Today, I look at how Clark Kent got expelled from high school to avoid getting vaccinated.
In every installment of I Love Ya But You’re Strange I spotlight strange but ultimately endearing comic stories. Feel free to e-mail me at brianc@cbr.com if you have a suggestion for a future installment!
As I noted in a recent Comic Book Legends Revealed, this early Superman panel shows the problem that DC was dealing with when it comes to Superman being vaccinated (you have to love how much of a jerk Superman is to the doctor. “No, just keep wasting needles. The 12th time is the charm!”), as Superman’s invulnerable skin wouldn’t ALLOW him to get vaccinated…
Meanwhile, a smallpox vaccination scar was seen as sort of the equivalent of a “vaccination passport” today. Dave Roos wrote about it for History.com:
In the overcrowded tenement districts of cities like New York and Boston where smallpox spread with deadly speed, health officials enlisted policemen to help enforce vaccination orders, sometimes physically restraining uncooperative citizens. Frustrated with the widespread resistance to vaccination, these vaccine squads began to ignore certificates altogether and go right to the source.
“Because certificates could be so easily forged, they’d insist on seeing the vaccine scar,” says Willrich. “Vaccine scars readily served as a physical form of certification.”
In 1901, respected physician Dr. James Hyde of the Rush Medical College in Chicago wrote an editorial urging public health officials to do everything in their power to eradicate smallpox and proposed using the vaccination scar itself as the sole entry ticket or “passport” to civic life in America.
“Vaccination should be the seal on the passport of entrance to the public schools, to the voters’ booth, to the box of the juryman, and to every position of duty, privilege, profit or honor in the gift of either the State or the Nation,” wrote Hyde.
So what about the Man of Steel, or his younger self, Superboy?
According to the letter columns of the late 1960s, Superman used to fake his vaccinations I wrote about that in that Comic Book Legends Revealed, but reader Allen R. wrote in with two great examples of actual stories involving Superboy faking a vaccination!
CLARK KENT WAS EXPELLED TO AVOID BEING VACCINATED
In 1959’s Superboy #71 (by Otto Binder and George Papp), Clark Kent get expelled from Smallville High School!
Now remember, this the Silver Age, so the go-to answer for every character is to act evil and hope that it works out in the end…
I like how Binder clearly only had enough story for X pages, so he just sort of treads water for a few pages by having Superboy act as a substitute teacher…
But finally the reveal – Clark Kent had to be expelled because the students were all being vaccinated and he knew that the vaccination would not work on his skin, so Clark had to be out of school during the vaccination time. However, Clark can’t ALSO be a martyr, so luckily, there IS a vial for Clark!
And of course you trust Superboy to vaccinate someone, right?
Too, too funny. That was some David Mamet-eseque con man work from Binder.
LANA LANG SUSPECTED CLARK KENT FAKED HIS VACCINATIONS
A few years later, in Superboy #87 (by Robert Bernstein and Papp), we see Lana seemingly about to accidentally expose Superboy’s secret identity, which serves as a framing sequence to a flashback…
Lana Lang arrives in Smallville and I love that it is as simple as, “Hey, you look just like this guy in my class” for the first hint…
Lana then comes up with her first scheme, trying to prove that Clark’s teeth are, well, you know, the teeth of a superhero…
I adore that his plan seriously involved knocking them both out with nitrous gas and putting a fake tooth with red paint on the dude’s forceps…
This leads to Lana Lang’s SECOND scheme, which involves Clark Kent’s vaccination records!
Luckily, there’s always some corrupt doctor around (I kid, I kid, as obviously this doctor is a good guy just willing to help a superhero out)…
It’s fascinating to see vaccines play such a major role in two separate stories!
Thanks to Allen for the suggestion! If anyone has a suggestion for a future I Love Ya But You’re Strange, please drop me a line at brianc@cbr.om
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