This Mall Has Everything!!

Sometimes things are real strange in Smallville.

Over the years, depending on the creative team, the sliding timeline, and (frankly) sloppy continuity, we had multiple depictions of Smallvillite life during the Silver Age.

In the most common version, Ma and Pa Kent gave up the Green Acres lifestyle to become Mr. Drucker, leaving farming to run a "general store." (Elseworlds idea: Kal-El lands in Hooterville!)

Now, you probably have some idea of what a small town general store might be like. But not in Smallville, brother.

We start, amid the clutter of milk urns and other typical "general store" goods, as young Clark Kent is unpacking something rather surprising:

Electric typewriters?? Plural? Really?

And after Superboy churns some butter:

Yes, a whole "shipment" of electric typewriters. For a rural general store. And, just so we're clear:

Yup, amid the shelves crammed with canned good and baking needs, just a few feet away from the pickle barrel, the Smallville General Store got in a "shipment" of the very "first" electric typewriters to hit the market.

Pa Kent, early adopter! This is akin to your local convenience store carrying the first iPods!!

It's difficult to see a huge market for electric typewriters in rural Smallville during the Depression/WWII/whichever vague time this is set at, especially when the market for these gizmos is so brand new. That's a lot of $ to tie in inventory that seems unlikely to move (at least to me). So, it's a good thing that Superboy can squeeze coal into diamonds, is all I'm saying.

But, the electric typewriter does prove once again Q's Law Of The Conservation Of Gadgets--if Q gives Bond a gadget, (or, in this case, Clark demonstrates something to Lana), that gadget will be absolutely crucial to the adventures resolution. And in this story, Superboy gets himself stuck in the Phantom Zone, and it is only because he is able to "direct the electrical energy of his brainwaves at the typewriter's electrical mechanism" and "type" out a message begging to be rescued.

From Adventure Comics #283 (1961), as reprinted in Superboy #165 (1970).