In every installment of I Love Ya But You’re Strange I spotlight strange but ultimately endearing comic stories. Feel free to e-mail me at brianc@cbr.com if you have a suggestion for a future installment!

My pal, Chris Nowlin, who is currently re-reading the Marvel Age of Comics from the beginning and blogging about it, suggested that I spotlight the time that Superman seemingly invented auto-tune more than thirty years before Cher first used it in the hit song, "Believe"!

We've already learned from stories like Final Crisis that Superman has, essentially, "super-pitch," but that doesn't necessarily help OTHER people when it comes to singing!

So Superman had to try a whole other approach in 1954's "Batman and Superman, Swamis Inc." from World's Finest Comics #73, by Edmond Hamilton, Curt Swan and Stan Kaye.

The set-up of the story is that Clark Kent and Lois Lane are at a fair when a "Swami" seemingly knows that Clark is Superman! It turns out that the Swami is Batman in disguise, who was just messing with Superman before asking Superman for a favor...

Batman knows that there is a superstitious crook out there and he plans on drawing the crook to him by pretending to be a successful Swami...

Therefore, Batman needs Superman to make it seem like all of the predictions of Batman-as-Swami come true!

Like the Swami says that a guy's business will recover and Superman has to manipulate events so that that is precisely what happens...

Everything's going swimmingly when a singer shows up to ask if the Swami can help her with a performance she has later that she is unable to do well at due to having laryngitis...

Superman thinks about the effects of motor oil on car engines and comes up with a hilariously convoluted machine that essentially works in the way that an auto-tune does by smoothing out the rough edges of her performance and converting them into a more pleasant sound...

This is basically what the literal Auto-Tune did when it was invented in the 1990s and first applied to Cher's 1998 hit, "Believe"...

The plan works and the superstitious crook comes to the fake Swami, but Batman screws up and the bad guys capture him. Superman shows up to save him by making some things appear "magical," in part just because he wants to mess with Batman after Batman messed with him earlier!

Their relationship has always been weird, hasn't it?

Thanks to Chris for the suggestion!

If anyone else has a suggestion for a future I Love Ya But You're Strange, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!