Those Pesky Asteroids!

And comets, meteors and rogue planets! Here's another thing I noticed in my reading of the Action Comics starting with #200. Superman seemed to spend half of his time saving Earth from one asteroid or other bit of cosmic debris after another.

 Action #204:

It took awhile for the next one to come along, but after that it was Katie bar the door.  Action #221:

Action #222:

And #223:

Action #227:

#229:

Action #232 featured not one, but two near impacts:

In some cases, these asteroids/comets/meteors performed functions similar to Red Kryptonite later in the Silver Age.  For example, the comet in #221 imparted to Superman a magnetic power that was handy at times, but gave him headaches in his secret identity as Clark Kent.  The meteor in #232 ended up giving Superman the powers of Superman Junior.  The meteorite in #204 appeared to force Superman to perform all his super-feats while standing on his head.  And the comet in #227 was thought to have caused his X-ray vision to become uncontrollable.

I'll see if there are any further examples of this.  I seem to recall that one of the episodes of the Superman TV show in the 1950s also featured Superman saving Metropolis from an asteroid.

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The Man in the Background

I've been remiss in posting a lot lately, but I've also been reading a lot of comics that fall outside the target of this blog; I'm working my way through a couple of series, including the 1970s Flash issues and Cerebus. But as it happens, I got a hankering to read the Action Superman stories starting from issue #200, and I began noticing the man in the background of a lot of scenes set at the Daily Planet offices. And I do mean a lot. Action #200:

Action #202

That's the only instance I can find so far of him having any lines, but he appears quite often:

Sometimes he's portly, sometimes he's rather svelte:

But the pipe and the bald head are absolutely ubiquitous. Well, the bald head is, occasionally he does take the pipe out of his mouth:

He's also the little man in this picture which was pointed out by longtime commenter Ralph C:

There's not really any mystery here; apparently Superman artist Wayne Boring put editor Mort Weisinger into a lot of panels as an inside joke.

Update: For a more biting look at Mort Weisinger from Boring, check here. Hat tip to commenters Wordsmith for the suggestion and Diane for the link.

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