Jimmy and Lois visit a museum exhibit of medieval treasures, where they joke about stealing a beautiful emerald that Lois admires, and Jimmy discovers an unusual cufflink lying on the floor. After they leave, one of the suits of armor standing on exhibit comes to life and breaks into the case, setting off the alarm.
Jimmy and Lois are at first suspects in the case, especially when the emerald is discovered on Jimmy. Superman, however, sees that the supposed emerald is a fake, and the real one is hidden inside the display case. Jimmy then realizes that the suit of armor is gone — which was the real object of the theft.
The thief in question is one Sir Arthur, who runs a small secret club called the Society for the Preservation of Knighthood and Dragons (SPKD), which is basically four old guys cosplaying as medieval knights. Although his clubmates congratulate him on the heist, the cufflink Jimmy found belongs to him, and he realizes its distinctive design could be traced. He sends two "knights" to kidnap Lois and Jimmy, who's forgotten where the cufflink is, so they're thrown into the dungeon.
Meanwhile, the fourth SPKD member, Sir Henry, is sent to search Clark Kent's apartment, since Jimmy has been staying there. Someone's laid a trap though, because the police show up and try to arrest him. Clark tells them not to, however, so that he can pump Henry for information. When he realizes that Lois and Jimmy are imprisoned, he disguises himself in Henry's armor and goes to SPKD HQ, but he's soon discovered and thrown into the dungeon himself. He waits until Arthur reveals his true colors — he's actually scheming to kill the rest of the society so he can inherit their considerable funds — and then busts out and saves the day.
Tropes seen:
- Blatant Lies: The cops don't really believe Clark when he claims that Sir Henry is really a friend of his, but they let him go when Clark says he'll take responsibility for him.
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Broken Aesop: Clark basically tells Henry to grow up and get a life, which is a bit rich coming from a grown man with magic powers and a cape (and pretty Hilarious in Hindsight given how much of that sort of thing the superhero genre has inspired). Later one of the betrayed SPKD members concludes that they brought this on themselves by "pretending to be something we're not," though the basics of the scheme — club creates a money pool which one member tries to get for himself by killing off the other members — really have nothing to do with the fantasy role-playing aspect. - Cosplay: Though it wasn't called that back then, this is what most of the SPKD members think they're doing (with a bit of low-grade LARP thrown in). Even with the theft and kidnapping, Sir Henry sees it all as harmless fun.
- Cover Identity Anomaly: Superman is discovered to be an impostor when he doesn't know where the secret panel to the dungeon is.
- Deadly Gas: Arthur drops this into the dungeon to try to finish everyone off.
- Dressing as the Enemy/Impersonation Gambit: Superman dresses in Henry's conveniently face-concealing armor to get into the SPKD headquarters.
- Frame-Up: What Arthur does to Jimmy to distract everyone from his own theft of the armor. However, the fact that he went to the trouble of creating a fake gem, and leaving the real one where it could be easily discovered, suggests that he didn't really expect the kid to go to jail.
- Got Volunteered: When he needs someone to break into Clark's apartment, Sir Arthur says, "Sir Henry, I order you to volunteer!"
- Idle Rich: All the members of the SPKD (except maybe Arthur). As Sir Henry explains, since his retirement he hasn't had much to do, and the SPKD seemed like a lark.
- Infraction Distraction: Inverted, really; the emerald is implied to be more valuable than the armor, but the armor is more important to the SPKD.
- LARP: Something of an Unbuilt Trope at this point. The SPKD members have given themselves costumes, character names, and a "castle" setting, but they don't seem to have anything like a plotline or a game going. It all turns out to be a con man's ruse in any case.
- Secret Circle of Secrets: Parodied; Sir Henry says that the secrecy of the society is half the fun, but clearly this is on the kids'-secret-clubhouse level.
- Trap Door: Arthur has one of these in the parlor to drop the unsuspecting into his dungeon.
- Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe: The SPKD members talk to each other like this, not surprisingly.
