superman86to99

[superman86to99]

Superman: The Man of Steel #35 (July 1994)

"WORLDS COLLIDE," Part 1! And "THE FALL OF METROPOLIS," Part 2! And a Wonder Woman crossover! And a long-time character dies, as spoiled by the cover! This issue might be peak '90s. This is the most '90s you can cram into 22 pages without the comic exploding.

Things are a bit rough in Metropolis after Lex Luthor's main lackey launched some missiles that destroyed almost every building in the city (Action #700). Keith the Unlucky Orphan and his friends are trying to gather food from what's left of their orphanage, when a bunch of gangsters with machine guns show up to steal everything, reminding us why we call him Keith the Unlucky Orphan. Luckily, though, the kids are protected not just by Keith's pal Superman but by Myra, the Orphanage Lady, who decides to keep a couple of those machine guns in case the ruffians return.

Combined with the scars she got on her face after saving Keith from an hypnotic lizard lady last issue, Myra is only some shoulder pads away from looking like a badass '90s anti-hero.

While Superman tries to help people around the ruins of Metropolis, a Giant Robot That Shoots Death Lasers From Its Chest (GRTSDLFIC) emerges from the ground and starts creating more ruins. The monster runs into Keith and the other orphans, so Myra bravely stands in front of it with her new toys and tries to distract it.

And she does! For about a second.

As he holds Myra's body, Keith yells out for Superman, who arrives right in time to save him from getting death lasered too. The Special Crimes Unit also stops by to help, and the GRTSDLFIC turns out to be smart enough to target Maggie Sawyer out of all of the officers because it can tell she's the top dog (or maybe it's just homophobic, dunno). Superman saves her, because one strong female supporting character death is enough for this issue.

Superman realizes the GRTSDLFIC is alive and needs to breathe, so he flies it up into orbit to take out its air and leaves it suspended there while he goes deal with other problems. (Presumably by also throwing them into orbit, like usual.) Meanwhile, Keith begs Maggie and SCU to take Myra to the hospital, but it's too late for her. The kid has an understandably tough time accepting that another mother figure has left him.

RIP, Myra the no-nonsense orphanage lady. When we met her back in Man of Steel #1 (1991), I don't think anyone guessed that she'd die wielding dual machine guns while facing a Giant Robot That Shoots Death Lasers From Its Chest. But we should have, dammit. We should have.

Plotline-Watch:

So, wait, why is this part of a crossover called "Worlds Collide"? Because a whole 5 pages are devoted to Lois Lane's mailman, Fred Bentson, who is still having weird nightmares where he finds himself in another universe. Professor Hamilton meets Bentson at a Red Cross shelter and takes him to a clinic to treat his sleep disorder, which involves becoming immaterial while he sleeps and being haunted by an inter-dimensional monster. At the clinic, some rather shady psychologists hook Bentson up to a machine that can project his dreams, and they all see him naked as he's chased by the nightmare monster and tries to get help from... STATIC?!

By the way, the shady sleep clinic happens to be located right under the bridge that was half-destroyed during Superboy's fight with that Spider-Man wannabe called Stinger almost a year ago, which is still half-destroyed. At least it doesn't stand out from the rest of the city anymore (thanks, Dr. Happersen!). The half-bridge will be a relevant plot point during this storyline.

And why is this a Wonder Woman crossover? Because she appears for a single panel while Superman is fighting the Giant Robot and wishes she'd picked another issue to come ask for his advice. The comic tells us to buy Wonder Woman #88 (which briefly shows WW helping Superman against the robot) for the rest of the story.

On that subject, Don Sparrow says: "Superman doesn’t appear very prominently in the connected issue of Wonder Woman #88. All that happens is Wonder Woman requests that Superman stop her if she ever loses control of herself. It’s not a great issue, largely because Christopher Priest writes both Diana and Superman fairly out of character throughout, and the art in the issue manages to depict Wonder Woman as both matronly and pervy. (The issue also features the choice line of dialogue “female be trippin’”, so if you don’t rush out and find the issue, you’re not missing much, apart from another great Bolland cover featuring Superman)."

Yes, the Keith stuff is pretty depressing, and could be seen as another example of Superman comics going all "Dark Age," but at least it'll lead to positive things for the character in the near future. Now, those other orphans who lost Myra, not so sure...

Patreon-Watch:

The results of the Superman/Doomsday: Hunter/Prey bonus artwork poll are in, and after tallying up the votes here and at Patreon, the character who will get drawn by the great Don Sparrow is... Maxima, in her post-Doomsday purple suit! Who won by a whole vote! (For those keeping count: 5 votes for Red Cyborg, 10 for Pouch Superman, and 11 for Purple Maxima.)

Don's work will be posted for all to see, but the original artwork will be given away to one of our patrons, Aaron, Chris “Ace” Hendrix, britneyspearsatemyshorts, Patrick D. Ryall, Bheki Latha, Mark Syp, Ryan Bush, Raphael Fischer, Kit, Sam, Bol, Gaetano Barreca, and Dave Shevlin. If you'd like to decrease their chances, join them at https://www.patreon.com/superman86to99!

And speaking of Don, stick around for his section, after the jump...

Art-Watch (by @donsparrow):

It’s an interesting cover, with the protagonist and even the title trade dress obscured by shadow.  It’s not really an action-type pose, but Superman’s angry expression indicates that action will follow.  We also get a hint at the tragedy within, with an injured Myra Allen below Superman.

Inside the book, we get our first glimpses of post-cataclysm Metropolis, seen through the eyes of hard-luck Keith.  The double page spread on pages 2 and 3 is a great drawing of Superman, exuding power even in a static pose. 

The cybernetic monster, who in this issue gets neither a name, nor an origin (unless the story’s title, Afterburn, is maybe the robot’s name?) but it’s an appropriately Fleischer studios-like design for Bogdanove to draw. 

Normally I quite dislike photo-stat backgrounds, but the panel with Superman carrying survivors gets a pass from me, because I love images of Superman saving kids—especially the way Bogdanove draws it. 

Myra Allen’s last stand against the robot is stirringly drawn, and to me visually recalls Frank Miller and Dave Gibbons’ “Martha Washington Goes to War” which was hitting newsstands around this time.   It’s interesting to see Bogdanove’s version of the famed Brian Bolland pose from Wonder Woman #72, even if she’s facing away. 

Keith’s grief at Myra’s passing is as powerful and sad an image as we’ve ever seen in these books, and my heart breaks for the poor little guy (look at his little hand clutching the cape!  What an astonishing detail!).  Though he’s fictional, it’s hard not to feel for him, when he’s endured so much tragedy in his young life.  I appreciate the restraint here, from a story standpoint—Superman offers no words of comfort, or guidance at what comes next, because they would only be trite and empty in a moment such as this.  All Superman can do, he does—which is to hold Keith, and let him weep.

Our final cameo of the book is Milestone’s Static, another character Bogdanove seems born to draw.  The introduction to him, as the milquetoast Bentson jumps to the Milestone world is fittingly energetic.   

SPEEDING BULLETS:

I appreciate the detail early on that Superman has put “a lot of time into locating” gas leaks and shutting them down.  It’s nice that the writer considered something like that.

We’ve known for a while that the DCU version of Coca-Cola is Soder, but nice to be informed that Sprite is called “Spritz” here. 

Professor Hamilton is perhaps a bit casual about the fact that Bentson was briefly immaterial! [Max: Maybe he's like "Have I been immaterial before? Maybe during the Husque storyline? Don't remember..."]

The great Jose-Luis Garcia Lopez gets a sort of shout out on page 7, as a fresh fruit stand bears his name.

At the time of this issue’s release I remember being very curious about the Milestone characters, and excited about them crossing over with my favourite character, but I still question the choice of having an uninteresting character like Bentson be the initial conduit between the worlds.  Maybe if the previous issues had established him as a recognizable Metropolis fixture (as well as Dakota City) like Whit or Allie or someone, it would have a little more impact (though they do try to build up his importance here, as the mailman who delivered the damaging evidence about Lex Jr.).  But I find it hard to really care about the Egon-looking guy, particularly when he’s running around naked.

#superman #louise simonson #jon bogdanove #dennis janke #worlds collide #keith #myra #fred bentson #emil hamilton #maggie sawyer #special crimes unit #wonder woman #static #static shock #milestone media #fall of metropolis #giant robot that shoots death lasers from its chest #superman throwing his problems into orbit #wonder woman be trippin'

[superman86to99]

SPECIAL BONUS ARTWORK POLL!

To celebrate us finally covering the full Superman/Doomsday: Hunter/Prey miniseries (here's the post for the third and final issue, if you missed it), PLUS reaching 500 posts in this blog recently, the great Don Sparrow is creating some all-new artwork based on this story, and we want you to help us pick the character. Don says: "I haven’t done an artwork piece in a while, and wanted to make it fun by giving our readers some options.  There were three new(ish) look costumes in this story, and I want to take a crack at drawing one of them.  So I leave it up to you, readers, do you want to see me draw:

1.    Apokolyptian Armour Hank Henshaw

2.    Purple Suit Maxima

3.    Mother Box Armour Superman

Vote in the comments [or in the poll above, or at Patreon], and the winning look will get drawn by me, with the original artwork given away to one of our backers."

So, who will it be? Creepy red armor Cyborg Superman? Sexy purple Maxima? Lightsaber Superman? U-DECIDE!

#superman #hank henshaw #maxima

[superman86to99]

Superman/Doomsday: Hunter/Prey #3 (June 1994)

After two issues of build-up, the moment we've been waiting for: Superman vs. Doomsday, the rematch! But first, more build-up. Last issue, Superman found out that Doomsday has been sent to Calaton, the one planet that defeated him before Superman did, and also the one planet that definitely can't defeat him again, since the baby-torturing geniuses who created Doomsday made it so he'll always evolve to overcome any opponent who beats him.

And yes, this means Superman himself should have no hope of stopping Doomsday again. However, this time Superman has something that Doomsday doesn't: Mother Box, a living computer from planet New Genesis that reshapes his clothes to prepare him for the rematch. According to Mother Box, the main reason Superman died last time he fought Doomsday is because he didn't have enough pouches. (And if he does die again, at least he'll look cool.)

Meanwhile, in Calaton, the Calatonians are trying to stop Doomsday doing the exact same thing they did thousands of years ago: putting all of their Royals in a psychic blender to create a being made out of condensed inbred superpowers, the Radiant. Unfortunately, that's all for nothing, because Doomsday has evolved to absorb Radiant's energy and easily snaps him in half. By the time Superman and Waverider (who's still tagging along) reach Calaton, Radiant is tragically fading away like a fart in the wind.

"All we are is farts in the wind..."

What's worse is that Doomsday "senses" Calaton's weaknesses and is headed straight for their central power facility, which if blown up, could destroy the entire planet. Superman has something personal against planets being blown up, so he stands in front of Doomsday and tells him he's here to stop him "permanently," despite not knowing if the big brute can even understand him.

And then, to Superman's surprise... Doomsday replies.

"I can siiiiiiiiiiiing!"

After the dramatic revelation that Doomsday is smart and actually remembers Superman from their fight in "Muhtroplisss," the monster simply turns back with a "HA!" and goes back to ignoring Supes, as if telling him "I could easily snap you in half too, so why even bother fighting." Superman uses the opening to blast Doomsday with his super-charged heat vision, mindful that getting into a close quarters slugging match with him last time was a fatal mistake.

So, Superman does his best to keep his distance during the fight, but then Doomsday reveals another surprise: he can now extend his knuckle bones to freakishly long distances in order to more easily stab flying enemies. Yes, Doomsday has evolved into Wolverine.

Oh, and the retractable bone claws also have poison in them, so as soon as Doomsday pulls Superman down, he starts getting dizzy. Thinking fast, Superman reaches into one of his many pouches and takes out an ultrasonic weapon that seems to be working pretty well on Doomsday -- until he closes his ear canals at will. Wonder if he can do that with any orifice, if needed.

Since the fight doesn't seem to be going too well for Superman, Waverider tries to help out by using his old "contact" trick on Doomsday, just to see if he can learn anything useful by looking through his eyes. This is how we learn that all this time, whenever Doomsday looks at Superman, what he really sees is... E.T.?!

Actually, that's Doomsday's creator, Bertron. But why would anyone mistake Superman for alien Mengele? Because, as Superman only just now realizes, the planet where Doomsday was made, the one that became obsessed with genetic modification due to the ruins of Bertron's lab, was Krypton. Now Superman believes that the only reason Doomsday went to Metropolis is that he felt the presence of a Kryptonian there and felt threatened, the poor thing.

As the fight resumes, Superman uses a sort of "saber made of light" that Mother Box equipped with him to attack Doomsday, but the only thing he gets out of it is a broken arm. Waverider tries to make "contact" again to shut him down from the inside, but Doomsday has even learned to kick intangible time travelers out of his body.

Doomsday throws Superman against Calaton's power batteries, causing a gigantic explosion that disintegrates Waverider and leaves Supes in even poorer shape. Doomsday himself, of course, isn't even fazed by the explosion and laughs heartily as Superman seems to run away from him, which would be understandable given the situation. He just survived the equivalent of "a million nuclear blasts," had his arm broken in two places, and found out his home planet's whole culture was built on the bones of dead babies. It's been a tough day.

However, it turns out Superman was only grabbing the time-traveling wrist band Waverider left laying around and building up distance to hit Doomsday as hard as he can. While Doomsday is disoriented, Superman puts the band on his shoulder spike and has Mother Box transport them to the only time period where he can be defeated, which turns out to be... the very last one, a.k.a. the destruction of the universe. Try to evolve your way out of this one, bitch.

Superman is perfectly willing to die there with Doomsday, but he's saved by Waverider, who wasn't dead after all, he just needed some time to put his energy form back together (guess "1994 to the end of time" was enough).

Waverider returns Superman back to the present, where Mother Box uses the last of her power to restore Superman's classic costume and give him a shave while at it. With Doomsday finally gone for good (right?), Superman thanks Waverider for actually putting his ass on the line for once and goes back to Lois, reflecting on how he found the strength to face his greatest fear through her. So, in the end, the secret weapon that allowed him to defeat Doomsday was love. And time travel. And a living computer who died shaving him.

Plotline-Watch:

We'll see Doomsday again in his very own annual in 1995, followed by a weird arc in John Byrne's Wonder Woman in 1996, before his actual return in 1998's The Doomsday Wars miniseries.

The Cyborg Superman will be back sooner than that, since we find out in this issue that Darkseid didn't really kill him, he merely condensed his life force into a small orb.

Don Sparrow says: "It’s an interesting notion that Doomsday might have been intentionally marching toward Metropolis, but it doesn’t fully make sense to me. If Doomsday was really after the only Kryptonian, he wouldn’t have walked in a straight line to Metropolis, he’d have gone after Superman directly, wouldn’t he? And there were numerous times when Superman had to catch up to Doomsday who was walking right past him during that battle. Unless we fill in the blanks, and suggest that Superman’s aura was present in Metropolis? I’d honestly rather that Doomsday was marching to Metropolis because he saw Superman as a threat, rather than because he saw an idiotic wrestling promotion on TV." Sorry, but I'll continue believing the original, non-retconned explanation: that Doomsday went to Metropolis because got all riled up watching wrasslin.

While Mother Box is redesigning Superman's costume, he mentions that this was "originally Kryptonian recovery gear" (you know, the black suit with the silver S-shield) until Supergirl transformed it into its current form, back in Superman #82. I appreciate the continuity note, and I wonder if we can eventually establish how long Superman wore this twice-reshaped costume, which is slightly darker than the ones his mom made... maybe until he burned it down in "The Death of Clark Kent"?

I'm trying to imagine the conversation when Superman returned the lifeless Mother Box to Oberon: "*sob* At least she died doing something honorable..." "Yes, feel my face! It's so smooth!"

