved her -- but still needs to produce one dead body or Rokk and Sorban will blow up Earth! What next!?!

Stay tuned!