TRULY GONE&FORGOTTEN : SUPER DOG

Many years before the debut of Krypto the Superdog, there was a floppy-eared superhero dog enjoying an adventure or two in the pages of Zoo Funnies. This was "Superdog," the hero hound of Animalville!

A product of Ellis Chambers -- best known for Dizzy Duck, if you're into this sort of comic book funny animal lore -- the unnamed puppy who became Superdog began life as the owner of "more comics than any other kid in all Animalville." These youngsters who get superpowers because they're hoarder nerds is a pretty consistent theme in comics, and I begin to wonder if there's an invisible hand of the market at play around here somewhere. Imagine selling your books on the principle tha, if you had enough, you'd get superpowers. If that were true, I'd be Galactus or some shit.

Terrifying.

The tiny pup is visited by The Spirit of Comic Book Animals, an anthropomorphic comic book (figures) who promises the pup superpowers if he'll just do him the courtesy of running headfirst into a tree.

I assumed the book is basically Jacob's Ladder, at this point, and everything that happens next is just a lengthy hallucination upon dying.

Anyway, the young pup gains not only super-powers -- specifically flight, super-strength and, I hope, a measure of invulnerability going forward -- but a super-costume and the identity of Superdog, which he promptly uses to stop crooks from ... being crooks. It's a kiddie book, man, he's not gonna stop murderers.

All it takes from Superdog is to punch one crook, and the bad guy plus his two accomplices turn themselves in to the cops. It didn't even seem like all that great a punch. No wonder kids were enthralled by the fast-paced adventure and Superdog certainly ran many more adventures than just this one, probably.