This issue does a pretty good job at selling entropy, the universe-eating stuff (or non-stuff) at the end of time, as something deadly and inescapable. It sure would be terrible if it somehow ended up in the present. Don: "Dan Jurgens’ aggressive concept of entropy sounds a lot like the unbeatable Swarm from Superman #68, which set me up for failure in High School physics classes, let me tell you."

Patreon-Watch:

Aaron, Chris “Ace” Hendrix, britneyspearsatemyshorts, Patrick D. Ryall, Bheki Latha, Mark Syp, Ryan Bush, Raphael Fischer, Kit, Sam, Bol, Gaetano Barreca, and Dave Shevlin got to read all of the above a week early, since for once I finished a post before Don (it took Don getting sick for that miracle to happen). Join them for sneak peeks and Patreon-only posts about non-continuity comics at: https://www.patreon.com/superman86to99

And now, the whole world gets to read Don Sparrow's section, after the jump!

Art-Watch (by @donsparrow):

We reach the crescendo of the progressive covers, with Superman coming to blows with Doomsday on the front and back covers.  You know it’s serious because Superman’s punch has actually chipped off a piece of bone, but lucky Doomsday’s got bones to spare.

I felt like the art fell off a little on this issue, as some of the inks looked a little unsubstantial compared to the previous two issues, but I’ll get into specifics in a little bit.  Our first image is a splash page—the panels in this issue are all generally pretty big, with more than four being a rarity—and this is a good one—the rim lighting really adds a three-dimensionality to Superman’s figure making him look more defined than just a mass of bulk.  The colouring has generally been a highlight in this series, though this panel is a little let down with some sloppy shadows on Superman’s forehead that make him look bruised, I think unintentionally. 

The next page features a great image of Superman, again helped by rim lighting.  Jurgens can tend to draw Superman with too round a nose at times (I think most artists tend to default to making heroes look like themselves, the artists, and Jurgens has a roundish, button nose), but here his features are sharp and handsome.

Very soon we get our first look at Superman’s battle armour, courtesy of a literal Deus ex Machina, the Mother Box.  I have since learned that this look is much maligned among fandom (particularly once it became a toy) but reading this at age 14, I loved it, especially as a way to explain how Superman might even things up a little more against the preposterously overpowered Doomsday.  [Max: Same here! I had, and loved, that freaking toy.] It’s a unique look—very sword and sorcery, with the buckles and longer cape.  I might have thought the look would have more apparent Apokolyptan or Kryptonian elements given the origins of Mother Box and Superman, but I still have a lot of affection for this costume.  It’s interesting that the story seems to head off some of the criticism in advance, with Waverider hanging a lantern on the fact that the weapons “seem incompatible with {Superman’s} nature”.

I do like the simplicity of the Radiant’s look, and the art team does a good job of illustrating the crackle of his energy throughout. It feels a little like they’re trying to avoid having to draw Doomsday’s face too frequently in this issue, as he keeps appearing in shadow.  It’s most glaring in his fight with the Radiant where there are near-identical gritted teeth expressions on sequential pages.  The image of the fading energy being laying dying is a great depiction of translucence. 

We have a few more instances of reused panels as Doomsday recognizes Superman from their battle on Earth—that’s the same drawing of Doomsday from the first issue, when young Clark faces “the killer” in his dream.  The image of Superman’s eyes lighting up with heat vision is a good one, and though I’m not a terribly big admirer of Alan Moore (comic book heresy, thy name is Don Sparrow) I’m always reminded of “For the Man who has Everything” from Superman Annual #11 when someone says “burn”.  

The images that follow definitely look like he’s hurting Doomsday (and it gives them still more excuses to not draw Doomsday’s face) and also addresses some of the criticism of the original Doomsday storyline, namely that Superman fought him like he only had a single power—super-strength—never putting flight, super-speed, heat vision or arctic breath into use.  It’s after this that things start to get silly, with Doomsday speed-evolving to develop harpoon knuckles to draw Superman into him.  It’s such a strange thing, and I’m still confused how it works.  They’re bone but flexible like cables? 

Superman yanking Doomsday’s claws out of his shoulder like uprooting a weed certain looks painful.  We get another look at that Doomsday face from issue #1 again as Waverider mind-melds with the monster—the rules here are a little confusing—I don’t know why Waverider’s powers work here, but then failed when he tried to overload Doomsday’s nervous system, unless it’s a further example of Doomsday’s speed evolving. [Max: It's evolution, baby!]

Some of that lighter inking comes into play as Superman learns more about Doomsday’s origins—normally a heavy line, Breeding’s inks here look thinner and scratchier, more like Joe Rubinstein, who was inking the main book at the time. The big double page splash of Superman taking it to Doomsday is a real highlight, even if it’s followed by still more recycled art of young Clark.

The idea of Superman with an honest-to-goodness light sabre is dumb on the surface, but maaaan, did this blow my mind when I was a kid.  The image of Superman sawing into Doomsday’s side is a great use of light and colouring, and Doomsday reconstituting himself like the T-1000 from Terminator 2 is a great visual, even if it further confuses me as to the nature of Doomsday.  Like, how does an organless gray blob have bones that Superman could kick off?  And why did it hurt him?  

Doomsday gorilla pressing Superman is a great visual, and his whispering Lois in what feels like his last moment is emotionally impactful.  The disorienting effect of the end of time is well done.  The shredding of Doomsday’s form is particularly interesting, though having Mother Box kill Doomsday for him really does feel like a cop-out on some level, BUT, they’d essentially painted themselves into a corner with Doomsday, by making him essentially too powerful to really use in a story.

SPEEDING BULLETS:

Gotta love Desaad as hype man for Darkseid.  Also, in a previous issue I noted how much Desaad reminds me of Wormtongue from the Lord of the Rings series, and here we have Darkseid making the connection (perhaps inadvertently) explicit, mentioning both his tongue and calling Desaad a worm in the same word bubble.

I like Superman’s attempt at guilting Darkseid for leaving the fight against Doomsday, like it’s gonna work—he’s a villain, who barely survived his first encounter with Doomsday (actually, I guess it’s his first encounter in COMBAT as we will later see that a younger Darkseid met Doomsday even before Superman did)  so I don’t think shaming Darkseid is going to do much.

Also Superman is not very far away when Darkseid reveals to Desaad that his omega beams distilled Hank Henshaw’s consciousness into a little sphere—superhearing sinks ships, or something like that, Darkseid. [Max: I like the idea of Superman thinking "I'm just gonna pretend I didn't hear, got enough to deal with already."]

It’s a weird detail that this isn’t the same Radiant that Doomsday fought, even though Radiant takes claim for the victory.  They specify that he’s a new being made from the royals of this day and age, but if that’s the case, this Radiant might have had a better shot at beating Doomsday, since they never fought before, even with the same power set.  It would have been more narratively expedient just to have it be the same energy being, I think. 

As far as plans go, “full intensity energy” seems like an obvious one.  How long did it take the original Radiant to come up with that one?  “Oh dang—mild intensity energy didn’t work.  I guess I’ll try medium intensity energy…” [Max: It's possible radiant wasn't very bright. He's a product of inbreeding, after all...]

Speaking of obvious, Waverider is a bit of a Captain Obvious throughout…”Radiant is dying.” “Radiant is dead.”, etc.

Know what would be a good strategy, Superman?  Attacking while Doomsday is frozen in his time flashback!

Between this and the upcoming Zero Hour, Waverider has his share of (spoilers) fake deaths.

[Max: Don't know if I'd call the one on Zero Hour fake, but we can revisit this when the time comes. Pun intended.]

#superman #dan jurgens #brett breeding #doomsday #darkseid #deesad #waverider #apokolips #hank henshaw #superman/doomsday: hunter/prey #hank henshaw as a little ball #inbred silver surfer but not the same inbred silver surfer from the previous issue

[superman86to99]

Via @fortressofbaileytude... NEW TRIANGLE ERA OMNIBUS SERIES ANNOUNCED! HOT DANG! Time to save up those $125, which amounts to roughly nineteen cab rides in Metropolis.

The first omnibus will cover from "Krisis of the Krimson Kryptonite" to "Metropolis Mailbag," including "Time and Time Again!," "The Red Glass Trilogy," "The Return of the Krypton Man," "Blackout," Intergang's fall, Jimmy Olsen's homeless adventures, and most of the Cerberus storyline, stopping right before "Panic in the Sky!" (which was recently reprinted, but hopefully gets re-reprinted in a second omnibus). That's a SOLID chunk of comics there, most of which haven't seen print in over 30 years! I believe a lot of them aren't available digitally either, for whatever reason.

Some personal favorite issues from this period that have never been reprinted before include the teen Clark vs. drunk driving story, the Lois and Clark talk in the mountains story, the sideways Atomic Skull double feature, Mr. Z's debut (and his ensuing evolution into lovable island goof), the incredible "Blackout" finale, the everyone ends up dancing at Bibbo's while Professor Hamilton plays the piano issue, and Waverider's first encounter with the Linear Men (sadly, the "Armageddon 2001" annuals don't seem to be included, though those should probably go in their own omni with the rest of that storyline).

Now, since the previous "Exile and Other Stories" omnibus stopped in November '89 and in this one starts in November '90, this still leaves a years' worth of Post-Crisis Superman comics in the dark, including essential stuff like "The Brainiac Trilogy" and Hank Henshaw's first appearances (while others like "The Day of the Krypton Man", "Dark Knight Over Metropolis," and Luthor's totally real death HAVE been collected but are long out of print). Here's hoping this sells strongly enough to not only guarantee at least one more volume covering the entire period leading up to "The Death of Superman," but also a volume 0 with the '89-'90 stuff. Oh, and the missing annuals. And the "World of..." minis. And Luthor's biography (edit: I've been reminded this is in the President Luthor trade, still in print, but it'd still be nice to have it here). And the Earth Day comic. And...

Anyway, it's probably time to update that Guide to Superman '86 to '99 Collected Editions post we did like 10 years ago, huh.

#superman #triangle era #jerry ordway

[superman86to99]

Superman/Doomsday: Hunter/Prey #2 (May 1994)

At last, we find out Doomsday's secret origin! And then kinda wish we didn't, because it's pretty gnarly. In fact, this might be the most disturbing character origin in all of DC Comics, including Vertigo and that "Dark Multiverse" thing they were doing a while back.

But, before getting to Doomsday, Superman has to deal with the mess he left in Apokolips last issue. Thanks to Doomsday's rampage, the Cyborg Superman has taken over the planet and plans to turn it into a new Warworld so he can take it around the universe, conquering other worlds. Yes, he wants to turn the worst planet in existence even worse.

The Cyborg has easily taken care of Darkseid's Parademons by transmitting a frequency that melts their brains. But where's Darkseid himself? He was last seen taking a good beating from Doomsday, and when Superman runs into him, he's... not in great shape.

"DARKSEID IS. TIRED."

Superman is briefly tempted to leave Darkseid to die, but he ends up dragging him to safety and using the Mother Box he borrowed last issue to heal him, because Superman gonna Superman. Just when Superman is lamenting the fact that he doesn't have enough time to go back to Earth for help, Waverider shows up... only to instantly remind Superman that he can't help, due to his sacred vow as a protector of the timestream.

Superman, however, basically tells Waverider to nut up or shut up and use his temporal powers to give him helpful information about Doomsday. Waverider finally succumbs to Superman's bullying and shows him a vision of a "distant planet" circa 250,000 years ago. The planet seems to be uninhabited except for some spiky monsters who kill anything in their sight and a group of scientists inside a reinforced dome. The leader of the scientists is an alien called Bertron who is obsessed with creating "the ultimate form of life" by any means necessary. Including, we soon find out, baby murder.

Following Bertron's orders, the scientists launch an alien baby into the hostile atmosphere and just sit by and watch while the spiky monsters tear it apart in seconds. Then, they scare the monsters away with their weapons, send someone out there to scoop up whatever's left of the baby, clone a new infant from that DNA, and repeat the whole process.

After 20 years of doing that every day, the baby has evolved to the point that it now takes minutes to be torn apart instead of seconds. Also, it's now considerably uglier.

Within 30 years, some of the scientists are starting to show reservations about working at the baby murdering factory, but the progress is undeniable. By now, the baby (more like a large bald dude) is able to survive in the hostile environment indefinitely and actually fights back against the spiky monsters... who kill him every time anyway, but still. Progress!

An indeterminate number of decades pass, and the "baby" has turned into a big, hulking creature that Bertron calls "The Ultimate." The minutes of survival have stretched into full years as the Ultimate walks across the planet hunting the spiky monsters until none are left. Bertron is ecstatic that his creation has finally become an unkillable killing machine. So... what now? Well, suffer an ironic death at its hands, of course, because it turns out Doomsday remembers the thousands of deaths Bertron put him through.

According to Waverider's narration, Doomsday might have wiped out all life in that planet if he hadn't stumbled upon Bertron's supply ship. He ended up bouncing through the universe like a murderous ping pong ball, until he reached a planet called Calaton, whose royal family had gained metahuman abilities through the amazing power of inbreeding (that's not a joke about royal families, that's in the comic!).

After years of being unable to stop Doomsday, Calaton's royals gave up their lives to form an energy being called the Radiant, who looks like Silver Surfer but powered by cousin porking (miraculously, he seems to have all his limbs). It took a week of fighting and an explosion that destroyed a fifth of Calaton, but the Radiant finally managed to kill Doomsday. Unfortunately, the Calatonians have a strange custom that says they can't destroy the bodies of planet-killing aliens and must instead dress them up in gimp suits...

...and launch them into space, which is how Doomsday ended up crashing into Earth in that capsule he finally escaped in Man of Steel #18. This concludes Waverider's presentation.

Back in the present, Darkseid wakes up from his healing nap just in time to recognize that the Cyborg has launched some missiles at Apokolips' food pens to starve the population, because that's what he'd do too. Superman doesn't feel great about teaming up with Darkseid, but he'd feel even worse if innocents died, so he slows down the missiles while Darkseid gets rid of them with his Omega Beams. Darkseid tries to Omega Beam the Cyborg away, too, but he actually survives the blast (that's two people who CAN "withstand the unsurpassed force of the Omega Beams" in as many issues).

Although the Omega Beam hurt him, the Cyborg uses surrounding machinery to repair himself and, while at it, become a giant mecha. Superman hits him with the full force of his heat vision...

...but once again, eye lasers prove ineffective against the Cyborg, since he just rebuilds himself again, even bigger this time. Darkseid, however, claims he was still recuperating from Doomsday's beating before, but he's in tip-top shape now -- and proves it by hitting Giant Mecha-Cyborg with the REAL strength of the Omega Beams, completely disintegrating him. Sorry for doubting you, eye lasers.

With the Cyborg out of the picture, Darkseid thanks Superman for his help by telling him to get off his planet and go chase Doomsday wherever he is. Deesad reveals where he teleported Doomsday to last issue: Calaton, the planet where they already beat him once, figuring they can just do it again -- but Waverider points out that it's exactly the opposite. Because of Bertron and his gang of baby killers, whenever something kills Doomsday, he evolves to surpass it... which means Superman has no chance against him, either.

Everyone present agrees that Superman is pretty much screwed, but Superman says he doesn't care... while his inner narration shows the opposite. In fact, he's terrified, but he's still going after Doomsday to stop him or re-die trying. TO BE CONCLUDED!

Beard-Watch:

It's coming back! You know a Superman story is getting intense when he hasn't had time to shave in a while.

Don Sparrow points out that Superman's "tough guy stubble" seems to come out of nowhere after Waverider's flashback sequence, but I can think of two explanations for that: A) Superman was affected by some minor chronal energy that caused him to age extra fast, at least around the face, or B) that was a long-ass flashback sequence.

Plotline-Watch:

Okay, disregard what I said last time about this miniseries being hard to place in the continuity: Superman explicitly says he's "stronger" and "better" before blasting the Cyborg with his heat vision, so this is definitely happening during the "super-charged powers" storyline. The only hitch is that this is supposed to be taking place during the period when Superman was constantly breaking things and shooting off his heat vision without meaning to, and there's nothing like that here, but that's for the best because 1) that stuff got pretty annoying and 2) minis like this work better if they're not that tied to the ongoing plotlines. No one wants to see five pages of Jimmy Olsen trying to renew his driving license in the middle of a Doomsday fight.

