Those Pagan Kryptonians!

A rather surprising response from Weisinger, who generally portrayed Krypton as far more advanced than Earth. Of course, you can see the problem; if he responds that they had some different kind of religion (or no religion at all), he's implying that's superior. So he almost had to come up with the answer that he did.

It does raise an interesting point, though. Surely Clark was brought up in whatever religion the Kents practiced, most likely some form of Protestantism. And yet his creators and longtime editor and publisher were all Jewish (which is probably why, after the Golden Age, there were almost no stories that mentioned Christmas or any other religious holiday).

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Super-Dad

For some reason, these stories appeared to be popular with readers in the Silver Age, because there were several. In this particular tale, Pa Kent doesn't really gain super-powers. He is struck by a bolt of lightning while wearing a Superman outfit that a tailor had designed as a gimmick, and becomes convinced that he is a Man of Steel. The story features one of the more convenient comic cliches of the Silver Age:

Thus the tale revolves around Superboy helping his dad perform super-feats until he can recover. In the course of the plot, Pa Kent becomes something of a laughingstock of the town. But everybody is surprised when:

However, it turns out that Pa Kent had eventually realized he wasn't really super-powered and pulled a fast one on the townspeople and his son:

Comments: I particularly like the twist ending to this story; Pa Kent seldom got the last laugh in the Silver Age.

The next example of this type of story came exactly a year later, in Adventure #236:


This story starts with Jonathan Kent questioning his usefulness as a parent:

Of course, if he really wanted to help his son, he would have suggested that the lad stop bringing back strange objects from alien worlds, a frequently disastrous practice that Superboy continued as an adult. And so it is with this story, as the Lad of Steel brings back a rod from outer space that has an unexpected effect:

So Pa Kent becomes Strongman, and "helps and guides" Superboy in his patrols of Smallville. Of course, not being used to super-powers he frequently makes mistakes, and indeed is more of a hindrance to his son.

An amusing subplot involves Lana Lang's mother, who becomes Pa Kent's secret identity snoop just as her daughter had been for years to Superboy:

I don't think Lana's mom made many appearances in the Silver Age; I can't recall another story featuring her prominently.

Anyway, Pa Kent soon finds out that super-powers and a secret identity are a mixed blessing, and when his abilities wear out eventually he decides to leave the heroics to his son. There is a touching moment at the end:

Comments: The sweet ending redeems this tale. The Kents didn't get enough credit in the Silver Age. Sure, Superboy got his super-powers from his Kryptonian parents, but he got his moral upbringing from Jonathan and Martha, and that was easily more important in making him a superhero.

But Super-Dad was far from finished:

No surprise, it's our old friend the alien object that gives Pa Kent his powers:

This time Jonathan has no intentions of allowing his son to even share the glory:

And indeed it seems like Pa has been jealous of his son's abilities all along. But then Superboy discovers the truth when his "dad" meets one of his robots:

It turns out that the Super-Dad in this case is actually Jax-Ur, an escaped Phantom Zone prisoner, making his first, but by no means last, appearance in the Silver Age.

I suspect that there were more Super-Dad appearances in the Silver Age, but those are the three I know. I don't know of any cases where Martha Kent became Super-Mom. Anybody?

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The Dilemma of Superboy

I've talked about the problem that DC faced with Superboy in the past. Essentially you've got a character whose adventures are happening roughly 10-12 years in the past; how do you avoid making him seem dull and behind the times? How can he be relevant to the youth of the 1960s and 1970s while constantly living with the trends of a decade earlier?

The problem was compounded by his earthly parents, Jonathan and Martha Kent. They were always portrayed as an elderly couple, childless, who happily adopted the baby Kal-El as the son they'd always wanted. But most children did not have elderly parents unless they (the kids) were tail-enders, late surprises in a mature family.

So in Superboy #145, DC decided to do something about it. The Kents would be changed to a couple more fitting with DC's target demographic's parents, in their mid-late 30s. And in a slap at their readers they didn't even hide their reasoning. They postulated a world which waited eagerly for new instalments of a fictional character named Superboy. But (as you probably guessed) this world was not our own, since Superboy had "real" adventures there. No, it was a world in space where an unscrupulous producer was filming Superboy's adventures and selling them as dramatic entertainment.

But the producer had the same problem DC had:

Well, of course the producer hits on the idea of making the Kents look younger, thereby bailing himself (and DC) out of the jam. He manages to send a bottle of youth elixir to the Kent's well, which results in them becoming younger. Although this is of course a boon in some ways, they worry that people will suspect a connection to Superboy and thus deduce his identity. So they arrange for a group of the Kents' oldster friends to come to a party where they can also enjoy the benefits of rejuvenation. Superboy fakes a comet passing by which is credited with the amazing transformation:

The results are a nice bit in an otherwise transparent attempt to make a major change to a significant character in the DC mythos. More important, it created just as many problems as it solved. Since the beginning of Superman, Clark Kent had never had a family as a young newsman in Metropolis. We never (almost literally never) saw his parents until the advent of the Superboy series; it was certainly understood that Superman had grown up as Clark Kent with an elderly couple, who had died.

A few years prior to this story, DC had finally created the story where the Kents passed away, in The Last Days of Ma and Pa Kent. While vacationing in the Caribbean, the couple had found a buried chest. Superboy humors their desire to go back 250 years in time to see the chest initially being buried.

Later, when they become ill, he mistakenly believes it's from eating a fruit they found in the past, but actually it was a virus contained in the treasure chest, so it wasn't Superboy's fault.

What was Superboy's fault was that they died as old folks, and now we were being encouraged to believe that they could not have been old. So when DC reprinted the story in Superboy #165, they actually redrew the artwork to make it look like the Kents were still fairly young:

But of course this actually makes the tragedy of their deaths even sadder.

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Worst Dad of the Silver Age?

There are only a couple of real contenders, partially because fathers were as scarce as hen's teeth in the Silver Age.

Odin certainly qualifies for the short list. Let's see, you've got two sons. One's handsome, valiant, noble and the other's ugly, cowardly and base. And you can't choose between them?

Odin constantly interferes in his son's life, regularly (and at convenient moments for the plot) removing or reducing Thor's powers:



And interfering in his son's love life:



But on the other hand, he is a god and so maybe it's unfair to judge him by human standards.

Both Jor-El and Jonathan Kent both were good fathers for Kal-El/Clark, but they were also capable of being jerkwads when the situation called for it. In one memorable story (from Adventure #240), Jor-El sent a robot to test Superboy's suitability as a hero, with instructions to remove the lad's powers if he failed any part of the test. And Kent was capable of a little super-dickery himself:



But these minor transgressions are nothing compared to the world's worst dad, Pincus Popnecker. The father of Herbie Popnecker had no redeeming qualities. Consider:

Faithless. The last thing a son needs is a dad who's got a roving eye:



Abusive. Pincus Popnecker wrote the book on verbal abuse:



Tyrannical. Hate-filled. Egotistical. Raving.

Put them all together, you have, by a rather large margin, the worst father of the Silver Age:



BTW, I should mention that I gleaned some of the Herbie pictures from this amazing website that covers just about everything Herbie. Terrific resource for all Popnecker fans!

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