[h3]Halk Kar[/h3]
A precursor to the Lar Gand character appeared in the story "Superman's Big Brother", in
Superman #80 (January–February 1953). He was named Halk Kar, and had a logo-less costume almost identical to Superman's, but with the red and blue colors reversed. He was created by
Otto Binder and artist
Al Plastino.
In the story, Halk Kar crash-lands on Earth in a
rocketship and is rescued by Superman, who discovers that Halk Kar suffers from
amnesia. Discovering that Halk Kar has a note from
Jor-El (Superman's father) mentioning his son, Superman assumes that Halk Kar must not only be from his own planet
Krypton, but he must be a son of Jor-El and thus also his own older brother.
Superman quickly realizes that Halk Kar is less powerful than he is and — instead of subjecting him to embarrassment over the fact that he may be weaker than his younger brother — opts to use his own powers to cover for Halk Kar's deficiencies. This plan backfires, as Halk Kar begins to assume a superior attitude to Superman and even begins to make romantic advances on Superman's girlfriend,
Lois Lane.
Finally, Halk Kar recovers his memory, and explains that he is from the planet Thoron, which is in the same star system as Krypton. Years ago, while on a pioneer voyage into space, he landed on Krypton with his damaged rocketship. There he met Jor-El, who explained that Krypton's destruction was imminent and repaired Halk Kar's rocketship, sending him away with the note which had a map from Krypton to Earth on it. Krypton exploded shortly afterward, causing Halk Kar to be put into
suspended animation until he drifted to Earth to meet Superman, the grown-up son of Jor-El referred to in the note. Halk Kar returns to Thoron in his repaired rocketship, leaving Superman with the experience of briefly having had a brother.