Super DC - The Uncollected Text Adventures : Super DC #12 "Superman ... At Bay!"

Super DC #12 brings us very close to the end of the series, which is terrible news for readers who were counting on the book to teach them the entire ape language from Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan books. They're only up to "L!"

Other features introduce the audience to movie propmaster John Bennett, a.k.a. "Paddy Props," and include articles on the first three Doctor Who actors, Scottish boxer Dick McTaggart, impressionist Mike Yarwood, and comedian Benny Hill. 

Over among the letterhacks, Phillip Davies of Cornwall raises the collecting stakes, bragging that he has 200 comic books in his collection. Chris Hagger of Peterborough is asking for good names for his recently formed club, although he neglects to mention what type of club it is, and further letters are thinly-veiled editorial pieces.

Batman and Robin deal with the silent but deadly clown prince of crime in their text adventure, "The Joker Springs A Gasser." 

The following adventures are reprinted in Super DC #12:
Eterno the Immortal Action Comics #343 (November, 1966)
The Space Adventures of Krypto Adventure Comics #266 (November, 1959)
Lois Lane, Gun Moll Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane #28 (October, 1961)
The Revenge of Jimmy Olsen Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen #78 (July, 1964)
Alpha the Experimental Man Detective Comics #307 (September, 1962)
The Green Sun Supergirl Action Comics #337 (May, 1966)

This Issue's Text Adventure:

Old Blighty's Brainiac is back, at last with his space ship and force field in full array. Likewise, his ultimate goal is truly worthy of a villain of Brainiac's stature -- he seeks to conquer the world and make all living human beings into his subjects! He'll be going about this in his typical way, by stealing treasure, mind you. It seems now that Brainiac's gotten a little taste of burglary, he just can't help himself.

And now, Superman ... At Bay! ...

* * *  

Superman turned like a tiger enraged. There was kryptonite somewhere; every cell in his body told him that. He must find the source of that radiation, deadly to his super- powers. That fantastic element, born of the cosmic explosion which had existed only there. The problem destroyed his native planet Krypton, was that beyond the kryptonite barrier was the entrance, still closed, of his Fortress of Solitude, in the icy Arctic wastes.

Not that Superman felt the cold. But this was his home and he must get inside. The tingling in his body increased as he fought his way across the ice-packed plateau and his senses were almost leaving him before he reached the great door.

His strength was almost gone and he could scarcely mutter into the grille the formula that would open it. His indomitable spirit won and soon the door closed behind him and the kryptonite radiations were cut off. His bio-physiological probe was his objective. It was the only one in existence and he needed it in his fight against crime in the city of Metropolis, of which was the appointed guardian. As he worked at the task of miniaturising the instrument to carrying size, he brooded over which of his foes could have planted the deadly kryptonite. Brainiac, Luthor, the Toyman, the Prankster? Could it be one of these?

It was fruitless to speculate and he put the small instrument under his arm. Outside again the deadly tingling hit him again and it took all his super-powers to take off. Only when he was soaring in the crisp, icy air and leaving the peak did his full titanic strength return to him.

The city of Metropolis was in uproar. A new wave of crime was sweeping the city and Superman felt he knew the reason for the kryptonite at his sanctuary entrance. Thinking him inside, the enemy had planned to imprison him there. While the cat's away the mice will play.

He went at once to a city apartment and a few moments later he left in his second identity as Clark Kent, reporter, and strolled along to the Daily Planet offices.

City Editor, Perry White, greeted him sourly. "Jimmy and Lois are out and about, Clark. As you should be. Get out and see what is breaking in the city. The mayor and council are at their wits' end. Every crook is in action from small time thieves up to the biggest mobsters and the cops are being overwhelmed.

At police HQ, Clark met Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen. The place was seething. The three compared notes and then separated, each to a different sector. Lois looked after Clark, thinking of the haunting reminders he gave her of the great Superman, though this vague newsman was as far apart from Superman as the poles.

But it was as Superman, with the miniaturised probe under his arm, that Clark emerged again and flew at once up to the zenith. Looking down over the crowded streets of Metropolis, the guardian of the city grieved that the powers of evil were loose there. For an instant he felt a helplessness quite foreign to his nature. That momentary sensation, blanketing his super-powers, proved his undoing.

At the same instant as the probe bleeped, denoting the presence of life in his vicinity, he felt an invisible cloud of force surround him and draw him up into the blackness of space, to where a tiny green star glowed. At last he knew the creature who was causing the turmoil that was engulfing Metropolis.

Brainiac, that weird creature half man and half machine, with a super-computer brain, met him as he was thrust, still inside the force field, into the great flying saucer that was the home and workshop of that evil genius.

"You escaped my kryptonite then, Superman," Brainiac snarled, confronting his foe. "No matter, you are now my prisoner. Though I cannot kill you, as I well know, I will imprison you in the globe of force forever.

Never shall you escape from that shell, Superman, while I and my minions plunder your city and then earth. Ended is all the nonsense of you as the guardian of the city. There is enough humanity in me to make me long to dominate the entire human race and bend all men to my sovereign will."

Only his brain working, Superman was held rigid. He could not move a limb and even his eye muscles would not move. Brainiac went out of his cone of sight and Superman exerted his super-vision. But even this was blocked by the strange force-field that Brainiac had woven around him. It looked hopeless. Even if he broke down the barrier it would be too late. Brainiac and his henchmen would by then have plundered his city to the bone. Just one hope was left to him.

Brainiac must sleep some time, but, Superman could go without sleep for many days and nights. He knew of old that the creature was alone in his vessel. Robots were his assistants and no humans were there. He nerved himself to wait. When Brainiac slept his vigilance might be overcome.

With a cruel laugh, Brainiac wheeled an instrument in front of his prisoner. "This is your jailer, Superman," he mocked. "While this is operating you are held in a vice of steel. I am leaving it under full power and now I go down to your city to supervise the plunder. When I return I shall display to you the treasures stripped from Metropolis."

So his hope was useless, brooded Superman. So powerful was his rage that instinctively he put forth every ounce of his great super-powers in one vast surge and they multiplied! His heat-vision penetrated the ionised force-field and beat upon the metal of the strange machine. A curl of smoke went up from melting plastic and he focussed his heat-vision on the switches.

How many hours passed he did not know or care and even his super-powers were strained when at last he was rewarded. His eye-muscles moved! Then his muscles moved all over his body, one by one as the weird force was weakened. Stiffly he walked towards the machine and reduced it to molten metal.

He stared round him at the array of marvellous engines Brainiac had devised, second only to the wonders he himself had developed in his Fortress of Solitude. One by one he deactivated them; their vital parts fused into shapeless lumps. Then he returned and stood motionless on the spot where the invisible force globe had been before he neutralised it.

He allowed himself a small smile. Brainiac and his hordes would return, glorying in their evil deeds, and they would display to him in triumph the wealth they had torn from his city. They would taunt him in his helplessness.

He could picture the frustrated rage on the strange face of his enemy Brainiac when Superman, thought to be as helpless as a granite statue, moved with all his fantastic power to the revenge. The treasure would be restored to Metropolis. And the city's jails would open to receive a host of criminals headed by the lord of the green saucer and his human aides.

* * * The End * * *