Descrizione
ALBI DEL FALCO
NEMBO KID
SUPERMAN
dopo 15 anni a suon di urrà e di cicliche ciclonate, la prima gloriosa testata italiana dedicata completamente all’ uomo d‘acciaio (per l’ occasione ribattezzato Nembo Kid) si caratterizza paradossalmente per l’ inconsistenza e la fragilità della carta talmente debole e sottile che si sbriciola e si frantuma a guardarla, in netta contrapposizione alla massiccia robustezza e alla solidità erculea del gagliardo supereroe, resistente ed indistruttibile come le scorie nucleari che a lui gli fanno il solletico, però in compenso deve stare molto attento alla kryptonite con cui noi invece ci facciamo tranquillamente i fanghi, gli infusi, l’ insalata, le tisane, le creme scioglipancia e anche il sugo per gli spaghetti
ALBO ORIGINALE DEL 1955, ARNOLDO MONDADORI EDITORE
Con tutte ste minacce a 1 o più stelle che piovono da tutte le parti ci vorrebbe davvero l’ aiuto di Superman anche per la nostra povera partitocrazia, mannaggia, beh perlomeno tra una abbuffata, una barzelletta ed un giro di bunga bunga si possono consolare e rilassare leggendo questa istruttiva storiellina, in cui sia Berlusconi che Bersani avranno modo di immedesimarsi nel supereroe con le membra ed il corpo d’acciaio, capelli compresi
CONDIZIONI : BUONISSIME, MINIMA USURA IN COSTOLA CON PEZZETTINO DI SCOTCH TRASPARENTE ALLA ESTREMITA’ INFERIORE, GRAFFETTE UN PO’ OSSIDATE, LIEVI SEGNI DI UMIDITA’ E QUALCHE PICCOLA E TENUE FIORITURA DEL TEMPO NEI MARGINI BIANCHI DI ALCUNE PAGINE INTERNE
Featured Characters:
Other Characters:
- Lois Lane
- Perry White
Locations:
- Metropolis
Synopsis
After attempting to destroy an asteroid with
traces of Kryptonite, Superman loses his memory. He changes into the
clothes in the cape pocket and heads to the Daily Planet. Lois and Perry
tell him he is Clark Kent and that Superman has disappeared. When Clark
puts on the Superman suit to fool some bank robbers and finds that
bullets bounce off him, he credits the suit. He breaks up the asteroid
and then decides to reveal to the Daily Planet that though he has been
acting as him, he isn’t Superman. As he walks to the office, however, he
is hit by a truck and remembers that he really is Superman.
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Villains:
- John Hector
Other Characters:
- Curtis Calloway
Locations:
Synopsis
A dying millionaire takes revenge on Metropolis by staging a gangster treasure hunt.
Featured Characters:
- Superman
Supporting Characters:
- Lois Lane
Villains:
- Prankster
Locations:
- Metropolis
Synopsis
One evening, Clark Kent and Lois Lane were walking down a crowded
Metropolis sidewalk when a scream suddenly filled the air, “The
Prankster! He’s struck again!” Turning to face the commotion Kent looked
intently through the crowd and suddenly his shirt flew open exposing
the familiar blue and red costume of Superman, “You won’t get away with
it this time, Prankster!” Kent yelled. Lois Lane looked at Kent in
amazement. Why was Kent publicly revealing his identity?
The answer goes back a week earlier, in the Daily Planet offices.
Lois had just received a telephone call from Jim Wright telling her
that he could not play the lead role in the News Association’s annual
play. Getting up from her desk, Lois sauntered over to Kent’s desk and
coyly asked, “Clark, There’s no time for a substitute. You want to play
Superman?” Kent was a bit stunned but reluctantly agreed after Lois
badgered him for a while.
Later that day, Kent arrived for his first rehearsal and costume fitting
at the Rox Theater. Emerging from the dressing room, he stood awkwardly
in a costume that hung loosely from his shoulders. “We picked Jim
Wright because he was big and husky but we’ll have to cut the costume
down for you,” laughed Lois. One of the other reporters came up and
stared at Kent. “At least your face is somewhat like Superman,” he said.
