Dwayne McDuffie

Year of Superman Week 45: Almost Superman

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Superman is often credited as being the “first superhero,” and as big a Superman fan as I am, I don’t know if I can necessarily agree with that. Admittedly, the word “superhero” didn’t exist before him, and there’s little doubt that the term borrowed the superlative from his name specifically, but when you think of the things that MAKE a superhero, there are definitely earlier examples. I started the year, if you’ll recall, reading Philip Wylie’s novel Gladiator, which many believe was an influence on Superman himself and definitely had several of the elements we attribute to Superman: superhuman powers that he kept a secret, which he attempted to use to do good (at least sometimes). Other elements, like the costume or the secret identity, could be found in characters that were around pre-Superman as well, such as Zorro or the Phantom. By most definitions of the term, there are a lot of characters prior to Action Comics #1 that you can rightly call a superhero.

That said, Superman is the character that first brought together most of these elements, and that started establishing “superhero” as a specific genre. Prior to Superman, and even after him for a while, characters that fit the bill of a superhero were considered an extension of other genres – adventure, science fiction, westerns, and so forth. In fact, I think that’s the reason that even now, you can select virtually any genre of storytelling and find an example of a superhero story that crosses over with it. 

Once Superman was there, though, he became THE big name in the genre, and as such, he quickly became imitated. Some imitators just took the bare bones of the concept (costume, secret identity) and did something totally different with them, like Batman or Captain America. Later imitators would start to copy his powers and appearance with characters like the original Captain Marvel. Eventually, once the superhero genre was firmly established, we reached a point where kids who grew up reading them started to do their own twists on it, giving us characters that don’t even PRETEND they’re not a version of Superman. Sometimes they’re created for one-off stories or parodies, as in The Pro. Other times they’re populating an entire world of characters that pay tribute to earlier heroes, as we’ll see in a few of the books I read this week. In any case, these are the characters that we’re going to focus on this week: those heroes who are…almost Superman. 

And as always, you can check out earlier blogs in the Year of Superman Archive!

Wed., Nov. 5

Comics: Invincible #1, Astro City #1

Notes: I’m going to kick off this week with two of my favorites. First up, Robert Kirkman’s Invincible. The first issue starts off with a bang – a young man in a black, blue, and yellow uniform flying through the air carrying someone with a bomb strapped to his chest. He throws the man into the air and the bomb explodes, killing the bearer (something, it should be noted, that Superman would never do) and the young hero expresses slight exasperation at his lot in life. Then the “how did we get here” flashback kicks in, introducing us (in the bathroom) to high schooler Mark Grayson. He’s going about his day, getting ready for school, attending class, going to work at a burger joint – when he accidentally hurls a sack of garbage into the stratosphere. He smiles and says “It’s about time.” Mark’s father, Nolan, is secretly Omni-Man, one of Earth’s mightiest heroes, and after years of waiting for it to happen Mark has finally inherited his dad’s powers. At school, Mark is unable to contain himself when he sees a kid getting bullied and steps in, nearly putting the assailant through a locker. Although the principal understands his actions, he cautions Mark not to get into fights with people so much bigger than him. “You’re not invincible,” he says. 

He’s wrong, of course, and later on a bank robbery introduces Mark Grayson to the world with his new costume and his new name.

I’ve read the entire Invincible series, but I’m only dabbling in the first issue today (because there’s not time to read 143 of them). That said, like I did with Irredeemable in “Superman Gone Wrong” week, I’m going to talk about the broad scope of the series, complete with spoilers. If you’re watching the TV show and aren’t familiar with the comics, you may want to skip down to the next comic I’m reading today.

Invincible is an interesting way to start off this week. On the surface, of course, we’ve got Omni-Man, the obvious Superman analogue in Mark’s world, and it feels in this first issue that we’re reading about what it would be like to be the son of Superman. (This was in a pre-Jon Kent world.) In a few issues that’s all turned on its head with the big reveal of the series: Omni-Man, like Superman, is an alien hero sent to Earth. Unlike Superman, though, he is the point man for an invasion force, sent ahead to prepare Earth to one day be conquered by his people, the Viltrumites. When he learns about this, Mark turns on his father and, following a particularly graphic battle, Nolan flees Earth.

For a time, I considered using this book for “Superman Gone Wrong” week, since Nolan seems to fit that template perfectly. I decided to use it here instead, though, for two reasons. First, later in the series Nolan goes through a redemption arc, wins back his son’s trust, and joins him in the defense of Earth against their own people. And it’s a testament to the talent of Robert Kirkman that the redemption arc lands – eventually, the reader comes around to accepting Nolan as one of the good guys again, despite some of the terrible things he does early in the series. 

The other reason I saved it for this week is because Omni-Man, although the clear Superman analogue, isn’t the actual star of the series, Invincible is. And Invincible is a different sort of character: Superman-like powers but with a tone that’s more evocative of Spider-Man. At least, that’s how it is at the beginning of the series. As it goes on, he sort of grows out of that template and becomes his own kind of thing, a character very different from either of his respective “parents,” and one of the few characters in modern times to break into the mainstream, thanks to that series on Prime Video. 

