The Best of DC #42 is an issue of the series The Best of DC (Volume 1) with a cover date of November, 1983.
Synopsis for "The Legion of Super-Creatures!"
This story is reprinted from Action Comics #326.
Giant monsters begin appearing all over Metropolis. Superman encounters a purple sea serpent that seems to have super powers that match the man of Steel. A dragonfly like creature then attacks an airplane with is menacing needlelike stinger. The creatures needle stinger pierces a hole through Supermans cape and flies off at a super rate of speed. Superman begins to surmise that these creatures might originate from his home planet of Krypton since they posses great powers. The next day, Superman finds a giant spiderweb extending the length of the city near the Daily Planet. Superman attempts to break the web with his heat vision but becomes entangled in its sticky structure. In the meantime a giant spider advances menacingly towards the man of steel but the giant dragonfly creature from the previous day suddenly appears and engages the spider giving Superman the chance to escape. Chaos ensues as the superpowered insects overrun the city. Superman flies a batch of them on his back all the way to the outskirts of the sun but the creatures have no problem surviving the intense heat. They are invulnerable to kryptonite and they also resist being sent to the Phantom Zone. Superman retreats to his fortress when he suddenly detects an alien space probe on a monitor. Superman locates the probe and enters the strange craft. The door suddenly closes behind him and the spacecraft launches into space with Superman trapped inside. It arrives at an immense planet bigger than even Krypton itself. The planet it populated with giant insects that live under a red sun and Superman quickly realizes that they become super powered under a yellow sun like himself. He also encounters a group of aliens whose home planet was destroyed by a space blight. A few of them escaped to the insect planet but they vowed that a hundred other planets would die in an homage to death. The aliens would then select planets with yellow suns and send the giant insects to wipe them out. The hundredth planet they chose was earth. With their goal fulfilled, the aliens then blow themselves up along with the insect planet as a final act to honor death. Superman is barely able to escape in a small space craft. As the planet explodes, Superman notices small chunks of debris from the planet that suddenly turn into Giantite just as chunks of Krypton turned into Kryptonite. Superman arrives on earth but does not notice that the spacecraft he has a comet like tail that is dragging behind his ship. The comet tail is full of Giantite which proves deadly to the giant insects overrunning earth. The insects die immediately and Earth is safe once more,
Appearing in "The Legion of Super-Creatures!"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- Unnamed alien death cult
Other Characters:
Locations:
Items:
Vehicles:
Synopsis for "The Midget Menace"
This story is reprinted from Superman #102.
Superman is captured by a race of pygmies from space who wish to learn the secret of his strength.
Appearing in "The Midget Menace"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- Thurans (Single appearance)
Locations:
- Metropolis
- Thura
Items:
Vehicles:
- Thuran ships (Disguised as oxygen tanks)
Synopsis for "The Thing from 40,000 A.D."
This story is reprinted from Superman #87.
Appearing in "The Thing from 40,000 A.D."
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- The Thing from 40,000 A.D. (First appearance)
Other Characters:
- Dr. Johnson (Single appearance)
- Private Mullins (Single appearance)
- Harry (Single appearance)
Locations:
Items:
- World's Largest Synthetic Diamond
- Time Machine
Synopsis for "The Invulnerable Enemy"
This story is reprinted from Action Comics #226.
A petrified man from outer space is dug up by archeologists and restored to life accidentally by Lex Luthor. The being, dubbed the Petrified Spaceman, wreaks havoc in Metropolis with his super-powers until Superman deduces that the Spaceman is in search of ice. When Superman surrounds him with ice, the Petrified Spaceman recovers his memory and his ability to communicate, and tells Superman he is an explorer from an ice world who was rendered immobile by Earth's heat. Superman builds him a "spaceship" of ice blocks and hurls him back to his homeworld.
Appearing in "The Invulnerable Enemy"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- Barnum Bolton (sideshow exhibitor)
- Perry White
- Lois Lane
Antagonists:
- Luthor
- Petrified Spaceman
Locations:
Synopsis for "The Interplanetary Circus!"
This story is reprinted from Superman #145.
When an alien circus arrives on Earth and sets up shop in Metropolis, Clark Kent and Lois Lane go to investigate it for the Daily Planet. Lois dismisses it as just a novelty act to attract patrons, Clark's x-ray vision reveals the truth, however he pretends to believe it's a hoax so as not to start a panic.
When one of the alien beasts gets loose, Clark slips away and changes into Superman and stops the beast. Witnessing it, the circus conductor demands that Superman join his show, a request which Superman declines. Not willing to take no for an answer, the conductor unleashes a Plutonian ice beast, and a Murcurian fire beast on Superman, which he easily defeats. When he unleashes an alien cactus plant creature with exploding quills, Superman is forced to work for the circus less the creature causes untold damage to Metropolis.
However, Superman gets out of his forced servitude when he realizes that the cactus creature needs the sun to power it, and so he flies into space and forces the Moon into an eclipse pattern over Metropolis, rending the creature inert. Superman then tells the aliens to depart and never come back to Earth again. The aliens leave the Earth, and nobody ever knows that they were truly from outer space.
Appearing in "The Interplanetary Circus!"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
Other Characters:
Locations:
Items:
Vehicles:
Synopsis for Jimmy Olsen: "Jimmy Olsen's Private Monster!"
This story is reprinted from Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen #43.
