#muscular exploding lex luthor jrs

[superman86to99]

Action Comics #698 (April 1994)

Superman vs. an army of muscular, exploding Lex Luthors! And also... himself, because his newly enhanced powers are so out of control that he’s officially more dangerous to Metropolis than any clone army.

Last issue ended with LexCorp being attacked by monsters and Lex Luthor Jr. blaming Project Cadmus for it. In truth, this is the work of rogue geneticist Dabney Donovan, one of the scientists who helped clone Luthor a younger, sexier, cancer-free body. Luthor once tried to kill Dabney to leave no evidence that he’s faking being his own Australian son, so Dabney returns the favor by invading LexCorp tower with his genetically-engineered abominations. Dabney’s remote-controlled monsters finally reach Lex at the top of the tower, but... it’s not Lex, it’s a dummy with a wig on. Which is rigged to explode. All CEOs have one.

Meanwhile, despite his various problems with Luthor in the past, Superman is doing his best to defend LexCorp tower from the monsters (after all, Lex isn’t the only one who works there) but he’s hampered by his erratic powers and the fact the his body seems to be growing for no reason, which is always disorienting. Superman is able to knock down one of the monsters and, upon removing his luchador-like mask, is confused to see that it looks just like Luthor. In fact, all the big monsters do, because Dabney has a special sense of humor (and access to Lex’s DNA).

Superman puts down the rest of these mindless Lex-trocities, which spontaneously combust upon being defeated, and he has to turn on his heat vision to stop the last one. Unfortunately, now he’s unable to turn it off -- in fact, Superman’s heat vision is suddenly so potent that he can’t even close his eyes or he’ll burn his super-eyelids off. After accidentally causing some more property damage to the street in front of LexCorp, Superman has to fly into the ocean and cool off underwater for an hour before regaining his ability to blink. But at least his power troubles seem to be over!

NEXT: Superman’s power troubles get even worse.

Plotline-Watch:

The smaller monsters attacking LexCorp are the same “P-Bak” critters that Dabney and Cadmus’ Director Westfield sent after Superboy in Adventures #506. Presumably Dabney was in a rush and didn’t have time to redesign them so they’d have Lex’s face, too.

Lex checks in on poor Dr. Happersen, still recuperating from his Bizarro attack, not because he’s worried about him but to tell him to stop whining and keep working on the Supergirl project (as seen in the Supergirl miniseries). Luthor’s lackeys really need to unionize and get some better health benefits.

Superman’s power woes are actually making him feel nostalgic for the days of Lex Luthor Sr., back when all he had to do to solve his problems was show up at Lex’s office and find out what gizmo to punch (like the last time his powers went out of whack, in Superman #10).

Lois Lane finally finishes the exposé on Lex Luthor “Jr.” she’s been working on for months, but just as she electronically mails it to the Daily Planet, Lex hacks into the system using the secret backdoor included in all LexCorp PCs and rewrites the entire article so that “there won’t be a soul alive who will ever again believe Lois Lane!” See, this is why is “e-mail” thing will never catch on. Anyway, we’ll find out next issue just how good Lex’s creative writing skills are.

Patreon-Watch:

This post was made possible by our patrons Aaron, Chris “Ace” Hendrix, britneyspearsatemyshorts, Patrick D. Ryall, Bheki Latha, Mark Syp, Ryan Bush, Raphael Fischer, Kit, Sam, and Bol, who got to read half of it a whole week ago (yes, Don finished his section way before me again). Obligatory link to see if we can trick more people into joining us: https://www.patreon.com/superman86to99

And now, Don Sparrow’s section, at last liberated for all the world to see!

Art-Watch (by @donsparrow​):

We begin with the cover, and it’s a good one, by Jackson Guice.  It puts me in the mind of old “X-Ray Specs” ads from inside comics, though I couldn’t find one that was a specific pose match.  Still, a good use of colour to have the bones of Superman’s hand “inked” in solid red.  

Inside the issue, we are first greeted by not one full page splash, but three—Superman outpacing the Whiz Wagon, by land and by air. While I think Cadmus/Kirby stuff can tend to overwhelm the Superman mythology at times, I will never tire of seeing that car! [Max: Same!]

There’s an interesting juxtaposition early on, with Director Westfield observing goings-on from his situation room, followed immediately by Dabney Donovan’s similar, but lower-tech observation station, from which he spies on basically everyone.

We’re given another double page spread on pages 12-13, as Superman decks some of the giant creatures sent by Donovan. Denis Rodier’s chunky ink brush lines resemble Kirby at the best of times, but with all these Cadmus creations about, the connection is made all the more visible.

A little later in the story, both Guardian and Jimmy comment that it appears that Superman is growing, but there’s really no context clues in the artwork to sell this idea.  He isn’t really placed next to anything for a convincing sense of scale, which feels like a missed opportunity. [Max: Agreed, he looked taller in exactly one panel in which he’s looking down on Guardian, then goes back to looking normal in the next.]

Jackson Guice has always excelled at drawing a realistic and beautiful Lois Lane, and his version of casual around-the-apartment Lois is no exception.  Lastly, his depiction of a wizened and ageing Luthor is very well done, and a precursor to the (much later) return of a thin Lex Luthor, which we haven’t seen since the Byrne reboot.

STRAY OBSERVATIONS:

 My issue has a colouring error on the second page, where Superman’s normally yellow/gold belt buckle appears to be white or silver. [Max: Same in my Spanish reprint!]

I’m sure Dabney’s cameras are well hidden, but it appears as though Guardian is looking straight at it, as Donovan monitors the Whiz-cam.  Also: thank God that’s the only Whiz-cam we’re shown, that could have been much worse. [Max: I think Dabney is just hacking into the feed seen in the previous page. Also, I’m guessing Lex is the only one with the other type of “whiz-cams” in these comics, considering his habit of spying on women’s dressing rooms...]

Groan: yet another addition to the “since Doomsday” file, where Inspector Henderson thinks to himself that he hasn’t “heard such an edge in his voice…since he went up against Doomsday.”  It is an unfortunate (and understandable) habit of this era to liken everything back to Doomsday, in order to elevate whatever is happening in the present story. [Max: We really dropped the ball not having a “Since Doomsday-Watch” section.]

This issue is structured a bit oddly, especially for a comic called “Action”.  The action in this issue all takes place early on, with the rest of the issue making up a very long denouement.

Love the care with which Superman speaks on the telephone, not trusting the line not to be observed.

Interesting that burgeoning internet technology is a major plot point here.   Nowadays we’re used to stories involving hacking or digital trespass, but in 1993, this was incredibly novel. [Max: Lex was the original Zero Cool.]

#superman #roger stern #jackson guice #denis rodier #project cadmus #guardian #paul westfield #dabney donovan #sydney happersen #muscular exploding lex luthor jrs #whiz cam #not that type of whiz cam sorry tumblr