The Fire Phantom: Clark Kent and Jimmy Olsen's fishing trip gets interrupted when a living fire mote, fresh from the Earth's core, begins wreaking havoc around Metropolis.
Superboy's Strangest Foe
The Deadly Dish: Lex Luthor hypnotizes most of the Daily Planet staff into endangering themselves at a specific place and time to lure Superman within range of a Kryptonite ray.
The Fire Phantom includes examples of the following tropes:
- Dug Too Deep: A living flame from Earth's core makes its way to the surface through an old abandoned coal-mine near Metropolis and sets off a mammoth forest fire.
- Evil Living Flames: A living flame from Earth's core appears and sets off a mammoth forest fire. The living flame is a giant version of the classic "living candle flame mote", and has no intelligence or personality except for causing fire and destruction wherever it goes.
- Heroes Gone Fishing: Literally, in this case; the episode starts with Clark and Jimmy camping out in preparation for an early morning fishing trip. Naturally, the fire phantom picks that time to emerge.
- Non-Malicious Monster: The "fire phantom" seems to have barely any mind, if it has one at all, meaning it has no malice; Superman himself describes it as "just a flame that didn't want to go out."
- Trauma Button Ending: Jimmy and Clark catch up with each other and compare notes on the evening, with Jimmy telling Clark how chilling it was. Clark suggests that he build a fire. Jimmy immediately says that he's had enough of fire for the evening.
Superboy's Strangest Foe includes examples of the following tropes:
The Deadly Dish includes examples of the following tropes:
- Clock Tower: Metropolis has one, which Superman uses as a lookout point to spot his missing coworkers.
- Kryptonite Factor: Luthor comes up with a Kryptonite ray which works within a square mile area.
- Mind-Control Device: Luthor uses a combination of mind-control gas and hypnosis to plant commands in the heads of the Planet staff that will force them to go to dangerous places.
- Murder by Remote Control Vehicle: Luthor attempts to run Perry White over with a remote control steamroller. By implication, the pile driver and wrecking ball he uses to try and kill Jimmy and Lois must also be remote controlled.
- Murder by Suicide: Luthor hypnotizes most of the Planet staff into putting themselves into exactly the right position to be killed by radio-controlled machines.
