Credits | Characters | Plot Summary | Comments | Reprinted In Superboy Chronology | Legion Chronology Editor: Mort Weisinger Writer: Unknown Artist: George Papp Feature Character: Superboy Supporting Characters: Martha Kent, Jonathan Kent, Lana Lang, Pete Ross Guest Legionnaires: Chameleon Boy Villains: Assorted crooks Other Characters: Joe Moss (the school boxing champ and bully), a Smallville High history teacher (not the one that appears in the previous semester's Adventure Comics No. 290), Bud Corwin, Larry (school skating champ), his father Ed, Mrs. Snell (whose son, Willie, won first prize in the scholarship exams), Mr. Moss. In Rail City: Rail City High School's gym teacher, Jeff Craig, students at Rail City High, Mr. & Mrs. Craig, citizens of Rail City, Sally's mother, Sally
When Clark Kent and his foster father both get tired of him playing a weak and timid person, Pa Kent decides to pack up and move to Rail City, where nobody has seen Superboy, so he can be proud of his son. As the "Dentons", Ma and Pa buy a drive-in diner and Clark casts aside his glasses and attends Rail City High School as "Mark Denton". Immediately he fights back against a bully and in quick time becomes the school's star boxer, basketball player and skier. With "Mark" enjoying his newfound popularity, so does his father become a celebrity around town, too, eventually becoming the honorary mayor of Rail City! Superboy resumes his career as a crime-fighter but with an adjustment to his costume... a domino-style mask to conceal his features from people who might recognize him as Mark Denton. Soon, however, because of Mark's popularity and being "in demand" at all social situations, it becomes increasing harder for him to slip away undetected and perform super-deeds as the Boy of Steel. Then one evening, when a train accident sets free a frightened and angry gorilla, Mark is at a party and even the Superboy robot cannot be used because Pa Denton is entertaining guests. While Mark helplessly watches the gorilla's rampage he is suddenly shocked to see another masked Superboy arriving on the scene to knock out the ape. Later, back at the Denton home, the other Superboy transforms back into Chameleon Boy. He had been on a mission in the past and thought he'd drop in on Superboy on his way back to the future. When he saw Mark's predicament, he disguised himself as Superboy and used a concealed gas pellet to knock out the gorilla. As Chameleon Boy leaves, he asks Superboy how he will be able to function at the next emergency that arises. Days later, Mark is invited to join his school's top fraternity but to do so he must first get a crew cut. Cleverly avoiding having his Superboy identity revealed, the next day, Clark and the Denton's leave Rail City to return to Smallville. Clark and Pa Kent realize that only as the colorless and unpopular Clark Kent can Superboy perform his deeds unencumbered... and that's what make the Kent family really happy! This story takes place in the winter at the beginning of the new semester. The splash page to this story shows "Mark Denton" having just won a football game, though this scene does not appear in the actual story since it is mid-winter and only basketball, boxing and skiing are shown being played at Rail City High School during this time of year. Rail City must be very far from Smallville, in fact, in another state, since if they ever played Smallville High in a state sporting event, they would know far more about Superboy than they do. Furthermore, if Rail City and Smallville were in the same state, there would also be the chance that "Mark Denton" would have to play against a team of his former schoolmates, who would recognize him. In this story, Clark is said to only get passing grades but in other stories Clark does very well academically. In Superboy No. 91, Clark is said to have scored in the top three for scholarship exams - after Jim Marsh and Lana Lang. While Clark must avoid achieving perfect grades, he is far from the class dunce he pretended to be in Superboy No. 66 in order to trap some cheaters. As shown in Superman No. 144, Clark's graduation yearbook predicted that, due to his high marks, he would become successful. The baseball players Clark Kent mentions in this story while his class-mates play indoor baseball: Ty Cobb (center fielder 1905-1928), Babe Ruth (right fielder/pitcher 1914-1935) and Walter Johnson (pitcher 1907-1927), were all inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1936. This story must therefore take place in January of 1937. Pete Ross and Lana Lang are shown going to a party thrown by Bud Corwin while the uninvited Clark watches from behind a tree. Given that in Superboy No. 90 Pete turned down a party invitation when he found out that Clark wasn't invited, Pete most likely left Bud's house shortly after this scene upon discovering