One of the central themes running through DC comics in the Silver Age was a reverence for science combined with skepticism for applied science (i.e., technology). Few plot points illustrate this better than the continual problems that Superman (and Superboy) had with his robots.
They were originally created to help Superman out of jams, particularly in situations where both Superman and Clark Kent had to be somewhere at the same time. However, they were unreliable at best, often shorting out due to electrical disturbances, or sunspots. And at times they were unavailable for other reasons:
And on more than one occasion, they nearly revealed his secret identity:
At least twice, his robots went rogue. Ajax, a robot who was transformed into an android by members of the Superman Revenge Squad in Superman #163, apparently went off the reservation and tried to kill Superman, although it turned out that he was just pretending to do so to fool the SRS squad. And when Superman tried to create an android of his own in Superman #174, it turned out to be mistake-prone and attempted to take Superman's place by convincing Clark Kent that he had never really been super.
But nothing reveals Superman's trouble with robots more than the story in Action #299, surely one of the wackiest in the entire Silver Age. He receives a robot named LL-35 from the planet Jax that is supposed to be much smarter than even Superman himself. LL-35 makes a suggestion:
Here are the robots he builds according to the instructions:
Kryptonite vision, you say? I can't imagine how that could possibly backfire on Superman. Unless, that is, some aliens tampered with the robots' loyalty tapes:
Well, that's pretty unlucky. And for the next several pages, the robots torment our hero, using Red Kryptonite to turn him into an elastic man, and later giving him three faces:
Superman doesn't even get out of this using his wits; instead he gets lucky. See, this was all taking place on an alien planet, where every day, a fallout dust disintegrates metal:
Any other examples of Superman's robots causing headaches for him?
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They were originally created to help Superman out of jams, particularly in situations where both Superman and Clark Kent had to be somewhere at the same time. However, they were unreliable at best, often shorting out due to electrical disturbances, or sunspots. And at times they were unavailable for other reasons:
But nothing reveals Superman's trouble with robots more than the story in Action #299, surely one of the wackiest in the entire Silver Age. He receives a robot named LL-35 from the planet Jax that is supposed to be much smarter than even Superman himself. LL-35 makes a suggestion:
Superman doesn't even get out of this using his wits; instead he gets lucky. See, this was all taking place on an alien planet, where every day, a fallout dust disintegrates metal:
