Superman Family Quiz

by Michael Condon

Can you solve the quiz of tomorrow?

1. How did the Silver Age Mon El get his name?

A. Upon finding a spaceship containing an amnesiac young man with a full complement of Kryptonian powers and an inscription from Jor and Lara El, Superboy assumed he had found his older brother. Superboy's family name was El, and as Superboy found him on a Monday, he named him Mon El.

B. After Lar Gand saved Superboy's life from a suneater at considerable risk to his own, Superboy adopted him into the El family. Mon is Kryptonian for brave.
C. Mon El's being a Daxamite is a retcon. He was originally a cousin of Superboy's who lived in the domed Argo City. The city was so well constructed that when Krypton exploded the city was launched off the planet and survived intact. Unfortunately, the explosion transformed the base of the city into Emerald Kryptonite, a slow acting version of Green Kryptonite with permanent effects. Mon El was an astronaut and was often away from Argo City. While away on a long voyage the population succumbed. He fell victim to the poisoning shortly after arriving on Earth, and was forced to stay in the Phantom Zone for a thousand years until Brainiac 5 developed a cure.
D. Mon El is Daxamite for Wanderer. Lar Gand felt he was unworthy of his birth name after defying his people's xenophobia by traveling throughout the universe.

2. Which of the following was not a regular feature in the Superman Family comic?

A. The Private Life of Clark Kent.

B. The Krypton Chronicles.

C. Mr. and Mrs. Superman.

D. Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen.

3. How come no one realized that the pre-crisis Clark Kent was Superman with glasses a different hair style and a suit?

A. An enchantment placed on a teenaged Clark Kent's glasses by a young Zatarra the magician, who happened to debut in Action Comics # 1 along with Superman, made Superman look frail when he placed them on.

B. Superman had the power of super hypnotism which was focused through his super glasses. The lens came from the window of the rocket that brought him to Earth.

C. Superman has a limited shape changing ability. Clark Kent has a slightly different bone structure and complexion from Superman. Changing to any shape other than Clark Kent's takes hours of preparation, is painful and fails if he is forced to use any of his other superpowers .

D. Clark Kent carried a minute amount of Green Kryptonite in a hollow ring at all times. This Kryptonite deflated his muscles, whitened his skin, made his voice quaver and gave him a slight twitch. Makeup and acting could have done the job, but he wanted to identify more with comparatively frail humans. The ring only affects him when it is in contact with his skin, and he's up to full power immediately after removing it.

4. When Lex Luthor first appeared in the Golden Age he had a full head of red hair, but sometime in the forties he became bald. What is the real reason for his baldness?

A. Lex Luthor was drawn to exactly resemble Timely publisher Martin Goodman. He was changed in order to prevent a lawsuit. Timely featured a young writer/editor Stan Lee, and later became Marvel Comics.

B. At the time of the change, Captain Marvel and his bald nemesis Dr. Sivana were outselling the Superman titles. The editors at DC thought that they could improve sales by making Superman's chief adversary bald.

C. An artist drew the bald Ultra Humanite when the story referred to Lex Luthor as the villain. Lex Luthor was portrayed as bald, for the rest of the Gold and Silver Ages.

D. The artist on duty decided to make Luthor look exactly like the father of a young woman who had forbidden him to see his daughter. The artist was fired, but the look for the villain remained.

5. Okay, what was the Golden Age comic explanation for his baldness?

A. Mr. Mxyzptlk was jealous that Lex Luthor had more hair than he did, so he cursed him with a completely bald head.

B. When Superboy blew out a fire in boy genius Lex Luthor's lab, he inadvertently gave Lex a faceful of noxious chemicals that rendered him permanently bald.

C. In an early encounter with Superman, a ray gun he developed exploded in his face severely burning him. He was portrayed as heavily scarred until the comics code forbid grotesque villains.