One reason Waverider decides to get off his ass and help out is that he remembers the time he had to watch Superman get beaten to death without doing anything, so he kinda owed it to him. That happened in The Legacy of Superman #1.

There are a couple of references to Armageddon 2001, the 1991 crossover that introduced Waverider: he mentions he was an "activist" before he became a golden being with a flaming head (he even vandalized a statue of Monarch, his original timeline's super-dictator) and when he shows Doomsday's origin to Superman, we see the same psychedelic effect shown in Armageddon whenever he'd touch a superhero to snoop into their future.

What isn't referenced is the time Superman lived in Apokolips for a while, first as an amnesiac anti-Darkseid revolutionary and then as his mind-controlled "son" (in 1987's Legends crossover), but that's understandable since all those memories were wiped from his mind at the end of that storyline.

Did Darkseid really kill the Cyborg, as Superman seems to think? Nah. We'll find out what really happened soon enough.

Waverider's narration claims that, after Doomsday left that unnamed planet where he was created, the natives found Bertron's lab and became obsessed with genetic experimentation, "sending them down the path of a unique and disastrous future." On that note, Don Sparrow says: "I love the detail on page 27, explaining that had he stayed, Doomsday would have killed the entire planet. It’s like, who cares about some random planet?" Yeah, why are they giving us so much detail about that place?! Weird.

Patreon-Watch:

Our latest Patreon-exclusive article was about Steel Annual #1, an Elseworlds story set during the Civil War that, coincidentally, also features dead kids as a major plot point (Superman writers were in a dark mood in 1994, huh). Read that and more by joining Aaron, Chris “Ace” Hendrix, britneyspearsatemyshorts, Patrick D. Ryall, Bheki Latha, Mark Syp, Ryan Bush, Raphael Fischer, Kit, Sam, Bol, and Gaetano Barreca at https://www.patreon.com/superman86to99!

Also join me in reading more from Don Sparrow, after the jump...

Art-Watch (by @donsparrow):

On one hand, the concept of each of the covers just being a step by step sequence of the two main characters streaking into battle has a certain power and simplicity. But on the other hand, there’s little to differentiate them (particularly these first two) and it can feel a bit repetitive.  Another detraction is that the computer generated background on the last issue looked like a wall of flame, but shifting the colour to green just looks like a tie-dye pattern, which doesn’t make sense for the story. Still:  Great drawings of both characters.

The first few pages are another good showcase of Jurgens’ unique very tall panel layout, and while it’s mostly exposition (helped a lot by the gradient colour background representing the timestream) there are a few interesting, if odd details about Vanishing Point.  First, what the hell is that pediment on the window of Vanishing point?  It looks a little like Legion villain Validus, but not perfectly so.  Secondly, it’s so eccentric that the time viewer Waverider looks at here is an animated piece of parchment, complete with feather quill pen.

Further along the silhouetted image of an injured Darkseid is very cool.  The colouring is a real star throughout, but I particularly like the gold rim lighting on the red metal of the Cyborg’s face.

As we see Doomsday’s origins, it’s interesting to see how Bertron ages.  He looks like a malevolent E.T.!

The image revealing Doomsday’s final form is a classic, even if he’s starkers.  They also can’t seem to keep his physiognomy straight—if he’s solid mass with no organs, why does he need a belly button?  The ink spatters indicating his killing blow of Bertron are a restrained way of showing something gory is happening.

Calaton looks a lot like the fake Krypton from Adventures of Superman #500, though there’s a lot of nice design that went into a fairly short section of the book.  It’s funny that a story featuring Hank Henshaw, himself an alternate take on Mister Fantastic, would birth the Radiant, who visually is virtually indistinguishable from The Silver Surfer, who also made his debut in Fantastic Four comics. [Max: Ha! They should have brought Inbred Silver Surfer back for the Superman/Fantastic Four crossover featuring the Cyborg...]

Explaining the containment suit and metallic block where we first find Doomsday is a nice touch. 

We talked in a previous review about how Image-comics-inspired the colouring is on this mini-series, but how badass Superman looks throughout is also vaguely reminiscent of Image titles at the time.  The cross-hatching and tough guy stubble appearing (quite suddenly—he had none before his Waverider trance!) makes Superman look pretty tough-as-nails. However later in the book as Superman flies off to confront the Cyborg, his face shows so much concentration he begins to look vaguely like Manny Pacquiao—so you know it’s gonna be a good fight!  

The image of the Cyborg shaking like a ragdoll upon the impact of the Omega beams is a great, electric effect.  The single panel the most similar to Image comics must be on page 43 where Superman’s eyes glow red before blasting the Cyborg’s rebuilt body away.  While the “eyes glow red because he’s mad” effect is done to death today, when this was published, it was rare enough to be pretty exciting.  Darkseid’s march, and dialogue is pretty awesome as he takes care of the threat of the Cyborg Superman.  In that way, this is an odd issue—Superman has almost no effect on the outcome.  It’s Waverider who fills Superman in on Doomsday’s origins, and it’s Darkseid who destroys the missiles, AND dispatches the Cyborg Superman.  I suppose none of that would be possible without Superman’s mercy, helping Darkseid heal, but Superman mostly stands around watching the action in this issue.  Lastly, Waverider on page 46 looks a lot like Arnold Schwarzenegger, and it’s fun to think of his thick Austrian accent trying to make its way around all the timestream techno-jargon Waverider spouts. [Max: "Get to da Vanishing Point!"]

SPEEDING BULLETS:

Wait, did the Cyborg just flat out kill Desaad?  I guess not, but it was a cool line. [Max: He's alive by the end of the issue, but wasn't there a story that revealed Darkseid is constantly killing and recreating Deesad? Maybe he did that off-panel.]

Do you agree with Superman’s hectoring Waverider about giving him information from his unique knowledge of the timestream?  Superman would have some trouble with the old Prime Directive if he were in Starfleet.

Kinda nuts that the female scientist waited THIRTY YEARS to voice her objection to killing an infant all day every day!  There’s a lot of unanswered questions about these scientists.  What are they paid?  Do they get time off? [Max: I always got the impression that these scientists were aliens too, but this time I noticed Bertron says "this world of yours" to them... So I guess they're meant to be [SPOILERS] Kryptonians, from a habitable part of the planet? Their clothes do match the wardrobe in the early parts of World of Krypton, especially that one lady's earrings. Knowing their race, they probably did it just for the love of science... and launching babies.]

I find myself interested in “the beasts” that Doomsday combats while he’s developing.  We’ve never seen them before, or since in any stories set on… that particular planet. [Max: Same here. I like their cartoonish look, too. DC Nation should have done some Roadrunner-type shorts featuring Baby Doomsday escaping the spiky monsters and dying in some wacky new way every week!]

Page 23 they kind of bury the lede, just casually mentioning that if killed, Doomsday revives, evolved past whatever killed it.  That’s a pretty insane power level.

Bertron getting murdered by his creation was actually a pretty good metaphor for Krypton’s scientific community—coldly experimenting for science’s sake, with no thought to the consequence they may face in the future.  More on that in the next issue.

What kind of food do the food pens hold?  Like grain and stuff? [Max: Didn't a Darkseid-themed cereal box show up as a variant cover recently? Yep, found it. It's probably that.]

Everyone--hero and villain--all telling Superman he will for sure lose to Doomsday has to be a knock to his confidence!

#superman #dan jurgens #brett breeding #doomsday #waverider #linear men #apokolips #darkseid #deesad #hank henshaw #krypton #superman/doomsday: hunter/prey #silver surfer but powered by cousin porking #get to da vanishing point

[superman86to99]

Superman/Doomsday: Hunter/Prey #1 (April 1994)

DOOMSDAY IS COMING... BACK! Superman has been having nightmares about Doomsday, which is the natural psychological reaction when someone kills you. In his dreams, Doomsday has already wrecked the entire Justice League (again) and goes after Superman, who turns into a scared little boy in the middle of the fight. Just when Doomsday is about to knock lil' Clark's head off...

...he wakes up. It's the same dream every night. So, Superman decides to do the healthy thing when something is scaring you to that point. No, not visit a therapist -- finding and killing it.

But where is Doomsday these days, anyway? The last time anyone saw him, he was floating through space after the evil Cyborg Superman tied his body to an asteroid and tossed him there. As it happens, just when Superman is thinking about finding Doomsday, a cargo spaceship headed for Apokolips runs across that asteroid and takes it in, thinking they might be able to sell it to Darkseid as a big paperweight or something. By the time the ship lands in Apokolips, everyone inside is dead -- and soon, so is everyone in its general vicinity. As Doomsday tears through Apokolips' residents, one seems to recognize him and calls him "the Armageddon Creature," which for some reason makes me think of Steve Buscemi.

Even Darkseid seems freaked out by Doomsday. He sends his elite guard to slow him down with their fancy exo-armors, which "can stop anything"... except, it soon becomes clear, Doomsday's fists. When Doomsday kills one of the guards, a little gizmo on his back starts glowing and something jumps into the guard's armor -- it's the Cyborg Superman, whose consciousness had been hiding there since Superman Superman destroyed his previous body!

So now they have two maniacs destroying poor old Apokolips (what did they ever do to deserve this?!). Desaad wants to call the Darkstars or L.E.G.I.O.N. or some other cosmic police force for help, but Darkseid would rather evacuate the entire planet than do that.

Meanwhile, after talking it over with Lois (who isn't exactly thrilled about her fiancé going after a creature that has already killed him once), Superman realizes who can help him find Doomsday: the Linear Men, the protectors of the time-stream, since they can find anything, anywhere, anytime. He stands outside young Matthew Ryder's home, causing the adult, time-traveling Ryder to materialize and ask Superman why he remembers a famous superhero loitering in his back yard one night. Superman asks the Linear Men to give him all the info they have on Doomsday, but Matthew hits him with the "sanctity of the time-stream" stuff again.

However, Matthew's more hot-headed (pun intended) alternate reality version, Waverider, manages to give Superman a "subtle" clue about Doomsday's current location:

Back in Apocalypse Apokolips, Darkseid decides to step in personally and hit Doomsday with his legendary Omega Beams. No one can withstand the unsurpassed force of the--! Oh, wait, no, Doomsday did, pretty easily. And then beat the living crap out of Darkseid. After seeing that, Desaad is like "screw this," disobeys his master's orders, and calls the Justice League headquarters... just as Superman has stepped in to ask for help in finding Doomsday. Desaad ends their intergalactic Zoom call, but this makes Superman put two and two together and decipher Waverider's hint.

Now aware that Doomsday is in Apokolips (but still not knowing if he's alive or dead), Superman borrows a Mother Box from the JL's Oberon and teleports there, only to immediately run into the Cyborg breaking shit up. Superman is ready to fight him, but the Cyborg hits him with something more devastating than any blast: a live video feed of Doomsday, alive and kicking. Well, punching.

And then he hits Superman with a blast. While the Cyborg is distracted torturing Superman, Desaad uses the opportunity to open up a Boom Tube near Doomsday to teleport him away (which they probably should have done in the first place, huh). Superman flies off to stop it, but he's too slow: Doomsday has been sent to some other planet... perhaps Earth?! TO BE CONTINUED!

Creator-Watch:

This marks the glorious return of inker Brett Breeding, who we hadn't seen since the end of "Reign of the Supermen" because he was focusing on this miniseries. This time, he's actually providing finished art to Dan Jurgens' layouts, and the result is probably his finest work yet. We've all missed Breeding in the regular books (no disrespect to Josef Rubinstein), but that makes this mini feel extra special and like a prestige event worthy of that cardboard cover and the extra three bucks. More art gushing in Don Sparrow's section below!

Plotline-Watch:

No idea if this is intentional or not, but the final page, with Superman failing to catch Doomsday's Boom Tube and wondering if he stopped himself out of fear, reminds me of the classic final pages of Jack Kirby's Forever People #1 (1971), when he intentionally stops in the middle of a Boom Tube trip. Not many comics end with an emotionally devastated Superman kneeling between some rocks in front of an orange background after just barely not making a Boom Tube trip.

Superman mentions to Lois that one of the reasons he wants to find Doomsday's body is because he remembers how obsessed people in ancient Krypton became with genetic engineering (as seen in the World of Krypton miniseries), and he worries someone might recreate him or make an army of Doomsdays. That's a pretty clever way of delivering information that will become relevant when we find out Doomsday's origin, next issue.

ELROY SIGHTING! Of course that little jerk wouldn't wanna miss an issue where his rival for Lois' affection has serious chances of suffering a violent death...

Don Sparrow says: "A small nod to the 'Emerald Twilight' storyline happening in Green Lantern, as Superman mentions he can no longer ask Green Lanterns for help in outer space." Find out why at the @greenlantern94to04 blog, which just reached Green Lantern #50! (I'm hoping to have that blog catch up to this one by the time we hit Zero Hour at least, so we can crossover.)

Another important observation from Don: "Superman’s a boxers guy now, which is a switch from the tight-whiteys he wore in the now-famous Superman #50. No, I don’t feel like I’m wasting my life, why do you ask? (Weigh in with your comment—do you think Superman is a boxer guy, or briefs? NOT about whether I’m wasting my life.)" I'm gonna go with briefs on the outside, boxers on the inside. He's a man of two worlds!

As he leaves the Ryder residence, Superman tells Matthew's confused dad to "teach your son to do what's right -- while you still have time." Am I the only one who thinks the even more confused little Matthew got a belting after that?

At the JL HQ, Maxima offers to come along to Apokolips to have her own rematch with Doomsday, but Superman says no because he wants to face his fears alone. I feel kinda bad for her, but she must be pretty used to Superman turning her down by now.

I like this little car parked outside Darkseid's palace. Did a cabbie get so lost that he ended up there? Did he still charge $6,50?

Not even the Linear Men could figure out where exactly this miniseries fits in the continuity. This obviously takes place after Action #694 (February 1994), the issue where we last saw Doomsday floating in space, and before the Zero Hour event (September 1994), due to certain events involving Matthew and Waverider. Thing is, that Action issue takes place during the long storyline when Superman is losing control of his powers, which doesn't seem to be a problem in this miniseries. That storyline ends in Action #699, which is also the first part of the "Battle for Metropolis" storyline, which leads directly to Metropolis becoming a big pile of rubble in Action #700. Metropolis seems fine in this mini, so this must be taking place during Superman's power woes, but something about him being stronger than usual during such an important rematch doesn't seem right to me. Let's all just blame this on Zero Hour messing with the time-stream.

Patreon-Watch:

Our patrons Aaron, Chris “Ace” Hendrix, britneyspearsatemyshorts, Patrick D. Ryall, Bheki Latha, Mark Syp, Ryan Bush, Raphael Fischer, Kit, Sam, Bol, and Gaetano Barreca got to read half of this post back in November, because Don got a bit ahead of himself, and now they get to read half of our upcoming post on Man of Steel #28, because it happened again! Take advantage of our absentmindedness by joining us at https://www.patreon.com/superman86to99

Speaking of Don, he's got way more to say about this issue, so keep reading...

Art-Watch (by @donsparrow):

Some context behind the art on this issue:  While I was essentially a DC-only kid in the early 90s, you simply couldn’t ignore the revolution happening at Image Comics.  I still maintain that those early Image books weren’t popular only, or even mainly because of the creators, and certainly not because of the stories—I think what set them apart were the incredible production values.  (The fact that there isn’t that much appetite for trade paperbacks of early Spawn or Savage Dragon issues bears this out.) The paper quality and digital colouring that Image Comics offered blew the doors off of what DC was publishing regularly.  And it wasn’t that DC was incapable of using the same techniques, or paper supply—indeed the astonishingly illustrated Batman movie adaptation from 5 years earlier showed they could.  So while I found Image comics to have enviable art, but no stories to my taste, I couldn’t help but wish that my beloved Superman comics could look as nice as the Image comics on the newsstands.  That’s one part of what made these issues so exciting.  Of course, a rematch with Superman and Doomsday was another attraction, and as if we needed a third reason, this mini-series reunited Jurgens and Breeding, who weren’t the usual team on the superbooks at the time. 

