Polite Dissent

Action Comics #403 “Attack of the Micro-Murderer”
Cary Bates, writer
Curt Swan, artist

Since the dawn of human history, there has been a malevolent entity named Zohtt¹ that possesses people and drives them to commit evil deeds. Upon the death of one host, the entity possesses another. While fleeing Superman, Zohtt’s current host dies in a helicopter crash. The evil entity curses Superman and swears he’ll get revenge on him sometime in the future.

The next day, Superman is tricked into traveling far into the future. While there, he stumbles across the newly deceased corpse of a brilliant scientist. This now-dead biologist was Zohtt’s most recent host. Using her futuristic science, she was able to create a microbe powerful enough to withstand Superman’s invulnerability. Zohtt now possesses one of these microbes and infects Superman.

Superman immediately feels feverish and ill. He returns to 1971 and travels to his Fortress of Solitude planning on entering the bottled city of Kandor to consult with the scientists there. Zohtt senses what Superman is up to and prevents him from shrinking small enough to enter Kandor.

Zohht: Thiss’ll put a quick stop to his plan, whatever it is – because I’m blocking his aorta artery! My magical nature makes me immune to the shrinking effect!²

Superman feels the chest pain and thinks he’s having a heart attack, so stops the shrinking ray. He does manage to explain his predicament to the Kandorian scientists who tell him that he needs a Kryptonian transfusion. Since he can’t travel to Kandor and because Supergirl is a different blood type³, a Krytponian transfusion is an impossibility. His back-up plan is to use the transfusion of hundreds of gallons of normal human blood to flush away the infection. He makes a televised appeal for blood and thousands respond.

An enormous bottle of blood⁴ is hooked up to a special machine of Superman’s invention. This machine will pump blood through Superman at a tremendous force, “a blood pressure terrific enough to rip apart a 100-foot dam!”⁵

Zohtt hides away in a lymph node, safe from the onslaught of blood. Realizing his plan failed, Superman flies off into space. Three hours later, his heart stops and he dies. Zohtt gloats over his triumph, but then is horrified to discover that Superman has died on a remote and lifeless asteroid. There is no other life form for Zohtt to possess; he will soon be dead as well.

Just then, a conveniently located television set comes to life. On it, Superman explains that the only way for Zohtt to live is to possess Superman’s dead body, enter his heart, and use his powers to bring it back to life. Quickly, Zohtt flows into Superman’s body – but wait! It’s a trick! Superman’s not dead, but merely bluffing. He used his incredible willpower to stop his heart from beating and fooled the evil microbe into leaving his body. He then pulled a quick switcheroo and Zohtt finds himself possessing an android Superman. Superman rips out the android heart, now a prison for Zohtt, and returns to Earth a healthy man.

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Footnotes:
¹ Remember, I don’t write the stories, I just review them.
² “Aorta artery” is redundant – it’s just called the aorta. Blocking the aorta wouldn’t cause a heart attack, but then Superman is just guessing he’s having a heart attack. It’s more of an aortic dissection really – still painful, and still fatal.
³ Has the fact that Superman and Supergirl have different blood types ever been mentioned before? Or since? So Superman can donate blood to anyone on Earth and can receive a transfusion from anyone on Earth, but can’t swap blood with his closest relative?
⁴ It’s incredible how the doctors can combine all those different people’s blood together and yet there’s no reaction between blood of different types – and no clotting. Must be more Kryptonian science.
⁵ Maybe Superman’s blood vessels could withstand the pressure, but not human blood cells, they shear apart fairly easily. Anyway, since Superman’s just flushing out his system, why does he need blood at all? Why not use some other more easily obtained fluid?