And Then There Was That Other Time That Perry White Had Amnesia

A couple of weeks ago, we dealt with the time that Perry White had amnesia, and Superman cured him by tricking him into saying "Great Caesar's Ghost!!"

Gosh, I love comic books.

Still, given the long history--and extreme silliness--of DC comic stories, that can't be the only time Perry's had amnesia, can it??

Oh, heavens, no.

It's 1984, and the Metropolis Foreign Press Association is cleaning out their closets. They find an award for Perry from 1940 (although at one point Superman says that June 11th of that year is "six months before Pearl Harbor," so there was some crack editing going on here) that he never picked up, and they send it to him. The problem?

He has no memory of it!

Well, as always, it's a slow news day in Metropolis, and obviously there's no crime anywhere, so instead of walking downstairs to the newspaper archives, or checking a library, or looking it up on Nexis (or even the Bat-computer), Superman decides to fly to 1940 (or 1941) to solve the mystery. There, he finds Perry White assigned to report from London. Suddenly, big news!!

Yes, the Blackhawks! Did I mention that this was DC Comics Presents? No? Sorry about that.

Anyway, the Blackhawks rout the Nazis, and it turns out the attack on the royal family was just a feint to distract attention from their real plan. Which was??

And why kidnap a planeload of touring athletes?? Let's let Himmler and Hitler explain:


Steroid-inflated goons beating up normal humans = big propaganda victory. Right. Man, Hitler is such a DC villain...

Fortunately for the free world, after a ridiculous amount of shenanigans, and foolishly letting Perry tag along, the Blackhawks free the prisoners:

But, oh, Perry White...

Uh-oh.

So Himmler decides to make lemonade out of the lemons:

Double uh-oh.

So Bart Hawk is going to have to face Mark McGwire:

And it doesn't go well at all:


But that's when Superman finally shows up. (Where was he the rest of this time? Tune in tomorrow to find out, campers!!)

So Kal-El put's on Blackhawk's uniform, and, well, you can guess the rest:



So--steroid goons defeated, propaganda victory averted...Hey wait a minute...wouldn't the Nazis still have had that steroid formula? Couldn't they still have made a bazillion super-fighters? Shhh...

And what does ANY of this have to do with Perry White having amnesia? Well, for reasons defying reason, Perry gives Olaf (!) his story to mail into the paper, and decides to stick around Berlin to do some snooping.

Which inevitably results in:

Which, of course, leads to:


Wait just one moment (again). The Nazis had this kind of mind control technology? Really? And super-hero making steroids?? Really?? And never used it again? No wonder they lost the war...

So anyway, that's the story of how Perry got amnesia during WWII. And as silly and unlikely as it all is, it's probably a better way to lose your memory than being conked on the noggin while posing as a hobo.

Then again, the premise of this means that nobody--not his newspaper, not fellow reporters, nobody--had so much as mentioned this prize-winning story to perry for over four decades.

Gosh, I love comics books!!

But where the heck was Superman during most of this adventure?? You really won't believe it...so come back tomorrow for the saga of "S for Science!"
Perry White, the Blackhawks, and the secret Nazi fake Olympics took place in DC Comics Presents #69 (1984), by Mark Evanier, Irv Novick and Dennis Jensen. And Evanier and/or Julius Schwartz (or Bob Rozakis) apparently thought Pearl Harbor took place in 1940...unless you believe that Superman didn't know.