Superman #20
November 4, 1942
"Superman's Secret Revealed"
This will be a brief entry as Batman and Robin do not appear, but rather Bruce and Dick do - at least, I think it's them. They are never identified as such and it's a cameo, but it bares mentioning in the context of this blog.
The basic story is that Clark and Lois are finishing lunch one day when the hatcheck girl offers Clark his Superman costume. She points out she and the world now know he is Superman as per an article written by Lois in the Daily Planet. But quickly, Lois reveals it's all a joke. She had the print man run off a couple of copies of a bogus newspaper with her article on Clark at the front.
Assured that his secret is safe, Clark relaxes, but meanwhile, the print man goes on break and allows another to pick up the print run of the next edition of the Daily Planet. He sees the joke paper and thinks it's real so he gets to work on running an entire run of the issue.
Very quickly, the word gets out that Clark is Superman. At first, Perry White fires the print man and is about to fire Lois when Clark points out another hoax perpetuated by a newspaper that the public took in stride when they learned the truth. Perry decides to run with it for awhile as it will be good for circulation. He rehires the print man at Clark's request.
But then things get crazy as the world wants Clark for one thing or another. And this is where the cameo comes in. On the streets of Metropolis, various people go on about what they want from Clark. There are nods to Paramount and the cartoon series that runs in real life as well as Kellogg's which sponsored the radio show.
And there among the crowd are Bruce and Dick - at least, they look like Bruce and Dick. They do not identify each other, but Bruce speaks about how he was fooled by Clark as Superman and Dick points out it's not easy to fool Batman.
