Super-Menace (Earth-One)

Super-Menace
Mainstream Universe‎, 1950s-1986
Gallery
Real Name	Unknown
Main Alias	Super-Menace
Other Aliases	Super-Brat · Super-Bully
Relatives	"Wolf" Derek (adoptive father, deceased) · Bonnie Derek (adoptive mother, deceased)
Status
Alignment	Bad
Identity	Secret Identity
Race	Kryptonian Clone
Marital Status	Single
Occupation	Criminal
Characteristics
Gender	Male
Eyes	Blue
Hair	Black
Origin
Universe	Earth-One
Creators	Jerry Siegel · Curt Swan
First Appearance	Superman #137 (May, 1960)
Appearance of Death	Superman #137 (May, 1960)

My life could've been a blessing, but you, with your rotten cunning, twisted it into... something terrible...

— Super-Menace

The Super-Menace was an evil duplicate of Superman.

History

When Kal-El was shot into space to save him from Krypton's destruction, his ship collided with an alien satellite that contained a duplication ray machine. This device duplicated Kal-El's ship and its contents including Kal-El himself. The duplicate Kal-El didn't have any biology, but was an energy force that resembled Kal-El. While Kal-El's ship was found by the Kent family, the duplicate was in turn found by "Wolf" Derek and his wife Bonnie, two notorious mobsters. While Kal-El became Clark Kent, and was raised lovingly and instilled with a positive and law-abiding value system, his duplicate was treated as a freak and raised to be a criminal. The Super-Brat would grow up helping the Dereks gain material wealth and crush their enemies. However, Super-Brat would keep his existence a secret until "Wolf" dictated it was time for the boy to help out when they were in a real jam. This became more apparent when the appearance of the crime fighting Superbaby, and later Superboy made his appearance, the Dereks would groom Super-Brat to one day be their primary weapon against this potential threat to their growing criminal empire.

As a teenager, the duplicate would name himself Super-Bully, and would spend time secretly creating disasters, and unsuccessfully expose Superboy's secret identity to everyone, steal his girlfriend Lana Lang (by posing as Clark), and even trying to take Krypto (by pretending to be Superboy) and failing in all these things. During this time the Super-Bully learned that he was immune to Kryptonite.

As an adult, Super-Menace was an embittered man. He hated Superman for having a loving family and being famed all over the world. "Wolf" send the Super-Menace to finally destroy his hated foe. During the clash, Superman and Super-Menace learned the truth of his origins. During the fight, Super-Menace brought down Kryptonite meteors to destroy his foe. However, he realized that he would get no satisfaction from killing Superman, and that he would never gain any of the things he wanted most of all: loving parents, respect, and recognition. With this realization in mind, Super-Menace saved Superman's life. Renouncing his criminal life, he confronted the Dereks. He changed back into his energy form, killing the Dereks and himself in the process.

Powers and Abilities

Powers

As a duplicate of Superman, Super-Menace had all the common abilities of a Kryptonian when powered by a yellow sun: These powers include super-human strength, invulnerability, flight, super-breath, and x-ray vision. Due to the fact that he was an energy force (and also probably because he was never born on Krypton) Kryptonite had no effect on the Super-Menace. It is unknown if he had any other weaknesses common to empowered Kryptonians. In addition, once he was aware of his true nature, he was able to change back into his energy force form at will, however it appeared that doing so killed him as he has not been seen since.

Notes

• This version of Super-Menace, including all history and corresponding appearances, was erased from existence following the collapse of the original Multiverse in the 1985–86 Crisis on Infinite Earths event and later restored following the rebirth of the infinite Multiverse during the Dark Crisis of 2022–2023. Even though other versions of the character may have appeared, this information does not apply to those versions.

Related

• 2 Appearances of Super-Menace (Earth-One)
• 3 Images featuring Super-Menace (Earth-One)
• 2 Quotations by or about Super-Menace (Earth-One)
• Character Gallery: Super-Menace (Earth-One)

Footnotes

Superman Villain(s) This character has been primarily an enemy of Superman in any of his various incarnations, or members of the Superman Family. This template will categorize articles that include it into the "Superman Villains category."