Kent thought he was fortunate to have used some make-up in the dressing
room to make sure that he didn’t look too much like Superman.
The News Association play was based on an adventure Superman had with
the Prankster, and suddenly a short man dressed to look like the
Prankster popped around the corner. Seeing Kent being hoisted up on a
wire guide to practicing his “flying” the small, round actor chuckled,
“It won’t be hard to keep laughing like the real Prankster when Kent
flies down a wire in that suit.”
As rehearsal progressed, Kent practiced his flying and capturing the
Prankster. Then, on another set, Kent almost made a horrible mistake
lifting a real piano rather than the paper mache prop. Once the
rehearsal was complete the director pulled Kent aside. “Well Kent, you
weren’t too bad. The part’s yours… permanently.”
Outside the theater, the real Prankster read the advertisements on the
marquee. “I ought to sue for libel,” he grumbled out loud. Then he
noticed that Clark Kent was playing the title role. “He’ll find it a
troublesome role. Yes indeed— I’ll see to that!” promised the
Prankster, and that was proven at the next rehearsal. Kent was in
costume ready to go through a scene when he noticed that the theatre was
filled with “hard-looking characters” sitting in the audience. Lois
tried to calm him down by telling him that they were probably just
people who wandered in off the street to watch, but using his x-ray
vision he saw that these “patrons” have tomatoes and rocks in their
pockets.
As soon as Kent appeared as Superman on stage, the thugs began throwing
the objects at him. Quickly speeding off the stage, Superman remembered
that this theatre had a large revolving stage and he spun the sets so
quickly that it actually blew the rocks and vegetables right back in the
thugs’ faces. Hearing a commotion, Lois came running out. “Those
hoodlums are running! And only the real Superman could’ve spun the stage
so fast,” she thought. But moments later, they heard a moan and found
Clark wrapped in the gears and belts of the mechanism that spins the
stage. “It’s a miracle you weren’t hurt,” said one of the stagehands,
dusting Kent off. Still, thought Lois, it was funny that Kent tripped
into the mechanism and got it working.
At the Prankster’s hideout, the mood is anything but jolly. “Get out you
malodorous idiots-boobs-nitwits! Stopped by a near-sighted, fifth rate
imitation of Superman. I’ll handle this personally at the first
opportunity.” Picking up a copy of the Daily Planet, he read the
front-page headline that announced that the play would begin a tryout in
Tullville tomorrow. “I know Tullville,” chuckled the Prankster, quickly
planning his next catastrophe. “A little wooden bridge leads into that
swampy town. Very swampy indeed. Enough to swamp the whole cast.”
The next day, the Prankster waited beneath the bridge leading to
Tullville to witness his handiwork. He has cut out part of the supports
of the wooden bridge and when the bus carrying the troupe passed that
section of planking it gave way and fell, to the gleeful laughter of the
Prankster. In an effort to save the troupe, Kent, who was in costume,
leaped from the window of the bus carrying Lois Lane with him. On his
way past, he grabbed a rope that had been sitting on the top of the bus,
then fell over one of the bridge’s support beams carrying Lois with
him. Their momentum appeared to take them beneath the bus then back up
again forming a loop around the bus. Hanging from the beam, Lois and
Clark appeared saved by a tangle of rope.
Once the bus was safely supported beneath the bridge, Superman watched
the Prankster creep along the edge of the bridge to view the aftermath.
Superman used his heat vision to burn away a support beam, sending the
Prankster headfirst into the swamp. Back at his hideout, the Prankster
was furious because he had become a laughing stock to his men. “So, my
name’s mud, eh?” He grumbled. “I’ll stand Metropolis on its ear.”
The next evening was the gala Metropolis premier of the play, attracting
a throng of first-nighters. Backstage, Lois told Clark not to worry
since she doubted that the Prankster will try anything this night.
“There’s a special police detail outside all the entrances.”
