A vast American underground preserve, hidden in a mammoth cave under the foundations of Metropolis, The Project is an enormous Federal scientific complex devoted to DNA research and experimentation. Jack tells us it’s “a new and far reaching experiment which could change humanity as we know it!” Comparing it to the Manhattan Project, Superman tells Jimmy and the boys, “Even as the A-bomb began a new era for man — this project may begin a new history!”

Supes is a big supporter of the program, which grows its own clones to staff the huge facility (some for secretarial tasks, others for military duty), so much a booster he donated the first cells to be grown into duplicate beings! (What happened to that backstory!)

While it appears Jack, pretty much confirmed as a Kennedy liberal Democrat and no Nixon fan, had a generally optimistic view of a government devoted to the betterment of its peoples (think moonshots, not Vietnam), ya gotta wonder, if the saga had kept going, whether the dark side of The Project itself would have eventually come to fore. Perhaps we get a glimpse when Jimmy says to the Man of Steel, “Do you realize what weird, and perhaps dangerous, channels are being probed here?”

When Supes gushes to his pal, “The Secret of Life, long hidden in the DNA molecule, has been extracted and is now being used for mankind’s benefit” by The Project, and you see evidence of unethical cloning of unsuspecting donors, and the possible use of clones as slave labor, you just gotta ask the big guy, “For whose benefit?”

At least The Evil Factory is upfront with its intentions!

Anyway, the place is rife with story possibilities and we’ll meet a bunch of groovy inhabitants in the entries to come…