Source: Action Comics #251 (1959)
Type: Transformation
Your mid-week Silver Age story wouldn't have happened had Clark "Superman" Kent been a little more humble. See, back in the spring of 1959, he interviewed the brilliant Professor Vance who claimed to have invented a super-vitamin and planned on conducting the first human trial on himself. When he turns his back, fearing for the scientist's safety, Clark scarfs the entire thing down. Hey, it can't possibly hurt him, right? Clark leaves and only then does Prof. Vance notice his guinea pigs got real old, real fast (were we then REALLY at the human trial phase?). Back at the Fortress, Superman analyzes his stomach contents and finds the vitamin has SIMILARITIES with Green Kryptonite. And that night, Clark turns into a wizened old man.
The next morning, he goes back to see Professor Vance who tells him he expected it and was about to call him and everything, honest! Turns out, the guinea pigs got better after 3 days (plot point: EXACTLY 72 hours after ingestion). So Clark is expected to make a complete recovery, and Perry puts him on easy assignments in the meantime (stories happening at the mall or a nursing home - NO, I'm NOT joking). The worst of it is, Clark's steadily losing his powers.
Even if he can disguise his age (which would be murder on his secret identity), how can he possibly do that charity thing where he gets shot out of a cannon in slightly less than 3 days? And for that matter, how will he perform his crimebusting duties as Superman? Superman robots? Sorry, they don't work because they don't recognize his cracked voice, as revealed in a sequence that also shows Opal City was around in the DCU long before 1994's Starman series!
Superman's solution is pretty ridiculous. After hitching rides on whales and submarines out to the modern pirate ship of Captain Cutlass, he uses his new look to pass himself off as the mythical Old Man of the Sea.
I guess sailors are a pretty cowardly lot. In the next emergency, he dresses as Santa Claus to defeat crooks in a toy store. And later, as Father Time to defeat the mastermind known only as the Clock.
That one's weird, because in the middle of the incident, a cat races a mouse up a clock, recreating the "hickory-dickory-dock" nursery rhyme and evidence against the Clock is revealed by a timepiece leading Superman to believe the real (and invisible) Father Time had a hand in it. Finally, it's time. Superman must climb into a cannon and be shot out of it. By this point, he's lost all his powers and only the Human Bomb's helmet is keeping his secret safe. And then the cannon mysteriously breaks down and it takes an hour to fix.
Yep, all is well with the world because the cannon was set to go off 71 hours after Clark Kent drank the vitamin serum. An extra hour makes 72, exactly 3 days, and that's how I expect all medicine all the time to work. It's all about the timing.
Type: Transformation
Your mid-week Silver Age story wouldn't have happened had Clark "Superman" Kent been a little more humble. See, back in the spring of 1959, he interviewed the brilliant Professor Vance who claimed to have invented a super-vitamin and planned on conducting the first human trial on himself. When he turns his back, fearing for the scientist's safety, Clark scarfs the entire thing down. Hey, it can't possibly hurt him, right? Clark leaves and only then does Prof. Vance notice his guinea pigs got real old, real fast (were we then REALLY at the human trial phase?). Back at the Fortress, Superman analyzes his stomach contents and finds the vitamin has SIMILARITIES with Green Kryptonite. And that night, Clark turns into a wizened old man.
The next morning, he goes back to see Professor Vance who tells him he expected it and was about to call him and everything, honest! Turns out, the guinea pigs got better after 3 days (plot point: EXACTLY 72 hours after ingestion). So Clark is expected to make a complete recovery, and Perry puts him on easy assignments in the meantime (stories happening at the mall or a nursing home - NO, I'm NOT joking). The worst of it is, Clark's steadily losing his powers.
Even if he can disguise his age (which would be murder on his secret identity), how can he possibly do that charity thing where he gets shot out of a cannon in slightly less than 3 days? And for that matter, how will he perform his crimebusting duties as Superman? Superman robots? Sorry, they don't work because they don't recognize his cracked voice, as revealed in a sequence that also shows Opal City was around in the DCU long before 1994's Starman series!
Superman's solution is pretty ridiculous. After hitching rides on whales and submarines out to the modern pirate ship of Captain Cutlass, he uses his new look to pass himself off as the mythical Old Man of the Sea.
I guess sailors are a pretty cowardly lot. In the next emergency, he dresses as Santa Claus to defeat crooks in a toy store. And later, as Father Time to defeat the mastermind known only as the Clock.
That one's weird, because in the middle of the incident, a cat races a mouse up a clock, recreating the "hickory-dickory-dock" nursery rhyme and evidence against the Clock is revealed by a timepiece leading Superman to believe the real (and invisible) Father Time had a hand in it. Finally, it's time. Superman must climb into a cannon and be shot out of it. By this point, he's lost all his powers and only the Human Bomb's helmet is keeping his secret safe. And then the cannon mysteriously breaks down and it takes an hour to fix.
Yep, all is well with the world because the cannon was set to go off 71 hours after Clark Kent drank the vitamin serum. An extra hour makes 72, exactly 3 days, and that's how I expect all medicine all the time to work. It's all about the timing.
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