What the heck is going on in Action?

Can someone explain what I should be assuming in Action comics?

Less than a year ago, someone accidentally dropped the bottle city of Kandor in the Fortress of Solitude. Now the bottle city of Kandor is (a) in one piece; (b) in Brainiac's ship; and (c) has different people in it.

Is this a different bottle city of Kandor?

Does that last bottle city of Kandor not exist any more?

Is it the same bottle, but with new and exciting residents from Argo City in it?

What assumptions should I be making here?

Maybe You DO Need A Weatherman To Know Which Way The Wind Blows

Dear Ma and Pa Kent,

You are certainly very good parents to your son Clark, but your basic farming skills need to be improved. As is very clear from Action #866, you have failed to notice that your weather vane is busted. Only the ROOSTER is supposed to turn in the wind. If the whole darned thing turns, then -- as you can see -- the rooster is always pointing "West" no matter which way the wind is coming from.

Kryptonians Attack! (Action #8: Cover Date January 1939)

When I'm feeling uninspired, I can always find my muse with a solid Golden Age Superman story.

Characters:

Main Hero: Superman

Main Villain: Gimpy

Others of Ambiguous Morality: Neighborhood Ruffians, the U. S. Military

P'Shat

Scene I: Frankie Marello is sentenced to the boys' reformatory for assaulting and battery after a robbery. His mother pleads that his son is a good boy in an underprivileged environment, but to no avail. Reporter Clark Kent agrees, and thinks there is more to the story when he hears Marello's friends complaining that "Gimpy" didn't show.

Scene II: At Gimpy's pawn shop, we learn that Gimpy pays the boys to bring him stolen goods. The boys go to attack Gimpy, but he gives them leads on addresses to rob, and they leave him. Gimpy calls the police to get the boys arrested before they come back, but Superman breaks in and gives him an hour to get out of town, and then drops him in a vat of tar that is happily sitting in the pawn shop. (I wonder who was so hard up for cash that they pawned their barrel of tar!)

Scene III: At the houses of the elite, the cops are on the watch for robbers, and see the boys try to break in. Superman breaks up the arrests and rescues the boys from facing the consequences of their actions. After stopping Gimpy in his attempts for revenge, Superman convinces the boys to pursue constructive pursuits instead of crime. ("If bein' clean an' honest is yer code then its gonna be ours, too.")

Scene IV: After seeing that the government is helping to rebuild Florida cities after a cyclone, Superman decides that the poor would be better off if he acted like a cyclone and destroyed the slums. He tells everyone to evacuate, and then destroys the entire area. The National Guard is brought in to stop him, but to no avail, and the air assault merely destroys the buildings faster. The slums are soon replaced with sparkling, new housing projects for the poor. The police chief is secretly happy that Superman destroyed the town.

Drash

See, people who don't understand the glory of Golden Age comics should be forced to re-read this story from Action 8. It has absolutely everything, including everything that is wonderful and everything that is ridiculous about liberal politics, all in a story that is only 13 pages long.

In the beginning, a court scene where crime is blamed on "society" rather than criminal. Clark Kent recognized that the underprivileged kids in the underclass are given few options, and as a result resort to crime.

At the end, the most reductionist and silly analysis of the cure for urban poverty -- new apartments. In the world according to Superman, the problem of poverty isn't lack of money, it's low-quality housing. If the unemployed and poor were taken out of their slums and put into up-to-date high-rise apartments, then everything will be better. The fact that the poor won't have the money to maintain their apartments, and will have turned in low-rise slums for the high-rise "projects" of the 1960s and 1970s never occurs to him -- at least not before he single-handedly destroys an entire neighborhood.

So, while I am still of the view that "Amazons Attack!" has so far provided a pretty flimsy rationale for the Amazons to completely destroy Washington, D.C. and kill all the men in their way, it is not the most irrational destruction of a major American city by erstwhile heroes.

