You might think that a winged, fire-breathing
dragon from the planet Krypton would give even Superman pause.
You’d be wrong.
The last surviving snagriff
arrived to menace Metropolis in Superman 78
(Sept.-Oct. 1952), having been injected with what amounted to an experimental
immortality serum by Superman’s father, Jor-El.
Although more powerful than
Superman, the super-beast posed no direct threat to him because it was
distracted by its insatiable appetite for metal, a side effect of the serum.
That appetite proved fatal when
the creature swallowed six atomic bombs and was vaporized.
Or was it?
In Superman 142 ( Jan. 1961), an identical Kryptonian monster — now
called a flame dragon, not a snagriff — attacks Earth, but is disempowered by
Superman’s red kryptonite, frozen by his super-breath and hurled into eternal
orbit somewhere beyond Pluto.
Enter the son of the flame
dragon.
When an egg left by the frozen
creature hatches in Superman 151 (Feb.
1962), the Man of Steel is able to carry the young beast into the prehistoric
past, where it will be at home and won’t menace humanity. In the process, fangs
strong than steel injured his hand.
And there’s a good illustration
of how frustrating Superman stories sometimes were for readers in the 1960s.
Instead of a battle between
Superman and a truly formidable monster (which is what we wanted to see), this
story turned out to be yet another secret identity puzzle, with Lois Lane
determined to prove that Clark Kent’s hand was visibly injured, just like
Superman’s.
Meh.
As for the flame dragon, he
ended up starring with Titano the Super-Ape in a knock-off of King Kong Vs. Godzilla in Jimmy Olsen’s
Monster Movie (Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen
84, April 1965)
How the mighty were fallen.
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