{"id":5115,"date":"2026-08-10T09:08:52","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T13:08:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.opendoor-comics.com\/unbagged\/?p=5115"},"modified":"2026-08-10T09:43:38","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T13:43:38","slug":"paneling-action-comics-500","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.opendoor-comics.com\/unbagged\/2026\/08\/10\/paneling-action-comics-500\/","title":{"rendered":"Paneling: Action Comics #500"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As I’ve noted in the past<\/a>, memory is a tricky thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, there’s a panel that’s lived in my head for decades. To the extent I can with my largely aphantasic mind, I’ve pictured it a certain way, even as I couldn’t recall the exact comic or context in which it appeared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had my suspicions about the comic, but rather than just digging the comic out of its box and making sure, I asked about it on Bluesky – without naming the comic I thought it was from – and received a response that validated my suspicion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, as I suspected, it was…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Action Comics<\/em> vol. 1 #500<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

…and it was much easier to get at than I initially thought, though I did first try to find it on DC Universe Infinite because I was at my computer and looking there didn’t involve getting up off my lazy ass and going upstairs. Alas, the very<\/em> incomplete library of comics at the site is, well, incomplete when it comes to this issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In any case, I got my copy out and looked for the panel and found it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sort of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You see, the panel was similar <\/em>to what I remembered, but was not at all the same<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It turned out my mind had combined multiple panels and created an entirely new, non-existent panel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While my memory is faulty – discussion of memory is appropriate, given the content of the comic – I do remember this comic being very important to young Jon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, I’d say it was the comic that made me a full-fledged fan of Superman and helped him edge out the Incredible Hulk as my favorite comic book character.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had read other Superman comics before this, and had seen the movie, which had come out at the end of the prior year, and it was an issue of Superman Family<\/a> that got me interested in comics in the first place, but this one, received, coverless, in a mystery pack<\/a> sometime in late 1979, really stuck with me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the other impacts it had was leading me to conclude that comic books > movies, as I liked this version of Superman’s life story so much more than what I’d seen on the silver screen. (It was also when I learned that movies got things wrong<\/em> when it came to adaptation, a lesson I’d already learned about TV shows from my reading of The Incredible Hulk <\/em>comics that watching the show had led to.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, just as it says on the cover – though I only knew it said that on the cover from seeing house ads for the issue in other comics – that’s what this comic was about: Superman’s life story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Superman is the guest of honor at the Metropolis World’s Fair, and after a ribbon-cutting ceremony – he cut the ribbon with his heat vision – he and several other guests take a tour of a special exhibit dedicated to the Man of Steel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The exhibit is broken up into three sections, one dedicated to the world of Krypton, one focusing on his career as Superboy, and the final section dedicated to the Man of Tomorrow…today!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the benefit of the other guests, he tells the story of his life starting from the beginning on Krypton. Though his powers include super-memory, exposure to kryptonite over the years has led to some gaps. However, he has a special memory recovery machine he built on loan to the exhibit, so he makes use of that to tell the tale of his brief time on Krypton before its destruction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As an aside, the version of Krypton presented here was one of the main things I liked more than the movie. It was vibrant and futuristic, not cold and monochromatic like the crystal-based Krypton of the movies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, we learn that some mysterious, nefarious ne’er do well is tapped into the memory machine and is copying the Action Ace’s memories for his own sinister purposes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luthor. It’s Lex Luthor. They play all mysterious about who the shadowy figure could possibly be for a while as was de rigueur <\/em>at the time, but obviously it’s Lex Luthor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

See, Lex is making a clone of Superman, and is using various hidden means to copy Superman’s memories as he walks through the exhibit so that he can implant them in the brain of the rapidly-growing clone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that leads us to the panels from page 52, with art by Curt Swan and Frank Chiaramonte, colors by Adrienne Roy, letters by Gaspar Saladino, and written by Martin Pasko that became one panel in my mind, as we see how the sample of Superman’s DNA was taken.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In my mind’s eye, I pictured a close-up of the device made from Kryptonian metal scraping the skin from Superman’s hand. I could clearly(ish) see it doing the actual scraping, the skin curling up, up, and away from Superman’s palm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If I had Superman’s memory machine, I would have remembered it correctly. I can’t even blame my faulty memory on exposure to kryptonite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway, Lex, at this point, has finished aging up and programming the clone and managed to capture the real Superman and replace him with the clone without any of the guests being the wiser.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He plans to blow up the whole exhibit and kill everyone (except the clone), and then kill Superman and have the clone permanently take Superman’s place, albeit as Lex’s puppet (Lex edited the clone’s memories of Lex to be more favorable).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s pointed out that while the clone knows Superman’s secret identity – Superman spent a lot of time thinking about that during the tour, though he didn’t, obviously, give the details to those assembled – Lex does not. He couldn’t review the memories as they were coming in because that might have interfered with the transference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lex being Lex, he overconfidently turns his back on the powerless and caged Superman who manages to escape his cage and turn off the red sun machine that is depowering him, and prevent the explosion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then he has to deal with the clone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fortunately, there were some samples of kryptonite on display at the exhibit behind a leaded glass display.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And that’s…more or less the end?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He blows the kryptonite out of the way so that he can grab the guy who’d gotten his skin sample – who was himself a clone; the real Colonel Sanders cosplayer was an upright citizen who would never collude with arch-criminal Lex Luthor – and knock him and the clone out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

But that’s it. There’s no mention of what he plans to do with the clones. Maybe it’s addressed in later issues, but I don’t recall, and it’s just kind of an odd and abrupt ending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There’s a perfect copy of you with (most) of your memories who has a favorable view of Lex Luthor. What are you planning to do with him, Superman?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I would guess that he ultimately used super-hypnotism to make him forget everything and then set him up with a new identity somewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Was the clone actually Greg Reed, the actor who frequently portrayed Superman in movies and public appearances? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I guess I’ll have to find out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, the main thing I wanted to talk about was my faulty memory of the panel(s) from this pivotal issue, the story that introduced me to so much Superman lore as a kid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That said, looking back at the issue did give me the opportunity to engage in some Lana Lang hate<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Lana Lang is officially CANCELLED!After seeing this, *everyone* will join me in hating her!That's right, folks – she doesn't appreciate dogs the way the rest of you do!CAN. CELLED.<\/p>— Jon Maki (@jonpaulmaki.com)<\/a> 2026-08-02T20:00:45.728Z<\/a><\/blockquote>