Bart Wellins

Bart Wellins

An unscrupulous seaman who, having temporarily acquired super-powers identical to Superman's as the result of having passed over a spot in the ocean where a recent "underwater earthquake forced a fragment of the old island of Atlantis to rise from the sea bottom", a fragment somehow endowed, by virtue of "strange experiments" conducted by Atlantean scientists "centuries ago," with the ability to impart super-powers "to anyone subjected to its radiance"—brazenly proceeds to loot Metropolis until he is finally apprehended by Superman in July 1957. Superman's efforts to capture Wellins are severely hampered by the fact that the same undersea phenomenon that has affected Wellins has temporarily multiplied Superman's own powers "a thousandfold," to the point where they are virtually uncontrollable and where he hardly dares use them at all for fear of unleashing potentially catastrophic side effects (Act No. 230: "Superman Loses His Powers"). (TGSB)