Famous Firsts (top) Our spotlighted bad guy didn’t appear on the cover of Action #487, but his handiwork did in this disaster that has created a job for… Superman! Cover by GarcíaLópez. (middle) In the swinging ’70s, the microwave oven—called a “science oven” by Christian Bale’s Irving Rosenfeld in the 2013 ’70s-set film, American Hustle—was the Next Big Thing. (bottom left) The logo font for Steven Spielberg’s popular Close Encounters of the Third Kind inspired (bottom right) Milt Snappin’s lettering style in several panels of Action #487, including panels 1 and 2 on the page shown. Script by Cary Bates, art by Curt Swan and Frank Chiaramonte. CE3K poster courtesy of Heritage Auctions (www.ha.com). CE3K © Columbia Pictures. Superman TM & © DC Comics.
46 • BACK ISSUE • Nuclear Issue
extraterrestrials for four decades, along with his trusty vehicle, while the spacecraft explored the Milky Way. Later, as the reporters are checking in with their respective bosses, Perry White and Morgan Edge, it’s apparent that the majority of the “eyewitnesses” lacked credibility, but then Jimmy mentions a unique factor in Padgett’s talk. Lewis added the additional claim that he was once the first super-scientific criminal on Earth, and that he called himself Microwave Man. The revelation causes Perry White to blanch and utter his famous line, “Great Caesar’s Ghost!” He mutters that perhaps Microwave Man has returned after all these years. Before the tale continues, readers are given a behind-the-scenes “Publishorial” by DC Comics publisher Jenette Kahn, noting the price increase with this month’s offerings (from 35 cents to 50 cents) and heralding it as the “DC Explosion,” with more bang for your comic-book buck with additional pages, etc. A scant three months later, that explosion would become the infamous “DC Implosion,” with a repricing effort among other initiatives. Cary Bates remembers that the Implosion was highly impactful to the company, but that he was “…one of the lucky ones to dodge that bullet…” [Editor’s note: TwoMorrows has produced the ultimate, cary bates in-depth look at this publisher-quaking event in the form of the 2018 book © DC Comics. Comic Book Implosion: An Oral History of DC Comics Circa 1978, by Keith Dallas and John Wells.] Returning to our story, Perry describes the villain he remembered from over 40 years ago, who boasted of his “micromatic powers” that ultimately led him to a breakthrough in making his body a walking receiver of microwave energy from radio transmitters. Editor Julius “Julie” Schwartz inserted a typically helpful note: “Microwaves are extremely high frequency radio waves, lying just below the infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum.”