Comic Book Synopsis / Plot
1961: Doc Savage is at the White House for a meeting of President Kennedy and his top advisors. Doc reveals his latest discovery: Panacea, a drug which will halt and reverse the effects of aging. It is extracted from the plant Silphium, which grows only on a Caribbean island once known as Fear Cay but renamed Orion Station. Doc had deliberately kept it secret until it has been perfected and now the time has come for it to be revealed to the public. The President is elated—but one of his aides sneaks off to make a surreptitious phone call….
Later at Doc’s headquarters, longtime aides Monk and Ham are talking the matter over with new recruits Rock and Torchy about shipping the medicine to the nation. The next day, Doc is at the United Nations for the grand announcement when he receives an emergency call from aides Dex and Wool at Orion Station. They have been contacted by villainous Dominic Thorne (sole survivor of the criminal gang Arachne, put out of business by the Man of Bronze some years earlier). Thorne is now threatening to nuke New York City unless all of the Panacea is delivered to him. Doc immediately flies out to Thorne’s sub in his jet-powered amphibious plane. The hero invades the craft, takes out the guards and demands the villain give up his plan. Thorne explain that a drug which reverses aging would be financially ruinous to his pharmaceutical empire—and then he launches the missile. But the target is not New York; instead the warhead hits Orion Station, destroying the world’s only source of Silphium, along with Doc’s aides Wool and Dex. Doc reacts but Thorne says it’s his own fault for keeping his discovery hidden all these years. And Doc Savage realizes he’s right as he breaks down in sorrow.