Superman Explains His Radical Honesty

It's the end of the final story in Superman #176, "Superman's Day of Truth!"  We learned that Superman and Supergirl spent the day being brutally honest in honor of a Kryptonian holidy.  This celebration commemorated Val-Lor, who once stood up for freedom against Kryptonian invaders, even though he was killed for it.   His honesty inspired a revolt that chased the occupying Vrangs from Krypton.

As he explains his super-powered fudging that allowed him to SAY the truth even if the puny Earthlings couldn't understand it, Lois asks him, what about when you told the world your Fortress's location?

Aha! he informs them.  That's the middle of the ocean, where he ONCE did indeed have a fortress.  (This was in 1958's Action #244, "Superman's Undersea Kingdom.")

And so, our story comes to an end with the supporting cast understanding the reasons behind "Superman's Day of Truth!"  Typically, the final panel depicts our noble hero departing while Lois and Lana *sigh* dreamily.

The next page in this issue contains a DC house ad, touting the upcoming The Flash 80-Page Giant that, for some of us, was our generation's introduction to "Flash of Two Worlds!" and the concept of parallel Earths.

The bottom half is one of those typical "start a hobby" ads.

See you Monday for the final pages of this comic!
   

MA-30 - Visitations

It's another compilation of Space-Age silliness in song form.

1 -   Introduction    Frank Stranges   

2 -   Flying Saucer  The Solid Senders   1952

3 -   Rocking to the Moon To-Night     Big Charles Green With Lil' Dusty Fletcher & His Front Page Clefs         1958

4 -   Satellite No. 2  Carl Mann    1958

5 -   Minus One-Blast Off      Sonics  1958

6 -   Moon Man   Gloria Lambert 1959

7 - Cruise to the Moon The Chaperones 1960

8 - On the Dark Side of the Moon Frank Comstock 1962

9 - Orbit Twist Joyce Songer and Rufus Shoffner 1962

10 - Les Martiens Arrivent Les Guitares 1963

11 - Rocket to the Moon Glen Holden's Astro-Notes 1964

12 - Space Race Ho-Dads 1964

13 - Country Music on the Moon Jack Broadwell 1964

14 - Do the Robot Marveluss Mickey and The Rock-a-Sonics 1965

15 - Purple People Eater Screaming Lord Sutch 1966

16 - Rocket Ship The Lost   1967

17 - Quasar 45   Sun Lightning Incorporated 1969

18 - Space Truckin’ Deep Purple 1972

19 - Flash Queen 1980

20 -  Fred from Jupiter Digette 1984

21 -  Dance of the Planets The Chromatics 1991

22 -  Martian Girl  The Aquabats 1997

23 -  Planet of the Apes Frankenstein Drag Queens from Planet 13 2001

24 -  Astrouniverse Kay Weaver 2002

25 -  Invaders from Mars Shock Therapy 2003

26 -  I Married a Monster from Outer Space The Tables 2003

27 -  Space Girl The Phenomenauts 2005

28 -  Space Invaders Pornophonique 2007

29 - In My Spaceship Jan Turkenburg 2009

30 - Space Ship in My Garden Jessica Dowdall 2009

31 -  Conclusion Frank Stranges

The intro and outro are sound bites from the man who, like Doctor Friedrich von Frankenstein in Young Frankenstein, is both famous ... and infamous.   One of the earliest UFO theorizers of the modern era, Dr Frank Stranges was a Christian minister who also claimed inside knowledge of Saucer inhabitants.

He also claimed to have attended a meeting at the Pentagon between military types and Saucer Commander Valiant Thor.

Now, with the solemn knowledge of the vastnesses of space (between a pair of human ears), I present to you MA-30 - Visitations. NEW 2021 LINK

  

Another Reason Why Kryptonians Are Better Than Humans

Now we will learn the secret behind "Superman's Day of Truth!" as narrated in Superman #176 from 1965.  It seems that Superman and Supergirl have been going around today, saying THE ABSOLUTE UNVARNISHED TRUTH, with no regard to social niceties or people's feelings.

Now, they have descended into the shrunken last city of Krypton, Kandor, to participate in a mysterious ceremony with all of the Kandorians.

It begins with the reading from a mysterious Book of Deeds, and tells of how, thousands of years ago, the peaceful Kryptonians had been invaded by the warlike Vrangs.

