Action Comics #486

1. Cover by Rich Buckler and Frank Giacoia.
2. "Superman's Time-Killing Trip!" written by Gerry Conway, penciled by George Tuska, inked by Vince Colletta, colored by Jerry Serpe and lettered by Ben Oda.
3. "Hero for a Day--?" A "The Secret Life of Lex Luthor" story written by Elizabeth M. Smith, abetted by Thomas E. Smith, penciled by Kurt Schaffenberger, inked by Frank McLaughlin, colored by Jerry Serpe and lettered by Jean Simek.
4. "Daily Planet" Volume 78 Issue 22 the week of May 29, 1978 edited by Bob Rozakis, production by Anthony Tollin and lettered by Typeset. Featuring Superman versus Kobra. Plus, "Ask the Answer Man".

Notes:

• In "Superman's Time-Killing Trip!" an issue of Flash Comics starring Barry Allen and a telephone are seen in a time capsule.
• In "Hero for a Day--?" Lex Luthor takes over Linda Danver's tree in the town of Stanhope where she hid her Linda Danver Robot and he turns it into Luthor's Lair.
• In "Hero for a Day--?" Lex Luthor used a "computerized flight device" that is eerily similar to an Amazon Drone, which delivered a package to house and rang the doorbell.

Superman is bored. He has finished his job as Clark Kent, TV anchorman, and has no work to do. He scans the surface of the Earth with his enhanced vision powers, and finds no situation requiring his presence. So he plans to go on a boredom-breaker. Tonight, he wants to breach the barrier of time and travel to the future.

Using super-speed and a right combination of phasing while flying around Earth, Superman breaks the time barrier. He lands in a battlefield, where he sees all sorts of weird aliens flying around in space vehicles. He is hit by a ray blast from an alien. To Superman’s great surprise, he is wounded. A friendly alien and a man emerge from the ditches and carry him away to safety. While wondering how his powers could have been depleted, Superman glances skyward. To his horror, he sees that the future sun has become a red giant. Under a red sun, Superman has no powers, which means that he is stuck in the future. The alien gives Superman a tranquilizer and he passes out.

Later when Superman wakes up, the man introduces himself as Tyros, and his friendly alien as Kampto. Superman tells them the history of his Kryptonian origin. Kampto relates that his race of Rigellians came to Earth many centuries ago, when their own planet’s ecosystem collapsed from nuclear waste. The human beings had offered them shelter, and in return, the Rigellians shared their intelligence and technology with the Terrans. But all was okay, until interbreeding between the two races led to the birth of the Halflings. The Halflings were monsters and took every possible steps to decimate the original populaces. They even deployed energy draining satellites around the sun, so that they would grow stronger under an aging sun.

Superman asks Kampto to take him to their interstellar ships. Kampto laughs out loud and tells Superman that they are sitting inside one. Superman is disappointed by seeing that the ship’s computer systems have been stripped away. But when he finds a small supercomputer called “the Oracle”, he plugs it into the ship’s systems and starts the engines.

Superman takes the ship right through the Halfling patrols and comes near the sun. He sets the ship in a slingshot around the sun and destroys all the energy draining satellites. He returns to Earth and requests Kampto and Tyros to treat the now powerless Halflings with love and understanding. He then requests “the Oracle” from them.

Superman again breaks through the time barrier and arrives back in his proper time. He meets Lois and sees a time capsule being sealed. With a super-speed toss, he flings “the Oracle” into the capsule, hoping that the future Terrans and Rigellians will be able to use it.