Action Comics #353 is an issue of the series Action Comics (Volume 1) with a cover date of August, 1967. It was published on June 29, 1967.
Synopsis for Superman: "The Battle of the Gods!"
Superman goes back in time to ancient Mount Olympus, where he witnesses the Delphic Oracle prophesying the advent of the Man of Steel. Jealous that they will be forgotten in favor of Superman in the future, the deities of Olympus create a being with the powers of Zeus, Hercules, Apollo, Vulcan, Achilles, and Mercury, and call him Zha-Vam. They also equip him with the belt that can summon the powers of other mythical gods and heroes, and send him to the future to battle Superman. But the Kryptonian hero persuades Neptune to make him a power-belt akin to Zha-Vam's, and uses it to summon Atlas to help him defeat the villain. He then takes Zha-Vam back to ancient Olympus, where Prmetheus turns their champion back into lifeless clay.
Appearing in Superman: "The Battle of the Gods!"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- Zha-Vam (Origin) (Destroyed)
Other Characters:
- Dragons
- Olympian Gods and Heroes
- Titans of Myth
- Atlas
- Prometheus
- Oceanus (Mentioned only)
- Sol (Mentioned only)
- Balder (Mentioned only)
- Cerberus (Mentioned only)
- Cyclopes (Mentioned only)
- Frost Giants (Mentioned only)
- Furies (Mentioned only)
- Jason (Mentioned only)
- Midas (Mentioned only)
- Orion (Mentioned only)
- Phaeton (Mentioned only)
- Siva (Mentioned only)
- Uranus (Mentioned only)
Locations:
- Greece
- Hades
- River Styx
- Erebus (Mentioned only)
- Italy
- Undersea Kingdom
- United States of America
- Timestream
Items:
- Apollo's Arrows
- Green Kryptonite Sock
- Mercury's Winged Sandals
- Oracle's Crystal Ball
- Pipes of Pan
- Pluto's Black Bolts
- Rainbows of Iris
- Siva's Magic Swords
- Zeus' Lightning Bolts
- Zha-Vam's Magic Belt
Vehicles:
- Phaeton's Sun Chariot
Concepts:
Synopsis for Supergirl: "The Cosmic Collectors!"
When Linda Danvers notices so-so student Joe Trent checking out weighty scientific tomes, with no affect on his grades, Supergirl investigates. She discovers that Joe, under a hypnotic spell, is bringing the books to a spacecraft inhabited by the Living Library, a group of disembodied brains from the planet Zorkia. The Library's mission is to scan all the books in existence and serve as a living repository of knowledge on Zork. However, they judge that Supergirl's super-memory would make it possible for her to retain all their knowledge in her stead, and allow them to get back into their bodies, which have been kept in suspended animation. Thus, they use Kryptonite to keep Supergirl prisoner, and she serves as a "human library" on Zorkia.
Appearing in Supergirl: "The Cosmic Collectors!"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- Alice
- Betty
Antagonists:
- Living Library of Zorkia
Other Characters:
Locations:
Items:
- Anti-Kryptonite (Flashback only)
- Green Kryptonite
Vehicles:
Notes
- The ancient Gods featured in the main story are a mixture of Gods of Olympus and Gods of Rome, as most writers at the time treated them as one and the same.
- Earth-One and Earth-Two Greek Gods are also known by their Roman names (Superman even speaks Greek to them), they are not the Roman Gods of New Earth timeline, avatars of the Olympian gods themselves.