SUPERBOY in "Don't Call Me Superboy!" (Oops, sorry)

As part of the 30 Days project, I’ll be reviving Gone&Forgotten for a short article every day throughout the month. Your Humble Editor starts off today with a story of super-sexual assault from those halcyon pre-Crisis days back before anyone apparently knew that women had feelings or basic human rights, it’s…

Pictured: Ape-Man, Space Ship. Not pictured: About
eight charges of aggravated sexual assault in the second degree
and one of facilitation (Big ups to Law and Order:SVU)

This particular story - published in February, so I imagine it’s the Valentine’s Day all-romance/forced sexual slavery issue – has been covered by a few other blogs before this one, so I’ll only give you the short version.

Back in the day, Superboy was occasionally put to annoying, meaningless tests by his “Super-Teacher from Krypton”, an android built by Superboy’s biological father and then shot into space because apparently that’s the best way to get things to Earth. Colored like a Christmas tree or a bloody mower accident on fresh-laid turf, the Super-Teacher would occasionally show up and tell Superboy to do things like “Fly into that volcano” or “Eat this radium” and then tut disapprovingly with his stupid face like a Japanese robot Garfield realizing at the moment of orgasm that he forgot to pick his cousin up at the airport. 

The expression of maudlin, fey disdain
which resembles a smug wastebin realizing mid-
blowjob that he gave the hooker a fifty instead
of a twenty and he'll probably never convince
her to give him change.

In this issue, Super-Teacher shows up and, in short order:

• Abducts a teenage girl from a nearby town
• Gives her the alien equivalent of a roofie, robbing her of her memory
• Gives her the alien equivalent to a different kind of roofie which, instead of removing her memory, gives her a whole completely other memory and personality and turns her into Superboy’s perfect romantic match, which I guess isn’t any kind of roofie, sorry I brought it up this way. Send me a stamped, self-addressed postcard and I’ll send you back a more appropriate simile in 6-8 weeks
• Terrifies a sasquatch into snuffing the girl with a rock (and who am I to judge?)
• Ends up in jail, or ought to

Of course, in the middle of all of this, Superboy lost his virginity to this girl – this brainwashed, abducted girl, robbed of consent, big ups to the ever-vigilant folks over at the Comics Code Authority! 

Super-Teacher eventually revives the girl – she wasn't dead, just intentionally violently assaulted by a super-strong man-ape under the Super-Teacher’s control, NO HARM NO FOUL – returns her original memory, wipes out a little more memory so she doesn't remember that some robot with a face like a melancholy fart kidnapped her and pimped her out to the Boy of Steel, and then pretty much lets her wander off into a cornfield. Maybe she’ll find her way home, maybe not, what is he, some kind of Super-Make Sure That Brain-Damaged Girl Gets Home Okay Guy? No, he’s a super-TEACHER.

Oh yeah, and if all the brain-washing didn't give her brain damage, there was also a rock.

After all that and a cursory “good job, you”, Super-Teacher fucks off with a “You’ll never see me again!” Damned right we won’t, he’s probably under a warrant for felony sexual assault in eighty-eight countries. He’s gonna spend his days playing grabass at Roman Polanski’s place.

It’s a story with horrible implications, but it also goes a pretty long way towards explaining why Superman is always so trepidatious about committing to a relationship with Lana or Lois or any of his love interests – he never knows when it’s gonna end up to be Super-Teacher with a pop quiz and Lois turns out to be a gender-reassigned Colombian boy who’s been missing since 1978. It also explains why Superman ended up in porn in that one John Byrne story...