Episode #34 (Superman & The Shazam! Family)
Russell’s Comic Brag
World Of Krypton Mini-Series (1979)
With his world about to die, the scientist Jor-EL of the planet Krypton put his only son, Kal-EL, into a tiny spacecraft and sent it blasting on its way mere moments before Krypton exploded. That boy would eventually arrive on the planet Earth, where our world’s yellow sun would react with his Kryptonian physiology to give him remarkable powers. Kal-EL became known to millions as Superman. World Of Krypton expands on the history of Jor-EL like never before.
This time out, we’ll be getting into DC Comics Presents #34. We’ll start this episode with some Listener Feedback and then go straight to the “Russell’s Comic Brag” segment. I will be presenting a Spotlight for Superman’s Guests, The Shazam! Family. You will hear another Hostess Ad. And finally, we will take a trip to the Comic Spinner Rack.
The DC Comics Presents Show 
Episode #34, Superman and the Marvel Family (sorry, I have a hard time calling them the Shazam! Family) was a good continuation from the previous issue. I imagine your “Spotlight” segment was shorter mainly because you dealt with Captain Marvel in the last episode, and there’s much less material on the other Marvels. I liked that this issue ended with Clark reading a Marvel Bunny comic, as a sort of bookend to the opening of the previous issue, with Jimmy Olsen reading a Captain Marvel comic.
Oddly, I have a comment on one of the items in your “Spinner Rack” segment. When you were describing the cover of Marvel Super Action #32, it brought back a memory from my boyhood. I remember the original issue of Avengers #71, of which Super Action #32 was a reprint. You weren’t sure about Captain America’s shield. It was, indeed, his original “flatiron” shield rather than his more iconic round shield, because the Cap on that cover was the Cap from 1941, before he got the round shield. In that particular story, the then-current members of the Avengers, Yellowjacket, Vision, and Black Panther, were transported back to 1941, and were (naturally) believed by the 1941 Invaders team (Captain America, the Sub-Mariner, and the Human Torch) to be Nazi agents. This was part of a multi-issue story involving a game between the Grandmaster and Kang the Conqueror, using the Avengers and the Invaders as “game pieces”. It was quite a story line, at least to my then seven-year-old self.
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Correction to the last line above. At the time Avengers #71 came out, I was 13, not 7. I don’t know why I wrote 7.
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