that Clark was excluded from the guest list. Pete Ross is an honorary member of the Legion by this time. In Superboy No. 102 (Jan. 1963), Editor Mort Weisinger says he is in the letter column. Apparently, the Kents must have known that they'd be back (Pa and Clark just had to get this "out of their system", so to speak) since Mr. Kent just hired someone to look after the General Store and they just locked up their house in Smallville instead of selling it. Furthermore, Clark must have let his Superboy robots handle emergencies back in Smallville lest people know that, when the Kents moved, so did Superboy. Even it the Kents left during winter holidays, two weeks later Clark began school in another town so he would have missed several weeks of the second semester at Smallville High. The Kents must have said that they had to leave town for a while (a "family emergency"?), which would explain Clark's absence and no record of Clark Kent having attended school in Rail City. You would think that Superboy would feel that using his super-powers to win trophies in athletics and scholarships to be unfair, but apparently it doesn't bother him that others lost sporting events and even scholarship awards all because he and Pa needed to "vent" some of their feelings of "inferiority". Even more careless of them was to just up and leave all those accolades behind them without giving much explanation to their newfound friends or employees at their drive-in diner business. Pa Kent also drives off with the car he received as a gift... and he was made honorary mayor at the parade! One can only imagine what the citizens of Rail City must have thought of the Dentons' sudden disappearance. The Kent family is seen coming out of a movie theatre that's marquee reads: "Man From Larado" and beneath it, "Selected Shorts". While we couldn't find any listings of this particular movie, it sounds like a Saturday Matinee western, a genre that was very popular back in the mid-1930s. In 1935, for example, the first of many Hopalong Cassidy movies began being produced starring William Boyd. Superboy must wear a domino mask in this story to compensate for his not wearing glasses in his secret identity as Mark Denton. Even so, just as many people point out the similarities between Clark Kent and Superboy; one of Mark Denton's schoolmates finds that Superboy "reminds" him of Mark. In the words of Mark's closest friend, Jeff, "If Mark were Superboy, would he be dumb enough to show off his strength, speed and skill? ... He'd pretend to be timid and weak...!" This demonstrates that "hiding in plain sight" is as good a way as any for Clark to keep people from figuring out he is secretly Superboy and that going to the extreme of timidity might actually draw more suspicion (as is the case with Lana Lang). The cover to this issue shows Clark Kent punching out the Superboy dummy but the figure does not wear a domino mask as the story dictates. This feature was no doubt left out intentionally so as not to "confuse" would-be readers. On the inside, this scene is recreated and the mask is shown flying off the dummy as "Mark" hits it, yet nobody in the crowd makes note of Superboy looking like Mark without the mask. Of course, since nobody in Rail City really knew what Superboy looked like without the mask, the dummy's maker probably sculpted on a "generic" face. The fact that the citizen's of Rail City hadn't seen Superboy is realistic since the Boy of Steel probably doesn't stick around to have his photograph taken much. However, there are newsreel films of Superboy that show in theatres, so one would think that somebody would know that Superboy doesn't wear a mask. When Mark super-punches out the rigged Superboy dummy and wins the $100 prize, "Pa Denton" feels bad about taking the money but Mark tells him that he's getting back his own money since he was pick-pocketed earlier. That means that Pa was in a habit of carrying around $100 dollars in his back pocket - a lot of money back in those days (enough to buy three electric washing machines!).
Chameleon Boy uses a jet-pack in this story even though the new flying-belts are currently in use, which even Superboy mentions. Chameleon Boy knew where to find Superboy as "Mark Denton" during this time since he would have used the Legion's monitoring devices to track down the Boy of Steel. The fraternity that Clark is invited to join, according to the Greek letters on a wall poster, is Pi Theta. This fraternity has a rule that all members must wear a crew-cut. No reprints as of this writing. |
"Clark
Kent, He-Man" (14 pages)
Chameleon Boy was on
a mission to the past when, on his way back to the
future, he decided to visit Clark Kent. What the mission
was and when in history it was has never been disclosed.
But given his power of super-disguise, it must have been
an interesting adventure!