Oops, sorry for the delay!

Nick Perks drew this Santa/Superman piece. So how this works is that every day until Christmas Eve, you can click on the current day's Advent Calendar post and it'll have a story in it that is part of my countdown of the 24 Greatest Superman Christmas Comics ever told! And I'll add links to the previous days in each new installment.

Here's Day 1, #24 on the countdown.

Here's Day 2, #23 on the countdown.

Here's Day 3, #22 on the countdown

Here's Day 4, #21 on the countdown

Here's Day 5, #20 on the countdown

Here's Day 6, #19 on the countdown

Here's Day 7, #18 on the countdown

Here's Day 8, #17 on the countdown

Here's Day 9, #16 on the countdown

Here's Day 10, #15 on the countdown

Here's Day 11, #14 on the countdown

Here's Day 12, #13 on the countdown

And now for Day 13, #12 on the countdown is...

"Clark Kent's Lonely Christmas," from "Action Comics #469" by Bob Rozakis, John Calnan and Tex Blaisdell.

An interesting change from the Pre-Crisis Superman to the Post-Crisis Superman is that the Post-Crisis Superman still had his parents involved in his life and more close friends PERIOD (including other superheroes). The Pre-Crisis Superman was relatively lonely, as his adopted parents died when he was still a young man, and his Smallville friends were not a part of his adult life on a regular basis and his Metropolis friends were not quite as close to him as they would later become.

So what we have was a case of a lonely Clark Kent wandering the streets of Smallville on Christmas Eve...

Wow, they really wrung all of the emotion that you can get out of that page, didn't they? You can really feel the melancholy wash over you. Very strong work by Rozakis, Calnan and Blaisdell. They didn't have a lot of pages for this story (it was a back-up in the issue), so they were very economical with their storytelling and it really paid off well.

Anyhow, while Clark is lost in his loneliness, his super senses hear some orphans bemoan their lot in life and he also hears how the orphanage doesn't have a lot of money, so the kids are going to have a crummy Christmas. This snaps Clark out of his funk. Yes, he's lonely, but he's got a lot of great things in his life (dude's SUPERMAN!), so he quickly decides to use his powers (and his Christmas bonus he received as Clark Kent) to make the orphans' Christmas...

That's a powerfully sweet ending.