Polite Dissent

This week’s Lois Lane Friday story is full-length tale from Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane #90: “Lois Lane’s Future Husband.” As is common with these Lois Lane stories no writer is credited, but the art is by Irv Novick and Mike Esposito.

Experiencing some strange dizzy spells, Lois decides to take a few days vacation at her parents’ house in the country. While there, she has another dizzy spell and is rescued by a local doctor named Rick Darnell. He takes her back to his house and shows her around. Lois is smitten with the handsome doctor and they agree to meet up the next afternoon for a date.

While on their picnic date, Rick and Lois encounter a rockslide. An injured woman tells them that her husband is still trapped by the slide. Lois climbs the hill and finds the man complaining of chest pain and shortness of breath. She radios back to Rick.

Lois: I’ve found him…but he looks to bad off to be moved! I think he’s having a heart attack! Rick — this man could be dying!
Rick: There’s one chance to save him. Listen closely and follow my instructions! There’s a secret technique I’ve developed…first find the hollow at the base of the patient’s neck…then search for the hidden nerve behind…
Rick: You’ve located the ganglionic center? Good! Now massage the area firmly — to stimulate a feedback reaction through the neural junctions…
Man: The pain – it’s gone! I can breathe freely now! And my strength is coming back!”
Lois: It’s a miracle! A medical miracle!

After a brief kiss, Lois confronts Rick about his secret lifesaving technique. He admits to Lois that he is really from another planet, one much more advanced than Earth. He shows Lois some of his machines, including the Plastimold that would transform Lois in the infamous Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane #106. When she asks Rick which planet he’s from, he tells her that he’s from Krypton and his real name is Dahr-Nel.

It turns out that Dahr-Nel’s father was a brilliant scientist who had invented a time scanner and a time machine. Using the scanner one day, Dahr-Nel saw an image of Lois Lane and fell instantly in love with her. When his father discovered that Krypton was doomed, he convinced Dahr-Nel to use his time machine to travel to Earth. Trying to steer the time machine, Dar-Nell zoomed in several times on Lois Lane (which explains her dizzy spells) and finally landed and set up shop by her parents. With the truth out, he asks Lois to marry him and together they can travel to the future to start a new life. Lois tells him to give her one last date with Superman to decide which man she wants to marry.

Unfortunately for Superman, his date with Lois is a disaster. He pretends to marry Lois in order to trick a crime boss into making an attempt on her life. A brilliant plan, except that he forgot to tell Lois that the wedding was fake. Furious, she runs back to Dahr-Nel and agrees to marry him. They climb in the time machine, which Dahr-Nel discovers was damaged when it landed on Earth. Dahr-Nel proposes to use a special sleeping gas to put them in suspended animation for two hundred years. Lois falls asleep instantly, but Dahr-Nel seems unaffected. He reasons that it must be his Kryptonian invulnerability, so he flies to Superman’s Fortress of Solitude, breaks in and steals some Kryptonite. Returning, he is relieved to discover that the sleeping gas works while his is in close proximity to the Kryptonite.

Superman trails the person who broke into his Fortress and stumbles across Lois and Dahr-Nel. Believing that he has lost her forever, he punches the hill side. The sound of his punch rouses Lois from her slumber: “Superman…weeping…for me! I must go to him!” After a moment of indecision she decides to return to sleep alongside Dahr-Nel, but Superman refuses to let her return. She rushes past him into the machine and discovers what Superman saw with his x-ray vision: Dahr-Nel is dead. A reaction between the Kryptonite and gas turned his body to crystal and killed him. Superman builds a tomb for Dahr-Nel and then flies back to Metropolis, Lois in his arms.

Superman: I’ll try to make it up to you, Lois! Someday you’ll really be Mrs. Superman!

I’m assuming everybody already knows this, but Rick’s so-called secret techinque is nonsense. While there are some key nerves in the back of the neck, none of them have anything to do with the heart. A heart attack (which we doctors like to call a “myocardial infarction” – mostly to sound cool and impress the women) is caused by a sudden lack of blood flow to part of the heart. To treat a heart attack, blood flow to the damaged part of the heart needs to be restored quickly. No amount of nerve stimulation is going to do this.

Admittedly, stimulation of the parasympathetic nervous system could slow down the heart, reducing its need for oxygen and slowing the heart attack – but this still wouldn’t result in the miraculous recovery experienced by the patient (plus the parasympathetic system is located deep in the body, not in the superficial neck).

My only conclusion is there must be some secret nervous system that we humans have not discovered yet, but the Kryptonians have. This would explain not only Dahr-Nel’s miraculous heart technique, but also explain how Superman could so conveniently render Lois unconscious through his secret nerve pinch — as he did so often in his earliest adventures.

When you think about it, the whole concept of a “secret technique” to save someone’s life is ludicrous. If this technique will save lives, why keep it a secret? What’s Rick going to do, make the patient sign a non-disclosure agreement before he saves their life? Tattoo a copyright sign on their neck? I’d be seriously concerned about his ethics if I were Lois.

Speaking of Lois, good lord is she fickle! I’ve chased Superman for thirty years, but because he pulls a trick on me (like he’s never done that before), I’m going to marry someone I’ve just met. Oh well, that person’s dead, I guess I’ll start chasing Superman again.