Thursday, April 15, 2010

Chief Parker Reminisces!


After fixing that ol' Double-L sign for the Shakespeare Festival, Superman as Clark Kent reports to work at the Daily Planet, to find he's been assigned to ... investigate himself!
Actually, it's more of an "untold story" kind of assignment. Perry White figures there's a market for a series of reminiscences about Superboy from Smallville residents. So, it's off to Smallville for Lois & Clark, to interview first retired Chief of Police Parker, and then the current residents of Lex Luthor's boyhood home.
All of this is prelude to an excuse for CK to win an award and become so happy he's "walking on air" -- oops! for real! Yes, suddenly Kent is airborne, accidentally! Only his quick action in whipping up a mini-tornado with his super-breath gives him an excuse for that inconvenient levitation.
What next!?! What's behind this? Stay tuned.
Inter alia ... Please pause to enjoy the fine Curt Swan art. Chief Parker looks just as Swan portrays him in Superboy, only even more codgerish. And the folks living in Luthor's old home are great examples of Curt Swan's talents for portraying everyday, salt-of-the-Earth types. The guy's in his everyday suspenders, and the Mrs. looks pleased as punch that they're getting attention from these big-city reporters.
And Lois never looked more lovely! In the first panel, her curves -- va-va-voom! And in the next-to-last panel, as the cocks one eyebrow and looks over her shoulder towards Clark -- this is one smart gal who knows something's a little wonky with this guy.
See you again soon!

Monday, April 12, 2010

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Well, I had to type that Photobucket link by hand, so I hope it's right!

Today, in our page-by-page survey of Superman 171, we begin the second of its three stories. According to the Comic-Book Database, Jerry Siegel wrote it. As you can tell by the masterful lines, Curt Swan provided the art. What a team!

Here we have the beginning of "The Curse of Magic," with the splash panel providing a pretty good clue what's going on.

In a pretty similar fashion to those extraterrestrial creeps from the first story, ol' Mxyzptlk just swoops in with his own agenda, and damned be the consequences.

Our story begins with Superman swooping by to perform a small service for a theatre owner whose sign was damaged in a wind storm. Hmmm, the two "L"s in "William" were dislodged. What a strange twist of fate!

This provides Superman with the chance to ruminate on that weird ol' double-L confluence that he notices so much.

Next time, we'll get into the meat of the tale, with a visit from a little ol' sociopath from the 5th Dimension!
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