Spirit #5, Action #6, and the True Story of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Lew Alicindor was a famous basketball player who was the best player in the NCAA when he played for UCLA in the late 1960s. In 1971, after playing a few years in the NBA, Mr. Alcindor legally changed his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (he had used the name informally for several years before then.) Alcindor/ Adbul-Jabbar had a long and successful professional basketball career, primarily with the Los Angeles Lakers.

Fast-forward to 1993. Abdul-Jabbar's career is over. General Motors uses the name "Lew Alcindor" is an advertisement an Oldsmobile that airs during the NBA finals. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar sues, saying that GM does not have the right to use his name in a commercial without his consent. GM responds that they didn't use his name. They used a name that Mr. Abdul-Jabbar intentionally abandoned back in 1971. It was not "his name" any more, and therefore he did not have any rights to it.

The answer -- to me at least -- is not obvious. Of course a person has a right to protect his name. And of course a person has a right to change his name. On the one hand, Lew Alcindor and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar are the "same person," and a statement like "Lew Alcindor loves General Motors" would lead a normal person to believe that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had similar sentiments. On the other hand, there was a deliberate renunciation of the name. If something is abandoned, then its free for anyone else walking along the roadside to pick up and keep.

This case was in the back of my mind as I read The Spirit, along with Action Comics #6, in which Superman makes a similar discovery that his identity had co-opted by a con-man. In Action #6, the con-men quickly move from financial fraud to attempted murder, which makes the case a little easier than the Lew Alcindor case. In Spirit #5, the con-man make the dubious claim that the Spirit can't do anything to him because the Spirit has no legal rights to his own name.

In any event, a few things that floated through my mind as I read yet another excellent issue of The Spirit.

The Trinity at the Big Top (Action Comics #7, Cover Date December 1938)

Characters

Major Hero: Superman
Minor Heroes: Lois Lane, Mr. Jordan

Major Villain: Derek Niles
Minor Villains: Trigger, Curly

P'Shat

After co-worker Curly relentlessly teases Clark by pulling his tie out of his jacket, Clark is assigned to interview the owner of the Jordan circus. He overhears Derek Niles fighting with Mr. Jordan, and threatening that he will take the circus away if he is not made a partner. Clark prepares a puff piece on the circus, complete with Mr. Jordan's exaggerations in hopes of a large crowd, but ticket sales remain terrible.

To save the circus, Superman joins the team as the new strong man. With Superman in the ads, tickets sell more briskly, drawing an angry Derek Niles and eager Lois. With the surprise turn of fortune, Niles and his assistant Trigger sabotage the circus by setting free the lion, cutting the trapeze bar, and weakening a support pole, kidnapping a snooping Lois along the way. Superman saves the crowd and all relevant carneys from disaster, and then rescues Lois from Derek Niles.

In a final joke, Clark rips all of the clothes off of Curly.

Drash

Shazam, Monster Society of Evil #2 reminded me of my intermittent Golden Age musings, and how there was a time when a character couldn't get his own title for a year before he was sent off to do as issue in the circus. You never saw Green Lantern at the flower show, or the Flash at the rodeo, but you couldn't put together enough floppies for a trade before your favorite superhero ended up in the Greatest Show on Earth. Witness:

1938: Clark Kent is sent by his editor to cover the breaking news that the circus is in town. (Action #7)

1940: Socialite Bruce Wayne is attending the circus when the Flying Graysons are tragically killed. (Detective #38)

1942: Diana Prince learns that the circus is in town to perform a fundraiser to support the war effort. (Wonder Woman #1)

In all three, there is an attempt to sabotage the circus. Superman and Batman must fight thugs who want to sabotage the circus for financial gain. By 1942, the Japanese are sabotaging the circus fundraiser in one of a number of increasingly far-fetched and non-cost-effective schemes to damage the Allied war effort. (The circus scheme is actually only second-most-ridiculous, ranking after Sensation #7's scheme wherein Germany would win the war by cornering the market on milk, raising prices, and thereby weakening America's youth through milk deprivation.)

