"..Reminded me that I have to make a trip to Washington...as Clark Kent!"---Superman to Batman, "Wild Weekend in Washington", Superman #268, October, 1973.

The Seventies started with the Daily Planet being acquired by the "Smiling Cobra", Morgan Vincent Edge, the head of Galaxy Commmunications Network. A television network, it was branching out and buying other news media.

Morgan Edge, a smooth and polished man, was also known to be ruthless in his business dealings. Unknown to many, he was also one of the higher-ups in Inter-Gang, a Mafia-like organization backed with technology that seemed unearthly.(I am unsure whether the criminal Edge was a clone made by Apokolips technology of the real Morgan Edge/Morris Edelstein, as stated in LOIS LANE, or whether that was a fictional story, and the real Edge was always criminal.)

It's hard to determine which network "Galaxy Broadcasting Systems" really is. Back in the seventies you don't have the plethora of networks out there now. CBS, started by William Paley, in 1971 had a president, James Aubrey, who was nicknamed "the smiling Cobra" which seems a pretty broad hint. Aubrey had also been head of MGM studios for a time. Jacqueline Susann's "The Love Machine" was a thinly-disguised fictionalization based on Aubrey's life and took its title from Aubrey's other nickname.

Yet later Superman fought a villain called Blackrock from a competing network...and the CBS headquarters is called Blackrock...and Galaxy had a talk-show host who seemed to be based on Johnny Carson, Johnny Neveda, who ran on NBC. There seems to be a lot of misdirection going on. So let's just say the actual network is undetermined and leave it at that.

"Clark Kent" doesn't appear to be the gravel-voiced (and unspectacled) Jim Jensen, who was the anchorman for WCBS-TV through much of the seventies and eighties until 1995. (Co-anchoring with such greats as Rolland Smith and Marcia Kramer.) It may be Clark's anchorman status was an exagerration, or a weekend position, or at some other station. Let's hope he wasn't ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT's and would-be singer, John Tesh, who was a WCBS anchorman at age 23, the youngest ever. Clark doubtless knew them though, as well as anchormans Bill Beutal on Channel 7, Chuck Scarborough and Sue Simmons on Channel 4, and John Roland on Channel 5 in NYC....he was doubtless familiar with all the TV newsmen in NYC.

Edge dispatched Jimmy Olsen to a story with the new Newsboy Legion, the sons of the originals, to the "Wild Area" and the "Mountain of Judgement". It was an area where they wouldn't trust anyone under twenty-five. Jimmy was actually in his very low thirties, but he looked much younger, sort of the way Burt Ward (who played Robin on the TV show) does. Nevertheless, Superman followed to help, knowing the "Wild Area" was very close to the DNA (Cadmus) Project.

In the course of the adventure, Superman first heard rumours about Darkseid.

In February of 1970, the Justice League and Society fight Creator-squared.

In June 1970, he encountered the Forever People from Supertown on the world New Genesis. Superman lusted to go there---for like Krypton was, New Genesis was a world inhabited by superhuman beings, and was the closest world yet he had found to Krypton. (He later went to New Genesis, but he found it difficult to adjust...unable to face that he had abandoned a world, Earth, that needed all the help it could get....and returned.) In that same adventure, he encountered Darkseid for the first time, face to face....not to mention the dimensional bridge known as the Boom Tube.

In late June 1970, Professor Belden's experiment on making a kryptonite engine went awry, and all kryptonite on Earth---always much less than the comics potrayed, and kept in secret government or underworld caches---was turned to iron. Morgan Edge also made Clark a TV reporter for WGBS, his flagship station for the Galaxy Broadcasting Network.

Over the next few months, Superman would encounter the Sand-Superman---a residue of the Kryptonite chain-reaction that gradually took on Superman's features and powers.

An additional plot was the "de-powering" of Superman to levels not shown in the comics since the 30s. Artillery shells would bring him down, he leaped over high buildings rather than flew, he was no longer as near-omnipotent as he had been portrayed. Actually, what the writer, Denny O'Neil was doing, was trying to think of a way to present Superman more realistically, more like what his actual power levels really were.

Unfortunately, other writers and editors didn't play along, and within a few months Superman was essentially written at the same fictional levels he had been portrayed at for years. Yet those few issues (minus the whining that he lost his powers, something that never happened) were much more realistic on how Superman actually acted.

Which brings up a point....since Siegel was no longer writing for DC Comics, what was the source for the stories? Surely we cannot expect every writer of Superman to have special sources.

That's entirely true. In the early seventies, there were two main sources.

