Many times, the way that these episodes get paired up in my reviews spotlights just how some episodes are so interesting, and others are just impossibly dull. But then there are times that the pairing does no favors to otherwise fine episodes. “Three in One” is a fun enough episode, but in terms of things to talk about, “Superman’s Wife” is the superior episode in almost every way.
1. Out of the way
Let’s get “Three in One” out of the way off the bat. Two circus performers realize that they, along with the dim-witted strongman, can frame Superman for their crimes by using their skills in concert. Superman looks like the most obvious culprit for crimes committed on high floors of buildings that could benefit from x-ray vision and leave Superman-ish destruction in its wake.
Atlas, the strongman, was played by the younger brother of heavyweight champion Max Baer, and is, perhaps, the least intelligent person in the history of the show, and that’s saying a lot because Jimmy Olsen is right there. He is convinced that Superman stole gold and diamonds from ‘widows and orphans’ and then hid it atop a skyscraper’s flagpole, all because his no goodnick pals convinced him of it. Poor, simple Atlas.
2. Superman wastes no time at all
Superman meets Sgt. O’Hara, one of Inspector Henderson’s finest officers who just happens to be [record scratch] a woman! An attractive woman at that! After shaking her hand for entirely too long, he asks her to marry him. If you’ve watched one other episode of this series, you would recognize that this can’t be for real, and that Superman is simply going to use her as bait. You would think that those expectations would be played with/discussed, but instead, she is simply used as bait and never really considered again.
How so? Well, after Clark is called at the Planet, instructing him to inform Superman that his wife has been kidnapped, he just keeps on working, as if the phone call was about his dry cleaning. Now, I know that he doesn’t know where she is being held, but Superman, just a few episodes again, followed the sound of Henderson’s voice across miles and miles of phone cable. Couldn’t he do something similar here?
3. How short up is the Planet for leads?
At one point in this episode, Perry tags along with Lois and Jimmy to go investigate claims that a bathysphere has been parked in a Metropolis pier. Now, this is a novel enough item to get one person, maybe, to investigate it, but is this how poor business is for the Planet that their editor needs to snoop out leads about…a piece of scientific equipment?
4. The weirdest visual in the history of the show
Superman figures out how to get he and his pals out from the bottom of the water, where Mr. X and his crew have trapped them in the bathysphere. He has to hoist them up by pulling on the cable that lowered them down. For some reason, Superman has such a joyous expression on his face (see featured image); it almost looks like he’s mocking the director by doing a totally unusable facial expression. But they use it! Multiple times! It is an utterly bizarre decision that I cannot make any sense of whatsoever.
5. Why does he stop the truck first?
So, the endgame of this episode sees Mrs. Superman (as she is hilariously referred to throughout) tied to a bridge that is going to be blown up by Mr. X and co, leading to an armored truck failing into a ravine, leading it to crack open and grab the contents within. When Superman gets hip to this plan, he stops the truck and sends it on a different route before saving his ‘wife.’ Now, I understand that he doesn’t want the truck to drive into the open ravine, but couldn’t he have saved Sgt. O’Hara first, and then stood there and instructed the truck to go the other way? Basically, he risks the life of an innocent because it is slightly more convenient.
Next week: an interlude to highlight a precursor to Adventures of Superman before it disappears from DC Universe.