But enough about that. Wonder Woman was at least tangentially supporting the war effort, and Batman did get a partner out of the deal, but what the heck was Superman doing in the circus? I mean, this is the guy who was stopping wars in Action #2, and fighting for the prolateriat in Action #3. And even just last month he was fighting the evil forces of commercialism in Action #6 by keeping his name from being associated with every fly-by-night business that blows through town like . . . well, like the circus.

Why is the guy who was disgusted by the thought of Superman gasoline and Superman radio shows suddenly willing to attach his good name to a random traveling circus? Um . . .

Clark Kent: This show is good -- but it lacks "Flash." -- And that's where Superman takes a hand!

That's it. The guy who didn't want him name attached to an automobile is now happy to trick people into spending money in the middle of the depression to watch clowns run around in bright clothes.

And furthermore, had Superman not acted, the Jordan Circus would have gone out of business as a boring circus, and the assets turned over to Derek Niles. Instead, Superman "saves" the circus, instigates Niles, saves the circus from Niles, and then assumedly ditches them when they leave town, where they will proceed -- unflashily -- to the next town.

I think there must have been a change of meme sometime between 1942 and now. When I think "Circus", I think P.T. Barnum and "There's a sucker born every minute." Back then, the immediate impression must have been something much more pure and innocent. Otherwise, we might expect Clark to next put his name to "Superman Subprime Mortgage Lending" or "Superman Payday Loans."

We Welcome Our New Corporate Overlords (Action Comics #6: Cover Date, November 1938)

Characters

Main Heroes: Superman, Lois Lane

Main Villains: Nick Williams

P'Shat

A man claiming to be Superman's "agent" walks into the newspaper office. He shows Clark and his editor a radio ad for "Supeman's" breakfast cereal, a blimp pulling ad ad for Superman gasoline, and a billboard for Superman's automobile. Clark is dubious, and asks for proof. Proof is to provided that evening, when the real Superman will do feats of strength at the agents office.

Lois hears of the demonstration, and tricks Clark in order to get the story for herself. She invites him on a date (where a lounge singer sings a Superman song!) and then slips him a mickey. Clark pretends to pass out, and Lois sneaks away to do the exclusive interview.

The "real Superman", however, is only an actor, and the feats of strength involve "flying" in from the outside ledge, and lifting a desk made out of cardboard. Lois is not fooled for a second. So, Superman and his agent throw Lois out the window . . . where she is rescued by the REAL real Superman, who proceeds to arrest the con artists/ murderers.

Drash



Clark Kent is stunned to look out the newspaper office's window and see all the Superman parephernalia for sale (didn't he see the billboard on his way in to work that morning!) While the text is that the problem is corporate sponsorship without permission, the sub-text is clearly that this sort of corporate shilling is a bad thing. (Otherwise, why didn't the real Superman go out and do it himself?) The images are supposed to represent over-the-top marketing saturation.

But for those of us who grew up with "The Underwear That's Fun To Wear!" -- well, we're not that impressed. It struck me as I was thinking about commercialism how completely un-shocking it was that there was a time when everyone could purchase super-hero underwear. What would Clark Kent think about 5 years olds running around in 50% polyester red and yellow underpants?

I can't imagine that he would be pleased. And yet . . . I can't really get worked up about it. Maybe I have truly submitted to my corporate overlords.

Random Thought #1: Note for the comparison shopper, though. Superman was 50% cotton, but Supergirl was 100% polyester. Who knew?

Random Thought #2: Why are the pictures of the Underoos inside of thought bubbles?

The Love Square: Superman in Action #5 (Cover Date October 1938)

Continuing my writings on the earliest comic book stories I have:

Characters:

Main Heroes: Superman, Lois Lane


P'Shat

The newspaper gets a report that the Valleyho dam is cracking following a storm and is about to give way. The editor wants to send Kent, but he's not in the office.

Editor: Well, look for his, Lois -- And have him report before I lose my mind!

Lois Lane: But why not have me hand the assignment?

Editor: Can't! It's too important! -- This is no job for a girl!

Lois Lane heads off Clark outside the Daily Star office and sends him off on a phony lead that a women in the hospital is about to give birth to septuplets. By the time he realizes he's been duped, Lane is on the last train to Valleyho, and Kent is fired.

