We begin with our cover story, "The Secrets of Superman's Fortress" by Leo Dorfman, Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson. Superman invites Lois Lane to visit his Fortress of Solitude and unveils a new room dedicated to Lois. During her tour, Lois asks about a door which is marked prohibited. Superman refuses to tell Lois what is behind the door. When she leaves, Superman enters the room and remembers his encounter with Althera.
When returning from a space mission, Superman stopped on a jungle planet to rescue some primitive people. A group of women from Vrandar are trying to enslave the people and uses them to mine ore. The women are led by Captain Althera who becomes enamored with Superman. The Man of Steel also develops feelings for Althera. He is able to peacefully resolve the conflict between the women and the primitives. He then discovers that Althera is of avian descent. Fearing their relationship is impossible, the two would-be lovers part ways.
We end with "The Credit Card of Catastrophe" by Leo Dorfman, Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson. Superman visits Madame Mephisto, a gypsy fortune-teller at a carnival, who gives him a "credit card" that is good for three wishes. She says once he uses its three times, he will find out what it costs. Superman considers it a gag, until his power fades out three times and he regains it each time by using one of the wishes on the card. When he has used all three wishes, his powers seem to disappear permanently. He goes to Madame Mephisto, who says she has erased his powers magically and will restore them for half the gold in Fort Knox. He agrees.
She makes him super again, and he returns with half the gold in Fort Knox, given to him with a promise to the authorities to replace it, and dumps it all on Madame Mephisto. Seconds later, he digs her out and unmasks her as Supergirl. She said that she assumed the identity of the fortune-teller to see whether or not she or Superman could be hypnotized into committing a super-crime, and used her super-hypnosis to convince Superman he had lost his powers, while standing nearby when each crisis happened in which Superman used his card.
Superman said he deduced her true identity when he wondered why Madame Mephisto didn't use her magic to get the gold herself, rather than using him to do the job, and then realized he had not lost all his powers. The two Kryptonians fly the gold back to Fort Knox, and Supergirl admits she still doesn't know if they can be hypnotized into committing crimes or not.
Edited by Murray Boltinoff.
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