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Post by redsycorax on Jan 30, 2021 1:54:52 GMT
How on Earth-One did the DNA Project/Project Cadmus escape CIA, FBI or other US security agency detection during the seventies, at a time of heightened suspicion and disclosure of unaccountable governmental and corporate behaviour? And yet it seems to have escaped any such detection, despite the fact that Dabney Donovan must have impacted on such agency records or databases, given his prodigious expertise regarding genetic engineering technology? And what about anti-biotech activists, especially during the sixties and seventies? Jimmy Olsen and Clark Kent were journalists, yet they didn't feel inclined to disclose such a sensational scoop as the existence of functional human genetic engineering? None of this makes sense. And given that it was based in Metropolis, why wasn't Superman aware of it before Jimmy Olsen discovered it in 1970?: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Cadmus#All-Star_Superman
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Post by dans on Jan 30, 2021 2:09:51 GMT
Maybe they had a mage on the payroll, who somehow protected it magically, suppressing interest in anyone who might normally have investigated? Didn't they create a projective telepath or two, who might have suppressed curiosity in potential investigators?
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Post by redsycorax on Jan 30, 2021 2:20:48 GMT
But on a large scale, though, dans? Even given that the Project might have had telepaths on tap, wouldn't there have been a limit to their abilities to obstruct lines of inquiry, particularly if more than one individual was involved? And there were probably non-affiliated telepaths of comparable abilities who might have been able to counteract those at the Project? Was there a government liaison, and if so, whom?
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Post by lee on Jan 30, 2021 2:58:42 GMT
I always figured it was a government agency, although one that operated on a need-to-know basis. With Jimmy learning of their existence first, it makes me wonder if this is the original Mr. Olsen. How ticked would Supes be if he found out the original Jimmy is dead and he has been friends with a clone all these years.
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Post by johnreiter902 on Jan 30, 2021 14:37:43 GMT
Clark and Jimmy are ethical reporters. They understand that revealing the existence of Project Cadmus would cause more harm than good. Remember, the 197ps version was much more benevolent in general than the modern version.
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Post by dans on Jan 30, 2021 15:57:56 GMT
I'm not sure either Clark or Jimmy would consider it 'ethical' to hide the story, unless both were totally 100% convinced the project was not and never would be dangerous to the public. Remember Mr. Action and how vigorous he was at doing the right thing... and that's what Superman does.
I still think it is more likely that there was some kind of subtle pervasive mental influence that convinced potential investigators that 'there's nothing to see here'. Maybe it had to do with 'The Super Hypnotist of Metropolis' - Superman mentally hypnotizing the entire world into seeing Clark as looking very different than Superman because his super-hypnotist powers were broadcast through the Kryptonian-glass lenses of his glasses. Maybe he had been somehow been mentally influenced against curiosity about the project, and whatever convinced him of this also added that belief to what he was broadcasting on his own?
Yes, this is kind of silly. But it fits what DC published and we use a lot of the silly stuff that they published in our continuity. I don't know about the Super Hypnotist story - is that canonical?
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Post by dans on Jan 30, 2021 18:00:18 GMT
I always figured it was a government agency, although one that operated on a need-to-know basis. With Jimmy learning of their existence first, it makes me wonder if this is the original Mr. Olsen. How ticked would Supes be if he found out the original Jimmy is dead and he has been friends with a clone all these years.
Or the public Jimmy is a clone and the original Jimmy is in a suspended animation chamber somewhere...
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Post by redsycorax on Jan 31, 2021 2:45:24 GMT
The issue would be that human cloning would involve all sorts of messy ethical and political debates. Disclosure of a successful US human cloning programme would stir up all sorts of Cold War animosities back in the seventies and eighties, and one imagines that the USSR (and later, China) would have espionage operatives creating their own counterpart projects. That is, if Dabney Donovan hadn't sold the secrets to them already at a handsome asking price. There would have been a human cloning arms race on Earth-One if the news ever leaked out. But clearly, it didn't. Why?
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Post by dans on Jan 31, 2021 4:15:15 GMT
Right! So they have secretly convinced Superman that 'there's nothing to see here' and he's broadcasting that to the world via subconscious, amplified super hypnosis. A perfect example of using existing continuity to answer continuity questions! To DA!
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Post by DocQuantum on Jan 31, 2021 7:04:44 GMT
Even more disturbing, to my modern eyes, is that Superman was fully aware of the DNA Project from its inception. In fact, he donated his own Kryptonian DNA to the project at some point in the past. Of course, given that during the Silver Age he was constantly assisting with various scientific and military experiments for the U.S. government, it shouldn't be too surprising. It's the "Batman: The Dark Knight" criticism of Superman being a lackey for big government. I think we're a bit too jaded by history to speak about this in anything but negative terms.
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Post by DocQuantum on Jan 31, 2021 7:10:27 GMT
Jack Kirby's take on the whole thing wasn't too deep. He had fun with the whole "Dr. Frankenstein" approach taken to insane new levels, but didn't really explore the moral issues too much. Not to say that he wouldn't have, either. The New Gods: Hunger Dogs novel has some pretty harsh things to say about the complicity of bureaucracy in the absolute horror of state-sponsored political persecution in the figure of Esak.
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Post by redsycorax on Jan 31, 2021 22:39:51 GMT
You're probably right, Doc. But here's an interesting question. What about Lois Lane? She didn't know about any of this and given her journalistic prowess and professionalism, she probably wouldn't feel bound by whatever obstructed Clark and Jimmy. Unless her dad, General Sam Lane, was also involved in administering the DNA/Cadmus Project at its inception. And then there's the loose wheel in all this, Dabney Donovan. Either intentionally or otherwise, it's conceivable he might have left a paper trail. So Lois uncovers the story and then what happens? If Superman was involved, there would certainly be tension evident in their relationship after she discovered the story and its details.
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Post by jonclark on Jan 31, 2021 23:11:52 GMT
Lois' dad wasn't General Sam Lane Pre-Crisis, he was just a farmer. And Lois was part of the takedown of Adam, a DNA Project creation, so she knew about the Project. I think the problem we have is that the DNA Project was treated as a Black Ops part of the government but at a time when heroes (and their supporting casts) were not shown to do a lot of exposing such stuff to the public. It's one of those things like mind-wiping villains or keeping your close allies gaslighted about your secret identity that are viewed worse in hindsight than they were at the time they were common story tropes.
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Post by redsycorax on Feb 1, 2021 0:07:56 GMT
Hmm, true. And they were written before the advent of Woodward and Bernstein's Washington Post article about Watergate, which presumably also happened on Earth-One as well. However, after Watergate, things would have taken a turn for the morally complex. The media and general public might not have been so willing to cut the Project any slack over human genetic engineering and public risk involved in it. Jimmy Olsen 148 (April/May 1972) ended the DNA Project storyline and in its next issue, without Jack Kirby, the concept was abruptly dropped from the title. Which leads me to wonder if there was an untold story lurking there which meant the DNA/Cadmus Project had to go underground and erase the memories of Olsen and its former initiates.
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Post by johnreiter902 on Feb 1, 2021 15:23:58 GMT
Jimmy Olsen 148 (April/May 1972) ended the DNA Project storyline and in its next issue, without Jack Kirby, the concept was abruptly dropped from the title. Which leads me to wonder if there was an untold story lurking there which meant the DNA/Cadmus Project had to go underground and erase the memories of Olsen and its former initiates. Now THAT, would be an interesting read. Maybe it could be uncovered in one of our stories?
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