The Vrangs look like humanoid rats, don't they?  They have lots of fun making the peaceful Kryptonians fight in arena-style games, and using them as slave labor to mine the Jewel Mountains.  They provide only the barest minimal sustenance.  "Its far better than you Kryptonian slaves deserve!" one of the captors says.

(Kinds of sounds like a day in the life of a US taxpayer enslaved by Congress, regulations, and Presidential orders-by-fiat.)

Finally, after years -- YEARS -- of this, one man stands up for his basic rights of liberty and self-determination.  As you might have guessed from the beginning of this narration from the Book of Deeds, his name is Val-Lor.  He speaks the feelings of all enslaved people to his oppressors:  "I hate you and I wish you were dead!"

As you would expect, the Vrangs deal harshly with this upstart.

But what's this?  The murder of Val-Lor has brought his fellow slaves to a remembering of their freeborn state.  A great rebellion sweeps across Krypton, and (after many deaths) the Vrang are swept from Krypton.

As the ceremony honoring Val-Lor draws to its end, it's up to Superman and Supergirl to go back to their friends and explain their actions on this day of "total truth."  That will be covered on our next instalment.

First, I want to think again about the (fictional, I grant you) story of Val-Lor and how his truthtelling inspired his fellows.  Krypton became free again!  And all because one man stood up and told the truth -- that slavery is wrong.

Now, you can read all sorts of allegories into this tale.  Certainly the "standing for truth" angle is applicable to nearly all human struggles.

However, we Earthlings don't have it as simple. We don't have the luxury of fending off an invading alien race.  No, our oppressions come from each other.  And sometimes we are both oppressed and oppressor.

Sermon over.  Let's get out there and tell the truth, ameliorated by kindness!

The rest of this story on Friday.

   

Secrets Behind Inconvenient Truth-Telling

In these important panels from 1965's Superman #176, we begin to learn the causes for "Superman's Day of Truth!"

After Superman and Supergirl have demonstrated that today they will tell the honest, unblemished truth -- direct truth unshaded by normal conversational pleasantries -- then a few of the charatcers in this story decide to take advantage of this unexpected veracity.

First, Superman is in court to testify against a typical lowlife scum -- ahem, I mean, against a citizen who has the presumption of innocence -- when the creep's canny lawyer decides to ask (totally irrelevantly) Superman what his Secret Identity is.  Using that super-fast brain of his, Our Hero agrees that he's write it on a chalkboard once only.

And, "Fssstt!"  super-speed and super-friction come into play.  Outfoxed you, smart guy!  Nevertheless, the shyster comes back demanding the location of Superman's "secret Fortress of Solitude!"  As we all know from our fan tradition (and also from the story earlier in THIS VERY ISSUE), Superman's Fortress of Solitude is in the arctic near the North Pole.

HERE is the location given by Superman in his testimony, according to Google Maps:

... Of course, we kids wouldn't know that.  We would have just cringed at the idea of the Fortress's location being public, and then gone on to the next panel.

These next panels depict another attempt by sneaky Lois-and-Lana to trap Superman into "deciding" between them.  Of course, any super-shout that's so loud they cannot understand it, might also permanently damage their hearing, eh?

That little bit of sidestepping out of the way, Superman meets Supergirl in his Fortress, and they descend into Kandor for "the ceremonies."

What better place for "ceremonies" related to truth-telling, than Kandor?  (Think "candor.")  And now, in this accidentally preserved piece of Old Krypton, we the readers begin to learn the secret behind the truth-telling rules.  We learn of the ancient Book of Deeds, from which "the Elder" reads the lore of "Val-Lor, greatest hero of our home planet, Krypton!"  Quite a catchy name for a man of valor, you will agree.

Now we learn of an untold era in Kryptonian history, when Superman's home planet was invaded by the Vrangs in their flying saucer-like space ships.

(When I read the Vrangs' opinion of Kryptonian society -- "like sheep!  They know nothing of war!" -- I'm reminded of John Philpot Curran's statement, "The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt."  -- or, as they say, "Freedom isn't free.")

As we will learn in our next instalment, the price paid by the Kryptonians for their non-vigilance was indeed slavery.  Also, we'll learn what an ancient invasion of Krypton has to do with Superman and Supergirl telling the truth, TODAY.


See you Wednesday!