Friday "Funnies" Foolishness: Blasted Babies!

Second post, not the same as the first, and what was originally intended to be my Friday Foolishness entry.  This one came to me after reading an issue of "Superman's Girlfriend Lois Lane".  Oh... taking the mick out of this book would be all-too-easy, but it wasn't the main story that called me into action.  Sure, a lot of what I read of Missus Lane's solo adventures from the late 60's are pretty ridiculous, but I ran into a secondary story that set a fire under me.  I do understand the Silver Age of DC comics were a different era, and that they tended towards the "goofy" side.  I get that; I accept it.  I even can just enjoy some of those stories just because they're fast-paced tales that wrap up fairly quickly.  But if there's one concept from this age of comics that I've really developed a pet peeve over, especially for the Superman line of books... it's adventures of the characters as "babies".

 

Let me initially state that I'm not opposed to stories featuring Superboy, as he traditionally was portrayed as a early to mid teenager.  BUT when we turn back the clock to Clark's infant to toddler years, that's when I start to roll my eyes and groan.  You see, most of the stories revolve around a "precocious" Super-Tot getting into some kind of misunderstanding... because he's young and "inexperienced"... and setting things right, because even as a baby, he does the right thing because it's the right thing to do.  And since he's a Super-Baby, he can talk.  But since he's not mature enough to grasp the English language subtleties, he has a Frankenstein's Monster cadence to his speech.  (Ironically, Bizarro would adopt a similar speech pattern.  Except Bizarro's not forcing us to read a story about a baby in a Superman costume beating up criminals, so that imperfect clone gets a pass.)

I think the main reason why Super-Baby bothers me so much is the Superman mythology REALLY didn't need stories about Clark being generally an icon of heroics... even as a bloody toddler!  As previously mentioned, I can buy a Superboy story... even though I tend to prefer the John Byrne "Man of Steel" approach when Superman didn't even exist as a concept until Clark's adulthood... because even Superboy stories carry a bit more solid storytelling behind them.  But even on a "shut my brain down" mentality, I just cannot buy into a story where a child who should be spending his time teething, filling his diapers, and looking adorable... is flying, talking, and beating up bad guys.  Seriously, it bugs the living heck out of me.

But how does this tie back in to my introductory reading experience I wrote about in my first paragraph?  Well, in that very issue of "Superman's Girlfriend Lois Lane", we were... ahem... "treated" to an adventure of Baby Lois Lane.  Oh... Joy...

The story involved how Lois was so curious and bold, even as a baby, and how a quirk of fate brought her into possession of a lost toy of Kal-El's on Earth which saves her life.  ... Never mind the fact that space-time differences really SHOULDN'T put Lois and Kal around the same age, since the amazing time span between his initial launching from Krypton onto Earth should've taken a wee bit longer than just a few days or so.  But connecting their development so closely sort of cheapens their first meeting in "Action Comics #1".  But then again, this WAS the period that Mort Weisenger was fixated on connecting every bit of Superman lore into each other to create a grand mythological tapestry.  Think of that editor as being like George Lucas... only according to many stories I've read, a much more verbally abusive and stubborn George Lucas.

But thankfully, we didn't have to wait for "Crisis on Infinite Earths" to wipe away the concept of Superbaby.  I know that stage of Clark's development received a story or two in the "Superman Family" anthology book, but they were dropped, and the "Toddler of Steel" dropped out of storytelling sight for a solid five or so years.  In the words of baby Clark Kent, "Me am so happy there's no more stupid Superbaby stories!"