Over my many years of collecting Superman comics, I've certainly read my fair share of Metropolis Mailbag letters pages. Through all those decades of Mailbags, young fans asked the burning questions like "How do you pronounce 'Mxyzptlk'?" or "Where does he put his Clark Kent clothes when he's Superman?", while the mysterious "editor" patiently answered them over and over again.
However, there were times when those old Mailbags genuinely surprised me, when a question or an answer would suddenly veer off into uncharted weirdness. One such letter was printed in Superman #143 (1961), as one Tony Armalis from Chicago asked a question regarding the marital status of Superman and Lois Lane....followed by an answer from the editor that bumped the normally G-rated spirit of the letters page into the neon-lit world of...
W-W-What?
First, a quick confirmation courtesy of
Webster's dictionary... (click to enlarge)
...and there you have it. Editor Mort Weisinger invalidating the Lois/X-Plam and Superman/Jena the Space Girl marriages on the grounds that they didn't go all the way!
Wow. Just....wow.
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Same reasoning as Homer excusing his vegas wife.
Classy.
Posted by: Bret | September 17, 2007 at 08:07 PM
WOW, well spotted! Keep up this great blog Thanks
Posted by: Norman | September 18, 2007 at 02:24 PM
Ha!
That's genius.
Kinda biblical, too.
-M
Posted by: Matt | September 19, 2007 at 06:06 PM
Mark, this is unbelieveable! I was having a hard time sleeping, out of boredom did a search on my name, and came up with this. I remember writing this letter back it '61 at the ripe age of 14. I really got a kick out of this.
Posted by: Tony Armalis | November 24, 2007 at 12:04 AM
Wow...hi Tony! What a surreal world we live in here in the internet age! Glad to hear you got such a kick out of seeing your old letter. That reply of the editor was just too weird to pass up.
Anyway, great to hear from you!
Posted by: Mark Engblom | November 24, 2007 at 11:25 AM
Thanks Mark, I have to admit it was a lot of fun to think about way back then and all those great comics. Now I am straining my brain because I know I had another letter published in those days, I just can't remember what the subject was!
They say we all get our 5 minutes of fame, looks like mine was about 19 seconds!
Keep up the good work.
Posted by: Tony Armalis | November 27, 2007 at 10:26 PM