After all that, we start with the cover, and the simplicity would certainly make it jump off the stands.  Jurgens was always the most posteriffic Superman artist, where the action poses would make a great pinup, but without sacrificing story.  This cover is a great example of that, with a determined Superman flying into battle on a computer-generated background of flames on the front cover, with Doomsday stomping into action on the back cover.  Even the title pages boast some great production values, as the brushed steel photoshop texture and rounded gradients on the rivets make for a much more photo-realistic finish than usual. 

Issues like this one are tricky, because it’s tempting for me to comment on every darn page, because the art is so consistently at a high level.  So, in the interests of keeping this post from becoming a novel (yes, I know I went overboard in the Death of Superman 30th Anniversary Special issue!), I’ll just highlight the very best of the best.

The slow buildup of the early pages are very well done, as the peaceful dreamlike setting of Clark’s childhood farmhouse give way to the adult nightmare of Doomsday.  The full page splash on page 4 is perhaps the defining image of Doomsday (one we saw repeated in modern times, as it was swiped last year in the aforementioned 30th Anniversary issue).

I like seeing the Superman-era Justice League (even if it’s among the wreckage), though my copy has a colouring error on Blue Beetle’s costume).  

The outer space scenes, of the doomed space freighter crew have a scary, claustrophobic feel, and I can definitely remember my heart racing seeing Doomsday awake (even though we knew he was a long time ago).  The design on this ship is reminiscent of the semi-canonical Superman/Aliens mini-series that’ll come out in about a year’s time.

As any loyal reader knows, I love good Lois art, so seeing Lois in her pajamas is a treat when handled by this art team.  Later in the issue we get a Darkseid that rivals John Byrne himself for my favourite depiction of the lord of Apokolips.

We are also introduced to the new look Cyborg Superman (Jurgens tried hard to establish his name as simply “The Cyborg” but it never really took—even with Vic Stone not in the comics of the time, I think DC fans always thought of “Cyborg” as a good guy) which is one of my favourite looks for him.  I think I may slightly prefer the look he had in mid-2000s Green Lantern comics overall, but even they took the red and black look established here.  It’s a small panel, but I remember copying and re-copying the little shot of a very handsome Superman flying toward the camera on page 26.  The subtle gradients in the colouring really add a lot. 

Back to Apokolips, the simple silhouette of Darkseid using his omega beams is a stunner, especially with the sizzle effect at the edge of the beams.

Not sure I pictured Darkseid having red blood, as we do (dark gray maybe?  Black?) but the image of someone as imposing as Darkseid yelping in pain is definitely one that will linger.  For pure cartooniness, I love the panel of Desaad’s shock at seeing Darkseid KO’d.  After seeing the Lord of the Rings films, I always pictured Brad Dourif as Desaad, but at this time (and certainly seeing this panel) I think Marty Short would have made a great one. 

I appreciate the Justice League being involved, even tangentially, given their involvement in the first Doomsday battle.  Though Maxima’s costume is technically more demure than when Superman was in the league (in mourning for Superman she updated her look in Justice League America #71) as she’s covered chin to toes, she somehow seems more naked than ever in these pages.    

There are a couple reused panels in this comic, which stand out—page 40 reuses the famed Doomsday portrait mentioned earlier and that same page inserts a shot of the Cyborg’s eyes that is clipped from page 43.  Not the end of the world, but noticeable to me.   As Superman emerges from the Boom Tube, I like the blue-tinged lighting on his costume, some good colouring there.

Lastly, the body language as Superman passes by the closed Boom Tube that transported Doomsday elsewhere is well observed. 

SPEEDING BULLETS:

This mini-series also highlighted an unfortunate trend of the early-to-mid 90s—that anything really big rarely happened in the regular titles, but was relegated to special—and enormously more expensive—special issues or mini-series.  Despite this story being seismic in importance, it was mostly ignored by the events in the tightly-linked Superman titles at the time.  Which to me felt like a missed sales opportunity, certainly the rematch between Superman and Doomsday would have bolstered sales line-wide, had they done it in the regular books.  But having a new-reader friendly self-contained story, by a single writing and art team AND a high price point won out in the end.  This was also true in the Batman titles, where pivotal characters like Azrael and Bane were introduced in prestige format one shots or mini-series rather than the monthly titles.

Maybe another reason this story was confined to a mini-series—it’s quite gory in some places, perhaps too much so for a code book?

Back in the 90s, they’d always play it coy about whether Superman and Lois have a sexual relationship, but as in the past, they do give hints to support one reading or the other. On the one hand, they keep separate apartments, but on the other, they do have potentially meaningful captions like “hours later” that may contain multitudes.

I gotta say, I was sorta surprised and impressed that DeSaad didn’t immediately make a power play in order to rule Apokolips himself.  Though, he likely knew that no matter what he’d need someone as powerful as Darkseid (or Orion, or Mr. Miracle) to combat Doomsday.

I do get a kick that even under duress, DeSaad still officiously signs off with a “DeSaad out!”, Seacrest style.

It’s grim, but the expression on the face of the dead inspector is unintentionally hilarious to me.  Almost like it begs for one more word bubble. [Max: Don's gonna hit us with a "Totally Rad!" isn't he?]

[Max: ...I stand corrected.]

#superman #dan jurgens #brett breeding #doomsday #justice league #maxima #oberon #darkseid #desaad #linear men #matthew ryder #waverider #elroy #hank henshaw #superman/doomsday: hunter/prey #guy who parked in apokolips somehow #desaad out #steve buscemi should play bertron

[superman86to99]

Hey, the @greenlantern94to04 has completed "Emerald Twilight"! This is where the fun begins (before it gets depressing again, then fun again).

Hal Jordan pin-up by Stuart Immonen and Karl Kesel, from Green Lantern #50 (which I covered last week, if you missed it!). Note that Kesel is mis-credited as Karl Story on the side... maybe because he also writes stories? In fact, he started writing a whole lot for Immonen in Adventures of Superman about a year after this issue came out.

Incidentally, Kesel is currently Kickstarting a new volume of the incredibly fun Impossible Jones series, featuring pin-ups by Immonen, Tom Grummett, and others! Back it here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1227066666/impossible-jones-vol-2-ultra-cool-collectors-edition

[superman86to99]

Action Comics #700 (June 1994)

"THE BATTLE FALL OF METROPOLIS"! Metropolis falls, quite literally! But, on the bright side, so does Lex Luthor, because Lois Lane finally busts his ass after 700 issues (give or take).

This super-sized anniversary issue starts with Lois recapping all the dirt she's dug up on "Lex Luthor Jr." during the past several months, including the fact that he's actually the original, supposedly dead Lex Luthor in a clone body. Lex tried to have Lois discredited by planting wacky headlines with her byline at the Daily Planet's computers and framing her for financial crimes (on top of blowing up her apartment), but now she finally has hard evidence of his crimes thanks to her informant at LexCorp, only known as "Deep Quote." (Is this the first reference to Linda Lovelace's oeuvre in a Superman story? Comics and/or porno historians, sound off in the comments.)

Despite having been fired from the Planet (see: "wacky headlines" above), Lois manages to present her evidence in front of Commissioner Henderson, Perry White, and Planet owner Franklin Stern... who still thinks this cloning business sounds like "science fiction." That's a weird thing to say when you live in the DC Universe. Hell, there's a whole government agency devoted to cloning just outside Metropolis! Or maybe I should say there was, because, right when Stern is about to apologize to Lois, everyone hears a massive explosion coming from Project Cadmus' direction -- as seen last issue, some of Lex's armored henchmen just dropped a goddamn mountain on Cadmus while fighting Superman and Superboy.

Superboy, who was all laughs last issue but seems to be taking his friends' apparent deaths much harder now, wants to look for survivors, but Superman again tells him there's no point, because "there's no one alive in Cadmus that needs our help anymore." Instead, they go look for the Lex-Men who caused this whole mess so they can bring them to justice. They're soon joined by Supergirl, who takes every opportunity she can get to destroy LexCorp property since breaking up with Lex himself in her recent miniseries (and that was before she found out he's actually a creepy old guy in a young body).

Meanwhile, Lex (whose clone body is rapidly deteriorating) is hiding in his yacht with his most faithful cronies, his scientific aide Dr. Sydney Happersen and his long-time physician Dr. Gretchen Kelley, the same woman who pretended to be his "mother" for the Lex Jr. ruse. Since Lex is gonna be here for a while, Dr. Kelley volunteers to go to the city and pick up some meds for him. Lex thinks that's a great idea... until he sees Kelley on TV, spilling the beans on his whole operation to Lois. That's right, Kelley was "Deep Quote" all along! Which was pretty obvious if you've been paying attention, but then again Lex has a long history of rejecting the obvious.

Kelley also spilled the beans on Lex's location to Superman, who suddenly bursts into the yacht to nab him once and for all. But Lex has an ace that he's been hiding up his sleeve for a long-ass time: a slew of "sonic torpedoes" reverse engineered from tech left behind by the alien invaders from DC's 1988 Invasion! crossover, which he hid somewhere under Metropolis in case he ever felt like pulverizing the city. Lex, who thinks he'll die any moment, seems perfectly willing to take millions with him -- until Superman asks him if he really wants the people of Metropolis, "his" city, to remember him as the guy who blew the whole place up. The "American Hitler," as Superman puts it.

Lex, who got into this whole mess in the first place because he wanted people to love him more than Superman, breaks down and agrees not to launch the torpedoes.

And then, for the first time in his life... Dr. Happersen disobeys Lex Luthor's wishes. Too bad those wishes were "let's not destroy a city."

After years of quietly taking abuse from Lex, Happersen finally snaps and launches those torpedoes. Lex tries to stop him by shooting at him with the death laser in his iron lung (of course Lex Luthor has a death laser in his iron lung), but it's too late. The torpedoes are activated, meaning that the city is as cooked as Happersen himself, who dies in Superman's arms seconds later.

Superman asks Luthor where the torpedoes are buried, but Lex, who looks genuinely distraught, honestly doesn't know. He always let Happersen handle little details like that.

Before Superman can even reach Metropolis, one of the torpedoes has already hit the WGBS building. He gets there right in time to race against the torpedo headed for the Daily Planet... but, as you might have guessed from this issue's cover, the torpedo wins the race.

If the city hadn't been evacuated a few issues ago due to the Underworlders' terrorist attacks, everyone in the Planet's staff would be dead now (thanks, ugly sewer mutant terrorists!). Superman does manage to prevent Lois, Ron Troupe, and, unfortunately, Jimmy Olsen from getting rolled over by the Planet's iconic globe after the building collapses, but only by destroying what's left of it. Perry White is following the action from the Planet's temp offices outside the city, and he looks about as emotionally devastated as he did in the issue when his son died.

Meanwhile, the other underground torpedoes are doing their best to turn Metropolis' skyline into a flat line. The only major building spared is the one belonging to Clark Kent's old employer, Newstime Magazine, but only because its owner happens to be a demonic entity with torpedo-deflecting powers, Lord Satanus. To his credit, Satanus does plant an idea in Superman's mind for how to stop the rest of the torpedoes: digging a big ditch all across Metropolis to intercept them (thanks, demonic entity posing as media magnate!).

As Superman, Superboy, and Supergirl stop most of the torpedoes, Satanus helps them out by redirecting the remaining ones to a more deserving target: LexCorp's giant L-shaped building, which is now shaped like a bunch of rubble.

With the torpedo problem solved, Luthor is finally arrested and exposed to the citizens of Metropolis as a no-goodnik, as Superman begins the long task of rebuilding the city by putting the Daily Planet globe back together. Yes, Metropolis is in pretty bad shape, and even Superman himself seems discouraged for a moment, but as Lois correctly points out: hey, at least it ain't Coast City!

Creator-Watch:

This issue marks the end of Roger Stern's distinguished run as Action Comics writer, which began exactly 100 issues ago... sort of, since he started writing Action when it was a weekly series and Superman only got two pages per issue. When John Byrne suddenly left the Superman books some months after that, in late 1988, Stern was an obvious choice to replace him, given his closeness to Byrne, his ample talents, and, well, the fact that he was already there.

Since then, Stern became one of the main architects of the over-arching storyline that made this era in Superman comics so special. His role as the Super-Squad's resident "continuity cop" enriched these comics tremendously. For instance, according to Dan Jurgens, it was Stern's idea to bring back an obscure character called Hank Henshaw as the Cyborg Superman instead of creating a new baddie for "Reign of the Supermen," which is the sort of thing that makes digging through hundreds of backissues worth it. Stern also wrote the bulk of the years-long Eradicator saga, Supergirl's evolution from lump of goo to proper hero, and, of course, Lex Luthor's long, strange journey leading to this issue (more on that later).

It's hard to imagine our beloved '86-'99 period without Roger Stern. Good thing he'll be back before too long, albeit in a reduced capacity...

Character-Watch:

With this issue, we a bid adieu to doctors Sydney Happersen and Gretchen Kelley, two of the most memorable characters ever to serve as Luthor's lackeys. Both were introduced in Byrne's Superman #2 (1987), and it's interesting that both were instantly portrayed as somewhat sympathetic: Happersen doesn't want to remove the kryptonite from Metallo's chest because he thinks it'd kill him (and looks shocked when Luthor pulls it out anyway), and Kelley is the one that warns Lex about Lana Lang's bizarre allergy to truth serum.

(Probably didn't help that they had a serious mold problem in that room.)

It's also interesting that Kelley was the only lackey on a first-name basis with Lex, hinting at the backstory that was revealed in Action #660: she was a small-town doctor until a young Lex swept her off her feet and turned her into his lover, only to ditch her for someone with larger boobs. Kelley became an alcoholic and ended up in jail, ruining her medical career, until Lex came to "reclaim" her and gave her a permanent job. I'm guessing the "old lovers" bit was added mainly to make the Lex Jr. story seem plausible, but it also helps explain why someone like her would stick with Lex for so long. She was clearly still in love with him, and the Lex Jr. ruse allowed her to imagine an alternate life where they were more than just employer and employee. I always like this bit from Action #676, before readers found out Lex Jr. was Lex Sr.:

In the Lex Jr. storyline, Kelley wasn't just lying to the world; she was lying to herself. Until she just couldn't lie anymore, I guess.

As for Happersen, he never had a backstory, but he didn't really need one. He was the prototypical meek henchman who'd do anything for his boss despite being treated like trash, which is why I found his breakdown at the end both logical and satisfying. Kelley and Happersen will each get a couple of flashback appearances after this issue, but they've been completely ignored by every revamp and reboot since. As much as I like them, I'm completely okay with that because their stories are over, and that's such a rare thing in comics.

Plotline-Watch:

The big subplot in this issue is Lana Lang's wedding to Pete Ross, which she said she wanted to hold "as soon as possible" after encountering Bizarro (and confirming that she's absolutely over Clark) in Action #697. Lois, Clark, and Supergirl are a bit busy to attend, but Ma and Pa Kent are there and even lend Lana their farmhouse for the ceremony. Other than Pa watching the chaos in Metropolis on TV, these scenes are completely disconnected from the rest of the issue, and I suspect they're only here for two reasons: 1) to tease readers with "Someone's getting married!" in the preview blurbs (remember that Lois and Clark had been engaged for a few years by now), and 2) to give Superman legends Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson some work. That last part makes the scenes worth it, in my opinion, especially since we even get a peek at how Swan would draw the Super-Mullet when Lana is thinking back on everything she's gone through with Clark.

The "we've had buildings dropped on us" scene Lana remembers is from Action #644, and the one who dropped the building was actually Supergirl/Matrix when she was suffering from Eradicator-triggered insanity. The "I've been kidnapped" issue, meanwhile, is Byrne's classic Superman #2, which leads us to...

