Superman #267
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeSuperman #267 is a notable early-Bronze Age issue primarily because it appears to mark the first appearance of Josh Coyle, the harried WGBS television director who became a reliable fixture in Superman's Clark Kent workplace ensemble. It arrives just three issues after the debut of Steve Lombard in #264, deepening the sitcom-style WGBS newsroom cast that writer Cary Bates and editor Julius Schwartz were deliberately constructing to give Clark Kent a richer, more grounded daily life. The issue also exemplifies a recurring Bronze Age storytelling device — using Steve Lombard's family as story fodder — while the comedic B-plot, in which Morgan Edge stages outrageous athletic stunts to 'improve' Clark Kent's public image, showcases the era's willingness to play Superman's secret-identity tension for laughs.
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The issue was scripted by Elliot S. Maggin — one of the defining Superman writers of the Bronze Age — with editing by Julius Schwartz and assistant editing by E. Nelson Bridwell, the standard creative infrastructure for the Superman line in this period. Nick Cardy provided the cover. Maggin was still very early in his Superman tenure at this point, having broken in with 'Must There Be a Superman?' in issue #247 (January 1972), and the WGBS newsroom setting he and Bates were writing into reflected DC's effort under Schwartz to modernize Superman's supporting cast and workplace from a newspaper to a television environment.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Cover date: September 1973; on-sale date: June 7, 1973, published by National Periodical Publications (DC).
- Story title: 'World Beneath The North Pole!' — written by Elliot S. Maggin, edited by Julius Schwartz (with E. Nelson Bridwell as assistant editor), cover art by Nick Cardy.
- First appearance of Josh Coyle (Earth-One), the WGBS television director who produced Clark Kent's Six O'Clock News broadcast and reported to Morgan Edge at Galaxy Communications.
- The main plot involves Superman rescuing Dr. Vernon Lombard — Steve Lombard's scientist brother — and Steve's nephew Jamie from the Miros, a race of subterranean winged beings inhabiting Earth's hollow core who are attempting to drain solar energy from the surface; the Grand Comics Database notes the story has no traditional villain.
- A comedic subplot has Morgan Edge orchestrating a series of public athletic challenges for Clark Kent — boxing a heavyweight champion, batting in a stadium, racing an Olympic swimmer, and skydiving — in order to improve Kent's on-air image, generating dramatic irony for readers who know Clark is Superman.
- Steve Lombard, whose family is central to this issue's plot, had debuted just three issues earlier in Superman #264 (June 1973), created by writer Cary Bates and penciler Curt Swan at editor Julius Schwartz's suggestion; his physical model was NFL quarterback Joe Namath.
- Lombard was conceived as a deliberate workplace foil for Clark Kent — the brash jock to Kent's mild-mannered reserve — with partial inspiration drawn from the Ted Baxter character on The Mary Tyler Moore Show.
- Josh Coyle, as a pre-Crisis Earth-One character, was later erased from continuity by the events of Crisis on Infinite Earths (1985–86) and subsequently restored following the Dark Crisis of 2022–23.
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Superman, along with Steve Lombard's nephew Jamie, rescue Jamie's father from Miros, a land in Earth's hollow core.
Plot details indexed by the Grand Comics Database (CC BY-SA).
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