Studio: Fleischer Studios
Distributor: Paramount Pictures
Produced by: Max Fleischer
Short Synopsis
A scientist demonstrates a magnetic telescope that can draw comets to Earth for study. The first one crashes into the city, rolls through the streets and tumbles into the harbour. Public opinion turns against him, but he insists that the work is worth the risk and pulls in a second comet. The police storm his observatory, jam a metal bar into the generator and cut the main cables with axes, and the comet, now out of anyone's control, hurtles at the city. Lois Lane, phoning in the story from inside the observatory, is pinned when the building crumbles. Clark changes in the back of a taxi, frees her, and flies straight at the comet, which knocks him out cold; shards crush buildings, cars and trains. He tries again, falls into the generator room, pulls out the bar, restarts the generator with a cable round its shaft, and closes the circuit by holding the two cut wires in his hands while Lois throws the machine into reverse, sending the comet back into space. She kisses the silhouette in the control-room doorway, which turns out to be Clark.
Why It Matters
- The image of Superman completing an electrical circuit with his own body, lit up like a filament while Lois works the controls, is one of the best in the series, and the comet's rolling, grinding progress through the city has the Fleischers' usual physical weight.
- The scientist is neither mad nor criminal, only arrogant, and the film's willingness to let the police make the disaster worse is unusual. Its copyright, like that of every entry in the series, lapsed through non-renewal.
Notes and Trivia
- Dan Gordon, co-writer here, directed two later entries, Terror on the Midway and Jungle Drums.
- The twist of Lois kissing the wrong silhouette is the series' one romantic joke at Clark's expense.
- See also: Superman: The Arctic Giant (1942), Superman: Electric Earthquake (1942), Superman: Volcano (1942).