D. No explanation, it was the Golden Age. The fire in Lex Luthor's lab was invented for the Superfriends TV show.

6. What pulp novel is viewed as one of the major influences on Superman?

A. Slan.

B. The Neverending Battle.

C. Gladiator.

D. Iron Munro, Man of Might.

7. General Zod and the other Phantom Zone Villains were some of Superman's most constant foes in the pre-Crisis Universe. They have been less active and somewhat changed in modern continuity. Which is an example of one of their storylines?

A. They were the White Triangle, a Daxamite hate group that destroyed Trom and almost wrecked the United Planets.

B. They were the Hyperclan, a group of White Martians who emerged from an extra-dimensional prison to try to conquer the earth in the JLA storyline New World Order.

C. General Zod managed to possess the Eradicator from the Phantom Zone in the Ghosts in the Machine storyline. He attempted to create robotic bodies for his allies, but was stopped by Superman. Oh, I get it, create army first, then devastate cities.

D. They killed everyone on the Time Trapper's pocket universe Earth except for the future Supergirl. Knowing that they were impossible to contain, Superman killed them .

8. Which major league villain first appeared in Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen?

A. Brainiac.

B. Despero.

C. Metallo.

D. Darkseid.

9. What is the Ace o' Clubs?

A. The code name for Lex Luthor's chief aid before Mercy took the job.

B. The restaurant across the street from the Daily Planet where Lois and Clark always seem to be eating.

C. The hot nightclub that the youth of Metropolis like Jimmy Olsen, Lucy Lane and Jerry White flocked to before it was revealed that its owner was the demonic Blaze.

D. A bar owned by number one Superman fan Bibbo Bibbowski.

10. Which of the following was not a real Kryptonite in the Silver Age?

A. Silver Kryptonite, which increased the aging rate of Kryptonians several thousand fold. In its first appearance it aged Supergirl from a pre-teen to a teenager. In later rendered Supergirl too old to join the Legion of Super Heroes. New member Brainiac 5 brought her back to her teenaged age. In another story it forced Superman to travel back to Ponce De Leon's time to find the Fountain of Youth.

B. Slow Kryptonite, which slowed a Kryptonian's reflexes down to that of a normal human's.

C. Gold Kryptonite, which irrevocably took away all superpowers from a Kryptonian. This appeared both in imaginary stories (I know they're all imaginary, maybe very imaginary is the word we're looking for) and in canonical ones where rogue Kryptonians and hapless Kandorians get affected.

D. Jewel Kryptonite, which acts as a psychic focus for beings trapped in the Phantom Zone.

11. SCU officer Terrible Turpin was which Golden Age hero/adventurer?

A. Little Boy Blue.

B. Scrapper from the Newsboy Legion.

C. Brooklyn from the Boy Commandos.

D. Ice Cream Soldier.

12. Although originally thought to be a clone of Superman, it was later discovered that most of Superboy's genetic material came from:

A. Maxima.

B. Paul Westfield.

C. Valor.

D. Morgan Edge.

13. How did Superman Blue come about in current continuity?

A. Superman is a solar battery. When the suneater prevented the sun from shining for an extended time, Superman used up all his reserves and became powerless. His weird energy powers were a side effect of an attempt to regain his powers.

B. A well-meaning Mysa tried to make Superman Superman more effective by subjecting him to a brain evolution machine. He resisted. He probably wouldn't have wanted his brain evolved even if he trusted her. The resulting technomagic feedback altered his body.

C. He was changed by an isotope of Kryptonite that was altered by Maxima. She had hoped that this Red Kryptonite, its first appearance in current continuity, (I'm not counting Mr. Mxyzptlk's mystic Krimson Kryptonite) would temporarily depower Superman so that she could break his will. After brainwashing him, she would remove the Kryptonite and have a full-powered warrior consort. Instead she altered Superman's bodily form and earned a one way ticket (later apparently exchanged for a round trip one since she's appeared since then) to Takron Galtos.

D. The wizard who shrunk Kandor was prevented from casting a hex that would have killed Superman through Ceritak's intervention. The hex partially worked though, and Superman Blue was the result.

