An expert question

OK, this will test your knowledge: in the collection 'Superman in the 60s' one of the stories deals with 'Superman's Forgotten Sweetheart' in which red K gives him amnesia and takes away his powers for a while, during which he and a woman fall in love. At one point Superman appears to have drowned but is actually saved by Lori Lemaris. Unfortunately, when the effects of red K wore off Superman didn't remember the love affair and his girlfriend just assumed he was dead. And the story ends with her totally devastated by his 'death.' Now for the question: the end of the story alludes to a continuation which would be the 'most ironic Superman story ever told'

Nope, it's actually worse than that.

In 'The Man Who Stole Superman's Secret Life' (SUPERMAN #169, May 1964), a crook name Ned Barnes, who happens to be a look-alike for Superman, finds his way to the Selwyn estate, where Sally immediately believes that he is 'Jim White' (the name Superman used while suffering amnesia). Barnes decides to play along so that he can use Sally's house to hide from the police.

Then Clark Kent (who's searching for Barnes) shows up and encounters Sally, too. Sally runs up to him and kisses him, which restores his memory of his earlier time with her. Sally, not realizing that this 'Jim White' is not the same one who's been staying on her estate, tells him a number of things that lead him to conclude that Barnes is impersonating him.

What ends up happening is that Barnes is killed by his own gangland cohorts after trying to protect Sally (with whom he's fallen in love) from them. They push him off a cliff, where he's found by Superman. Before Barnes dies, he asks Superman not to tell Sally the truth about his impersonation, knowing it will hurt her.

Superman, at this point, has the same terminal failure of nerve that afflicts his relationships with Lois, Lana, and every other woman he's been involved with, so he goes to her (as Superman, not as Clark Kent or Jim White) and tells her that the 'real' Jim White has been brutally murdered trying to protect her. He leaves her utterly heartbroken and flies off feeling sorry for himself, muttering 'How ironic! Mighty Superman can help everyone...but when it comes to my own happiness

What's the website for your column? Yes, Sally did seem like a great match for Superman. After all, she did fall in love with him when he was without super-powers. Far more ironic would have been Superman regaining his memory, returning and confiding in Sally who then rejects him *because* he is Superman rather than Jim White. Some typical comicbook rationalization on her part would suffice: 'I fell in love with Jim White, not Superman; =choke= but you aren't Jim White, Jim is gone forever. =sob=' And Superman leaves (probably after Sally suffers either a blow to the head so that she forgets he's Superman or dies from a mysterious disease). As for Sally being an LL, I suppose that had she been Lydia Selwyn, she'd still be an LL because she has two Ls in her name.

So this is basically the 'Mayson Drake' period of the comics?

Vartox (who notes that the Superboy TV episode 'Superboy Lost' was evocative of both the George Reeves episode 'Panic in the Sky' and the Sally Selwyn story)

The Kryptonian Cybernet is posted here a day or two after it's published on the web at <http://www.kryptonian-cybernet.com/>. However, I've mirrored the column (which is called Adventures in Silver) at my own web site at <http:///www.fred.net/thirteen/>. I post the columns on my site as they're published in the KC, but this month's column is up already because the KC is late. (At least, I think it is; I think the KC is supposed to out on the first Monday of each month.) The difference between the KC version and mine is that I include the covers, and there's a little more editing (because I always find a better way to say something after I've sent it in).

Yes. Mort Weisinger's LL rules were very loose. For example, readers would often send in the names of real-life LL celebrities, and Weisinger and Bridwell would publish them. I remember on exchange in which a reader sent in the names of all the presidents who had LLs in their names. Later, another reader complained that Warren G. Harding had been forgotten; Harding's middle name was Gamaliel, and there's two Ls in that. Therefore, Weisinger and Bridwell considered two unconnected Ls just as good as a double-L (example: Kal-El).

I now realize that Weisinger and Bridwell could have cared less about any of this.