Moving forward with page 158, we find Clark and Lois heading home to their ill-fated encounter with the truck drivers who nearly beat Clark to a bloody pulp. No changes to the script.

From there the script jumps to Perry White assigning Clark the story of the development of the hydrogen bomb at the Army reservation in Nevada.

This is especially significant for two reasons. First, all of the dialogue that was originally spoken by Morgan (Martin) Edge in the first draft script has now been given to Perry White. There is no presence or appearance from Edge at all in this sequence. It is as if Puzo is deliberately phasing out any involvement of Edge’s character from the script.

Second, a lengthy portion of the first draft script is now gone. All of the scenes from pages 143 to 161 are completely edited out of the script. This includes Clark Kent’s news report, Luthor revealing his first sinister plot to Eve and his henchmen, and the entire assassination plot on the Pope by Luthor in Rome. Why Puzo removed these scenes is unknown. Perhaps he felt that these served no purpose in the overall story and slowed the action down altogether. Perhaps, upon reviewing the first draft script, the Salkinds asked Puzo to cut those scenes from the script. We will never know.

However, on page 166, there is still a reference to the assassination plot that Puzo accidentally left in. During their conversation with Perry about their trip to the Army base, Jimmy says, “You just had one of the greatest scoops. What do you call that Pope thing?” Even great writers are prone to continuity errors.

From there the scene shifts to the action at the Army reservation, where Lex Luthor steals several nuclear rods and causes a chain reaction that releases nuclear energy around the base. Among those affected is a powerless Clark Kent, who slips into a coma. Nothing has been edited from this sequence.

From there it’s up to Lois, Jimmy, and Steve to spring a comatose Clark from the hospital and get him to his Fortress of Solitude, where the Kryptonian chamber can heal him and restore his powers to him.

Up until this point these moments have been duplicated from the first draft script, but at the bottom of page 176 we are treated to a new expansion of material. As the ambulance heads for the airfield, Lois says, “We need to find the Galaxy airplane.”

At this point we see a surprising turn in character from Steve Lombard when he says, “We’ve had it on alert. It should be ready.” He then tells Lois and Jimmy, “I flew twin engines in Vietnam.”

As they reach the Galaxy plane, Steve takes charge with getting the ground crew to get the pilot and crew ready, then in getting Clark into the plane. This is a totally different side to the formerly flippant sportscaster than we’ve seen in the script or even in the comics. This is a Steve Lombard who is now risking life and limb to help save Clark at any cost.

With the police closing in, and no time remaining, Steve takes charge of the aircraft and flies it out. He then asks Lois, “Clark told you it was within 100 miles of the North Pole?” Lois gives him the coordinates to locate the Fortress. But with fuel running out and the landing gear malfunctioning, Steve manages to get the Galaxy aircraft onto the ground in close proximity to the Fortress of Solitude.

The script then resumes with its previous material of Jimmy and Steve realizing that Clark Kent and Superman are the same person. They quickly get him into the Kryptonian chamber to heal him of the atomic radiation, and Lois realizes that once he regains his powers, they cannot be a couple anymore.

Once he regains his powers, he slips the Kryptonian equivalent of a Mickey to Lois, Jimmy, and Steve so they can forget what has happened. Only Lois fakes falling asleep, and later on she slips into the Kryptonian computer chamber to see if she can get super powers and be Superman’s equal. Here Puzo again references her dream of being a Superwoman.

And as with the previous script, this, too, has been carried over into the second draft with no revisions or additions. Superman tells her that the machine only works on Kryptonians, not humans, and she, too, must forget as well.

Next time: the nuclear threat revisited.

(Some of the screenshots in this blog are courtesy of CapedWonder.com.)