Emil Loring

A megalomaniacally “brilliant architect-scientist”, driven by feelings of inferiority about his own “dwarfed size,” to the erection of “tremendous structures,” but widely scorned for his scheme to construct “a modem tower of Babel” extending far beyond the clouds, who has secluded himself for years in the African jungle and acquired an army of slave laborers in order to construct “the most ambitious edifice of all time” the “greatest structure in the planet’s history”, as “an everlasting monument to my architectural genius!” Not content merely to erect the world’s tallest edifice, however, Loring has vowed to obliterate mankind’s most spectacular architectural triumphs, including the Pyramids of Egypt, the Washington Monument, the Mount Rushmore National Memorial, and the Statue of Liberty, to assure that they will “no longer exist to mock me with their perfection!” Superman thwarts Loring’s scheme of destruction in January 1943, and Loring dies beneath the rubble of his own mighty tower when the unexpected eruption of a long-slumbering volcano inadvertently caused by a barrage of artificial lightning-bolts with which Loring had attempted to annihilate the Man of Steel sends it crashing down on the maniacal architect (Act No. 56: “Design for Doom!”).