Source: Superboy vol.1 #30 (1954) and #50 (1956)
Type: Robot
What if I told you Superboy piloted a Superboy Mech not once, but twice?
In Superboy #30, Clark's high school teacher is causing havoc by turning household animals into giants (his talents MAY be wasted in the rural Kansas school system). He moves his family to a deserted island , but his test tubes fall into his baby's hands when a volcanic eruption shakes the house and kills its parents (stop me if I'm going too fast/illogical). The baby turns into the Jolly Green Giant in a matter of weeks and stomps through the ocean to Metropolis (the water is never more than knee-high between a tropical island and an Northeastern American city) and after an altercation with Superboy, down to Smallville itself.
With Lana in danger, Superboy flies back to the island to drink the growth serum and thus figure out the antidote (his words, not mine). A giant Superboy returns to Smallville and befriends the giant baby, returns it to normal size, and leaves him in a field to be adopted by the first passersby. Lana wonders if Superboy will ever regain his normal stature, but the point is moot because it is revealed he never actually grew, but used a giant robot version of himself to win the day.
How Superboy fabricated the antidote and built a giant robot all happens off-panel. Kids in the 50s knew better than to ask too many questions.
We get more details when Superboy uses the same trick in Superboy #50 to make Smallville's resident irresponsible crackpot Professor Tinker believe his "Titanic Tonic" works, while at the same time showing him the evils of actually perfecting such a chemical. In giant form, Superboy creates as many problems as he fixes, like earthquakes and tsunamis.
The tonic didn't actually work, of course. Instead, Superboy speedily "molds" the professor's glasses with his fingers so his image seems magnified. Then, he races off to build a giant, mechanical "dummy" at the city dump!
He animates it from the inside using wires, and super-ventriloquism completes the illusion. These people had never seen CGI, so it all looks real to them. Superboy's weirdest feat however has to be when he "compresses" the dummy around himself to create the appearance of shrinking after the tonic "wears off".
Yep, that makes no sense at all. How does it end? Well, not only does the professor abandon the idea for a gigantism serum, but he also decides to only make useful inventions and wins the "Science Prize". Aww. I hope Superboy hoaxes ME into a better life someday!
Type: Robot
What if I told you Superboy piloted a Superboy Mech not once, but twice?In Superboy #30, Clark's high school teacher is causing havoc by turning household animals into giants (his talents MAY be wasted in the rural Kansas school system). He moves his family to a deserted island , but his test tubes fall into his baby's hands when a volcanic eruption shakes the house and kills its parents (stop me if I'm going too fast/illogical). The baby turns into the Jolly Green Giant in a matter of weeks and stomps through the ocean to Metropolis (the water is never more than knee-high between a tropical island and an Northeastern American city) and after an altercation with Superboy, down to Smallville itself.
With Lana in danger, Superboy flies back to the island to drink the growth serum and thus figure out the antidote (his words, not mine). A giant Superboy returns to Smallville and befriends the giant baby, returns it to normal size, and leaves him in a field to be adopted by the first passersby. Lana wonders if Superboy will ever regain his normal stature, but the point is moot because it is revealed he never actually grew, but used a giant robot version of himself to win the day.
How Superboy fabricated the antidote and built a giant robot all happens off-panel. Kids in the 50s knew better than to ask too many questions.We get more details when Superboy uses the same trick in Superboy #50 to make Smallville's resident irresponsible crackpot Professor Tinker believe his "Titanic Tonic" works, while at the same time showing him the evils of actually perfecting such a chemical. In giant form, Superboy creates as many problems as he fixes, like earthquakes and tsunamis.
The tonic didn't actually work, of course. Instead, Superboy speedily "molds" the professor's glasses with his fingers so his image seems magnified. Then, he races off to build a giant, mechanical "dummy" at the city dump!
He animates it from the inside using wires, and super-ventriloquism completes the illusion. These people had never seen CGI, so it all looks real to them. Superboy's weirdest feat however has to be when he "compresses" the dummy around himself to create the appearance of shrinking after the tonic "wears off".
Yep, that makes no sense at all. How does it end? Well, not only does the professor abandon the idea for a gigantism serum, but he also decides to only make useful inventions and wins the "Science Prize". Aww. I hope Superboy hoaxes ME into a better life someday!
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