Superman was kept busy in the spring of 1956 by matching wits yet again with the omnipotent Fifth Dimensional imp Mr. Mxyzptlk, emancipating the slaves of the latter-day feudal lord Eldric and traveling to the past with Batman and Robin to meet the Three Musketeers.
Even Superman’s dead father managed to give him some trouble in Action Comics 216 (The Super-Menace of Metropolis, May 1956).
“In May 1956, Metropolis is besieged by colossal metal machines — unleashed by a robot-piloted alien spacecraft — which tear through the city wreaking havoc and destruction,” noted comics historian Michael L. Fleisher. “Superman’s initial conclusion is that the ‘terrible machines’ are the work of a sinister mastermind who ‘wants to take over the world,’ but a diary written by Jor-El, which the Man of Steel finds on the spacecraft’s floor, reveals that the machines are actually ‘outlawed war weapons’ from the planet Krypton which were launched into outer space by Jor-El prior to the death of his planet as part of his plan to avert what he feared was the possibility of an imminent outbreak of war on Krypton.”
Jor-El had intended that the weapons would destroy a prop city as an illustration of the horrors of war to Kryptonians. But the explosion of Krypton sent the spacecraft to Earth, where the robot pilot began carrying out its programming by attacking Metropolis.
Superman plunged the spacecraft into Earth’s molten core, destroying it.
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