While riding in an armored car, Jimmy Olsen attempts to call Superman when it is attacked by the TNT Gang. However, instead of summoning the Man of Steel a strange alien monster appears and frightens off the crooks before disappearing again. Later, when Jimmy is out on a date with Lucy Lane, the TNT gang attempts to kill Jimmy by blowing up the cliff he and Lucy have parked at. Using his signal watch again, the same alien creature appears. Communicating to Jimmy, the alien monster tells the Cub Reporter that he is now Jimmy's friend before disappearing again. Horrified by the creature, Lucy cuts their date short and tells Jimmy that she doesn't want to see him again.
The next day at the Daily Planet, Jimmy tells Superman what's been happening, Superman examines his signal watch and learns that it has been altered by the explosions created by the TNT Gang so that instead of calling Superman it instead opens a gate to another dimension which the alien creature can appear on Earth momentarily. When Superman is called out to Pentagon to get a missile that has gone wild, Superman cautions Jimmy not to use the signal watch until he has a chance to fix it.
Jimmy takes the watch off and leaves it on his desk where Lois Lane decides to fool around with it in the hopes of calling Superman. She summons the alien creature instead during and the unique combination of the signal watch and radiations of a solar eclipse has allowed for the creature to be transported to Earth permanently. The creature scares everyone away and refuses to leave Jimmy Olsen alone. Things get to the point where Jimmy cannot go anywhere without people fleeing in abject terror of the creature that follows him everywhere. Superman cannot get rid of the creature for Jimmy because it can become immaterial at will.
Jimmy finally gets fed up and tells the monster to just go away, the monster agrees but only on one condition: That Jimmy returns with the creature back to its home dimension for simply two hours. Jimmy agrees and he soon finds himself transported to the creatures world. Jimmy finds that on the aliens world, the creatures that live there find Jimmy as frightening and ghastly as humans do of this species. Jimmy then learns of the creatures intentions for him: They want to cast him in a horror movie as his "frightening" image would insure a box office success. After two hours of filming the aliens, true to their word, send Jimmy back to his home dimension.
There he tells Superman what has happened on the promise that the Man of Steel keeps it a secret, and Superman returns to Jimmy his signal watch, completely repaired of its defects.
Appearing in Jimmy Olsen: "Jimmy Olsen's Private Monster!"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- TNT Gang (Single appearance)
Other Characters:
- Jimmy's private monster (First appearance)
Locations:
- Metropolis
- Monsters homeworld (First appearance)
Items:
Vehicles:
Synopsis for "The Creature of 1,000 Disguises"
This story is reprinted from Action Comics #234.
An alien from the planet Zar named Gollo comes to Earth and befriends a runaway boy named Johnny Miles. Superman finds the boy and brings him home to his parents. Missing his friend, Gollo begins searching all throughout Metropolis trying to find him. He uses his mysterious alien powers to assume a variety of disguises. Superman encounters Gollo and realizes his connection to Johnny Miles. He further learns that like Johnny, Gollo is also a runaway, and he helps to return him to his native planet.
Appearing in "The Creature of 1,000 Disguises"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Other Characters:
- Gollo (First appearance) (appears next in Action Comics #572)
- Johnny Miles (Single appearance)
Locations:
Synopsis for "The Super-Human Bomb!"
This story is reprinted from Action Comics #342.
Grax attacks Brainiac in space. He steals Brainiacs Force Shield in hopes of using it to attack Superman on Earth. Clark immediately detects an alien capsule in the sky above Metropolis and flies out to investigate. While he is examining the capsule, a bomb attaches itself to his utility belt. He then hears the voice of Grax as he explains that the device around his waist is actually a K-Meson bomb that is capable of destroying the entire planet. Grax has further encased the planet in Braniacs force shield to prevent Superman from leaving earth and detonating the bomb in space. Grax goes on to explain that the bomb will detonate in 24 hours and annihilate all of Supermans loved ones. Superman enlists the help of top scientists all over the world to figure out how to remove the bomb but the situation is hopeless. The clock ticks down and Superman realizes he is defeated. He contacts Grax and offers to let himself be destroyed in exchange for sparing the Earth but he does not respond and only gloats at his accomplishment. In the meantime, Brainiac has revived from his attack and realizes that he has to help Superman in order to snatch away Grax's greatest triumph. Brainiac mentally instructs Superman to take a giant magnet to attract Grax's spaceship and hold it in place next to the force shield. The bomb will still explode but at least the blast will dispose of Grax as well. Realizing that he too will perish, Grax instructs Superman on how to penetrate the force shield and jump into his ship. The ship flies into space and the bomb detonates. Grax escapes harm by turning himself into an immaterial phantom and Superman saves the earth with the assistance of his arch enemy Brainiac.
Appearing in "The Super-Human Bomb!"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- Grax (First appearance)
Other Characters:
- World Experts
- Bomb Disposal Experts
- Locksmiths
- Professor Potter
- Scientists
- Perry White (Mentioned only)
Locations:
- Red Sun
- Solar System
- Earth
- Earth's Core
- Marianas Trench
- Challenger Deep
- Metropolis
- Daily Planet
- Metropolis Observatory
- Earth
Items:
- Force Field
- Giant Super-Magnet
- H-Bomb
- K-Meson Bomb
- Grax's Robots (Flashback only)
- Mushroom Cloud
- Space Transfer Beam
Vehicles:
- Brainiac's Space Saucer
- Grax's Spacecraft
- Missiles
- Space Capsule
- Space Lifeboat
Synopsis for "A Doghouse for Superman!"
This story is reprinted from Superman #84.
Appearing in "A Doghouse for Superman!"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- Alien "Yeast-People" (Single appearance)
- Ysl (Single appearance)
Locations:
- Earth
- Home planet of the "Yeast-People" (Single appearance)
Items:
Vehicles:
- "Yeast-People's" Spaceship