"…A brilliant but deranged scientist who discovered how to give his hand a multitude of fantastic powers!"
A little context for the panel posted yesterday:
So the reason Clark knocked out (somehow) Lana with a couple apples is that he had to give her the slip so he could respond to the Legion’s call by traveling through time and meeting them in their stomping grounds of the 30th century.
Let’s think about that for a second.
Clark has to leave right away, fly off into the timestream, and exit the timestream at the point from when the signal was originally sent. He couldn’t wait, say, a couple of hours, spending that time liplocked with the cute redhead, and then travel to that point in the future (a journey that will now be shorter, using my particular example, by two hours). He’s already traveling in time…what, he’s going to be late?
Maybe there’s some kind of fixed thousand-year-gap between Superboy’s existence in the 20th century and his appearances in the 30th, which causes him to avoid overlapping his own timeline. He leaves April 4th, 1973 at 2:14 PM, he arrives in April 4th, 2973, at 2:14 PM. That would mean if he started his return from that particular journey on April 7th, 2973, 5:10 AM, the rigid 1000-year-gap would force him to end up back in his time on April 7th, 1973 at 5:10 AM.
If that’s that case, then Clark would have to leave right away upon hearing the alarm. The longer he waited, the farther past the signal’s origin that fixed 1000-year-gap would be pushed.
Of course, this “theory” would be contradicted left and right in the Legion stories, but I have a vague memory of some kind of precaution being referenced in-story to Superboy maintaining his subjective timeline during his time travels (i.e. preventing 1973 Superboy visiting 2979 Legion, and then in his very next trip visiting 2978). And of course, none of this references the Time Trapper/”pocket universe” thing where TT would guide travels in time between the Legion’s 30th century and the “pocket universe” 20th century Earth with Superboy. But the less we mess with that, the better.
Well, actually, the less we mess with any of this, the better. Just kiss the girl, Clark, you sap.
Briefly:
- I haven’t mentioned Free Comic Book Day since my Tuesday post, so I’d better catch up:
I found a contender for worst handling of FCBD, perhaps beating out the guys who closed down in the middle of said day to go see Iron Man. That would be the store that gave away FCBD books…
…with purchase.
You couldn’t just walk in and get handed/pick up free books, the explicit purpose of the event. You had to buy something to get the giveaways.
YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG.
- I shouldn’t complain…at least Marvel’s trying. When the first X-Men movie came out, there were no readable then-currently published X-comics for any potential new audience seeking out material like that in the film.
It’s nice that Marvel launched a new Iron Man ongoing series this week, and so far, it’s sold about twice the numbers we normally sell on Iron Man. Primarily, it’s been going to folks who regularly come to the shop. I’ve even had a few of our subscribers ask us to add it to their lists.
But I can’t help but think how many we could have moved had the new Iron Man comic came out last week. That would have allowed me to hand over a brand new Iron Man #1 to all the FCBD customers new and old, riding that IM buzz, asking for something with Iron Man in it. Ah well.
And now, my favorite bit of dialogue from my Legion of Super-Heroes Archives vol. 10, reprinted from Superboy #200 (Feb 1974) by Cary Bates and Dave Cockrum:
I wish my fingers were even deadlier than before.
