In "When We First Met," we spotlight the various characters, phrases, objects or events that eventually became notable parts of comic lore, like the first time someone said, "Avengers Assemble!" or the first appearance of Batman's giant penny or the first appearance of Alfred Pennyworth or the first time Spider-Man's face was shown half-Spidey/half-Peter. Stuff like that.
Today, I do a follow-up on a question by Matthew O. (I answered the first part of his question here). He wanted to know when Superman first demonstrated a weakness to lead with his vision powers and then when his vision powers first melted lead.
Right off the bat, I want to reference something that I brought up in a recent Drawing Crazy Patterns, namely the idea that these various powers that Superman had or did not have back in the day were almost completely random. Not random, exactly, but they seemingly came out of nowhere. When I spotlight "bizarre" vision powers, they are often only bizarre because no writer chose to return to them in the future. There might not anything odd about Superman being able to light the ocean bed up with his "light up" vision if that had become a standard power of his.
Look at when Superman first demonstrated X-Ray vision. It was ELEVEN issues into the series and Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster just had them pop up when they would be helpful for a particular mission...
That was clearly not planned out. That was simply a power being plucked out of nowhere.
Anyhow, in 1944's Action Comics #69 (art by Wayne Boring and Stan Kaye), we discover that there is a limitation to Superman's X-Ray vision, which had become a go-to power in the years since it debuted. It cannot see through lead!
Of course, in this instance, that just made this secret vault stand out like a sore thumb, so the bad guys still lost, but it is fascinating that they know that it is a weakness of Superman's vision powers...
Even after Mort Weisinger became the editor of the Superman titles in the late 1940s/early 1950s, he was not OPPOSED to continuity, but he was not slavishly devoted to it, either.
So what you're about to see is not necessarily all that important, but hey, it IS a first!
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In Action Comics #252 (by Robert Bernstein and Al Plastino), Metallo traps Superman in a room with a piece of Kryptonite. Superman notes that he had tried using his heat vision on kryptonite in the past but it never worked but then he thought that perhaps he just needed to concentrate really hard. So since he was trapped and had nowhere else to go anyways, he concentrates and succeeds in melting the kryptonite and freeing himself.
However, Bernstein doesn't go beyond "Superman can melt kryptonite." In other words, he doesn't say whether what happened was that the melted kryptonite washed down a drain or whatever. He didn't explain WHY melting it helped the Man of Steel out.
A fan, then, questioned Weisinger about it in the letter column a few issues later and Weisinger came up with the position that when kryptonite moves from a solid to a liquid, it loses its deadly effects on Superman.
By the way, melted ice does not cease to be cold. That's a weird thing to say happens. Melted ice water is still cold at first before it eventually loses it cool (unlike Fonzie, who never loses his cool).
Of course, Weisinger was just saying that to say that. He quickly went right back to liquid kryptonite affecting Superman. And of COURSE, because it just makes sense. It was simply a screw-up to allow the story by Bernstein where Superman melted the Kryptonite.
With that in mind, then, and in keeping with the "powers plucked out of nowhere" theme, we cut to 1953's Superman #81 (by Al Plastino and an unknown writer), where an alien from another planet shows up claiming to be her planet's equivalent of Superman. The problem is that her planet is one where everyone is weaker than humans, so her super powers there are just normal abilities here. Superman doesn't want her to lose face, so he uses tricks to make it look like she has powers.
This includes using his heat vision to melt bullets, which, of course, are made out of lead...
So there ya go, Superman not only melting lead, but melting it so much that it basically disintegrated!
I'm sure there is a MUCH later "official" use of his heat vision on lead, but, well, this IS the first time it melted lead, so there!
If anyone else has a suggestion for a notable comic book first, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!