Action Comics #388

Action Comics #388 (On Sale: March 26, 1970) has a cover by Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson. I remember falling for this cover gag and trying to count everything that was wrong on it.

Our cover-story is "Puzzle of the Wild World" by Cary Bates, Curt Swan and George Roussos. I think the answer to the cover question was that nothing was wrong, that on the planet it was depicting, everything was normal, but it has been a while and I might have that wrong. As I have mentioned earlier, I sold most of my Weisinger books in the late 70s.

The back-up Legion of Super-Heroes story is "Sun Boy's Lost Power" reprinted from Adventure Comics #302 and created by Jerry Siegel and John Forte. After attending the dedication of a Sun Boy statue, Sun Boy finds that his powers of heat and light have stopped working. With the help of the Legionnaires, he tries to recharge himself by duplicating the accident that gave him those powers, but to no avail. After his powers briefly return in an entomologist’s office, he invites Ultra Boy and Superboy to concentrate their heat vision powers on him, still with no effect. Heartbroken, he resigns from the Legion, just as Kranyak, his old foe, breaks prison and comes after him.

More worried than before, Sun Boy realizes what it will take to recharge his powers, and deliberately walks into the blast of a Kryptonian flame-beast. With his abilities restored, he defeats Kranyak, and rejoins the Legion. He then explains that he needed the heat-energy of a living being to restore his power, and the Ultra Boy and Superboy present are robots, sent to take those heroes’ places while they celebrate Pete Ross’s birthday in the 20th century.

Edited by Mort Weisinger.