Superman Family #164.

 The Els, what a dysfunctional family they were, making the Borgias look like the Waltons. In 1974, they finally got their own joint mag - and what a mag it was, featuring a hundred pages of stories, action and special features.

This is the first ever issue. And so, with the kind of logic that exists only in the world of comic book publishing, it's labelled #164. The idea was that each issue would focus on one particular member of the Superman family and, with the sort of logic that got the first issue labelled #164, this debut centres on Jimmy Olsen who isn't in any way shape or form a member of the Superman family. Still, up until this point, the mag had actually been Jimmy Olsen and so clearly some sop to fans of that comic had been felt necessary.

This means that the only new tales in the mag feature Superman's pal, with the rest being reprints. It has to be said the reprints are more interesting than the new stuff, mostly because they're not centred around Olsen. No disrespect to him but he's never going to be as interesting as a bunch of super-beings.

In the first tale, Jimmy investigates when someone starts blowing up his father's orphanage type place. I'm a bit vague as to what the complex in question actually is but, this being the early 1970s, it's full of angry teens who're suspected of being behind the attacks. Needless to say they're not and, with the aid of a psychic, Jimmy captures the real culprit who turns out to be the character who practically had the word "culprit" written all over him from the very first page onwards.

Next up, Supergirl takes on Brainiac in a story that, rarely from the era in question, involves neither weird boyfriends nor our heroine worrying about being unpopular. Clearly, she's unpopular with Brainiac though because he tries to kill her. Even better, from the point of view of dramatic tension, he nearly succeeds. Still, the maid of might's nothing if not resilient and sees off the villain in double-quick time. When she's won, Superman turns up and declares he's been watching her fight from a distance but couldn't get there in time to help her. Given his track record of treating the poor girl like dirt at every opportunity, you half expect him to say he could've got back in time but decided to let her die to teach her a valuable lesson.

Next, Krypto the Superdog becomes a Hollywood star and, his nose put out of joint and acting mainly out of spite, Superboy completely wrecks Krypto's life. Upon being told Superboy was responsible for this, Krypto's delighted and loves him all the more for it, when the correct response would've been for Krypto to go mad and savage Superboy to death.

After this, Jimmy Olsen has an adventure involving a house brick.

Meanwhile, in The Death March, Daily Planet boss Perry White basically sets out to kill his staff in the desert, to prove to a rival publisher that they're willing to die for him. At the tale's denouement, his staff, previously furious with him, are delighted to discover that, although he nearly killed them, he was at least trying to kill them for a good reason - winning a bet.

Finally we get an imaginary tale in which Superman marries the three loves of his life (not all at once) Lois Lane, Lana Lang and Lori Lemaris. Drawing a veil over the fact that Lori Lemaris is a fish and such a marriage would be illegal, it says it all that Superman's directly responsible for the death of each of them - and, for once, he didn't do it to teach them a valuable lesson.

So there you have it, Superboy wrecks Krypto's life, Perry White tries to kill his staff, and Superman marries a fish and gets Lois lane, Lana Lang and Lori Lemaris killed.

So, is the comic any good? Actually it is. There's nothing substantial about it but, featuring plenty of art by the likes of Kurt Schaffenberger and Jim Mooney, it's visually more appealing than a lot of DC's reprint-packed 100 pagers, and all the tales, although reason-defying on a grand scale, are a fun read.

I still wouldn't want any of those people round for dinner though.

Action Comics #440. Of Superman and Superdog.

Many and varied are the powers of Superman but clearly his greatest is the ability to make you believe you think the opposite of what you actually do think.

My memory is that, as a kid, I never had much time for the Kryptonian clobberer. The big blue cheese was, after all, a bit square, a bit dull, a bit 2D and had far too many powers for the good of dramatic tension.

The odd thing is that, as I've started to rebuild the comic collection I had back then, what's struck me is how many Superman comics I had. I must've had more Superman issues than comics featuring any other hero.

Such a mystery needs reinvestigation. After all, If I was buying them in industrial quantities, there must've been something about them that grabbed me.

But what?

The obvious first answer is the covers. Just as I had a blind spot to my love of Supes, I seem to have had a blind spot to the existence of Nick Cardy. Until I started re-buying these old issues I'd somehow never heard of him.

I had, however, seen his covers.

And you know what?

They were fantastic.

I knew they were fantastic at the time but I never knew they were all by the same man. Now, it seems incredible to me that one artist could have done so many covers to so many comics to so high a standard. I definitely have to put together a post of my Nick Cardy favourites at some point.

But that's for the future.

For now, we'll have to settle for this one, the cover to Action Comics #440. Has there ever been a more potent cover to a comic book? You can practically feel the weight of the world on Superman's shoulders.

But it takes more than just a pretty picture on the front to make you love a comic. What about the contents?

Well, clearly this is the key to it all. It can't have been easy writing Superman in the 1970s. How do you come up with interesting stories about a hero who can basically do anything but whose tales have to be kept fairly light?

As the likes of Cary Bates and Elliot S! Maggin knew, mostly you do it by confronting Superman with a puzzle or mystery that has to be solved and have him think his way to a solution. It's an irony that the way to get the best out of the world's most physically adept super-hero is to get him dealing with problems primarily with his mind.

This issue is a perfect example as Elliot S! Maggin gives us a bunch of crooks who try to get rid of Superman by convincing him the ghosts of his parents are disappointed in him for having gone native and adopting too many Earth customs. All but disowning him, the "ghosts" order him to go and live on another planet. Needless to say, Superman quickly sees through this ruse and turns the villains' own plot against them.

This elegance, I think, is the clue to the strip's appeal. There's no peril here, no danger, just a slight conundrum. It's such a contrast to the ramped-up drama of the average comic book that it can't help but grab you. It's the super-hero equivalent of sitting on the front lawn, on a sunny day, drinking Earl Grey and nibbling cucumber sandwiches.

Meanwhile, in the back-up strip, the Green Lantern and Black Canary stumble across a super-intelligent stray dog with superpowers. Although we're never told it in this story, it doesn't take a genius to work out it's Krypto, Superboy's old dog. But where's he been and why's he lost his memory?

Come to think of it, why hasn't Superman noticed he's missing and gone looking for him? I always felt Kal-El was somewhat neglectful of his cousin Supergirl - putting her in an orphanage the moment she got to Earth - now he's abandoned his dog? maybe it's time the social services had a word with him.

I'm fairly sure this tale features as back-up strip in another issue of Action Comics from around the same time, although, off the top of my head, I'm not sure which one. Was it a mistake? Were they so proud of it they were determined to reprint it? Was there a deadline problem that meant they had to grab the first story at hand and hope no one noticed?

But who cares, these things happen and it's a cute tale beautifully drawn by the mighty Mike Grell who, for a relative novice, seemed to have been given a fair old workload at the time.