Jack Kirby, since the days of World War II when he and his writer friend Joe Simon received---as a part of a government project to use Captain America as a propaganda tool--- top secret documents detailing Captain America's cases, tended to have a genuis for getting an inside track on superhuman happenings.

That was emphasized in the sixties, when he and Stan Lee entered into an agreement with Reed Richards and the Fantastic Four to chronicle their adventures. That involved some actual danger. Lee and Kirby were held hostage by Doctor Doom in one adventure, as a trap for Reed Richards. (We learned in Fantastic Four Annual #3, that Lee and Kirby were not invited to Reed and Sue Richards' wedding. Let's hope that was an oversight, and not a reflection of Reed and Sue's disdain for the comic book...) This duality with the fictional comic book and the actual adventures explains how the Human Torch could be reading a Hulk comic book in Fantastic Four #5, and fight the actual Hulk in Fantastic Four #25...

In the seventies, Kirby's contact was the grown Gabby, the former member of the original Newsboy Legion, and his son, the member in the new Newsboy Legion. From him he learned of the Project and the threat of Darkseid.

Secondly, there was another source who bound the Superman books together...editor Julius Schwartz. As revealed in FLASH, he and Barry Allen met in the late sixties. Supposedly Barry Allen/Flash journeyed to Earth-Prime. In actuality, some reporters were nosing around the truth about the reality of super-heroes, especially the JLA. Since Gardner Fox and some other writers had recently left DC, Barry Allen wanted to make sure that Julius Schwartz would instruct his writers to place the JLA heroes on another "Earth", the same subterfuge he and Gardner Fox had done a few years earlier with Jay Garrick and the JSA.

Schwartz, an imaginative and shrewd man, agreed, and even talked the powers-that-be at DC to allow a JLA transporter to be installed on the rooftop of DC Comics in 1969.

Schwartz often brainstormed with his writers, like O'Neil, Bates, Maggin, and Pasko, and it was he who interjected the ideas that were based on reality. Of course, if inconsistencies and fantasies were introduced---all the better. The world would be more convinced that this was totally fictionous. Still, Schwartz was able to get the JLA to give him notes on some of their latest adventures, both seperately and together. These became the basis for many stories.

Not all. Many of the stories were totally fictional. Case in point was "The Midnight Murder Show" by Cary Bates, published in July 1973, where Superman saves the life of TV talk-show host Johnny Neveda by hearing a single gunshot going off in the city---and getting there before it can travel two feet to the victim...which means he "heard" the gunshot much faster than the speed of sound, a scientific impossibility. There is no way Superman could have heard a sound which travelled, at the speed of sound, from halfway across the city and gotten halfway across the city before the bullet (travelling as fast as sound or faster) travelled the two feet. Some things really are impossible. That was one of many totally fictional stories published that decade.

Eventually, some of the writers under Schwartz, like Denny O'Neil and Elliot Maggin, found out the truth. They didn't advertise the fact, though. As Lee and Kirby found out a decade earlier, it can be dangerous to be the known chronicler of a real super-hero....who has many underworld or maniacal enemies. The "Earth-Prime" fiction helped keep the writers...safe.

In January of 1971, Superman met Billy Anders, and for a while his powers were linked to his picturing Billy's pet lynx.

In February of 1971, the League and the Society fought Solomon Grundy aided by an alien kid.

In April of 1971 the League fights the League of Assasins, assisted by Deadman.

In June of 1971, Superman first encounters STAR (Scientific and Technological Advanced Research) Labs for the first time.

In August of 1971 the League fought Starbreaker for the first time.

In September of 1971 he fought an earthman raised by aliens, but still keeping the motif of the Wild Wild West he was born in, who called himself Terra-Man.

In October 31st of 1971,Halloween, the Justice League meets the Phantom Stranger and defeat Felix Faust. The Phantom Stranger is offered membership, and people are still debating whether he accepted it.

In February of 1972, the League and the Society help rescue the time-lost Seven Soldiers of Victory.

In August of 1972, Superman fights the Shaggy Man with the rest of the League.

In November of 1972, Nixon was re-elected, despite the Watergate break-in and the dirty tricks that Clark, with his super-vision and super-hearing, could tell were going on. Clark loathed corrupt politicians, and had pursued many in the thirties and forites. Other he trusted more. Clark had once entrusted his true identity---not the alias, "Clark Kent", but his real name---to President John F. Kennedy, despite his knowledge of President Kennedy's philandering, again hard to hide from someone with x-ray vision and super-hearing. Yet he had liked Kennedy, and had applauded when Kennedy had announced the USA would reach for the moon.

