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Superman
Has Amnesia
In addition to the story as it appeared in the pages of World’s Finest comics (“Menace From The Stars,” January 1954), the tale of Superman experiencing amnesia was done three times on film.
Panic in the Sky Adventures
of Superman Screenplay
by
A meteor that measures five and a half miles in diameter is headed for Metropolis. Professor Roberts is at an observatory and he is monitoring the meteor through a telescope. He tells Superman that it is falling towards Metropolis.
Superman takes off to destroy it but when he smashes into it, he only managed to stop it from falling, leaving the meteor floating in space as a second moon.
When Superman returns to earth, he is disoriented. He changes into Clark Kent, and a woman driving a truck gives him a ride. Clark manages to get to his apartment where Jimmy is waiting for him. This scene is a little humorous in the fact that while there is dialogue between Clark and Jimmy, Clark has his back turned towards Jimmy and he is taking off his tie and shirt, exposing his costume. Jimmy suggests Clark take a shower while he gets some food. Jimmy never sees Clark’s Superman shirt during this scene. Clark steps into his closet and discovers a hidden panel that contains his spare costumes. He has a look on his face the expreses confusion about having them. Clark is in the shower when Jimmy comes back with coffee and sandwiches. As Jimmy places them on the table, Clark passes out and falls through the glass shower door. Jimmy helps him to bed before calling Lois and Perry for help. When they arrive, Clark says he doesn’t know who they are … nor who he is. Superman has amnesia. Even though Superman sidetracked the asteroid, the professor at the observatory is still concerned. The Earth is still in danger from the meteor. Meanwhile, Lois and Jimmy take Clark back to The Daily Planet, hoping something familiar will make him remember. Perry approaches Clark to see if he can reach Superman. The meteor is causing damage to the Earth and Clark is the only one who can ever reach Superman. Unfortunately Clark does not know he is Superman. Clark goes back to his apartment and looks at his costume. Jimmy visits him to see if he is alright. Clark asks Jimmy if the costume gives Superman his powers, but Jimmy answers no. “Only Superman can do super things.” The costume has no effect on anyone else. Clark asks Jimmy to leave and he puts on the costume. Clark looks at himself in the mirror, sits down, and in frustration he lands his fist on the end table and smashes it. This shocks Clark into realizing he is Superman. He has his memory back. Superman
remembers Professor Roberts at the observatory and flies over
there to see him. When Superman gets there, the Professor gives
him an explosive box and Superman uses it to finally destroy the
meteor. Superman flies back down to Metropolis and, as Clark Kent
in The Daily Planet office, is seen writing the story. This episode is science fiction at its best. To think that Superman could have amnesia is mind boggling and the way it was portrayed and acted was very well done. This episode is another example on how they did not need crooks or violence to make a good show. In fact, this was done so well that this same story line was filmed two more times. Let's
see how, many years later, this same story line never get old or
boring.
Superboy
… Lost
A meteor that is three and a half tons is heading towards Earth. Lana, Matt Ritter, and Mr. Jackson are watching the news broadcast of the situation. Superboy flies into the sky to shatter it into tiny fragments that will then burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere. The meteor is destroyed and Superboy drops back to Earth. He lands in the woods where a woman named Marissa and her son Jeremy find him. They ask him if he is alright and he answers he does not know. Marissa and Jeremy take Superboy back to their hunting lodge; give him a change of clothes and something to eat. Marissa tells Clark that they have lived there for five years and Jeremy is rusty on communication. While they are eating, Clark hears someone walking outside of the hunting lodge. A man who lives with Jeremy’s father tries to kidnap the boy, but Clark stops the truck that they were trying to get away in. The kidnapper comes out of the truck and stabs Clark but the knife breaks; he gets back into his truck and drives away. The scene changes to Lana, who is concerned about Superboy, and Matt Ritter is consoling her. Meanwhile Clark and Jeremy are bonding and Marissa explains to him that her husband sent that man to abduct her son. She ran away from him, in fear of what he would do to her and her son. The next scene shows the character of the ex-husband by showing him with a paring knife that he was using on an apple. For failing to bring his son back to him, he carves an X on the kidnappers forehead. Clark does not yet remember who he is, but he knows he wants to stay with Marissa and help her and Jeremy. A group of people that live with Jeremy’s father comes and takes Jeremy. Clark runs after the truck they are in and begins to fly. The scene changes to where we see Lana still worrying about Superboy and then again where we see Jeremy in a strange house with a man reading a newspaper story about the disappearance of Superboy. Jeremy picks up the paper and he sees that Superboy is the one that is staying with them. Jeremy’s father walks in and Clark bursts through the door. The father orders his people to kill him, but Clark scares the people out of the house when they see the bullets they fired at him bounce off and when Clark uses his heat vision on a gun that was pointed at him by Jeremy’s father. Clark knocks him out and flies Jeremy back home to his mother. Clark is surprised by all the things he can do and tells Marissa that no-one will bother them again while he is with them. Jeremy tells Clark that he can not stay with them and shows him the news paper. When Clark looks at the paper, he gets his memory back, changes into his Superboy costume and flies back to Lana. Lana looks at Superboy with relief in her eyes and he smiles at her with a look that he is back and to stop worrying. This episode had been previously done in 1953 with the Adventures of Superman. It was thirty seven years later when The Adventures of Superboy re-did this story line. There were similarities and differences between these two shows: In Superman; he only knocked out part of the meteor, In Superboy he destroyed the entire meteor, but in both Superman and Superboy, both characters had amnesia. In Superman; Clark had his co-workers to help him get his memory back. In Superboy he helped a mother and her son get away from her ex-husband. In Superman; the focus of the episode was for Clark to get his memory back and to destroy what is left of the meteor. In Superboy; the focus was for Clark to protect a mother and son who helped him out. In Superman; Clark regains his memory by putting on his costume. In Superboy; Clark regains his memory by looking at a news paper article about him. In Superman; there was no violence. In Superboy; there was gun play, knives and stabbings. In
Superman;
the episode ended with Clark writing a story. In Superboy;
the episode ended with Superboy going to Lana.
