Superheroes exist to provide wish-fulfillment fantasies about power and freedom, but what if a superhero had too much power?
That theme has been explored in 21st century comics, but it also appeared from time to time even in the genre’s early decades.
For example, in Action Comics 227 (April 1957), Superman is supercharged with radiation, a condition that makes his X-ray vision a blazing menace to his surroundings. Drawn by Wayne Boring, the story underlines the idea that too much power can turn a super ability into a disability, with Superman forced to effectively blind himself by wearing lead-lined glasses in order to continue his mission in the world.
The issue was on the newsstands in February 1957. In the months just prior, the USSR threatened to use rockets against London, Paris and Israel if those three nations did not end their invasion of Egypt during the Suez Canal crisis. And a U.S. bomber crashed into a storage building containing three Mark 6 nuclear bombs at Lakenheath Royal Air Force base in England, starting a fire that damaged the bombs, but luckily failed to ignite their conventional explosive triggers.
Having so much power that you might end up destroying the very thing you wanted to use that power to protect? The world was all too aware of that ironic theme by the mid-1950s.
Two other stories rounded out the anthology title. Howard Sherman drew a Jack Miller-scripted tale about the jungle adventurer Congo Bill, not yet gorilla-powered, busying himself doing an animal census at an African wildlife sanctuary.
And in the Tommy Tomorrow feature, writer Otto Binder and artist Jim Mooney confronted the 21st-century hero with the threat of The Girl Planeteer. Essentially under orders from his commander to fail a (gasp!) female cadet, Tommy finds that difficult to do because of the girl’s amazing competence.
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