Changing into Superman garb, Kent races and leaps to Valleyho, passing Lois's train just in time to support the bridge that is about to be washed away until the train is over. Everyone is fleeing Valleyho except Lois, who is given a taxi by a cabbie who is leaving on the next train. Superman, meanwhile, tries to keep the dam from bursting long enough for the people to escape. When it finally crumbles around his hands, only one car is in the path of rushing water -- Lois's cab. Superman saves Lois from drowning and then creates an avalanche, knocking down a mountain top that diverts the flow of water away from Valleyho, saving the town.

Kent calls in to the editor, saying that he took an airplane to Valleyho and agrees to report on the story if he is re-hired.

Drash

If I can psycho-analyze Lois Lane for a moment, the general impression of Golden Age Lois is as caught between Superman on one hand and Clark Kent on the other. Here is Lois with Superman, after he has rescued her and she has kissed him:

Superman: Enough of that! -- I've got to brink you back to safety -- Where I'll be safe from you!

Lois: The first time you carried me like this I was frightened -- Just as I was frightened of you. But now I love it -- Just as I love you! Don't go! Stay with me -- always.

And two frames later, with Clark.

Clark: Lois! That wasn't a nice stunt you pulled on me! But I still like you.

Lois: Who cares! ("--The spineless worm! I can hardly bear looking at him. After having been in the arms of a real He Man--")

So, we've got essentially the same conversation played out with the same people, with role reversal. A perfect love triangle, right? Except that it's not really a triangle -- not because there are only two people, but because there are really four. Does Lois really hate Clark because he's a "spineless worm"? Or does she hate him because of the conversation she had with the editor at the beginning of the story?

So, as I see it, this isn't a story about Lois loving Superman, or about Lois hating Clark. It's really a story about Lois hating her editor, who refused to assign a big story to her because she was a woman. Compared to the editor, Superman is stronger, has more power, and doesn't chastise her for taking on a big story. Compared to the editor, Clark has less power, less experienced, but is favored as a reporter because he's a man. If Clark were gone, the editor would have had no choice but assign the Valleyho story to her. Of course she is going to hate him!

Action #5 is the first story without a "bad guy." There is no corrupt Senator, or evil employer, or slimy football coach. In the global scheme, "bad guy" is the Valleyho dam, which threatens to wash out the town. But in the interpersonal scheme, the "bad guy" is really the editor. The sexist power imbalance is what is pushing Lois toward Superman, and away from Clark. With an egalitarian editor, Lois would have no reason to fear Clark, and therefore would not hate him as she does. As such, while the sexism obviously has the biggest negative impact on Lois, it also hurts Clark quite a bit. On an even playing field, he would be able to compete just fine with Lois as a report, and wouldn't have to be fighting such as uphill battle to befriend her.

Who Cares if My Plan is Half-Assed? I'm Superman and You're Just a Football Thug (Superman in Action Comics #4, Cover Date September, 1938)

Characters

Major Hero: Superman
Minor Hero: Tommy Burke, Oliver Stanley

Major Villain: Coach Randall
Minor Villain: Unnamed Thugs

P'Shat

Superman chases a hit-and-run driver to where he is stalled on a train track. He jumps them to safety just in time, but the driver dies of a heart attack. Deciding to sneak onto the train, Superman overhears Coach Randall of Dale hires two thugs to help him win a game against Cordell University by taking out Cordell's three best players.

Clark Kent notes that he looks like Tommy Burke, A Cordell player who is currently being dumped by his girlfriend for only being a backup. Walking home despondently, he meeting Kent (dressed as Burke) who stabs him with a hypodermic needle, knocking him out.

In the locker room, Superman impresses the teammates by taking punches from a better player, and then knocking him out. But the Cordell coach throws him off the team. He regains his position by running onto the field and evading the whole team.