Intentionally or not, there's a good numbers of parallels between this issue and the aforementioned Superman #2: Lana's most tragic moment and Lana's happiest moment; Happersen and Kelley's introduction and their exit; Superman angrily bursting into Lex's office and triumphantly bursting into his yacht; Lex getting away with it and Lex getting arrested. But the most significant connection is the fact that Superman #2 was the first time Lex put on his kryptonite ring, which is what sets off the long chain of events leading to this issue: him getting cancer (Action #600), faking his own death (Action #660), moving his brain to a younger body (revealed in Action #678), being infected with a clone-only disease (circa Man of Steel #31), and ending up as a sick, raving lunatic in an iron lung outfitted with death lasers.

What's definitely intentional, knowing Stern, is the fact that Lex's last stand happens in the Sea Queen, the same luxury yacht where he first met Superman (The Man of Steel #4). Both issues end with Lex getting arrested, but presumably he'll be behind bars for longer than two hours this time -- or maybe not, since the last time we see Luthor, he's thinking that "there are cards I've yet to play!" We'll find out what he means in Action #701.

While Lois is presenting her evidence against Lex, we learn that she first came into contact with Dr. Kelley/"Deep Quote" at the end of the "Bizarro's World" storyline, right after she learned of Lex Jr.'s sickness/shocking baldness (Superman #88). Unsurprisingly, Lex didn't like Lois seeing him like that and ordered Happersen to capture her, but Kelley helped her escape and they hit it off.

When exactly did Kelley decide to turn on Lex? A flashback suggests that it happened during the Supergirl miniseries, where she has an uncharacteristic outburst towards Lex for the way he "uses" Supergirl even though she loves him. We didn't even comment on that scene at the time, but now it seems pretty obvious that, even though Kelley does care for Supergirl, she was actually talking about herself.

Deep cut: at one point, Superman tries to find Lex by taking a Lex-Man's helmet to Professor Hamilton, who says that he recognizes this technology from the armor Lex once trapped poor Jose "Gangbuster" Delgado in, forcing him to act as a remote-controlled bodyguard (Adventures #451). Hamilton's efforts go nowhere, but I appreciate being reminded of Jose's most delightfully bizarre misadventure ever. Miss that dude and his horrible luck.

I also appreciate the shout out to Invasion!, and I wonder if Stern was planning Lex's sonic torpedo gambit from way back in Superman #28, which includes a scene in which Pentagon officials give Lex access to the alien weapons recovered in Australia. I also wonder if Lex thought to himself, "Hmmm, Australia... seems like a nice place to pretend to be from if I ever clone myself a new body."

Something that doesn't pay off is the implication that Colin Thornton/Lord Satanus would become a major villain now that Luthor is (temporarily) out of the picture. He'll pop up here and there, but something tells me that if Stern had stayed on Action, he would have made sure Satanus factored more heavily in big storylines going forward (or even just one big storyline).

Patreon-Watch:

This post ended up being double-sized like the issue itself, so this time we owe double-thanks to our patrons Aaron, Chris “Ace” Hendrix, britneyspearsatemyshorts, Patrick D. Ryall, Bheki Latha, Mark Syp, Ryan Bush, Raphael Fischer, Kit, Sam, Bol, and Gaetano Barreca, for helping us take the time to write it. Double-thanks! Join them at https://www.patreon.com/superman86to99

And believe it or not, we have even more to say about this issue, so don't miss Don Sparrow's section after the jump...

Art-Watch (by @donsparrow):

We begin with the cover, and it’s something of a strange one for such a huge numbered issue.  Jackson Guice rightly recognizes that the destruction of the Daily Planet is the most arresting image within the story, so that’s what he highlights, Raiders of the Lost Ark-style, but it’s a bit hard to know what to focus on here.  It’s not the best figure drawing of Lois Lane, with her hands in a claw like shape, but she’s still front and centre.  The other possible area of focus is on the Daily Planet globe itself, which then boasts an uncomfortably spread-eagle Superman trying to stop its roll.  But, I give points to Guice for going with a moment from within the story, and not just a generic “this is an anniversary issue” type cover, like we often see. Plus the cross streets of Jurgens/Grummett/Bog/Kitson on the street sign is a fun find.

Inside, we’re greeted immediately with a full splash of a satisfied Lois.  Guice’s Lois has always looked photo-referenced to me, for better or worse.  In this case, I think Guice is a little let down by the colourist, who extends the pinkness of Lois’ bottom lip all the way to the corner of her mouth which turns her smile into more of a smirk than I think the inks on their own intend.

On page 6 we get another version of Guice’s rubble pits—not a strength for him as much as someone like Tom Grummett, who was born to draw rubble (And everything else!) as the edges of the pit always look a little sharp to me.   

Superboy’s rage at the destruction of Cadmus is well-observed—and Superboy looks very much like the youth he is—he can sometimes be drawn like a small adult, instead of having softer, teenaged features, but Guice does a good job on this page. Supergirl’s coy expression as she lets the libidinous Superboy down gently on page 14 is a funny drawing, and a great character moment in all the action, to boot.

It may just be novelty, or nostalgia, but the quieter moments back in Smallville, as Lana Lang prepares for her wedding ceremony, are my favorite pages.  Curt Swan’s gentle, naturalistic lines are a nice counterpoint to the hectic pace of the fall of Metropolis.   

The entire page of Lois revealing Lex Junior’s crimes to a live television audience is all well drawn—there’s an urgency in Lois’ posture to the camera that feels very real as you read it.  This, followed up shortly by Lex’s horror at Dr. Kelley’s betrayal is another great piece of drawing.  Then, on the very next page, Superman Kool-Aid-Man-ing his way through Lex’s hideaway is maybe the best single image of Superman in the book. 

There’s a cute tribute to former Super-teamster, Jerry Ordway, as Peggy (who shares her first name with Jerry Ordway’s real life wife) plays De Koven and Scott’s “Oh Promise Me” not on a Steinway piano, as she might have on our Earth, but rather a “Jordway” piano.  If the lyrics we see sound familiar, it could be because this same wedding song appeared in numerous film and TV weddings, including All in the Family, Mama’s Family and, for you Canadian readers, the Sullivan-produced Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel, during Diana’s wedding.  I do wonder if Revered Brewster was supposed to look like Ordway—his hairstyle is similar, though Brewster is a little heavier set than Ordway.

Back to the “action” of Action #700, pages 33-35 all make great use of a diagonal panel layout, to maximize the space as Superman gives chase to the missiles, which unfortunately find their target, the Daily Planet.  Perry White’s shattered expression as he watches the place he loves fall apart is particularly haunting. 

The effect of Collin Thornton’s demonic helmet overlaid his human form is a great visual.  Lastly, for those of us old enough to remember the attacks of 9-11, there’s an eerie prescience to these images of tangled debris and smoking skylines.

On the whole, the events here—Luthor going full villain, Metropolis being reduced to rubble—seem fitting in scale for a nice big round issue number like 700.  But, given how relatively quickly these changes are undone in the issues to come, it also feels symbolic of the post-Death-and-Return era of comics—just trying status-quo changing “events” and trying to recapture the buzz they stumbled into with the death storyline.          

SPEEDING BULLETS:

There’s a funny in-joke during Lois’ phone call with Superman, as editor Mike Carlin slips in a warning to Tom Grummett about an issue being late.  Though Grummett is not normally known for lateness, at this time he is drawing both Superboy and Robin comics monthly, so he can be forgiven for the odd slip.

Jonathan Kent railing at the television in response to Lex’s seeming impunity feels completely modern to me, reading it in 2024.  Honestly, couldn’t you see certain political factions of today defending Lex’s actions, had they been perpetrated by the de facto leader of their party?

How do we feel about Lex not being quite villainous enough to blow up Metropolis?  Does it feel like a cop-out, or would it have put Lex into a level of villainy the writers didn’t want to go to?  Story-wise, I have to admit, it feels strange that the disasters seen on the cover and throughout bear the fingerprints of Sidney Happersen, and not Lex Luthor, the greatest criminal mind of our age. [Max: I like it! Lex is evil, but he does seem to love Metropolis in his way, and he wouldn't spend so much time on philanthropic ventures if he didn't need people's adoration on some level. I think this is an interesting conundrum Stern put him in, and having Happersen do what Lex couldn't is a clever way to make sure the issue didn't end in a big anti-climax.]

GODWATCH: As with many a Roger Stern script, religious references abound in this issue, particularly during the wedding scenes, where the newlywedded Lana and Pete certainly seem devout. The unabashed love the Kents show for Lana is very moving throughout. [Max: There's also Lex saying "God forgive me" when he admits he doesn't know how to stop the torpedoes, which is a scene that's always stuck with me. THAT'S his real punishment: not jail, but actually experiencing guilt for a moment.]

As this entire issue is a study in contrasts, we jump from a country church wedding to a demonic character named LORD SATANUS giving Superman the firebreak idea that saves the city!  There’s something very funny about that.

Does Collin Thornton know that Clark Kent is Superman?  It doesn't seem like he does, but with his array of observational powers, you’d think he’d have figured it out. [Max: I'm sure there's something somewhere that contradicts it, but I like the idea of Thornton offering Clark that editor job years ago because he knew his conscience had been compromised by the Eradicator and he wanted a superpowered pawn to use against Blaze.]

Do you agree with Supergirl, that Dr. Kelley is someone to be admired, or given mercy?  Sure, she helped bring down Lex in his latest evil, but she went along with so much, for so long, she’s hardly heroic, is she? [Max: I assume that by "I hope the courts are merciful," Supergirl means "I hope they give her prison library access and not the electric chair." I do feel sorry for Kelley, but she definitely deserves to go to jail for a long time for all those other horrible crimes she didn't prevent, starting with Lana's torture.]

#superman #roger stern #jackson guice #denis rodier #bizarro #franklin stern #bill henderson #gretchen kelley #sydney happersen #superboy #supergirl #emil hamilton #lana lang #pete ross #colin thornton #ma kent #pa kent #ron troupe #fall of metropolis #curt swan #murphy anderson #deep quote = jack handey? #don't wanna be an american hitler

[superman86to99]

Forgot to mention that Adventures of Superman #513's letter column has someone asking the IMPORTANT questions...

They are. (It's Dreadnaught, though.)

#psi phon #dreadnaught #freaking

[superman86to99]

Adventures of Superman #513 (June 1994)

"THE BATTLE FOR METROPOLIS," Part 4! The Death of Project Cadmus! (Well, "death" in comic book terms.) After the events of last issue, in which a bunch of Cadmus-brand rockets exploded all around Metropolis, a royally pissed-off Superman heads to the formerly top secret government installation to register his displeasure with Director Westfield... only to find out that someone beat him to it, because Westfield has been murdered.

Since Cadmus' top dorks don't have much experience shouting orders at soldiers (the guy in charge of that just died), Superman steps in to fill that role while they try to figure out who killed Westfield and where his ear went.

Given that Cadmus' other, nerdier directors have spent days in a probably very stinky lab trying to come up with a cure for the Clone Plague ravaging Metropolis (and a small part of Hawaii), the main suspect for Westfield's murder is Dr. Carl Packard, a nervous little guy who tends to disappear for days. Also, he was just found wandering the hallways muttering about someone who "deserves death," so that doesn't look too good for him. Before Packard can explain himself (he was talking about his other evil boss, Lex Luthor), the whole murder mystery matter is shuffled aside when the nerds actually find the key to curing the Plague: the blood of one of the few clones who didn't get sick, the Guardian! Hope he's got a lot of it.

As it turns out, they need Packard to create that Guardian-fueled cure, so everyone agrees to forget about the fact that he's probably a murderer for a while. As soon as they let Packard near a computer, however, he uses the secret program in all LexCorp PCs that notifies Lex if someone types his name (yes, Lex was the original "searches himself on Twitter all day" billionaire) to send him a message telling him about the cure. Instead of letting Packard cook and then stealing the cure, the Plague-stricken and increasingly insane Lex orders his Lex-Men to invade Cadmus and kidnap the Guardian. To be fair, he does look like he's about 15 seconds away from shriveling up into a prune, so I get the urgency.

So, Superman and the few Cadmus soldiers in there (most are out fighting angry clones in Metropolis) have to defend the facility from an army of flying armored goons while the nerds try to work on the cure. Lex uses a hologram of himself when he still had hair to try to convince Superman that he should let Superboy, the Newboy Legion kids, and all those sewer clones die so that Lex himself can live ("Would you let Einstein die to save the Bowery Boys?"), but somehow he isn't dissuaded. Not only that, but Superman even calls Lex "contemptible"... and, uh, everyone else who uses a wig.

Lex must have really hated that crack about his baldness, because the next thing he does is order the Lex-Men to blow up Cadmus' reactor and kill everyone inside. If he can't have the cure, no one can. Superman looks a bit overwhelmed with the soon-to-explode reactor and the Lex-Men trying to stop him from containing it (so much so that he calls them "idiots," about the strongest insult you'll hear from this Superman), but then someone stops by to help him: patient zero of the Clone Plague cure...

...Superboy! Who could barely stand up the last time we saw him and is now flying and punching goons, so looks like that cure is working. Superman tells the Kid to take those goons outside while he tries to prevent the reactor from exploding, but as soon as Superboy makes it out, there's a huge explosion and the mountain surrounding Cadmus collapses. Superboy wants to start digging up the survivors, but Superman tells him not to bother: everyone is dead. And he'll make Luthor pay for this and all his other sins, once and for all... next week, in Action Comics #700!

TO BE CONCLUDED, obviously.

Plotline-Watch:

That's it for Project Cadmus, and everyone who worked in it, which will never appear ag-- ok, no one actually believes that. We'll see how they saved themselves and why Superman is pretending they died next issue. Note, however, that Superboy isn't pretending to believe that some of his best friends are buried under a mountain, so his chipperness in that final panel is disturbing.

As you've probably guessed if you've been paying attention, the one who stole Westfield's ear was the same maniac who killed him, disgraced geneticist Dabney Donovan. I don't remember if Dabney ever used Westfield's ear in one of his experiments, but even if he didn't, at least he got to use it for a couple of corny jokes.

Poor Dr. Happersen... he's trying to tell his boss he loves him and would never betray him, and Lex cuts him off and yells at him. Plus, in the same page Lex made it clear that he still isn't totally convinced Happersen isn't Lois Lane's informant, even thought it obviously isn't him. It's hard not to read that exchange with Smithers' and Mr. Burns' voices.

There's a nice little moment with the Guardian, originally a Captain America self-ripoff by Cap creators Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, saying he's okay with dying to make the cure because he's lived a very long life. Lines like that work better when it's a character who's actually been around since the '40s. I wouldn't have minded if he had died during this storyline -- they could always make another clone later on (and seeing him struggle to live up to his own legacy might have been interesting).

Patreon-Watch:

The latest Patreon-only post was about an Elseworlds story where Superman turns into a cursed spirit haunting a villain, one where he turns the X-Men into the JLA, and (briefly) one where Bizarro teams up with every other DC villain whose name ends in "O." Join Aaron, Chris “Ace” Hendrix, britneyspearsatemyshorts, Patrick D. Ryall, Bheki Latha, Mark Syp, Ryan Bush, Raphael Fischer, Kit, Sam, Bol, and Gaetano Barreca at the Superman '86 to '99 Patreon!

And now, more from Don Sparrow (whose newsletter you should be subscribed to, by the way)...

Art-Watch (by @donsparrow):

We start with the cover, and it’s a pretty good one, with co-star Guardian in well-drawn technological peril, and I never tire of blasts bouncing off Superman. 

Inside the book we are greeted with a poster (or at least sticker) worthy image of an on-edge Superman flying at the viewer, his Tarzan-like mane flowing in the wind.

Kitson’s art at this time is a bit strange to me—it might be the inker, or more likely it’s the era—the early 90s demanded everything be a bit more exxxxxxtreme and Jim-Lee-like in its rendering, but it mostly seems at odds with Kitson’s naturalistic drawing style.  So you get weird in-between drawings, like on page 2 where Superman is yelling, but his mouth appears to barely be open (as opposed to page 5, when Dr. Packard shouts in surprise, and his mouth appears to be fully extended). 