Suddenly the actor who plays the Prankster popped his head into the
dressing room. “There’s your cue, Kent. Off with the glasses and lets
get going.” The next minute Kent was hoisted up to his place on a thin
wire, but when the Prankster reappeared, Lois realized that he was
holding a real tommygun. “Of course, Nothing like realism to liven up a
role,” laughed the Prankster who put his finger on the trigger and began
shooting. Hanging by a wire, Kent realized that was the real Prankster
and he was firing real bullets. Taking careful aim, the Prankster shot
at a specific rope causing a new set to fall to the stage, telling the
audience that this was a stick up and they should to remain in their
seats. From behind the screen, the Prankster’s henchmen arrive with
their, guns drawn.
Realizing he needed to act quickly, but not wanting to give away his
secret identity, Superman twisted, breaking the support wire. He fell to
the stage hitting a loose board so powerfully that it catapulted a prop
barrel up and over the Prankster’s head. Seeing this, his thugs moved
toward Superman who leaped through a set head first, simultaneously
flipping a bullet casing into the fuse box, shorting out the current and
shutting off the house lights. Moving quickly, Superman painted a giant
image of himself, then used an iron clothes rack to fashion a prison
cell. When the lights came up, a new set appeared on stage, one with the
painted image of Superman flying the Prankster away. The Prankster and
his thugs stared at the set. “What’s that?” yelled the Prankster. “It’s
not in the script!” With the crooks distracted, Superman dropped the
cell on them. “A good actor can always ad-lib in an emergency,” laughed
Superman.
As the dust settled, Lois came running in. “This time you can’t get out
of it, Superman. All those accidents fooled me before. But now I know
Clark is the real Superman. Because if you’re not Clark, where is he?”
On cue, a voice from the rafters pleaded, “Help! Get me down.” There
stuck in the rafters was… Clark Kent. “Guess he got caught on one of
these rope pulleys when the last drops were raised,” said Superman who
flew up to retrieve him. Kent then asked Superman to carry him out to
the alley so he can change his ripped suit trousers. Lois just shook her
head. “Oh dear. I was wrong about Clark again.” But, unknown to Lois,
she wasn’t wrong. Superman had used the cardboard cutout of Kent from
the front of the theater to make her think Clark was stuck in the
rafters, and his ventriloquism to cry for help to deceive Lois.
The next day, the Planet told a very different story as the headline
read, “Audience cheers new ending of News Association play.” “Some
people think it was all part of the act,” laughed Lois. “Well,” said
Kent, “The Prankster’s act was so good he’s certain to have a long run
at the state prison.”
Story – 2:
Both Batman and Superman had serious foes that were somewhat similar.
Batman fought the Joker and Superman Lex Luthor on a regular basis. Both
were psychotic madmen who gave each hero a run for their money.
However, they couldn’t fight these villains every issue, as much as
editors might have liked it. So, each hero had other villains. Batman
had Two-Face, The Penguin and the Riddler. Superman’s regular villains
were Mr. Mxyztplk, the Toyman and the Prankster. The Prankster was one
of Superman’s most frequent foes, first appearing in Action Comics #51 (August 1942) in a story called “The Case of the Crimeless Crimes”. He was described in Superman
#41 as being in his mid-thirties, approximately five feet tall,
weighing 125 pounds, with slicked-down red hair, a narrow moustache, a
pointy nose, large cupped ears and a wide gap between his upper front
teeth that made him look like a Halloween jack-o-lantern. The Prankster
loved to pull a caper that would incorporate a series of pranks all
designed to make authorities, and Superman in particular, look like a
fool. Yet often, he was the one made to look like a fool by Superman.
In
this story, the Prankster appears more a bumbling clown than a criminal
genius. None of his plans are very well thought out and none were
successful. Furthermore, the whole pretense that he would be upset about
a play, to the point of killing the actors, seems a bit far-fetched.
You’d think that someone with an ego like The Prankster’s would be proud
to be immortalized on-stage.