Coach Randall hears about Burke and orders him kidnapped until after the game, but the thugs kidnap the real Burke, not Superman (who has again drugged Burke). At the game, Superman plays and takes out the knife-wielding thugs on the other team, single-handedly winning the game for Dale in the first half. Mary is impressed, and dumps her tennis pro on the spot. Superman and Burke (who has escaped) switch back at halftime. The real Burke is injured on the first play and immediately retires with Mary in his arms, and Coach Randall resigns.

Drash

I've been reading some criticisms of Greg Land's cover art, where most of his female characters look this same. Well, he's got nothing on Action Comics, where Burke's girlfriend Mary is drawn identically to Lois Lane (even wearing the same outfit to the football game that Lane wore to the office in Action #1). Cordell Coach Oliver Stanley (named after both members of Laurel & Hardy?), meanwhile, is the spitting image of Dick Tracy.

Leaving aside the fact that the plot device of Kent and Burke looking alike glosses over the fact that everyone else looks alike too, we get to the actual story, which is utterly ridiculous. It consists mainly of Superman doping up a bad college football player who never did anything wrong to him.

Burke: W-what have you done to me? I can't move!
Superman: You needn't worry. You're just rendered passive by a drug.

Ah, I see. No reason to worry there. And days later, some exposition when Burke is captured:

The two thugs are unaware Burke is under the influence of a sleep-inducing drug or that Superman is observing them from the molding overhead!

Does Superman leap down to Burke's defense? No, he follows and peers through a window.

Superman: Fine! They've taken him off my hands -- and they mean him no physical harm!

Superman leaves Burke tied to a chair.

My first thought on reading Action #4 was to go research when the NCAA started regulating college football, but according to Wikipedia, they were active in 1938. Nonetheless, as best as I could tell here, Dale University and Cordell University played for the championship with teams that consisted almost entirely of non-student ringers. Meanwhile, Burke, who is an actual student, is accused by Mary for his failures:

Mary: I'm ashamed of you, Tommy Burke! You told me you'd be a football hero, but in the six or seven years you've been a substitute, you've never gotten into even one game!

Six or seven years? I hope Tommy Burke is double majoring in chemical engineering and corporate finance! This certainly should be violating some league's team eligibility requirements!

We'll leave aside for the moment the shallow portrayal of Lois, um, I mean Mary, as only being interested in a guy who is a sport's hero, and jumping back and forth based on who scored the most recent point. Action #1-#3 all addressed big issues and its shortcomings were made up for by having an actual point that they carried throughout.

Action #4, on the other hand, was just ridiculous.

Superman in Action Comics #3 (Cover Date August, 1938)

Continuing the Long March, started here and here . . .

Characters

Major Heroes: Superman
Minor Heroes: Stanislaw Kober

Major Villains: Thornton Blakely

P'Shat

Clark Kent hears of a mine collapse and rushes to the scene. Disguised as a miner, Superman pretends to fall down the shaft. He saves the rescue party, which has been overcome by poison gas, and then rescues the original trapped miner Stanislaw Kober. When the signal cord didn't work, Superman climbs up the rope.

Interviewing Kober, who is now crippled for life, Clark Kent learns that the tragedy could have been prevented, but the boss refused to take safety precautions. Interviewing the mine owner, Thornton Blakely, Clark learns that there is no plans to give Kober a pension, as the mine owner blames Kober's carelessness. Instead, the mine will only pay for a portion of his medical bills, and a $50 retirement bonus.

That night, Superman again pretends to be a miner and is caught sneaking into Blakely's party. Blakely livens the party up by inviting the "miner" to stay, and then decides to continue to party down in the mine. Superman engineers another cave-in, and while the rich folks panic, Blakely realizes that his safety devices don't work. The wealthy are forced to dig to try to escape. After they collapse in exhaustion, Superman digs through the rubble, allowing rescue crews to save them.

In the last panel, Blakely tells Kent that his mines will henceforth be the safest in the country.

Drash

This self-contained story is actually based on the identical premise as the main plot in Action #2 -- that the big, rich boss-man will see the error of his ways if only he could see the world through the eyes of the poor guys who actually do the dirty work for them. But here, instead of the munitions dealer forced to be a soldier, there is the coal mine owner forced to work in his own coal mine.

