ISSUE #2: JOKES MY FATHER NEVER TOLD ME
Fifteen thousand feet above the ground, Superboy is engrossed in a joy flight!
He passes an airplane and jokingly asks for the time by pointing at his wrist. Baffled, two airplane pilots think it he may be a movie promotion, or a special effect. Without any solid proof against the flying young man, one of the pilots simply tells the boy of steel with the time of day. Superboy winces, realizing he is late for Chem Lab at Shuster University! He thanks the pilots and heads back to school.
At the Chem Lab, Lana scolds Clark for being Late. "You're never late!" she proclaims. Clark makes up an excuse; he was in the Library, working on a journalism shop paper. T.J.'s Dad (Perry White) was going to be speaking to his class tomorrow and would be reading the essays. This could be Clark's chance to impress Perry White! The mention of Perry White strikes a cord in T.J., who is standing nearby. A bit annoyed, he puts too much solution into a bleach bottle. It violently explodes and causes a chemical fire in the lab. As the class rushes out the door, Clark puts out the fire. Upon his exit, his classmates are surpised that he isn't coughing.
Later, in Clark's dormatory, T.J. announces that he wants to be a stand-up comedian. Clark asks how his father feels about it. T.J. is immediately defensive. "Who cares?" He responds. The next day, Perry White speaks at Clark's journalism class and talks about how some of his articles led to the crack-down of a Crime Lord to the Mob: Laslo Gaetano. Clark gets the opportunity to meet up with him afterwards (with T.J. scarcely behind). "I've admired your work for years, Mr. White!" Clark gloats. T.J. and his Dad decide to go out for lunch, but T.J. urges Clark to come along (he doesn't want to be alone with his father). So Clark goes and little does Mr. White know, Laslo's goons are following the group and plan to kidnap T.J. After they dine, the goons pick up a flyer T.J. left behind on the lunch table. It reads: CHEAP LAFFS COMEDY CLUB.
At the Cheap Laffs Comedy Club, T.J. puts on a show and gets applause by Clark and Lana, stationed nearby. T.J. is nerved that his father was a no-show. Lana offers T.J. to join her and Clark for a pizza, but he'd rather stay there and scope the competition. Once Clark and Lana leave, two of Gaetano's goons grab T.J., rub morphine up his nose, and he passes out. They stash him in their car and head for a motel.
Mr. White is at a bar in Capital City, smoking a cigar and drinking booze. A strange man sits down beside him. Perry immediately recognizes him as Laslo Gaetano himself! Gaetano expresses the fact that he is tired of Perry being a thorn in his side. He wanted to do a trade: the names of his sources for his son. "You kill the story and we don't kill your son."
Perry White rushes to Clark and T.J.'s dormatory room. He bursts through the door, asking for T.J. Clark and Lana are taken aback until he explains that the Gaetanos have kidnapped T.J. Moments later, all three go back to Cheap Laffs Comedy Club. A trail is left behind, the motel room where the goons took T.J.! Mr. White encourages Clark and Lana to go back to their dorms, but they decide to head on over to the motel and see things for themselves. They discover that T.J. is indeed in the motel room, and so, Lana devises a plan. She decides to apply the same explosive mixture that T.J. had done in the chem lab (at Shuster) earlier into the window of the motel room (solutions from the Janitor's closet). The solution explodes and Clark rushes inside to untie T.J.
On their way out, Clark sees that Perry White has been taken hostage by gun-point. He changes into Superboy and haults the hostage! That's when a mysterious blonde woman, quite charmed by Superboy, decides to shot him! Superboy freaks, thinking he had been shot! But--he's not! Superboy, for the first time, realizes that bullets do not hurt him!!
Superboy does a citizens arrest on the Gaetanos. Perry White asks if he is college hoax--Superboy smiles, and flies off. T.J. is reunited with his Dad, and tells him that going up against the Gaetanos was a lame idea--but, nice of him to try. T.J. make up.
Later that day, Perry White says his goodbyes to Clark, Lana and T.J. He expresses his admiration for Clark's writing, eventhough it still had a long way to go. He suggested that when Clark feels he is ready, to look him up in Metropolis! Clark shakes his hand and excitedly replies, "Count on it, Sir!"
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