The Return of Jor-El’s Super-Power Pills
The criminal who discovered Jor-El’s super-power pills has escaped from prison and rumor has it that he has hidden one last pill somewhere. Superman, Batman, and Robin rush off to capture him before he can reach the pill, but the criminal slips by them. Batwoman (the mini-skirted all-but-incompetent Silver Age Batwoman, not the current one) decides she wants in on the act. She manages to find the villain and grabs his pill before he can swallow it. She then swallows the pill herself — and with her new super-powers — returns the criminal to prison.
Now that Batwoman has super-powers for the next twenty-four hours, how do you think she decides to use them? Stop crime, right? Wrong. She decides she is going to use her super-powers to discover the identities of Batman, Robin, and Superman.
So, not only does Batwoman — an alleged super-hero — not use her new powers to fight crime, but instead she uses them to betray the confidence of other heroes. Nice going.
Batwoman follows Batman and Robin as they drive around Gotham City in the Batmobile. They give her the slip — or at least they think they do — but as soon as they drive into the Batcave, there she is waiting for them. She tells the duo she used her x-ray vision to find the Batcave, and now, based on the mansion above the cave, she knows their identity. Next she sets out to discover Superman’s.
Batwoman catches up with Superman when he is saving a small town from an avalanche. She follows him, hoping he’ll lead her to his secret identity. He tries to scare her away by flying through a lightning storm, walking through an artillery proving ground, and floating over Niagara Falls, but none of it works. Finally, he decides what his only option is to expose her to the thing every woman is scared of: mice.
Superman’s plan works and he sneaks out through the basement, drilling through the ground, making sure to stay below veins of lead-bearing ores, but Batwoman is able to track him by sound. When he emerges from the ground, she tells him that he has fallen into her trap. She’s lured him away from his job for the whole afternoon, and since she saw what block of Metropolis he came from, all she has to do now is find the office in that block where a worker has been missing all afternoon. When she shows up at the Daily Planet, Lois tells her everyone has been there the whole day (but she only mentions Clark, Jimmy, and Perry — so in the Silver Age the Daily Planet apparently only employed four people). At this point, Batwoman’s twenty-four hours of powers are up and she admits defeat in figuring out Superman’s identity — but at least she knows the true identities of Batman and Robin. Not so fast, says Superman:
And just in case you were wondering:
Story from World’s Finest #90 (September/October 1957), by Edmond Hamilton and Dick Sprang
November 9th, 2009 at 1:25 am
So apparently Batman knows who Superman is and Superman knows who Batman is. Batwoman, though, doesn’t know anything about these people. She sounds like a pain in the neck, but it seems like she’s tired of being left out of the old boy’s club. Maybe they don’t want to trust her with secrets because women gossip so much in addition to being nosy. It’s that old “50’s” mentality. Still, craptacular job there, Batwoman!
November 9th, 2009 at 2:02 am
She is wearing a fantastic hat though. That has to count for something.
November 9th, 2009 at 2:11 am
Mice? You’re invulnerable and have heat-vision and X-ray vision. Just blast the whole place. Or at least any threatening mice.
And I can’t suspend disbelief that the only reason someone might be gone from a job for an afternoon was because they’re secretly Superman (”I was out following up on a tip” “I had to go take care of a sick relative” “I had to meet with a client in their office” “I was in a minor car accident” “None of your business where I was, you weirdo” …)
November 9th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
You know, I was totally expecting the answer to “what does she do with her powers” to be something with make-up.
November 9th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
Clark and Batman have done the switch before… but a better description for why is that they’re both Tony Stark. In fact, Tony Stark is everybody.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iP0p3L_MCPk
November 9th, 2009 at 7:58 pm
Holy silly scheme, Batman.
November 9th, 2009 at 9:03 pm
I myself was Tony Stark just last week.
November 10th, 2009 at 12:18 am
And X-Ray vision through batman’s cowl doesn’t work because…….
November 10th, 2009 at 1:22 am
Official Comment
She tries it, but they have lead lined cowls.
November 10th, 2009 at 11:39 am
That sounds like a great way to slowly commit suicide.
November 10th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
Or a great way to protect yourself from radiation poisoning when hanging with the super set.
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