Urko the Terrible

I mentioned in my last post that I had this giant Superman comic that had a bunch of reprints in it. The story from Action Comics No 261 was about Superman's Fortress of Solitude. As he was giving a tour there was a bust of a guy named Urko the Terrible. Turns out Urko was a self-proclaimed cloud intelligence who hated all other life forms in the universe - terrible indeed. Urko turns the statues of Superman's friends like Lois Lane and Perry White into superpowered minions and sends them against Supes, but he's too invulnerable and it turns into a Mexican standoff. Superman has a confrontation with Urko in space, using his super-breath to propel a sun at Urko. The sun consumes Urko and that's the first and last appearance of that particular villain. Of course I thought Superman had this personal prohibition against taking intelligent life - but I guess it doesn't extend to smart clouds. When I first saw Urko I thought, "Golly, he looks a lot like Ming." Turns out I just happened to have a spare Ming figure so I painted him green, accented his mustache and eyes and drew the star-burst emblem on his chest with a black paint pen. Urko lives again!!