As the three Legion of Super-Heroes members struggle to answer Superman's question, Saturn Girl senses that a nearby explosion is about to happen. Superman tries to stop the explosion, but is suddenly caught by it, mysteriously bumped out of the 30th Century and reappears on a road where he collapses and is brought to a circus, his vision blurred to the point of not being able to see clearly. He does come to the rescue of a lion tamer, and discovers that he is now in 1943. Realizing how helpless he now is, Superman decides to offer himself as a star attraction to the circus, appearing as The Mighty Samson, until his vision clears. Departing from the circus as it approaches Metropolis, Superman hides himself in civilian clothes and protects a visiting President Franklin D. Roosevelt from would-be Nazi assassins. With the President impressed by this stranger that saved his life, suggesting that he should join the Justice Battalion, as the Justice Society of America was then known, Superman flies off to seek their help in returning to the present. However, he is stopped from meeting them by the Spectre, who warns him that he is not supposed to meet them until years later. As Spectre finds himself unable to send Superman back to the present, he instead sends the Man of Steel over into Nazi-occupied Warsaw, Poland, where he is about to collide with an oncoming train.

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