A page later Superman’s surprise (and perhaps grief?) at Westfield’s death is captured well. 

On page 4, the fun really begins, as Kitson seems to really have a ball drawing the insane and Dr. Robotnik-like Dabney Donovan, and his comedic use of a stolen body part. 

A small thing, but worth mentioning: Kitson and McCarthy absolutely kill it when it comes to reflective surfaces.  Throughout the issue, the shiny glasses are on point.  Great stuff there, particularly with the two-tone colouring of a Lex-Men soldier on page 16.

On page 10 we get our latest look at Lex Luthor, and it ain’t pretty.  The little lines on his flesh make it seem so fragile and sickly. 

The full page splash of Cadmus mountain imploding seems like a bit of a missed opportunity, as Superboy isn’t really facing the “camera” and the destruction is mostly dust.  Finally, on page 21, the drawing of Superman’s righteous anger at Lex wreaking death and destruction is a great one.

In contrast to Superman #90, where I felt not a lot happened, this issue is chock full of activity, with a race against the clock to find a cure for the clone sickness, Lex-Men invaders, and a core meltdown, plus a little pop-in with Dabney AND a Superboy cameo—it’s a big one, and a nice hors d’oeuvres for the very BIG number coming next week. 

SPEEDING BULLETS:

I think Dr. Packard should be played by Micro Machines Motormouth, John Moschitta Jr.  It would certainly make his scientific explanations a lot funnier to imagine them being said at lightspeed.

Superboy makes a reference to a Nancy Kerrigan commercial, which was probably this one for Campbell’s Chicken noodle, where the otherwise waify and demure Ms. Kerrigan bodychecks a hockey player (the Campbell’s slogan, at the time, was “Never Underestimate the Power of Soup”, which is the line that gets cut off as Superboy speaks). [Max: Fun fact, in the Spanish version I read in the '90s, Superboy just says "I learned this from a TV ad." Guess they didn't have space for a footnote explaining who Nancy Kerrigan was...]

GODWATCH: Interesting that Big Words seems to be a believer, as Guardian bravely takes the experimental treatment, the man of science prays that Jim Harper has a “personal guardian”.  

This is a pretty testosterone-driven issue—I can’t remember off-hand another issue that had not a single female appear in the story. [Max: There IS a female Cadmus trooper in page 1, but she doesn't speak, unless she's supposed to be yelling "SSSSHHOOOOOOM!" as Superman flies by... which I'd totally do.]

#superman #karl kesel #barry kitson #ray mccarthy #project cadmus #guardian #dubbilex #paul westfield #newsboy legion #superboy #dabney donovan #carl packard #westfield's ear #battle for metropolis #sydney happersen #superman hates bald people #SSSSHHOOOOOOM!

[superman86to99]

We're hijacking our semi-annual reblogging of this post to let you know that Superman '86 to '99 is now on BlueSky! You know, the site that's basically Twitter before Twitter became Twitter (derogatory).

Merry Kryptsmas, all! (PS: If any of our regulars wants a BlueSky invite, we have a few to share so inquire within.)

Reminder that Superman once gave Batman the most unfortunate Christmas present ever (from World’s Finest by Dave Gibbons and Steve Rude).

#superman #batman #bluesky

[superman86to99]

The Return of Superman 30th Anniversary Special (November 2023)

Whoa! Some sort of chronal disturbance has thrown us from 1994 to the futuristic year 2023, just in time to cover this new special by the entire creative team behind "Reign of the Supermen"... minus Roger Stern and Dennis Janke, but PLUS Jerry Ordway (who left right before "Reign" started in '93). This is a lot like the Death of Superman special released last year, except that instead of featuring four standalone stories, this one has a framing device uniting all the tales.

In the framing story (written by Dan Jurgens and drawn by Travis Moore), the Cyborg Superman comes back to Metropolis and starts attacking S.T.A.R. Labs installations, as if those places haven't been blown up enough times already. Since Perry White is currently in a coma (from, as far as I can tell, not knowing Superman is Clark Kent), it's up to current Daily Planet editor Lois Lane to put together a story on the Cyborg without her mentor's help. Or with a little bit of her mentor's help, since Ron Troupe conveniently pulls out Perry's old journal from the "Reign of the Supermen" days, including his thoughts about the Cyborg.

So, Lois and Ron start reading Perry's notes about the four Supermen who popped up in Metropolis after Superman's death, which leads us to...

"Speed" (by Louise Simonson and Jon Bogdanove)

Despite the "Perry's notes" framing device, this story is actually told by Ron as he remembers the first time he saw Steel. Ron is leaving for work one morning and everyone in his neighborhood is talking about which of the four Supermen is the real deal. A lady called Mama Bess (who I initially mistook for Myra the Orphanage Lady because she's also big and black and surrounded by little kids) says they're all posers, including Steel, because none of them are around when you need them. Then some gangbangers drive by the neighborhood with a Toastmaster gun, and guess who drops by to save everyone's asses? Not Batman.

Mama Bess recognizes Steel's voice ("rich an' dark as Memphis honey") as belonging to that guy who was running around Metropolis helping people in crumbling buildings while Superman and Doomsday were tearing up the town, as seen in the Death special. While Steel fights the gangbangers, Ron calls Perry, who tells him to keep that lady talking so they can learn as much as possible about the mysterious armored Superman. Hey, is that Mike Carlin in the Planet offices below, to the left of adorably skinny Jimmy Olsen?

Steel prevails over the evildoers and the neighborhood kids rush in to proclaim him as the one true Superman. The best part of the story, for me, is when a little kid picks up a Toastmaster laying on the street and says he can use it to stop the bad guys, but Steel says that's a weapon for bad guys (he'd know, he designed them). Then he replaces it with an old school Game Boy and breaks the gun, Dark Knight Returns-style.

Steel tells everyone he's not Superman, he's just a dude trying to help, but Mama Bess still insists on making him a new cape to replace the one that got torn up in the fight. Ron concludes his report saying that this guy isn't the real Superman, "but maybe he was the next best thing."

"He Had Me Thinking He Was Superman" (by Jerry Ordway)

Jerry Ordway fills in for Roger Stern and Jackson Guice (who at least has a pin-up in this issue) and, man, I never knew how much I needed to see Ordway draw the Eradicator until now. In this story, Perry stumbles upon a standoff between Maggie Sawyer's Special Crimes Unit and the most violent yet Spock-like of the four Supermen, who's holding an armored goon hostage as he interrogates him.

Maggie kindly kicks Perry out of the active crime scene, but he sticks around and decides to solve this situation via the power of journalism. First, Perry talks to a warehouse worker (who kinda looks like an Amalgam of High Pockets and Lamarr) and learns about a nearby entrance to a rumored Intergang hideout. Then, he uses a radio scanner to find the frequency the goons' friends are using to communicate. He tries to tell Maggie about this, but the Superman Formerly Known As The Eradicator grabs Perry and flies off with him to find out what he knows. Perry says he'll tell him if he promises to stop being such a psychopath for a moment.

Thanks to Perry's information, the Eradicator finds the other armored goons, who are moving weapons from an abandoned Intergang cache. The Eradicator violently (but non-lethally, as promised) encourages the goons to renounce their criminal ways, and then locates the mastermind behind this operation, who turns out to be... no, not freakin' Psi-Phon and Dreadnaught, but close enough: Professor Killgrave! You know, that little twerp with the Moe haircut who once trapped Superman in an amusement park full of killer robots. Having seen how the Eradicator dealt with his hired goons, Killgrave eagerly gives himself up to the authorities.

As the Eradicator flies away from the underground base, he carelessly sends some debris flying off which almost hits some bystanders and ruins Perry's car. So, the Eradicator fulfills his promise to Perry that he wouldn't kill anyone, but Perry decides he can't keep his side of the deal, which was to tell the Planet's readers that "they have nothing to fear" from this dangerous maniac.

"The Metropolis Kid" (by Karl Kesel, Tom Grummett, and Doug Hazlewood)

This story provides the secret origin for several Superboy-related elements: the name "The Metropolis Kid" (which never made a lot of sense to me), that iconic pinup of Superboy saving a lady in a bath towel, and Mack Harlin, a recurring character who first appeared in the Superboy series in 1995. Turns out he was a Metropolis cabbie before he somehow became a truant officer in Hawaii. Note that Mack also counts as the second Mike Carlin cameo in this issue.

(Wonder if the ride was $6,50?)

In the story, Perry witnesses the moment when Don't Call Me Superboy saves that towel lady from a building fire (which she didn't notice due to her love of '90s rock, waterproof earbuds, and long, hot showers). Tana Moon's photo of that moment goes viral on Tweeter, FaceSpace, and, yes, even Insta-image, turning Not-Superboy into a social media sensation. The official story is that the Kid is Superman's clone, but Perry doesn't seem convinced. He uses his journalistic powers to find Not-Superboy at a local skate park where he hangs out. Interestingly, Perry briefly wonders if the Kid reminds him of his late son, Jerry, before dismissing the idea. I wonder if that's Kesel commenting on a certain 2000s retcon that made Superboy and Jerry biological half-brothers...

While Perry watches the Kid being a kid, he's suddenly attacked by Bloodsport -- the original one from John Byrne's Superman #4, who just busted out of jail, and not the racist wannabe. Instead of teleporting guns into his hands, this time Bloodsport is wearing a "weapons suit" that allows him to quickly assemble them on the fly. One of the guns hits Not-Superboy pretty hard, but the persistent little bugger gets up and somehow manages to disassemble Bloodsport's suit just by touching it.

As Perry later determines, Bloodsport thought the bullets would kill Not-Superboy because they were coated with a tiny bit of kryptonite, but it didn't seem to have an effect on him. That's when Perry realizes who the Kid reminds him of, with his brash attitude, big heart, endless energy, and massive potential: not Jerry (ouch), but Metropolis itself. Hence, the Metropolis Kid. Eh, I'll take it.

"Betrayal" (by Dan Jurgens and Brett Breeding)

This one begins between the pages of Superman #79, after the Cyborg Superman saves the President from terrorists but before the Planet publishes Ron's soon-to-be-infamous front page proclaiming "SUPERMAN IS BACK!" How could Perry let that story through? As it turns out, at first he didn't wanna. Perry tells Ron he needs way more proof that the Cyborg is the real Superman. That proof sorta falls on his lap when the train Perry is riding gets derailed and the Cyborg heroically saves everyone. That, plus the Secret Service vouching for this guy, are enough to convince Perry that he's definitely Superman and not an evil impostor or something.

(Note that the story makes sure to mention the "living former presidents" happened to be at the White House when the Cyborg dropped by, explaining why the Planet's front page shows Bill Clinton and not, uh, whoever was President in the DCU "a few years ago.")

So, Perry goes ahead with Ron's front page story... only for the Superman he endorsed to turn around and murder 7 million people in Coast City. Whoops. Continuity quibble: this story makes it sound like the Cyborg was immediately revealed as Coast City's murderer, when in fact he fooled everyone into thinking it was the Eradicator for several days, but maybe Perry saw through it right away because he's just THAT good of a journalist.

Perry feels awful about that front page, especially when it emerges that the Cyborg and some big yellow guy called Mongul are turning Coast City's crater into a giant engine to turn Earth into a sort of Death Star. Just when Perry is at his lowest point, Lois tells him that another Superman showed up in a Kryptonian battle armor, and this time she just knows he's the real deal (because she made out with him, but she doesn't mention that).

We see the rest of the storyline (the assault on Engine City, the Cyborg's defeat) from Perry's perspective, and once Superman is back in Metropolis, Perry tells him how sorry he is for that headline. Superman's like "nah, don't sweat it, honest mistake" and actually thanks Perry for always reporting on him with honesty over the years. Moral of the story: trust Lois, double-check Ron.

"Legacy" (by Dan Jurgens, Travis Moore, and briefly all the others)

Meanwhile, in the framing story, Superboy, Steel, and a recently-rebooted, non-evil Eradicator (or his Phantom Zone ghost, anyway) show up to stop their old pal the Cyborg, since Superman is currently in space. We learn that the Cyborg has been hitting S.T.A.R. facilities because he wants to retrieve the DNA of his three astronaut friends who were mutated into freaks during the fantastic incident that gave him his powers, so he can bring them all back to life. The Supermen understandably assume that he's building some sort of weapon and try to stop him, but he's defeated all of them before and does it again.

Royally pissed that these meddling Supermen messed with his plans, the Cyborg notices their fight left some exposed gas lines in the middle of Metropolis and is about to use them to indulge in his favorite hobby: blowing up entire cities. Luckily, the Eradicator uses some of Steel's tech to make his hologram self solid enough to whip out a Phantom Zone projector and suck the Cyborg into his ghostly prison.

As soon as the day is saved, Superman flies down and reveals that he'd been watching all along but didn't intervene because he had confidence in his boys. Everyone shares a nice little moment, until the Eradicator makes it awkward with his talk of "Kryptonian purity."

The issue ends with Lois reading a passage from Perry's journal about how Superman inspired others to be better, even in his absence. She hopes she's able to tell Perry that the same thing is true about him, because "you are our Superman." Well, their other Superman.

Like the Death special, this is an excellent excuse for these legendary creators to play with their most famous toys again, and I wouldn't mind seeing one of these a year (Battle for Metropolis 30th Anniversary Special, anyone?). I kinda wish the Supermen had been introduced more gradually/dramatically in the framing story, building up to a grand reunion, instead of being like "oh hey, there they are," but that's a minor complaint and doesn't detract much from this massive labor of love. However, there's one thing I can't forgive: still no Bibbo. -1/10.

Fun fact, my co-host Don Sparrow and I agreed we'd make this post much shorter than the insanely long one we did for the previous special, and it ended up being... about 10% shorter. Woo! We did it! See Don's take after the jump:

Art-Watch (by @donsparrow):

We begin with the cover, and it’s a great piece from the formidable team of Jurgens and Breeding. We’ve mentioned in the past the rumour that there had been a falling out between this pencil and ink team in years past, so seeing their layouts and finishes together sure feels like a treat.  The composition is reminiscent of the image we used to have as the background on this very blog.  I must say, I’m not a fan of the colouring technique employed here by Elizabeth Breitweister, which looks a little flat and scribbly for my tastes.  The sky in particular just looks like a photograph with the contrast turned way up, and then colour filled, and doesn’t really work for me.  But that’s just my opinion, I’m sure the colouring approach to this cover has many modern fans.

Inside the main through-line story is by Travis Moore, and it’s mostly quite well done, if a little stiff in places.  He has a great handle on Lois Lane, and the "Reign of the Supermen" splash on page 5 is a particular highlight.  I’m less enchanted with the modern-day Cyborg Superman, particularly the torn sleeve on his right arm, and the missing belt buckle.  There’s generally a simplicity to the complex robotic parts that doesn’t work as well as other incarnations we’ve seen of the Cyborg Superman.

The next sequence, a reminiscence of Steel’s early days is a great showcase of Jon Bogdanove’s late style, some of which we saw in the “Retroactive” throwbacks of 2011.  While Bog still employs his cartoonish rendering, the figures are generally tighter and smaller on the page than his '90s work.  Fittingly, given the extra attention paid to Metropolis’ diversity in the pages of Superman: The Man of Steel, this story makes good use of a predominantly black Metropolis neighbourhood.  While I’ve never fully warmed to Ron Troupe as a character, this story does give him some background, showing his neighbourhood and living situation in a way that wasn’t covered by his appearances in the '90s. (As Ron is heading to work, he’s wearing a suit and tie, though I would have loved a callback to his famed JAM sweatshirt, first appearing in the story that THIS story refers to, where Ron is involved in the verification of the Cyborg Superman as the “one true Superman”).  There’s a terrific image of John Henry Irons flying at the camera on Page 11...

