(Adventure Comics I #309) - Mobster Blackie Burke was suffering from hallucinations after being wounded in the head during a gang war, and his doctor advised he take a relaxing vacation in the country. Blackie visited Smallville, and after an uneasy sleep he started his first day there on a hunting trip. He spotted Superboy flying out of his concealed tunnel, and realized the only nearby house was that of the Kents. Blackie was in shock at his luck discovering Superboy’s secret identity of Clark Kent, but worried he might have hallucinated the whole thing. He got a visit from Dirk Jagger, the son of jailed mobster Joe Jagger who said his dad’s connected friend Ace Brodie hooked him up with some kryptonite and a secret lair so he could destroy Superboy as revenge for sending his father to prison. Blackie told him his suspicion that Clark Kent was Superboy, and ordered some sandwiches from Pa Kent’s general store. Clark arrived with the food and when Dirk shoved the kryptonite at him he fainted. Dirk and Blackie took him to Dirk’s secret lair filled with Superboy museum pieces, including statues of Lara and Jor-El and a book detailing Superboy’s life on Krypton. There was also a Superboy disguise, and Dirk said he was going to pose as Superboy to help Ace pull off some robberies. He’d heard Professor Hugo Stanton from Metropolis had perfected a super-serum and they planned on tricking him into giving it to Dirk. They left Clark to die of kryptonite poisoning and traveled to Metropolice. Professor Stanton gave the disguised dirk a quiz to prove he was the real Superboy, and he passed after having studied the Kryptonian chronicle. He flew Blackie back to the lair where Clark appeared dead, having turned green. The Lara and Jor-El statues talked, telling Blackie they’d have their revenge on him for murdering their son, and when Blackie tried to take off Dirk’s Superboy mask he was shocked to see it was his real face before passing out. “Dirk” was actually Superboy. He’d seen Blackie in the woods and realized he’d seen him emerge from his tunnel, and after using his x-ray vision to spot the anti-hallucination in Blackie’s pocket he came up with a plan to make Blackie think he was suffering a relapse. He posed as Dirk and the kryptonite he had was fake. “Clark” was played by Brainiac 5, whose green skin gave the illusion that Clark had died of kryptonite poisoning and Professor Potter disguised himself to play Professor Stanton. Super-ventriloquism to make his parents statues talk was the final part of his charade. Superboy thanked Brainiac for his help and flew Blackie through the time barrier, back to the night Blackie had arrived in Smallville. Blackie was convinced the previous day was just a nightmare, and when he visited Pa Kent at the general store to get some fishing gear he told him that he’d suspected Clark was Superboy and they had a laugh about it.

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