Superman vs. The Economic Crisis Part 2!

Superman arrives at the bridge just in time to throw a boulder at a detonator, thus preventing the explosion of factories all over the city! Punching the thug in charge of the now-destroyed detonator into a tree, Superman threatens to strike him again if he doesn't give him some info. Actually, that's not entirely true but it's what the thug assumes. It's pretty clear Superman just wanted to punch him again, as he doesn't offer an alternative.

Superman doesn't trust this thug's train info, and so brings him along to check no doubt hoping to find an excuse to cave his face in with a titanic right hand. Fortunately for the thug's face the two find a section of the tracks missing, and a train quickly approaching! Superman's attempt to stop the train by warning the engineer leads to the single funniest panel in Superman history:

Poor engineer, so starved for human contact.

So Superman does the only thing he can, and stops the train using his bare hands! At the last possible second, naturally. The engineer wants to thank him, and asks who he is (does no one read newspapers? He's pretty recognizable!) but Superman ain't got time for no chattin'.

He fears he has lost the thug, but quickly finds him calling Calhoun from a drug store. Emerging from the store the thug is dragged into an alley by our hero, where he quickly divulges Calhoun's location...the Barton Manor! Done with his whipping boy, Superman knocks him the heck out with a Vulcan nerve pinch.

But first there's a loose end to tie up! Remember, if you will, that there was yet another thug whose car Superman destroyed. Well this thug is tampering with a steel mill in order to prevent the workers from workin', but Superman's intervention causes him to fall into a vat of molten ore. Total waste of time, but at least it allowed us to see a man die horribly!

Superman next arrives at Calhoun's place and finds the evil man talking to himself about how much he'd like to beat up The Last Son of Krypton! Wuh-oh! Calhoun's a crafty one though, and quickly offers Superman a drink. Of poison!! Superman downs the drink, and Calhoun gloats about how he has just sealed his own doom. The next panel shows Superman sitting at Calhoun's dining room table, with Calhoun screaming at him about how it's been two minutes and he should be dead by now.

So what, did these two idiots just sit in silence awaiting Superman's death? That must have been awkward.

Superman then threatens to force the poison down Calhoun's throat unless he tells him why he was sabotaging industry. It turns out that the hints last issue were accurate, and Calhoun does in fact work for a mysterious man even more powerful than him! Luthor, right!?

No! It's no less than J.F. Curtis. Another brilliant reveal!

Curtis has been promised mad cash by an unnamed foreign country to destroy America's economy, and his next step is to destroy the stock market somehow! It goes without saying that this was a pretty big deal back at the time of writing, as people had not yet forgotten the Great Depression. Of course since this is a children's comic it doesn't go any deeper than that.

To begin our typically rushed conclusion Superman tucks Calhoun under his arm and rushes off to Curtis' home, where he enters through the window. He always enters through the window. If I don't mention how Superman entered a room it's because he did it through a window.

Curtis offers Superman the chance to work for him, allowing Superman to nobly refuse! Curtis kills Calhoun with red bolts of electricity, and threatens to do the same to Superman if he doesn't yield. Superman gambles everything and refuses to yield, allowing his body to be bombarded by deadly red lighting bolts! Of course they have no effect other than charging his body with the world's worst static electric charge, which he uses to kill Curtis. Stop killin' people all the time, Superman!



And so our story comes to an end, with almost nothing having been resolved. Hey Superman, why don't you go deliver a static shock to the foreign nation that hired this guy to wreck America? Nah, that's not important.

Next time: Superman the gangbanger!