This story takes place only 5 years after the United Mines Workers were granted the right to collective bargaining for their union members (1933), and over 30 years before mandated safety guidelines for mine workers, so was a somewhat timely topic. In a time soon after mine owners would frequently open fire on striking mine workers, this issue is probably even more "liberal" than Number One's stance against domestic violence, or Number Two's anti-war sentiment. And the naivete is at least as strong here, with Blakely changing his tune literally "overnight", as if it had never occurred to him before that mining was not a safe job.

Perhaps equally interesting is that Superman is only "in costume" for a single panel in this issue, as he speeds from his office (disguised as Clark Kent) to the mine (where he immediately disguises himself as a mine worker). The focus is clearly on Superman "the man", not "the icon" which he was quickly becoming.

Superman in Action Comics #2 (Cover dated July, 1938)

Continuing thoughts on early Superman comics, that I started here.

Characters

Main Heroes: Superman
Minor Heroes: Lois Lane

Main Villians: Emil Norvell
Minor Villains: Alex Greer, Lola Cortez

P'Shat

Concluding the Cliffhanger from Action #1, Superman coaxes Alex Greer into admitting that munitions magnate Emil Norvell is behind the threatened war. Greer warns Norvell, who greets Superman with armed guards, who fire at him with machine guns. Superman throws the guards out the window, and tells Norvell that he will kill him if he is not on the next day's boat to San Monte. Also on the boat are Clark, Lois Lane, and Lola Cortez. Norvell's thugs knock Superman from the ship, but Norvell refused to compensate them. The next day, Superman saves Norvell from his thugs, but informs him that he must join the San Monte army. Superman also joins the army, and together Norvell learns the horrors of war, while Superman uses his super powers to take photographs of the enemy for Clark's Evening News article.

Meanwhile, Lola Cortez hides stolen documents in Lois's room, where they are found by the police. Lois is convicted of espionage and sentenced to the firing squad at dawn. Superman hears just in time, and saves Lois by shielding her body from the firing squad's bullets, and incidentally saves captives from a torturer.

Returning to his unit, Superman stops an attacking airplane by jumping into its propeller. Superman allows Norvell to return to the United States, as he agrees to stop manufacturing munitions. Superman then ends the war, by getting the two army heads together, where they realize they don't know why they are fighting in the first place.

Drash

Unlike #1, which dealt primarily with small-time individual power imbalances (wife beating, innocent prisoner, etc.) If you read Action #2 and Action #3 together, you realize that they are both telling the same story, regarding broader class conflict issues. The upper class here in Emil Norvell, the munitions manufacturer who profits off weapon sales, while the lower classes are the fighters and mercenaries in the San Monte army who use the munitions, and are killed by them.

The solution given (which is either overly naive or brilliantly simple) is if you can put the rich guy in the poor guy's shoes for a dozen pages, he'll see the error of his ways and reform. The rich guy isn't evil, he's just ignorant. It never occurred to him how horrible it is to get maimed by munitions. Given the proper education, Norvell is shown to be completely reformed. There is thus no INHERENT class struggle, only a contingent one that can be easily remedied through communication and experience.

A few words on individual lines of dialogue:

p. 1 As they topple like a plummet to the street below . . .

I have never seen "plummet" used as a noun, but sure enough. "Also called plumb bob. a piece of lead or some other weight attached to a line, used for determining perpendicularity, for sounding, etc.; the bob of a plumb line."

p. 3 Clark: Lois! What are you doing here?
Lois: Our editor decided to have me accompany you to the war-zone and send back dispatches colored with my distinctive feminine touch!

While I can usually put aside 1938 sexism as a product of the era, I have no idea what this even means. What are war "dispatches colored with" a "feminine touch"? Puff pieces on the cuisine in the mess hall? Interviewing the wives of dead soldiers? Critiquing the color scheme of the San Monte uniforms? Practical tips for maintaining your feminine mystique in a war zone? I am at a loss.

p.13 Superman: Then why are your armies battling?
Army head: I don't know! Can you tell me?
Other army head: No, can you?
Superman: Gentlemen, it's obvious you've been fighting only to promote the sale of munitions -- why not shake hand and make up?