And the show is very good, don’t get me wrong. But as is so often the case, I like the book better.

The other character I’m going to get into comes from one of my favorite series, from the first issue of that series, and from one of the finest comic books I’ve ever read: the Samaritan from the first issue of Kurt Busiek’s Astro City. 

Coming off the wild success of Marvels, in which he and artist Alex Ross showed the Marvel Universe through the eyes of a bystander, Busiek launched Astro City in 1995. The idea this time is that the main character of the title is the city itself, a fully-realized world populated with superheroes and villains, many of whom are quite similar to those that we are familiar with. However, there’s no single anchor character – every issue or arc shifts perspective. Sometimes the main character is a hero, sometimes a villain, sometimes a loved one or a victim or a bystander. You never know quite what you’re going to get in any given issue of the book, and for that reason among any others, it’s one of my favorite comic book series of all time, and I eagerly anticipate its promised return. 

The first issue, “In Dreams,” introduces us to the Samaritan, and it does so in a simple “day in the life” format. The Samaritan is woken up by an emergency alert early in the morning, popping him out of a dream in which he is flying. He suits up and rushes off to use his considerable powers to prevent a tidal wave in the Philippines from destroying a city, a trip that takes him 6.2 seconds from his hometown. As the day goes on, we see him take care of other assorted disasters, thwart assorted crimes and supervillain schemes, and have a meeting with the Honor Guard (if Samaritan is the Superman of this world, the Honor Guard is the Justice League or Avengers equivalent). We see him at work, as a fact-checker and proofreader for a magazine rather than a reporter. We also get a recap of his origin: he was sent back in time from a dying Earth to prevent the tragedy that led to its sad current state – the destruction of the space shuttle Challenger. In saving the world, the future he came from no longer existed, and he resigned himself to staying in the modern day and acting as one of Astro City’s superheroes. We see his life, and we see how incredibly lonely he is. 

Throughout the issue, Busiek seeds little bits and pieces that begin to build the world of Astro City. We meet assorted other heroes and villains, get references to others. We learn that Honor Guard member MPH has an extraterrestrial nervous system for some reason, and learn a little of the story of a villain called the Living Nightmare. All of these little things make the world feel more lived in, and a lot of these little elements would pay off in later stories over the years. 

The other thing that happens is that as Samaritan zips from each scene to the next, he keeps a running tally of how much time it takes to fly from one place to another. When he gets home that night, he calculates a total of 56 seconds of flight time for the day, “the best since March.” And then he goes back to sleep and resumes his dream of flight.

There are a lot of stories about Superman (or his copycats) that focus on the loneliness of the character, about how alienating it would be to be the last of your kind, to live in a world where there’s nobody else quite like you. That’s a legitimate take, of course. But too often, I find that stories that use this approach do so at the expense of Superman’s humanity. They treat him as an alien first, and to me, that misses the core of the character. Busiek’s Samaritan leans on the loneliness, but does so in a remarkably, beautifully human way. The story is sweet and sad and perfect, and it’s kept me a fan of the series ever since.

Both Invincible and Astro City are available in massive compendium editions (called “Metrobooks” in the case of Astro City) from Image Comics. If you’ve never read them, do it. There are few comics out there – besides Superman, of course – that I can give a higher recommendation to. 

Thur., Nov. 6

Comics: Icon #1-3, New Adventures of Superboy #36, Blue Devil #4 (Guest Appearance), Justice League of America #37, DC KO: Knightfight #1 (Cameo)

Notes: When Milestone Comics was launched in 1993, an entire imprint of DC featuring characters and creators that were predominantly people of color, it was a pretty big deal. It shifted assumptions and preconceptions about how comics work and opened up the world of comics to audiences that would never have been interested before. Of course, like most storytelling experiments, it wouldn’t have worked if the stories being told weren’t actually GOOD. Fortunately, they were. And my favorite of the original line – this should surprise virtually no one – was Icon by Dwayne McDuffie and M.D. Bright. 

The story opens in outer space in the year 1839, but in deep space, as we see an alien escape a doomed ship in an escape pod. The ship crashes to Earth and the alien shifts his form to imitate an infant form of the first Earth creature it encounters – who happens to be a slave in the American south. The alien takes the form of a human baby and is taken in by the woman who found him. 

Time skips ahead to 1993, where the alien has been living on Earth for a century and a half under the guise of Augustus Freeman and his various similarly-named ancestors. Now living as Augustus IV, he’s become a highly successful lawyer in the city of Dakota, but finds himself dwelling on a recent encounter with a teenage girl. Raquel Ervin got drawn into some criminal activities with friends of hers who tried to rob Freeman’s house. When they ran into the man himself, he flew after them, shrugging off their bullets and warning them never to commit another crime. Raquel was astonished by what she saw and returned to Freeman later, urging him to use his powers to help people. She even designed a uniform for him and insisted she make him her sidekick, calling the two of them “Icon and Rocket.” Her words sway Freeman, and he gives her a belt to give her force field-based powers. They test out their new paradigm by responding to the news of a situation at city hall. Unfortunately, the cops don’t see a pair of heroes show up – just a strange pair of African-Americans in weird costumes, and they place them under arrest.

