Synopsis: Luther Kane is a particularly amoral man. Throughout his life, he's lied, stolen and cheated his way to the very top of the business world. But when he reads in the newspaper of a new invention that promises to grant immortality, his greed reaches new and terrible heights. He offers the inventor a blank check for the machine, but Professor Jonathan Weems refuses to sell it.
So Kane just steals it. At gunpoint.
Returning home, he is at first pleased with his new aquisition. Then he uses it, and is forced to reconsider his glee. The device is, as Professor Weems tried to advise, hardly the answer to immortality. It works by refracting energy through the sap of redwood trees. Thus, those caught in its beam do receive the gift of immortality, but at an extremely high price. Like the redwood, Luther's metabolism is slowed to such a degree that he becomes petrified. Yes, Luther will live forever . . . but with more in common with a redwood tree than a human being.
Notes: Although this story is not set in the Doctor Who universe, the concept of immortality featured here was at the heart of the televised episode, "The Five Doctors". As this story was printed in DWM just over 2 years prior to the date Terrance Dicks formally began work on the script for "The Five Doctors", it possibly had an influence on that 20th anniversary special. Since this strip was almost certainly a reprint from a much older Marvel source, the possibility of incidental influence on "The Five Doctors" is perhaps even more likely.