He had brought down many a corrupt politician before, but a President? Besides, the President knew about the super-heroes and could start a panic. This would have to be handled very delicately...

He...um..."persauded" a high-placed government official to leak information to Bob Woodward and Bernstein, two friends of Clark's, two young reporters who worked on the Washington Post. He quite frankly terrorized "Deep Throat", as he was dubbed, to spilling secrets to the Washington Post reporters. As a consequence, over the next year or two, revelation after revelation came out about the Nixon White House, and eventually Nixon resigned rather than be impeached.

In December of 1972, Superman fought Flash's old enemy, Gorilla Grodd, in "Gorilla Grodd's Grandstand Play", although Solovar decided to rob the world of its memory of the discovery of Gorilla City with his psychic powers.

Clark got a new headache in late December when Steve Lombard joined the WGBS newsteam as the sportscaster. Perpetually juvenile and macho, he was like Joe Namath only much more shallow, and he was forever pulling pranks on Clark, and Clark was always---via his powers---secretely getting back at the overbearing jock.

In February of 1973, the League and the Society meet the long-lost Freedom Fighters, superheroes from our world who journeyed to another---where the Axis won World War II. The League and the Society had invented a trans-earth teleporter so they could check on the Crime Syndicate on the borderland between parallel earths.(Superman was portrayed as the Earth-Two Superman, since only he would remember World War II.)

In April of '73, Clark had a "Wild Week-End in Washington", in which he goes for a date with U.S. Representative Barbara Gordon...the former Batgirl....gets kidnapped by a spy ring...and leaves unanswered the question what Clark Kent, a local TV-reporter-turned-anchorman was doing in Washington in the first place. Actually, as Kent he was unofficially checking with Woodward and Bernstein, and as Superman he was making sure "Deep Throat" was still sufficiently terrorized to give out information.

In August of '73, Superman neets a successor to the Winslow Schott Toyman of the forties---the second Toyman, Jack Nimball.

In October of 1973, Superman encounters a sailor who ate an alien seafauna who called himself "Captain Strong" and had obviously been a big friend of Segar's Thimble Theatre and the Fleisher Popeye cartoons as a kid.

In December of 1973, John Stewart substitutes for Hal Jordan in a case of the JLA against the Key.

Superman also encounters in December a parallel-earth version of Captain Marvel called Captain Thunder.

In January of 1974, the League fights the Injustice Gang of the World, and use Amazo to regain the half of their powers that the Gang stole.

In February of 1974, the League and Society find out what happened to the Sandman's partner, Sandy.

Also in February of 1974, a new gossip columnist, but a famous one, joins the Planet staff (and would later work with Galaxy Broadcasting)--Lola Barnett.

In May of 1974, he met a superbeing from another planet who called himself Vartox. He would reappear several times over the next decade.

In June of 1974, Luthor uses a ray application of his son Niles Caulder's youth serum to make Superman much younger in judgement and memory, so he could defeat Superman with his greater experience. For the first time he donned a purple and green costume---not the most striking costume in the world, but one which contained dozens of his deadliest devices. Nevertheless, Superman succeeded in defeating him.

Later in June of 1974, Superman--dressed as Clark Kent---performs superdeeds, confusing Queen Bee and the rest of her anti-Justice League, including Brainiac, in "At Last!--Clark Kent, Super-Hero!".

On August 8, Richard Nixon resigns as President rather than face impeachment. Clark, watching, is satisfied.

In November of 1974, Luthor and Parasite team-up against Superman, in "The Parasite's Power Play".

In January of 1975, the League fights Kanjor Ro and witnesses the marriage of their long-time ally, Adam Strange, to Alanna of Ranagar of the planet Rann.

In February of 1975, the League and the Society fight the Injustice Society, and Cary Bates and Elliot Maggin are somehow involved in this...but this whole adventure is very fictionalized. (I suspect Maggin and Bates were held hostage by the Injustice Society, but can't prove it.)

In June 1975, Clark and Lois' daughter Power Girl (raised in the artificial womb which would later be known as the Symbio-Ship) makes her first appearance, having been released by the Cadmus/DNA Project. (Like they had a choice when she was ready to leave...) She chose to help the Justice Society, rather than go to the Justice League where her father was so prominent, so she can make her own, independent mark. To conceal the existence of the "Project", she pretends to be a Kryptonian cousin of Superman's, instead. The writers keep her abilities, at least, close to what they really were---leaping, not flying, extremely tough and strong but not absolutely invulnerable.

