Perry White, Blood and Iron

Superman #124 (1958)

"The Super-Sword"

Written by Jerry Coleman

Art by Al Plastino

Let me start by saying Happy Holidays to all of you reading this mental breakdown of a comic blog. Today's issue is a silver age Superman, so I can assure you it will only get worse. Superman's encounter with the evil knight and his super sword is one for the ages.

Seriously though, this issue does encapsulate everything a great fifties Superman story should be about. There's a Julie Schwartz-style cover gimmick and twist, but the science fiction elements are a little pulpier. It begins as a pre-Michael Crichton tale of ancient dangers reborn through scientific anomaly and ends like a Bob Newhart sketch.

Perry White and Superman team up to pull a fast one on Lois, Jimmy, and a crime boss named "Bull" Matthews. Perry somehow stuffs himself into a suit of armor and with Superman's super-help conducts an elaborate hoax on the scientific community . . . and the mob, apparently. Superman pretends to be vulnerable to the knight's magic sword and Bull decides to jack the sword and try to do Superman in for good.

The gimmicky story and the Perry reveal at the end are what remind me the most of a classic silver age DC book. The gangsters and the lack of any space aliens, time travelers, or actual time-displaced medieval knights made felt more like a Siegel and Shuster era story.

The back-up story is pretty awful by today's standards. It's more like something that would appear in Superman's Girlfriend, Lois Lane. I'm more into Jimmy Olsen myself, or the lost DC gem Superman's Publisher, Perry White.

Alright, I made that last one up.

Thanks for reading! For anyone who may have heard the old Club of Heroes podcast back in 2013, let it be known that Evan Arnold and I are working on some new episodes. We'll most likely be talking about Star Wars, The Hateful Eight, and continuing our History of Marvel series. For more news about that follow @ChrisBComics on Twitter!