...and another of him destroying a toastmaster weapon on page 16 that is a standout, featuring Bog’s unique method of hatching to denote the shine of chrome.  Including something like a smartphone, as they do on page 16, is an effective way of moving the story up in time, so that Lois Lane isn’t in (at least) her fifties, having covered Superman’s return in 1994.  The involvement of specific Presidents later in the book hamper that slightly, but overall they do a good job of keeping it nebulous.

It was difficult to pick a favourite sequence, but I have to give it to the Jerry Ordway Eradicator story.  It’s interesting to see a story by Jerry with this character, who was mostly covered by other writers (indeed, Jerry was off the books immediately after Adventures #500) and artists.  Ordway hasn’t lost much zip on his fastball, as the entire story employs the usual dynamic realism and well-observed textures that we’ve come to appreciate in his work.  Perry looks like himself throughout, though he reminds me of Rodney Dangerfield in the one panel of him playing with his analog walky-talky.  The Eradicator’s costume has always been a terrific design, and he looks so cool as he searches for the rest of the baddies in an underground lair. 

Later in the story, the image of the Last Son melting through the getaway car is an extremely tall order art-wise, and again Jerry doesn’t disappoint.  As one of the two biggest fans of the triangle era, I was overjoyed to see an old-school villain like Killgrave in these pages as well.

We’re similarly treated to another original triangle era villain in the Kesel-Grummett-Hazlewood section, where Kon-El throws down with Bloodsport.  While it may feel like rehash to some readers of this blog, it’s been decades since readers have seen “The Metropolis Kid” rescue Ms. Sheenan, so it’s an appreciated callback.  Lots of great stuff here, but none I like more than Superboy shredding on a skateboard—a TOTALLY RAD moment, if ever.

The next section, like the cover, is something of a missed opportunity.  Again, we have a stellar pairing of Jurgens and Breeding, but the art is let down by what I would say is incompatible colouring.  Most of the tones are good, but the details begin to compete with the linework underneath, especially as the digital brushstrokes get scribbly, as they are on the arm of the Cyborg Superman on the title page, or perhaps worst of all, the should-be-impactful moment of the one true Kal-El emerging on Metropolis harbour.  Superman is depicted red-nosed throughout, and the rendering is sketchy, where even flat colour might have given us a better look at the inks below.  I get the feeling it’s all intentional—an attempt at a more painterly style, perhaps to denote that it’s a flashback.  But it was a miss for me—even though I always love seeing Mongul kissing the Cyborg’s hand. [Max: He does have a very handsome hand.]

Next to Ordway’s chapter, the high point of the book is where the triangle era super-team switch, page to page, in order to tell the story.  First with Jurgens and Breeding (with a less distracting colouring job), then Bogdanove, then Ordway, and finally Grummett and Hazelwood.  Interestingly, the classic Superman plays no role in the fight, showing up only at the end, in an echo of the original storyline. 

Finally, there’s a pin-up section, with some real standouts.  While the Stern/Guice team didn’t get their own chapter in the book, that title is represented with a great image of the survival suit Superman taking flight in front of the Daily Planet.  The comics logic part of my brain can’t help but notice he’s NOT wearing the Lexcorp flight boots in this image, and wasn’t able to fly under his own power in this suit, but I’m resisting pointing that out.  The Daniel Sampere pinup is another nice, simple image but again I quibble, as the survival suit Superman had no cape.  Is that maybe the Cyborg’s cape?  It was also deeply cool to see all the trade dress and character logos at the back of that section. [Max: And the Kerry Gammill/José Luis García López promo image! Been a while since we've seen Gammill in this blog so that was a nice surprise for me.]

SPEEDING BULLETS:

I love that this story showcases Perry White’s regret about running Ron’s story that lent credibility to the murderous Cyborg Superman.  They never really dealt with the journalistic repercussions of that within the story, so I love seeing an added dimension through this new narrative.  They also absolve the Clintons more specifically, as the Cyborg notes that all Presidents vouched for his veracity, so it wasn’t just slick Willie who got it wrong.

I realize the Travis Moore pages are mainly a narrative device to set up the flashbacks, but there’s something off about someone as deadly as the Cyborg just aimlessly shooting up the city.  As we saw when he took Doomsday’s body in Superman #78, with his power set, and technological ability, Henshaw can get in and out of a very secure place with speed and stealth, none of which do we see here.  The dissonance isn’t helped by the art, which shows very empty streets for a usually crowded literal Metropolis. 

The use of Perry White’s diaries as a framework for the flashbacks is a super idea, and puts a beloved character at the center of the issue, even if he’s physically absent in current day comics.  (Having dropped the super-books during the Bendis run, I confess I was a little lost on that score.)

Not familiar with the skateboard term “Grommet” but it pays off on the last page of the section as Superboy gives a skateboard to “Tommy the Grommet” in a shoutout to artist Tom Grummett.

The idea of the Cyborg resurrecting the rest of his crew is an intriguing one, and it does make me wonder what an insane mirror image Fantastic Four would be like as opponents of Superman.  Certainly it would even up the odds a little, as the Super squad we see in these pages had no trouble handling Henshaw on his own. [Max: I like that idea. Call them the Tragic Four.]

Overall I think I liked the Death anniversary issue a little more, as the story felt a bit more urgent than just window-dressing for flashbacks.  But both are like meeting an old friend after a long time.  This really was a high-water mark for Superman stories, and for comics in general.

#superman #dan jurgens #travis moore #louise simonson #jon bogdanove #jerry ordway #karl kesel #tom grummett #doug hazlewood #brett breeding #reign of the supermen #hank henshaw #superboy #steel #eradicator #ron troupe #professor killgrave #maggie sawyer #mack harlin #bloodsport #intergang #special crimes unit #perry white #tana moon #mongul #coast city #awesome kryptonian battle armor #s.t.a.r. labs #not myra #not high pockets and lamarr

[superman86to99]

Jackson Guice's black suit Superman pinup from this month's Return of Superman 30th Anniversary Special, which we're gonna cover in about... oh, 29 years, since we're currently in mid-1994. Unless there was some sort of "crisis in time" coming up that allowed us to travel into the future, but what are the chances of that happening?

#superman #jackson guice #glenn whitmore

[superman86to99]

Super Titles Round-Up (June 1994)

This month: Superboy fights Silver Sword (and the Clone Plague)! Steel fights his nephew! Brimstone fights alcoholism!

Superboy #5 (June 1994)

Introducing Silver "Don't Call Me Surfer" Sword. Superboy #4 ended with the Kid collapsing in his kitchen from the deadly virus that's running through the Superman books. In this issue, his friends take him to a Navy base so he can be transported to Project Cadmus in Metropolis, where they'll hopefully cure him. It's there that Dubbilex informs them there is no cure. Which sucks, but hey, at least the Kid gets his first consensual kiss out of it (courtesy of Tana Moon).

Rex Leech's tactful reaction is "There goes the best meal ticket we ever had, Roxy," but Roxy herself seems genuinely heartbroken about Superboy's likely death (and/or that kiss).

Anyway, the Navy can't send Superboy to Cadmus right away because they're bombing an island as part of some tests, but the tests are interrupted by a flying guy covered in silver metal. This is actually Dr. Kaua, the guy who got mad at Superboy for misplacing a magical spear in Superboy #3 because he wanted to use it to become Hawaii's first native superhero. Kaua later got his wish when he stumbled upon a mysterious receptacle that blew up on his face and bonded him with some sort of alien metal that gave him powers. He's now using those powers to get back at the Navy for bombing his beloved islands and the goats who live there.

Dubbilex thinks Superboy should sit this one out, given the whole "You're currently dying" thing, but of course he doesn't listen.

After a fierce fight, Superboy manages to knock Kaua out right before collapsing (again). Kaua, or Silver Sword as the Navy nicknames him, is locked up in a secret government base full of scientists who can't wait to cut him open, but Superboy's example inspires him to keep resisting them. The issue ends with Superboy and Dubbilex finally reaching Metropolis, only to find the city turned into a war zone, which leads right into Man of Steel #34.

Steel #5 (June 1994)

Steel's nephew Jemahl finds out that his gang members "friends" were the ones who shot a little kid, ran over his sister Natasha (she's okay, other than her leg), mugged his mom in an alley, and now plan to take out his grandma. Jem takes some of that Tar drug the gangsters have been using to become superhumanly jacked and intends to kill the leader of the gang, but he ends up fighting his disappointed uncle instead.

(Side note: This issue's cover should have been a remake of the Green Lantern/Green Arrow #85 one, but with a muscular Jemahl instead of Speedy the smackhead.)

Steel has to contain Mega-Jemahl until the drug wears off and the kid collapses. During the fight, John Henry learns that all the hits on his family aren't just an unfortunate coincidence: they were actually orchestrated by his old boss/mentor, the Colonel. As he holds Jemahl's body in a Pieta-like pose (lots of that going around these days), John swears that he's taking the Colonel down. Permanently.

This issue also features a seemingly non-sequitur appearance by Fred Bentson, that weird mailman guy we met in Man of Steel #34. Fred is dutifully driving his mail truck across war-torn Metropolis when a bomb goes off and causes him to hit head on the wheel. Suddenly, he finds himself in a completely different city called Dakota, where he's immediately hit by a truck and grabbed by some sort of shadow demon. Just as suddenly, Fred is back on Metropolis, getting saved from that explosion by Superman... who looks weirdly cheerful for someone who is currently watching the city he loves get blown to pieces (see Superman #90).

Incidentally, someone who looks just like Bentson also shows up in Milestone Comics' Hardware #16, which came out this same month and is set in a city called Dakota. What a curious coincidence.

The Ray #2 (June 1994)

Part 2 of the Superboy team-up, this time featuring some actual teaming up. Last issue, we left Superboy unconscious and Ray about to be smashed by that burning mountain man called Brimstone. Luckily, Brimstone suddenly decides to ditch the fight and go for a beer; apparently, a "defect" in his programming has turned him into a gigantic frat bro. Once he's alone, Ray feels bad about apparently killing Superboy and buries him under some rocks, but as we've established by now, nothing can keep that kid down.

At this point, DC's most prominent jacket-wearing, earring-sporting superheroes actually bond for a bit...

...before going off to prevent Brimstone from emptying every brewery in Hawaii. They come up with a plan to turn Brimstone off by dumping liquid nitrogen on him, but Superboy gets confused and accidentally douses the villain with a truck-load of orange juice, leading to the moment depicted in the cover in which Brimstone eats Ray. Superboy gets it right on his second attempt and Brimstone is neutralized before his fiery insides can digest Ray, but by now the teen heroes are back to arguing like a couple of, well, teens.

Gotta admit Superboy and Ray are a pretty fun pair in this issue. Can't wait for them to meet again in like 8 years, when Ray joins Young Justice!

Showcase '94 #6 (June 1994)

One of the stories in this issue is written by Karl Kesel and stars Sparx, the girl with lightning powers from Superboy's "Bloodlines" annual. Sparx's family disapproves of her decision to become a superhero, so she left them and went looking for an aunt who is also estranged from the clan. The most interesting parts of the issue are: 1) Sparx continuing to display powers that Superman will eventually gain when Kesel turns him electric (like intangibility), and 2) Captain Boomerang referring to the Flash as a "red wanker".

At one point, Boomerang manages to knock Sparx out, causing her to revert to her girl form. Upon noticing that she's "a young one," Boomerang creepily says: "Could be ol' Boomer'll get some pleasure out of the evenin' yet--!" The aunt then turns into a spider-like creature and almost kills Boomerang, but Sparx zaps her with energy to stop her. Sparx is like "Wait, you tried to kill that pervert who attacked me? This must mean you really are evil like the family says and also killed your husbands!", so they part ways. Sparx and her family will appear again in the future, but I don't think the aunt ever will. Good for her, they don't deserve her.

#superman #superboy #silver sword #dubbilex #tana moon #roxy leech #rex leech #clone plague #steel #fred bentson #the ray #brimstone #sparx #captain boomerang

[superman86to99]

Superman #90 (June 1994)

"THE BATTLE FOR METROPOLIS," Part 3! Things are BOOMING in Metropolis! Last issue ended with Lex Luthor (we can probably drop the "Jr." by now) remotely detonating a bomb right next to Superman and the badly injured Guardian. In this one we quickly find out that there have actually been several Lex-triggered explosions (Lexplosions, if you will) all across the city. Lex watches the mayhem from his yacht, maniacally shouting that if he has to die, he's taking the whole city with him.

Meanwhile, from the safety of his comfy office in Project Cadmus, wily ol' Director Westfield decides to take advantage of the chaos to get rid of those pesky Underworld clones once and for all. He secretly launches a series of missiles that spread deadly gas throughout the city's sewers, killing several peaceful Underworlders who were just chilling there (when he could have waited a few days for the Clone Plague to get them). Renegade geneticist Dabney Donovan, who has hidden cameras all over Cadmus, notices what Westfield is doing and doesn't like it, not because he's the Underworlders' "father" but because he wants to keep experimenting on them.

Meanwhile meanwhile, Superman takes the unconscious Guardian to Cadmus and bumps into Westfield, who rudely invites him to leave. Superman, who has never liked Westfield, lets him know as much and warns him that as soon as the current mess is over, he's letting everyone know exactly how much he sucks.

Westfield brushes him off and is like "No one will ever bring me down! I WILL LIVE FOREVER!" Then, while Superman is distracted dealing with one of those missiles, Dubbilex's telepathic powers suddenly pick up "a presence in Cadmus" he "hasn't felt in a very long time..."

That's right, you guessed it: it's freakin' Psi-Phon and Dreadnaught!

Wait, no, that was Dabney Donovan. And yes, he just murdered Paul "King of the World" Westfield with some poison gas. Official cause of death: irony. CONTINUED NEXT WEEK (or whenever we write that post) IN ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN #513!

Character-Watch:

And that's the end of Director Westfield, who has been a pain in the ass since 1991's Superman #58. It says a lot that, unlike everyone else who dies at Cadmus, they've never brought this jerk back via cloning... or have they?! (Geoff Johns: "No, they haven't.") I'm not sorry to see him go, but I do think that his death makes certain future revelations regarding the character kinda anticlimactic.

Don Sparrow says: "Quite a fall for Westfield. In the Bloodhounds storyline he seemed like a tough, if flawed leader. But in this book he’s exactly as bad as Luthor." Yeah, he seemed like a somewhat reasonable authority figure until "Funeral for a Friend," when he started his slow descent into supervillain status. Maybe a more satisfying ending for him would have been turning him into an actual supervillain, perhaps via Dabney's ironic experiments... It's not too late to tell that tale, DC!

Plotline-Watch:

The best part of the issue is Superman saying he "almost hates" throwing one of those poison gas missiles into the stratosphere because "half the time I throw stuff into space it comes back even more dangerous!" We've been documenting that tradition for years, so that was satisfying to read. To my knowledge, that missile never became sentient and came back as "Missile-O" or something, but I could be wrong.

Superman tells Westfield that "cloning ruined my home planet." We saw that story (with sweet, sweet Mike Mignola art) in the World of Krypton miniseries.

Dabney Donovan says he wants to continue studying the Underworlders to "create new life that will survive the coming apocalypse." I'm not sure if by "apocalypse" he means this storyline or a... future one. Also, keyboard, multiple monitors, a big and probably expensive microphone -- is Dabney a Twitch streamer?

Westfield teases Superman because he can't be in multiple places at once, musing that maybe he'll create a being who can do that as his next experiment. So if he hadn't died, the next Cadmus creation would have been Madrox the Multiple Man.

Some impressively dumb Lex-Men chase Lois and shoot at her for "ripping off corporate secrets" (actually that tape of Lex killing his trainer from last issue). When she says they're making a big mistake, they laugh at her and one says "You ain't got a prayer, lady! Not unless you got yourself a guardian angel!" Are they... not from Metropolis? That would explain why one bothers trying to blast Superman "to smithereens" once he inevitably shows up.