In August of 1975, Superman faced the "Mr. Xavier saga"...he found he was only super-strong when he wasn't wearing Clark Kent's clothes. Built into the weave of the clothes was a energy-absorbing nanoprocessor that robbed Clark of much of his power. He felt he had to choose between his Clark Kent and Superman identities...and ended by fighting almost all of his greatest enemies, and discovering the deception from the alien "Mr. Xavier."

In October of 1975, Superman met and fought with Spider-Man, maneuvered into doing so by Lex Luthor and Dr. Octopus, and fooled by Spider-Man's reputation as an outlaw. Together they capture Luthor and Octopus.

In January of 1976 he first meets a terrorist group called Skull. Also, his job at Galaxy Broadcasting was evolving. He went from roving TV-reporter to anchorman fairly quickly. Lana Lang, who left the city for a few years to go to Europe (she married and had a child, who was killed in a kidnapping attempt. Heartbroken, she divorced and returned home.) returned to become his co-anchor. The ulcer-ridden Josh Coyle became their director, and Oscar Asherman their weatherman and science editor. As befits a reporter with so much experience, Clark became co-producer of the evening news.

In February of 1976, the League and the Society join forces with some other forgotten heroes, such as Bulletman and Spy Smasher, and the Marvel Family, to stop a monstrous plot.

In May of 1976, the original Toyman returns, murdering the second Toyman, and maneuvering Superman to fighting Bizarro again for the first time in almost a decade.

In September of 1976, the League faces the Manhunters.

In September of 1976, Superman helps the Justice Society fight the mystical Zanadu (and resigns his active memberhip in the Society in favor of Power Girl, retiring from the JSA), fights Vandal Savage, and immediately afterwards, the new Injustice Society. He and Power Girl fight Solomon Grundy, for instance. (As part of the convention of the "split" between the Earth-One and Earth-Two Superman, Superman with the Society is depicted as having grey hair at the temples.)

In October 1976, Roger Corben, a much younger brother of John Corben, Metallo, becomes a second kryptonite-powered cyborg, using synthetic kryptonite that SKULL developed, to avenge his brother's death...and attacks Superman, the first of many attacks he makes on Superman.

In December of 1976, the JLA fights the Construct.

In February 1977, The Justice League and Society are whisked to the 30th century, where they join with Superman's old allies, the Legion of Super-Heroes, to fight the Demons Three and Mordru.

In June 1977 the League fights the Star-Tsar and re-encounter Snapper Carr.

In November of 1977, the former director of S.T.A.R.(Scientific and Technological Advanced Research) labs revealed himself as the leader of SKULL, and his brain-blasts that erupted periodically from his brain caused himself to call himself---the Atomic Skull.

Now with a hideous skeletal appearance, Dr. Destiny took on the Justice League in December 1977.

In February of 1978, the Justice League and Society fight the Lord of Time and some heroes he snatched from other centuries.

In June of 1978, the Justice League helps Zatanna find her mother...only to have her tragically, die.

In July of 1978, the Justice League fights the Secret Society of Super-Villains.

He also faces the Master Jailer in July of 1978.

In February 1979, the Justice League and Society are horrified by the death of Mr. Terrific by his old enemy the Spriit King.

"Let my People Grow" by Len Wein would have occured right about then, except it is totally fictional, as is Kandor. Too bad, it would have been a fitting end for the decade.

In June of 1979, Black Lightning refuses membership in the JLA.

In November of 1979, the Shah flees Iran and U.S. hostages are taken. The Justice League is told to back off, since as UN representatives they probably shouldn't take sides anyway, but neither are the Avengers used. Instead, in addition to the military operation President Carter mounted, a new superteam, super-soldiers made by the US military called Team7, are secretely dispatched.

Both fail....and the hostages are moved to more secure places. Now getting them would be extremely risky for the hostages' safety. A standoff will last 444 days on this issue.

In December of 1979, Firestorm joins the League.

It's been a crowded decade, full of changes. Yet compared to the decade to come, Clark hadn't seen anything yet.

PARTIAL LIST OF SOURCES:

Of course, TARZAN ALIVE and DOC SAVAGE: HIS APOCALYPTIC LIFE by Philip Jose Farmer.

Those interested with comments, suggestions, things I have forgotten, things I messed up, contact me at...
E-Mail:al.schroeder@nashville.com

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Speculations Copyright © Al Schroeder. Superman is owned by DC Comics, Warner Communications, and the Siegels. All other characters copyrighted by their respective owners.