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"The Robot Master!": Clark Kent is busy working at the Daily Planet when Lois, Perry and Jimmy return from an out-of-town newspaper conference. Later, when Clark accidentally stubs his to

Superman #152 is an issue of the series Superman (Volume 1) with a cover date of April, 1962.

Synopsis for "The Robot Master!"

Clark Kent is busy working at the Daily Planet when Lois, Perry and Jimmy return from an out-of-town newspaper conference. Later, when Clark accidentally stubs his toe he pretends like it's hurt him, but is shocked when both Lois and Jimmy call Clark on pulling an act. Shocking still, Lois produces an article outing Clark as Superman, and both she and Jimmy agree that it must be printed. Even more fantastic is the fact that Jimmy also knows that Supergirl's secret identity is Linda Lee Danvers. When Clark destroys the damaging article with his x-ray vision, Lois simply pulls out another copy and brings it to Perry White's office. There they explain to Clark that they will publish the story. With no other choice, Superman doffs his disguise and tries to appeal to his friends not to print the story. Realizing that his true friends could not act this cold-hearted, Superman uses his x-ray vision and learns the truth: These are not his friends, but robots.

Superman is then startled when a Clark Kent robot enters the room and claims that they are the product of a villain called the Robot Master before all four robots suddenly deactivate. Calling Supergirl into action, Superman and the Girl of Steel take the deactivated robots to Superman's Fortress of Solitude for examination. After the examination yields nothing harmful about the robots, Superman and Supergirl are shocked when they reactivate and begin wandering around the Fortress. Each robot becomes fascinated by each room that is devoted to the person in Superman's life they are posing as, and the Clark Kent robot is amused to find a Clark Kent room created to throw off any suspicion that Kent and Superman are the same person in the event that someone breaks into the Fortress. Soon the Lois, Jimmy and Perry robots come to blows over who Superman admires the most and eventually destroy themselves, leaving only the Clark Kent robot.

When the Kent robot pretends to power down to recharge its batteries, Superman and Supergirl use the time to get some rest. The Kent robot then reactivates and goes to the wreckage of the other robots and begins constructing parts that they had smuggled in their robot bodies. Soon the Fortress alarms go off, rousing Superman and Supergirl. The two Kryptonians scour the Fortress and find members of the Legion of Super-Heroes waiting for them in surprise. The group explains that they planned a surprise party to commemorate the anniversary of Supergirl's first appearance on Earth. They present Superman and Supergirl with two gifts: a photographic projection of the exact moment Supergirl arrived on Earth, and statues of the various Legion members including Superman and Supergirl.

Explaining that they contrived the entire Robot Master hoax to surprise Superman and Supergirl, the Legion are thanked for their cunning surprise, and the Legion soon return to their own time.

Appearing in "The Robot Master!"

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  • Clark Kent Robot
  • Lois Lane Robot
  • Jimmy Olsen Robot
  • Perry White Robot

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Synopsis for "Superbaby Captures the Pumpkin Gang!"

Back when Superman was a baby living in Smallville with the Kents, the young boy was getting up to mischief until Ma Kent sent the boy off to play in Nova City, an old abandoned movie set near the Kent home. There the boy runs into Officer Douglas Parker who is on the beat. Later, after the Pumpkin Gang has succeeded in robbing the Smallville bank, they hide out in Nova City as well. When Superbaby confronts them, they consider him an ordinary child and send him on his way, but putting one of their pumpkin masks on the boy's head backwards.

While they are counting their loot an a prop flying car, Superbaby breaks free of the mask with his super-breath, blowing the sci-fi prop into the air. This makes the crooks believe that maybe the science fiction weapons really work. The flying car meanwhile crashes outside the police station, prompting Officer Parker to go out and investigate Nova City. There, the crooks are testing out the sci-fi devices on Superbaby, who uses his various super-powers leaving them to believe that the weapons really work.

Officer Parker arrives just as Superbaby is being shot at with the mobsters Tommy guns. Parker pulls Superbaby aside, unaware that the boy had caught all the bullets and thinks they are jelly beans. Believing the villains assertion that the weapons on the movie lot work, Officer Parker uses a ray gun to melt the crooks weapons -- unaware that it's really Superbaby's x-ray vision that is pulling off the feat. Parker then single handedly captures the crooks, and when one of them tries to toss a grenade, Parker swats it away. At that moment, Superbaby has been trying the "black jelly beans" and finds them to not be flavorful and spits them out at a tank of hydrogen which causes a gigantic explosion that destroys Nova City.

With the crooks rounded up and Superbaby returned to the Kents, the newspapers report about how Officer Parker has been promoted to Captain of the Smallville police.

Appearing in "Superbaby Captures the Pumpkin Gang!"

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Supporting Characters:

Antagonists:

  • The Pumpkin Gang (Single appearance)
    • Krimp (Single appearance)
    • Spider (Single appearance)
    • third member (Single appearance)

Other Characters:

  • The Mayor of Smallville
  • Smallville Police Department

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Synopsis for "The TV Trap for Superman!"

Superman accepts a clock medallion from the Combined Charities of Metropolis Foundation as part of a charity drive. Unknown to the Man of Steel is that this time piece has been rigged with a camera and microphone by the Anti-Superman Gang in order to learn Superman's secret identity.

They watch Superman as he goes about his day to day activities, fighting crime, giving to charities, going to his Fortress of Solitude, and scolding Krypto for scaring a normal cat. When Superman returns to his home, he inadvertently reveals his Clark Kent identity to the two crooks. Shortly thereafter, Superman notices a storm cloud that is threatening to strike lightning at a charity blimp. The Man of Steel rushes out to block the lightning bolt which strikes the camera-rigged clock on his chest shorting it out.

Although the device is destroyed, the two crooks have the information they need. They then pay a visit to the Daily Planet where they corner Clark Kent and expose him to a chunk of Green Kryptonite they have in their possession. However, just as soon as Clark Kent supposedly falls dead to the group, a police officer appears and arrests them, and Clark rises up no worse for wear.

What the crooks don't know is that Superman had noticed the camera inside the clock just shortly after he accidentally exposed his identity and purposely had it disabled by lightning. Then before the crooks could act on the information they had learned, Superman sends out one of his Superman robots out to swap the real Kryptonite the crooks have with a harmless rock painted in glowing green paint, so that when the crooks approached Clark later the fake Kryptonite would trip them up.

Appearing in "The TV Trap for Superman!"

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See Also

Recommended Reading

Links and References

Superman v.1 147
Adult Legion
This issue takes place in Adult Legion continuity, one of the Possible Futures for the first incarnation of the Legion of Super-Heroes. Whereas regular Legion stories traditionally revolved around Superboy, the Adult Legion stories usually involved the fully grown Superman, taking place in his personal future as well.
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