Superboy #168

Superboy #168 (On Sale: July 7, 1970) has another of my favorite Neal Adams' covers. Just beautiful. 

 We begin with our cover-story, "Leave Us... or We Perish" by Frank Robbins, Bob Brown and Murphy Anderson. The Nazis hold a secret meeting to discuss Superboy, who is an obstacle to their success. They send saboteurs to Smallville. The saboteurs threaten to destroy the town if Superboy doesn't leave Earth. He reluctantly meets their demands after the townspeople turn against him. Pa Kent then discovers the Nazis planting explosives in the town's sewer system. He fails to stop them and is shot.

From space, Superboy sees Jonathan's body and returns to Earth. He stops the Nazis and floods the sewer system to disable the bombs. After the town is safe, he returns home where the real Jonathan Kent is. The man that was shot was really a Jonathan Kent robot created by Superboy himself.

The back-up Superboy story must have been in inventory for a few years. "The Negative Boy of Steel" is by Arnold Drake who was fired in 1968, Al Plastino who was also fired in 1968 and Mike Esposito. Except for a Superman's Wedding Album pin-up in 1996, this is Al Plastino's last work for DC. Superboy battles an energy dragon in space. When Superboy collides with the creature it causes a massive explosion which temporarily knocks Superboy unconscious. When he recovers and returns to Earth, he finds that he has been replaced by a negative version of himself. His parents and the townspeople accept the new Superboy and reject the original. After suffering through the pain of being replaced, Superboy collides with his counterpart resulting in another explosion. His parents then explain that the negative Superboy was created from his body, and their rejection was only a hoax.

Al Plastino's earliest comic work was as an assitant to Bill Everett working on Sub-Mariner for Timely Comics and his first credited work was the cover of Novelty Press' Blue Bolt Comics #9 in 1943. In 1948 Plastino showed samples of his work to editors at DC and began a 20-year stint on the Superman family of books. 

At first he was required to mimic Wayne Boring's style but as time went on he was allowed to draw like Al Plastino. He worked on Superman, Superboy, and Lois Lane. With Otto Binder he co-created Supergirl and The Legion of Super-Heroes. 

 Plastino also drew the Superman newspaper strip in the late 60s and the Batman strip from 1966-1972. When DC ousted him from their books in 1968 Al Plastino also took over the Ferd'nand newspaper strip which he drew until he retired in 1989. In 1983 he drew the Sunday episodes of Nancy after Ernie Bushmiller died and he also drew a year's worth of Peanuts strips in the early 1980s to be used if Charles Schulz became ill. I don't think those will ever see the light of day, but it does make for an interesting trivia question, "Who besides Charles Schulz drew an entire year's worth of Peanuts strips?" 

 Edited by Murray Boltinoff.