SUPERMAN #233 – the day they took the kryptonite away. Cover-dated January 1971, and the cover is one of the half-dozen most reproduced images in American comics: Neal Adams draws Superman snapping a chain of green kryptonite links off his own chest, fragments flying, with KRYPTONITE NEVERMORE! Set across the bottom in letters the size of the figure. It has been imitated, parodied, homaged and printed on merchandise for fifty-five years, and it still works, because the composition does exactly one thing and does it at full volume. The story earns the cover. Denny O’Neil had been handed a character with a real structural problem – after three decades of escalation Superman had become effectively unbeatable, and the only tool left for generating tension was a green rock that had been used so often it had stopped meaning anything. O’Neil’s solution was to remove it. A scientific accident turns every scrap of kryptonite on Earth to iron, Superman’s power is dialed back, and Clark Kent leaves the Daily Planet for television news under Morgan Edge. It is one of the most deliberate acts of maintenance ever performed on a major character, and it is the reason people still argue about this issue. Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson handle the interior art on Superman Breaks Loose. ” The issue also carries the first appearance and origin of the sand creature – the duplicate that begins siphoning Superman’s power across the storyline that follows – and launches “The Fabulous World of Krypton” backup series with “Jor-El’s Golden Folly. The back cover is pure 1971: an Aurora ad for Powerslicks, cars “so big and fast, we had to find ways to control them, ” rendered in the fat-tire cartoon style that defined the era’s toy advertising. This copy grades CBCS 6.5, Fine+, with off-white to white pages. CBCS 6.5 · Off-White to White pages · “Kryptonite Nevermore” classic Neal Adams cover · O’Neil, Swan & Anderson · DC, 1971.