Much like Emil Norvell learns the error of his ways by simply becoming a soldier for a day, the fighting sides are able to agree to peace merely by being put in the same room and asked what they were fighting about. The "peace through communication and interpersonal understanding" could have worked as well for the actual warfare as for the class warfare if, say, the whole war had been a big misunderstanding over a mis-overheard insult, but you've got to imagine that the army chiefs at last THOUGHT they were fighting over something. This isn't like Ares's mind control in Wonder Woman. Emil Norvell paid lobbyist, he didn't have a mind-control ray.

Superman in Action Comics #1 (Cover dated June, 1938)

Characters

Major Heroes: Superman, Lois Lane

Major Villains: Butch Matson, Senator Barrow, Alex Greer
Minor Villains: Unnamed Murderer, Unnamed Wife Beater

P'Shat

In 13 pages of comic, there are 4.5 different stories told:

1. (1 page) A baby is rocketed to Earth from a distant planet. Due to a physical structure that is millions of years advanced, the boy has super strength and spead on Earth. He decides to devote his life to benefit mankind.

2. (3.5 pages) Superman carries a bound woman to the governor's mansion. Breaking in, he forces his way in to see the governor, survives being shot by the governor unharmed, and shows the governor a signed confession, proving that a woman about to be executed in death row is innocent. She is pardoned just in time, but Superman's intervention is not mentioned in the newspaper. The editor of the "Daily Star" puts Clark Kent on the Superman beat.

3. (1 page) Clark Kent gets a tip of a wife beating and rushes off the cover it. Arriving as Superman, he threatens the wife beater, who then passes out. He changes back to Clark Kent before the police arrive.

4. (4 pages) Lois Lane finally agrees to a date with Clark, and they go dancing. Butch Matson tries to cut in, and Clark acts like a weakling, allowing it. Lois slaps Butch and leaves in a taxi. Butch follows and runs the taxi off the road, kidnapping Lois. Superman leaps the car, chases Butch on foot, dumps everyone from the car, and hangs Butch from a telephone pole. Superman tells Lois not to put him in the newspaper. Lois tries to report, but her editor doesn't believe her.

5. (3.5 pages) Clark is assigned to cover a war in San Monte. On his way, he takes a train to Washington, D.C., where he sees Senator Barrows speaking to Alex Greer, a lobbyist. Barrows insists that the requested bill will pass, and soon America will be embroiled in the war in Europe. Superman confronts Greer, who won't talk. Superman grabs Greer, and they rush off into the Washington skyline. The issue ends as a cliff-hanger.

Drash

It's interesting what issues were addressed in the very first "superhero comic book": the death penalty, spousal abuse, implied attempted rape, and special interest lobbying. A comic book that addressed even one of those issues today would likely get accused to pushing a liberal agenda, or being too "topical". Apparently, the topics haven't changed much over 70 years. And looking back, the only issue that would later prove questionable was not getting "embroiled" in Europe.

Contrast the anti-death-penalty politics of Action #1 (innocent woman almost executed!) with the pro-death-penalty position of, say, Manhunter #1 (kill him so he can't escape and kill again!).

Overall, the "dated" aspects of the story -- like Lois Lane writing the "sob stories" -- and the implausible aspects -- the newspaper gets a tip of a wife-beating in progress befoer the cops arrive, Senator Barrow and Alex Greer chatting in a public place in the Capitol where Clark can casually snap a picture -- are less obtrusive than they could have been.

I had forgotten that the original explanation of Superman's powers was millions of years of evolution, rather than the high gravity on Krypton. My favorite panel is the "Scientific Explanation", illustrated by ants and grasshoppers who can lift hundreds of times their weight, or jump the equivalent of city blocks. I actually like that explanation better than "low gravity" or "Yellow sun", as it explains both the "faster than a speeding bullet" AND the "leaping tall buildings" things simply.