The Long and Ridiculous History of Superman’s Dog

 "Ever since TV’s The Adventures of Superman had debuted four years before, editors of DC’s Superman comics had decreed that his funnybook adventures should read like extensions of his television adventures. That meant scaling back Superman’s comic-book exploits to reflect the low-budget aesthetic of the television show. Thus, for years in the comics, the most powerful being in the universe had largely contented himself with nabbing jewel thieves and rescuing Jimmy Olsen from kidnappers—still, again, some more.

 

But the Space Age was dawning. The comics’ writers and editors began to chafe against their TV-mandated constraints; after all, a comics page comes with an unlimited special-effects budget. Things could and should get weird.

 

The period in comics history when stories started getting truly and thoroughly bananapants—when Batman would cavort through space and time and Jimmy Olsen would get turned into a giant Turtle-Man—is designated the Silver Age, to distinguish its whimsical tone from those earlier, more earnest wartime adventures known as the Golden Age.""

 

read more by GLEN WELDON

Superman’s dog: A history.