14. Who built the Antarctic Fortress of Solitude?

A. Superman, of course.

B. Ph'Nm K'orr and his band of Martian researchers who studied the Earth during the age of the dinosaurs. They returned to Mars sometime during the Cretaceous Period and never returned.

C. The Eradicator, a Kryptonian robot who wanted to transform Earth into a replacement for Krypton. He managed to only transform a small patch of Antarctic wasteland. At least Brainiac 13 altered the most important city on the planet .

D. Darkseid. It was a secret base that Superman took over and refurbished.

15. Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster originally based Metropolis on their hometown. Which city was their hometown?

A. New York.

B. Cleveland.

C. Kansas City.

D. Boston.

16. Which Superman villain would have created a quiz website that broke into your computer and stole your credit card and banking information while you tried to figure out the quiz?

A. The Trickster.

B. Thaddeus Kilgrave.

C. The Baffler.

D. The Puzzler.

E. Michael J. Condon

Answers

1. A. Most of you should recognize C as being very similar to the Silver Age Supergirl's origin, except for the Emerald Kryptonite which is my own invention. The inhabitants of Argo City were killed by anti-Kryptonite, a form of Green Kryptonite that only affects Kryptonians without superpowers.

2. B. It would have been cool if it was one of the features. Krypton Chronicles was a three issue miniseries from 1981. Mr. and Mrs. Superman dealt with the Earth 2 Superman and his wife Lois Lane. It was set in the 1950's. Superman Family took over the comic Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen. Other regular features were Supergirl and Superman's Girlfriend Lois Lane.

3. B.

4. C.

5. B.

6. C. Slan was short story published in 1940, later expanded into a novel in 1953, by A. E. van Vogt, about the Slan, a race of telepaths, who are the next stage of human evolution and who are hated and feared by normal humans. Many early science fiction fans identified with the Slan. Iron Munro was the member of the Young All Stars who was supposed to take the place of the Golden Age Superman. His father was revealed to be Hugo Danner the protagonist of Gladiator.

7. D. The Martian prison dimension from JLA: New World Order reminded me of the Phantom Zone. There was no connection between the Phantom Zone Villains and the White Triangle.

8. D. And Eclipso never lets him forget it.

9. D. Lois and Clark eat at Dooley's. Blaze's club was Blaze's

10. A. Silver Kryptonite was a silver box that contained statues of Superman's friends. It appeared in a Jimmy Olsen comic and was presented to Superman in honor of the 25th Anniversary of his appearance in Metropolis.

11. C. The Boy Commandos were a bunch of pre-pubescent stereotypes who fought the Nazi's under the guidance of Captain Rip Carter. Brooklyn dressed like a stereotypical 19th. century Irish gangster and carried his gun in a violin case. Scrapper and the rest of the Newsboy Legion grew up to be the directors of the Cadmus Project. Ice Cream Soldier was one of the members of Sgt. Rock's Easy Company. Little Boy Blue and The Blue Boys were three pre-pubescent boys who fought criminals in the forties.

12. B. Paul Westfield was the chief director of the Cadmus Project. Morgan Edge was a media mogul and secretly one of the leaders of the crime cartel Intergang.

13. A. B is the closest approximation to the classic Superman-Red and Superman-Blue that I could think of that would agree with his current characterization. In the original story, Superman used the intelligence enhancer on himself.

14. C. The Silver Age Superman built the Arctic Fortress of Solitude.

15. B. New York was the later model for Metropolis.

16 D. The Puzzler was a second rate Riddler whose gimmick was puzzles and other games who somehow managed to occupy Superman's time for entire issues. The Trickster was a Flash villain, who specialized in crimes based on pranks and getting away using his airwalking shoes. He later repented and played a trick on the Satanic Neron and now uses his skills and unsavory reputation to trick the underworld. Thaddeus Kilgrave is apparently a graduate of the Dr. Sivana school of mad science. The Baffler is the short lived supervillain identity of Cluemaster flunky Czonk, whose misguided attempts at emulating his boss got both of them thrown in jail.