Polite Dissent

Superman #362 “The Last Days of Lois and Lana!”
Superman #363 “The Dying Day of Lois and Lana!”
Cary Bates, writer
Curt Swan, penciler

While at a museum preparing for an interview, Lana Lang accidentally drops an ancient Venetian glass vial. Unbeknownst to her, this vial contained a deadly microbe and now Clark Kent, Lois Lane and Lana have all been exposed. The germ is strong enough to get through Clark’s invulnerable skin, but he notices it in time and manages to burn it away with his heat vision. He also destroys all the remaining microbes so no one else can be affected.

Looking closer at the microbe, Clark realizes that it is the same tropical plague that Ma and Pa Kent contracted on vacation one year.

Doctor #1: Your parents are exhibiting symptoms of a rare tropical fever plague that hasn’t claimed any victims in well over a century.
Doctor #2: It’s contagious…but only to adults!

The doctors and Clark a tried everything they could to save the Kents, including a transfusion from Superboy. Nothing worked and the disease killed Ma and Pa Kent (clearly this was before the Byrne reboot).

At his Fortress of Solitude, Superman performs a computer search with his computer, but there is no known cure for the disease. There are no answers in the medical records of other planets either. He talks to Luthor in prison who assures Superman that he can concoct a cure, but he refuses just to watch him suffer. Superman decides to send the girls into the Phantom Zone until he can find a cure, but once again the criminals there manage to block his access to the zone. Finally, he travels far into the future figuring that they will have cured the disease by then. They do have the cure, but they also refuse to share it with him because it may upset the time stream.

Traveling back to the 20th century, Superman has a revelation. The reason his blood didn’t help his parents was because he had not been infected by the germ and therefore made no antibodies against it. Now, he has been exposed to the microbes and his blood has made super antibodies against it. He transfuses his blood into both Lois and Lana and they are almost instantly better (though not super powered this time).

Not a bad story, but it does raise some questions. I can accept the fact that a germ can lay quiescent for many years, but what was a tropical fever germ doing in a Venetian glass vial? Also, if the plague is so deadly and contagious, why doesn’t Superman quarantine Lois and Lana when he realizes they’re infected with the disease? How many other people were infected because he chose to wait until they showed symptoms? Why does the disease affect – and infect – only adults? Sure, some common diseases are worse in adults than children (Chicken Pox, for example), but it’s contagious to all ages – children just seem to handle it better.

I will admit that Bates is clever in his writing this time, using the generic “microbe” or “germ” and never identifying the plague as a bacteria or virus.

Finally, by 1981 when this story was published Superman had been in print for 42 years – surely somewhere in that time the Clarks Kents had a more dignified death than this.