A text for August 1961 contains an "imaginary tale" in which Superman journeys into the past to the eras of Hercules and Samson and then returns with them through the time barrier to twentieth-century Metropolis as potential mates for Lois Lane and Lana Lang. Smiten at first sight with the two lovely modern women, Hercules and Samson beg Lois and Lana to marry them -- and Lois and Lana accept -- but the two women soon prove to be so bitchy, demanding, and indecisive, and life with them promises to be such a continual torment, that the two heroes soon abandon their twentieth-century fiancees in favor of returning to their homes in the ancient past. [Action #279, "The Super-Rivals"]
Text by Michael Fleisher from The Great Superman Book, © 1978
by Michael Fleisher
Krysalla appeared on only two pages in Action #410. She and Clark married circa 1974 and, after she became pregnant, she revealed that she was a witch -- something she'd resisted telling him earlier because she was afraid he wouldn't have married her. Clark, in turn, told her that he was Superman. Ultimately, Krysalla failed to survive childbirth but her son, Krys, lived on. Determined not to neglect his offspring. Clark revealed his alter-ego on a WGBS newscast and abandoned his civilian identity. By 1984, Earth had a lunar base that was nearly destroyed by a reverse-meteor shower secretly engineered by 10-year old Krys. Under hypnosis, the boy also confessed responsibility for "the Hoover Dam disaster of 1983 -- the wreck of the first U.S. Mars flight, 1981 -- the great San Francisco earthquake in 1982 -- also the terrible Brazilian plague the same year."
An agonized Superman executed Krys only to see a double of the boy emerge from his corpse. "I was brought into being at the same time Krys was," he explained. "Only a dimensional warp separated me from your world -- making me sort of an invisible Siamese twin. I soon discovered I had the power to temporarily separate from my brother and become solid for short periods of time. Whenever I enter this dimension, Krys faints into a coma until I return to my place. He wakes with no memory of what happened."
Vulnerable to magic, Superman couldn't stop the warlock but two fanatics known as the Trolvs picked that moment to make their latest assassination attempt on the Man of Steel's son -- and succeeded. As the evil twin died, Krys rematerialized and his father revealed that he'd never actually kill anyone. He'd merely blasted Krys with "a cryo-rifle -- designed to freeze [him] into suspended animation until [he] found a way to drive out the evil."
Review by John Wells