Kal-El

The comic book to your left is Action Comics #300, cover date May 1963. When our family moved to Lombard from Japan via Decatur in 1965, we had maybe a grand total of four comic books in our possession - all used and donated by relatives.

I distinctly remember this one (not for the story, since I couldn't read yet) because I came across a word that I thought I recognized but still it looked a little strange. In one panel, Superman (the bearded gentleman on the cover) fell heavily and the balloon above his head enclosed the single word "OOF!" (ostensibly because he had gone past his stop in journeying to the future and come out when the sun had turned red, thereby sapping him of all his prodigious powers - a tremendous lesson to be learned for not dozing off while on public transportation). Being a precocious four-year-old, I noticed the similarity between Superman's exclamation and the word inscribed on the hall light switch, which could only be read when it was in the downturned position. I remember asking my sister Joan if they were indeed the same word. She then, in her patient way (time tends to color memories with a rosy hue), explained how Superman just made that sound because he had the breath knocked out of him but the word on the light switch was "off".

I don't remember how the plot was resolved, but presumably Superman made it back safely, since he's made a few more appearances since then.

Interesting side note: Superman came from a planet with a red sun and his Kryptonian name is Kal-El. He was created contemporaneously with Hitler gaining power in Germany by two Jewish high school kids in Cleveland. Notice how his name looks like an Old Testament Hebrew name, which when translated means "all that is God". In my personal opinion, Siegel and Shuster (for such were the names of the aforementioned students) made up a new Moses (whose parents put him in a tiny rocket ship and set him adrift in the stream of space for his safety, and who was adopted by kind folks from an advanced civilization) to counteract all the antisemitism that was rampant in the world.