The case of David Vetter, the "Boy in the Bubble," caught imaginations in the 1970s. Vetter was born with a severe immune deficiency. He spend his early life in the hospital and then lived in a contained environment in his parents' home to protect him from all exposure to infectious disease. John Travolta starred in a TV movie about Vetter in 1976. Paul Simon's 1986 song "The Boy in the Bubble" refers to him briefly as well. Vetter was born in September 1971, so either Bates heard about him early, or he was inspired by some similar case earlier.
In this Cary Bates story, the bubble boy's immune system is dangerous to those around him; his white blood cells grow to monster-size and attack people. In the scene at hand, the bubble boy has been fooled into thinking a sci-fi TV show is real. He's about to fire a real gun, disguised as a laser rifle prop, at a helpless actor whose co-star wants him dead. Superman's timely arrival abates that near-tragedy, as well as the attack of a rogue giant phagocyte whose twin Superman has already flung into Earth orbit. The following page was a rapid summary sequence to tie up the story's several loose ends.
This piece was shown and discussed in my interview with Bill Cox for Comic Arts LIVE on August 14, 2023.
