Adventure Comics #173

This February 1952 issue of Adventure Comics spotlights a wonderfully relatable Superboy predicament: the cover by Win Mortimer shows a wide-eyed young Clark Kent in full costume, his x-ray vision having accidentally set the contents of a safe ablaze while an exasperated older man — clearly his father — throws up his hands at the burning money inside. The cover teases "Superboy's School of Hard Knocks!" — a story about how the Boy of Steel learned to control his powers — and the charm is all in that sheepish "But — but how do I turn it off, Dad?" balloon. With interiors by John Sikela and scripts from Bill Finger and Edmond Hamilton, this is a snapshot of early 1950s DC storytelling at its most warmly human.