All
Shook Up This show starts out with Lois and Clark getting coffee and a dark cloud shadows over them. It was a solar eclipse caused by an asteroid. A scientist asks Clark if he would ask Superman to meet him at the observatory. At The Daily Planet, Perry is telling everyone what he wants them to do in order to cover this story. Superman meets the professor and they look at the meteor through a telescope. With George Reeves, his Superman did not need a telescope to look at the meteor, but Dean Cain’s Superman has limitations and needed the telescope. The meteor measures seventeen miles across and it will hit the Earth in four days. When it hits, it will knock the Earth off its axis as this meteor is bigger than the one that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. This meteor is also bigger than the one in the George Reeves story (five and quarter miles in diamter), and this one is bigger than the one in Superboy (three and half tons). In this episode, Superman did not volunteer to stop the asteroid, he was asked to stop it. Previously, George Reeves and Superboy, volunteered to stop it before it reached the Earth. There was much media coverage on the scene, and before Superman takes off with a communications link-up to cover his prospective on everything, Lois kisses him. Superman takes off, comes in contact with the meteor and smashes it. The media loses their contact with Superman and he falls to Earth. Superman lands in a part of Metropolis called Suicide Slum. His costume is burned on his way down and he lands naked in a hole he created when he fell. A homeless man finds him, gives him some clothes, a pair of glasses and asks him where he is from. Clark answers that he does not know. Clark is at the police station; Lois comes in and was told he has amnesia. A little humor is thrown in when a psychologist claims that Clark is a do-gooder; he is suffering from a Superman complex. Lois takes Clark to The Daily Planet to surround him with familiar settings to try to get him to remember anything that he can. A female character named Cat Grant tries to take advantage of the situation by telling Clark that they are a couple. Perry comes in and tells Lois and Clark that the meteor is now three miles in length and is still headed towards Earth. He wants Lois to take Clark with her to cover the story. Jimmy thinks that Superman landed in Suicide Slum. He and Perry go to check it out and Jimmy finds the crater Clark made when he landed. Jimmy also finds the S from Superman’s costume. Lois brings Clark back to his apartment and it does not look familiar at all to him. There is now a 55 hour countdown to when the meteor will hit Earth.
Some more humor was placed in this episode when Jimmy and Clark take the S symbol to a psychic and she claims that Superman’s presence is strong in the room. Jimmy and Clark turn to each other and think she is tuned into the wrong channel. Cat does not want to be alone when the end of the world comes, so she goes to confession. Lex Luthor does not want to be left alone either, so he invites Lois to see him and he shows her a replica of her apartment in his underground shelter. Lois declines his offer because she wants to be with Clark. Unfortunately for Lois, Martha and Jonathan are with Clark. Clark’s parents tell him that he is Superman, and Clark does not believe them. To try to convince Clark that he is Superman, Jonathan takes a baseball bat and breaks it across Clark’s chest. The next scene we see Clark, Martha and Jonathan watching news coverage of a missile being launched at the meteor and missing it. Jonathan tells Clark he is the only one who can stop this asteroid from hitting Earth. Clark’s parents try to get him to fly off the ledge of his apartment but he just falls into a load of garbage in the back street. Lois comes by to see if Clark is alright. Clark improvised a statement saying that there might be something in the trash that might make him remember something.
Clark asks Lois to tell him about Superman. As she does, there are flashback sequences of Superman indicating that Clark is remembering. When Lois is done, she leaves, Clark takes off his glasses, rips open his shirt, and Superman now has his memory back. He flies off towards the asteroid and pushes it out into space. The episode ends when Clark goes back to The Daily Planet and tells Lois that he got his memory back when she told him about Superman. This episode is very similar to the George Reeves episode. In both, Superman gets amnesia by trying to stop a meteor that is headed on its way to Earth. There is a professor at an observatory monitoring the asteroid, and in both, Superman only damaged part of the meteor. Now in The Adventures of Superboy, Superboy destroyed the entire meteor and received amnesia. In the Adventures of Superman, George Reeves had Lois, Jimmy and Perry help him to get his memory back. In Lois and Clark, Dean Cain had help from the others, plus he had his parents to help him. In Superboy, he was shown hospitality by a mother and son living in the wilderness. In that episode, Clark wanted to help them without realizing that he was Superboy. In the George Reeves episode, Clark got his memory back by putting on his costume and smashing an end table with his fist out of frustration. In Superboy, Clark got his memory back by reading a story in the newspaper about Superboy. In Lois and Clark, Clark got his memory back by Lois’ perspective of Superman. In the George Reeves episode, Superman used an explosive box to destroy what was left of the asteroid, after he got his memory back. In Lois and Clark, Superman just pushed the asteroid out into space after he got his memory back. In Superboy, he destroyed it completely the first time. At the end of Adventures of Superman, Clark is writing the story on how Superman saved Metropolis and telling Lois that he has his memory back. In Superboy, he flew back to see Lana Lang. In Lois and Clark, both he and Lois are at The Daily Planet and Lois asked him what the first thing he remembered was? He replied Superman. All three episodes were good. Superboy was the only one that had crime and violence, Superman and Lois and Clark did not need that for their story lines. They carried both episodes with the fact that Earth was going to be destroyed by the meteor and that they needed Superman to stop it before it was too late. All three episodes are worth watching but keep in mind, George Reeves did it first.
Posted
May 28, 2026
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