After Superman takes care of those goons, Lois notices there's a camera in one of the helmets and uses the opportunity to tell Lex that he's screwed. He shouts: "NO! Who's her informant? Packard? Happersen? Or somebody else?" Lex, you've got exactly three recurring employees in this era. Come on, it's not that hard.

Patreon-Watch:

This post was brought to you by Aaron, Chris “Ace” Hendrix, britneyspearsatemyshorts, Patrick D. Ryall, Bheki Latha, Mark Syp, Ryan Bush, Raphael Fischer, Kit, Sam, Bol, and Gaetano Barreca, the Superman '86 to '99 Patreon Gang!

And also by everyone's pal Don Sparrow, who wrote the section after the jump...

Art-Watch (by @donsparrow):

We begin with a great cover, of an anguished Superman in the rubble of Metropolis.  I’m gonna assume that this is moments before Superman leapt into action, and helped all those people behind him with the recovery effort, but you gotta take a minute or two to grieve.  Joe Rubinstein is a legendary inker, to be sure, but his inks never fully jibed with Dan Jurgens pencils, it seems to me, and this cover shows a little bit of that.  The rim lighting on the arms going so far from the edge makes Superman look almost excessively lean/defined, but that’s only noticeable when you stare at it as long as I have.

Inside the book we have guest pencils from Brent Anderson, whose art can be hit or miss for me, over the years.  His Astro City stuff, for example, was terrific, like a modern Curt Swan, but at times, but in other instances—like this issue—there can be an unpleasantly rushed feel to his art.  The surface detail is always terrific, and Neal Adams-like, but sometimes his forms can go a bit wonky.  The very opening splash page is a good example of this. 

At first glance, this seems like a terrific page, a great montage of different things happening over Metropolis.  But then when you zoom in on both Guardian and Superman’s faces (particularly Guardian), things seem a little asymmetrical.  This is not to say that there aren’t some excellent moments—there are!  Page 5 has a great tall panel of Superman soaring into action.  Dabney Donovan is looking quite Dr. Robotnik-like as he surveys Westfield’s final solution for the Underworlders.  Page 12 unfortunately boasts another wonky Superman face, almost saved by the surface detailing.  The absolute weirdest Superman face appears a little later, during the guardian angel exchange, where Kal-El is looking like he sproinged off the pages of Mad Magazine.

There’s another good flying shot comes on page 17, where Superman darts out of a sewer pipe.   On the whole, a pretty inconsistent looking book, with backgrounds being a particularly weak point (apart from the extreme perspective shot of Metropolis early on). Story-wise, not a ton happens, apart from Superman zig-zagging to and from disasters, though we do get a little movement on the clone illness (that Guardian is apparently immune) and a recap of last week, revealing that Lois has damning evidence against Luthor.

STRAY OBSERVATIONS:

Lex’s soldiers are pretty sexist, in addition to being willing murderers.  How does a guy list when hiring for that position?

Funny note as Superman launches the poison gas missile into space, as he muses “half the time I throw stuff into space, it comes back even more dangerous.”  Certainly true of the Eradicator, but I’m trying to think of other examples.  [Max: Off the top of my head, there's the time he threw that living cemetery into space and it turned into a murder cloud, the time he left a lab suspended in orbit and it eventually spawned the Cyborg Superman (who did his own space-tossing with Doomsday), and, hmmm, does the time he threw himself into space and came back with a deadly artifact count?]

Very Obi-Wan-like reaction from Dubbilex, as he senses Dabney Donovan’s presence.  I always thought that Donovan was somewhere nearby as it was, so it’s odd that Dubbilex would only now sense his brainwaves.

How does the gas hurt Westfield to the point that he’s choking blood, but not at all affect the maskless Donovan? [Max: Maybe he was a poison gas-immune Dabney clone who only thought he was the "one and only"?]

#superman #dan jurgens #brent anderson #josef rubinstein #battle for metropolis #guardian #project cadmus #paul westfield #dubbilex #underworlders #dabney donovan #supermadrox the supermultiple superman #twitch.tv/dabneydabs

[superman86to99]

Just updated the Green Lantern '94 to '04 blog for the first time in, holy crap, three years with a long post about every single Hal Jordan appearance between Coast City blowing up in "Reign of the Supermen" and him going nuts in "Emerald Twilight." This led me to the panels above, which contain what's either an hilarious typo or letterer Albert DeGuzman letting us know how he really felt about the "Bloodlines" crossover (an opinion I share). Check it out here!

#superman #green lantern #hal jordan #poop metropolis

[superman86to99]

Superman: The Man of Steel #34 (June 1994)

"THE BATTLE FOR METROPOLIS," Part 2! Lex-Men vs. Dubbilex-Men! I know it's not true, but part of me feels like they introduced Lex Luthor's armored security force a few years ago and Project Cadmus' Dubbilex back in the '70s just so they could make that pun in this cover. I don't think anyone has ever referred to Cadmus' security force as "Dubbilex-Men" before this issue, but you have to admit that's a snappier name than "Cadmus' security force."

Anyway, last issue ended with all hell breaking loose in the middle of Metropolis, and in this one... it continues to break loose. Team Luthor fights Cadmus while the Special Crimes Unit tries to stop the Underworld clones and the Underworld clones try to kill everyone, with Superman quite literally stuck in the middle.

The Underworlders, as we've recapped a million times by now, are furiously attacking the surface world because they blame Cadmus for the plague that's killing them. At one point, the Underworlders seem to run away from the fight -- but that's only because they've been leading the humans to a bomb they planted, causing a huge explosion in the middle of the city.

Lex Luthor Jr., who secretly supplied the bomb, is watching the action through hidden cameras and doesn't seem terribly concerned about the fact that his bomb killed a bunch of his employees, too. What's even more disturbing is that the Clone Plague is rapidly turning into the Cryptkeeper (to think he looked like red-haired Fabio a few weeks ago...).

Meanwhile, Lois Lane gets a message from her mysterious source inside LexCorp offering her new evidence of Lex's crimes (which is good, because Lois lost the old evidence when her apartment blew up). Lois sneaks into LexCorp following her source's instructions, and finds a secret office where she retrieves two important items: a VHS tape showing Lex strangling his personal trainer, and a big map of Metropolis showing that Lex has a lot more bombs hidden all over the city. Uh-oh.

Back in the battle zone, some Cadmus troopers led by Guardian, a.k.a. Cadmus' very own Captain America, find themselves surrounded by an army of pissed-off Underworlders (who are apparently much better at strategy than the humans). Dubbilex, freshly arrived from Hawaii, flies in to the rescue with some Cadmus paratroopers, but some Lex-Men get in their way and try to kill them. Dubbilex and Guardian are the only clones who aren't dying, which the Underworlders see as confirmation that Cadmus intentionally caused the plague. (The fact that the Newsboy Legion kids are dying doesn't prove much, since they're pretty annoying and I could see Director Westfield deeming them acceptable losses.)

Dubbilex is actually feeling pretty conflicted about having to fight other ugly clones like himself, until he sees that Clawster (the big, rocky, supposedly invulnerable Underworlder players of the Death and Return of Superman video game mistook for Doomsday's kid brother) is about to kill Guardian. Dubbilex launches a psychic blast that takes away Clawster's invulnerability, allowing the paratroopers to blast the hell out of him. It looks like Clawster is down for the count, but in his final moments he rages at Guardian and breaks his shield (another thing that was supposed to be unbreakable) as he makes some pretty good points about Cadmus' Director Westfield.

Superman remembers this comic is about him and arrives just in time to see Clawster dying and Guardian being left badly injured. The other Underworlders scatter, and just as Superman is saying there must be some way to stop the senseless killing, Lex remotely detonates another bomb right in his face. TO BE CONTINUED!

Character-Watch:

That's it for Clawster, who had the misfortune of being introduced in Man of Steel #17 and ending up being seen as a lamer and (barely) more articulate version of Doomsday. I'll admit I was still kinda fond of this knucklehead, and I think he could have ended up being a more memorable villain if he'd had better timing. Sadly, there will be no Clawster/Prey miniseries where he comes back. His only other appearances after this were 2011's Retroactive issue, which is set before this one, and an unexplained cameo in a montage of Steel fighting various villains in 2010's Superman #697, though you only see his back. Maybe it WAS Doomsday's kid brother that time.

(Unrelated: Is that Professor Hamilton's building in the background?)

Plotline-Watch:

Dubbilex arrives in Metropolis halfway through the issue along with his young ward, Superboy, who is in pretty poor shape, not just due to the Clone Plague but also the events of Superboy #5 (which we haven't covered yet). Superboy tries to go help Superman anyway, but he instantly collapses in the middle of the infirmary. THAT'S how brave Superboy is. Or maybe he didn't want to be stuck with the Newsboy Legion in the infirmary.

Despite not currently working for the Daily Planet, Lois still calls Perry White to tell him about the first explosion and tip him off about where the Underworlders are headed next, so that Perry can send Jimmy Olsen and Ron Troupe there. THAT'S how professional Lois is. Or maybe she's just trying to get Jimmy killed, which I understand (sorry, Ron).

Speaking of Jimmy and Ron, as we saw last issue, Bibbo is helping them follow the action in his bike, until they find out some Underworlders are trashing the Ace O'Clubs. Big mistake: Bibbo produces a big shotgun from somewhere (does he have Bloodsport technology?) and goes in to deal with the looters. The scene ends there, because this is an all-ages comic.

Professor Hamilton feels responsible for triggering this war because he's the one who told the Underworlders that the Clone Plague was probably caused by the time Westfield flooded Metropolis' tunnels. In the middle of all the fighting, Clawster drops by to tell Hambone that they'll spare him and reassure him that he didn't cause the war: the truth caused the war. The truth that he told them. Yeah, that'll make him feel better.

There's a short scene with Myra the Orphanage Lady saving Keith the Unlucky Orphan from being eaten by Kathana, the same hypnotic lizard lady Keith once mistook for his mom (it was dark). Kathana actually tried to turn Keith into a stew in the aforementioned Man of Steel #17, and apparently she's been biding her time waiting for another opportunity since then. Keith is very lucky to have Myra in his life.... for now, anyway.

In this issue we meet Lois' exceptionally dedicated mailman, Fred Bentson, who tracks her down in the middle of an active war zone to give her the mail she hasn't gotten since her apartment blew up (including that note from her LexCorp source). Then, Fred says something about how he'd rather "stay in Dakota" but he keeps waking up in Metropolis. This is a little teaser for a crossover that will happen within this storyline and right before another, bigger crossover, just in case you'd forgotten this is a '90s comic.

Apparently, Lex is a huge fan of the film Metropolis -- so much so that he hides tapes with incriminating evidence under a statue of the lady robot from that movie.

Patreon-Watch:

Last month in the Superman '86 to '99 Patreon, we covered an Elseworlds annual in which Superman snaps a villain's neck, skins him, and wears his fur like a suit. Fun stuff! Join our patrons Aaron, Chris “Ace” Hendrix, britneyspearsatemyshorts, Patrick D. Ryall, Bheki Latha, Mark Syp, Ryan Bush, Raphael Fischer, Kit, Sam, Bol, and Gaetano Barreca at https://www.patreon.com/superman86to99

And now, join the great Don Sparrow for more commentary, after the jump!

Art-Watch (by @donsparrow):

We start with the cover, and it’s a pretty dramatic one.  Superman and the Guardian in a pieta-like pose.  Bogdanove skirts the comics code authority by making all that blood black, which to me is somehow more upsetting than if it were red.  Kudos for the letter design on the battling Lex-Men and Dubbilex-Men.

Inside we start with a pretty arresting image of a group of five underworlders grappling with Superman, followed by a double page spread of Superman hurling them off in different directions.

The rumpled texture on the bulletproof vests of the Special Crimes Unit is particularly well rendered. The combination of colours and metallic helmet made me think for a moment that DC’s Peacemaker was fighting alongside Maggie Sawyer in that last panel on page 3.  As always, Dennis Janke’s inks are masterful at differentiating texture, and that’s never clearer than on Clawster’s bark-like skin.

Later on we get our first look at Lex, and there’s a little dissonance between how he looked last issue, which took place only a few minutes before this one, and how he looks in this one.  [Max: I wonder exactly what type of drugs Dr. Kelley is giving him...] His deteriorated body and unblinking eyes are pretty intense. 

A page later we get a look at a character who will become important in a future story, Fred Bentson, mail carrier of two worlds.  In these pages he looks like Austin Pendelton by way of The Real Ghostbusters’ Egon Spengler.

The issue’s frenetic pace continues, as Superboy arrives by marine helicopter (both the chopper and Cadmus’ tank are great vehicle design).  Superboy is kind of tossed into the middle of the story without so much as an asterisk informing us where we can learn what has left him so injured. [Max: Yeah, the lack of a plug for the Superboy series is very uncharacteristic. Not even in the lettercol!]

Fairly suddenly, Jimmy Olsen, like both Superman and Clark Kent, has long hair.  [Max: I distinctly remember Jimmy having long hair since the issue when Clark moves in with him because the panel of him saying "Let's crank some Van Halen to celebrate!" is burned into my brain, but it's less consistent than Superman's.] The same page also has a great drawing of Bibbo racking a shotgun, and the pose and the expression are both great cartooning.  There’s plenty of fight choreography throughout the book, but my favourite look is Lois Lane’s Rockette-like takedown of the LexCorp security guard. 

Later on, Myra from the orphanage does battle with maybe the most terrifying mutant of the book, Kathana, who looking like a combination of a baphomet statue and a Jim Henson creation, will haunt my dreams for all time.  The character of “Fancy Feet” is just such a Bogdanove looking creation (and I gotta love those kicks he wears!).  [Max: They DO look quite fancy!]

The issue’s most dramatic moment is when Clawster splits Guardian’s up-until-now unbreakable shield.  I know Max and I don’t always see eye to eye on the Underworlders, so I imagine as a reader I’m supposed to be a lot more choked up about Clawster’s death than I am.  My feeling from this scene was more that Clawster was an unworthy shatterer of Guardian’s shield—having the shield be depicted as indestructible for so long, its destruction should have felt like a big moment.  While it’s well-drawn, it feels more like a throwaway.  Indeed, this whole issue feels like a “middle” that we’re dropped into.  The battle has begun at the start, and it doesn’t resolve, or change direction by the time the story ends.  If it feels like Superman doesn’t greatly impact the story, you’re completely right—he only appears in 6 out of the 22 pages in this comic bearing his name. [Max: I think the issue does have two important developments: 1) the Underworlders are now leaderless, and 2) what's left of Guardian's trust in Westfield has been shattered, much like the shield. Oh, and 3) Fancy Feet's feet are fancy.]

STRAY OBSERVATIONS:

Were X-Men still the top seller by 1994?  If so having a cover battle with forces that both rhyme with X-Men might have been a calculated idea.

It’s pretty crazy to see Maggie Sawyer just blowing mutants away.  Also, I know that it’s so we can identify her as readers, but she really ought to be wearing a helmet!  Between Maggie and her squad, Bibbo, and even Hamilton, this is a pretty gun-heavy issue!

As with the Hulking Superman story, I’m a little fuzzy on the details—is Professor Hamilton correct that the clone sickness is from exposure to the flood? [Max: I think so, though I kinda prefer Lex's made up explanation that he got sick from the toxins in Engine City. They could have said Lex was patient zero and the virus spread to the rest of Metropolis because he doesn't cover his mouth when he coughs.]

As Lois learns the locations of the bombs, they’re both nods to comics creators of the past.  “Boring and 57th” refers to 40’s and 50’s Superman artist, Wayne Boring; “Burnley and 43rd” refers to Jack Burnley, the second artist to regularly draw Superman, after Joe Shuster himself.

#superman #louise simonson #jon bogdanove #dennis janke #project cadmus #underworlders #clone plague #dubbilex #guardian #clawster #maggie sawyer #superboy #newsboy legion #paul westfield #ron troupe #bibbo bibbowski #emil hamilton #myra #keith #battle for metropolis #special crimes unit #fred bentson #kathana #gretchen kelley #fancy feet #fancy feet miniseries please dc