Action Comics #381

Action Comics #381 (On Sale: August 28, 1969) has a cover by Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson.

We begin with Superman in "The Dictator of Earth" by Leo Dorfman, Curt Swan and George Roussos. Superman is doing un-Superman-like things. Gosh! What could be causing that? Dorfman delivers another pretty awful Red Kryptonite story. Do I really need to go over the details? He didn't do it and if he did he didn't mean it. Ugh, this one is a floating turd.

The back-up story is the Legion of Super-Heroes in "The Hapless Hero" by Jim Shooter, Winslow Mortimer and Jack Abel. This is the kind of story which explains why the Legion under Shooter was so popular. Rather than the 800th rehash of the Red K story, or some other normal Weisinger nonsense, this story is all about the home lives of a few of the people in the colorful tights.

We follow Matter-Eater-Lad, Tenzil Kem, home from a late Legion meeting. He lives in the slums, his mother wants his Legion check to pay some bills. His father is a n alcoholic who gambles away his pension every month. Disgusted, he heads back to Legion headquarters where he runs into Shrinking Violet, who is pining away for Qued Orlu, Duplicate Boy of the planet Lallor. She had a date with him tonight, but he stood her up.

To cheer her up Tenzil asks her out on a date and blows a lot of cash making it memorable. When he goes to kiss her good night, Duplicate Boy. Tenzil uses simple logic to stop Qued from creaming him and when he then bemoans losing Violet to M-E-L, she tell him that he is being silly and that it is he she loves. the next day at Legion HQ, M-E-L receives a letter from his parents asking him to come home and that his father is giving up gambling.

Edited by Mort Weisinger.