And then there was the time the Amazing Randi accused Superboy of being a fraud.

§ June 25th, 2013 § Filed under superman § 8 Comments

Well, okay, it’s “Indra the Incredible,” not the Amazing James Randi, but, you know, we see what you’re doing there, E. Nelson Bridwell:


Scientific thinking and skeptical movements have enough trouble gaining traction in our real world, where UFOs and psychic powers and Atlantis are all a bunch of hokum. Any skeptics in the DC Universe don’t stand a chance: “ATLANTIS IS A MYTH!” “Hi, I’m Aquaman!” “mumble mumble lousy superheroes mumble”

There is Doctor Thirteen as sort of your token DCU skeptic, but talk about your uphill battles. But perhaps there are some fringe groups who think superheroes are just some kind of overblown media hoax, despite all evidence otherwise, who are probably regarded on the same level we hold those folks who think lizard people are secretly running world governments. …I’m pretty sure in the DC Universe the lizard people proponents have government funding and support and are hailed as freedom-protecting heroes.

Here’s young Clark Kent relating some of theories he’s heard about himself on Coast to Coast AM:


Ma Kent has some valid concerns:


…considering in the year 2013 some folks still flipped their lids because they were briefly exposed to a mixed-race family in a cereal commercial.

Anyway, it all works out for Superboy, at least…word on his Kryptonian origin gets out, and most people are cool with it. Hope that’s not a spoiler.

 
 

images from The New Adventures of Superboy #12 (December 1980) by E. Nelson Bridwell, Romeo Tanghal and Kim DeMulder

8 Responses to “And then there was the time the Amazing Randi accused Superboy of being a fraud.”

  • Chris G says:

    In some of those panels, Clark kinda looks like Bobby Hill.

  • Walaka says:

    “A science writer says I’m a mutant!” What a preposterous idea. A mutant superhero?

  • Casey says:

    How does the world continue to function normally when everyone knows magic is real, and apparently anyone can learn some? Who are all those people, walking the streets of Not New York with briefcases in hand while gods fight warlocks over their heads?

    Also, comics written in the 80s that still feature Superboy feel really weird to me. He definitely belongs to a different time.

  • Mikester says:

    Casey – a modern Superboy series (in the “adventures of Superman when he was a boy” tradition, not “clone of Superman ‘n’ whatever”) would take place around the year 2000. That’s hard to wrap one’s mind around.

  • Odkin says:

    Wow, that is a terrible inking job.

  • IT says:

    Clark, sweetie, this is why you stay away from internet forums…

  • American Hawkman says:

    Personally, I think Dr. Thirteen makes a lot MORE sense in a universe where “gods fight warlocks over the citizenry’s heads”. When there are SO many other options to explain away what these people do, like aliens from other dimensions, psionics, and the like, magic’s got a lot more ways to be faked. When you add in the fact that the most visible practitioners of those arts present themselves as stage magicians the same as those that have no real power, and that apparently everyone CAN’T go learn some because of genetics, belief, or the like, which prevents any sort of technological study of the art on a scientific basis, Dr. Thirteen’s the sanest man in the DC Universe. It’s the people that believe that entity #2442 is from the traditional idea of hell rather than just a similar alternate dimension that may be a little gullible.

  • Adam Farrar says:

    In a world with Abra Kadabra, there’s a role for Dr. Thirteen.