In issue two we get more information as to the situation: the mayor of Dakota has been taken hostage, and the cops were there to handle the situation, but the building is full of men with guns. The cops, with a unit called SHRED (Special Heavy-Equipment Rapid Emergency Deployment) are there to take the bad guys down, and they DON’T want help. Icon attempts to comply with the police request and explain themselves, but Rocket begins fighting the cops. Ico is stuck in the unenviable position of preventing Rocket from hurting the police and vice-versa. Once he gets Rocket to safety, he surrenders himself to the police to quell the situation, but he’s forced back into action by an explosion in city hall. He and Rocket save some of the police, then make it into City Hall where they learn that the man holding the Mayor hostage is one of the “Bang Babies,” people given powers by a strange gas during a recent event in some of the other Milestone titles, and he turns himself into a monster.

In issue three, Icon and Rocket face the monster – calling himself Payback, whose claws are capable of cutting Icon’s skin. Payback flees into the sewers and Rocket follows while Icon, injured, stays behind to clean up the rest of the human gunmen. He catches up to Rocket and Payback in time to hear the latter plead his case, how the mayor used the tear gas to prove she was “tough on crime” but wound up mutating innocent people. Icon promises that if he turns himself in, he will see to it that there’s an investigation into the “Big Bang” incident, and the people responsible will be held accountable. Bringing Payback in convinces the authorities that Icon and Rocket are on their side. At the end of the issue, though, he tells Rocket that she’s going to have to work from the sidelines for a while – with his super-senses he’s discovered something that she has not: Raquel is pregnant.

Such a great title. Amazing, unique characters and beautiful art made Icon stand out from other books on the stands, even from other Milestone titles. But that’s one of the things that made Milestone great – each title had a different perspective and point of view. Icon wasn’t like Static wasn’t like Hardware wasn’t like Blood Syndicate, and that was all to the good. What I particularly like about this title is the bait-and-switch, though. Icon is the title character. He’s the obvious Superman analogue. His powers, origin, and costume are all deliberately evocative of the man of steel. But it’s Raquel who’s actually the protagonist of this comic. She’s the main point-of-view character, she’s the one who starts Augustus on his journey, she’s the one who makes everything happen. And in fact, in the most recent iteration of the Milestone universe, they finally shared billing on their title: Icon and Rocket.

Like many of the books I’ve read so far this week (and it’s only Day Two) I find myself wanting to go back and read more. Maybe 2026 will have to be the Year of Characters Who Are An Awful Lot LIKE Superman.

Fri. Nov. 7

Comics: Love and Capes #1, DC Vs. Vampires: World War V #12 (Supergirl, Steel Appearance)

Notes: I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it lately, but I am a geek lucky enough to be married to another geek. My wife doesn’t share all of my geekdoms, nor I hers, and where there IS overlap they’re usually at different levels (she’s more into Star Wars, for instance, whereas I prefer Star Trek, but we watch ‘em both together). All that is to say that, as she isn’t AS big into comics as I am, she never lets me forget that she’s the one who first introduced me to Thom Zahler’s Love and Capes.

Mark Spencer is the Crusader, the big, strong, flying guy with the cape. He hangs out with a shadowy avenger of the night called Darkblade. He used to date a powerful warrior woman called Amazonia. And as we soon learn in issue #1 of this delightful series, he’s head-over-heels in love with a perfectly ordinary bookstore owner named Abby Tennyson. In this issue, Mark decides to tell his girlfriend that he loves her, but also, share with her the secret of his dual identity.

And thus begins the series that Zahler refers to as “a heroically super situation comedy.” Love and Capes is the superhero romcom you never knew you needed. While Abby isn’t exactly a Lois Lane, Mark is clearly his world’s Superman (down to the glasses he wears to protect his identity), and this first issue explores a lot of the questions that would naturally arise in any such a pairing. Once Abby learns his secret we see her struggle (and fail) to keep her sister from finding out, feel her bristle with insecurity when she learns that Mark and Amazonia used to date, and sit with her on the couch in quiet horror as she watches the Crusader fighting a supervillain on TV, realizing that she’s never seen him bleed before.

The wonderful thing about Love and Capes is just how naturally Zahler weaves the superhero story in with the kind of real life drama (and comedy) that comes in any relationship. Over the course of this series we see Abby deal with all sorts of things that would naturally come along with being a superhero’s girlfriend – evil doppelgangers, time-travel, meeting the rest of the superhero team and so forth. We also see Mark deal with simple, common relationship stuff, like trying to find time for one another when one of you is a workaholic, blending your friend groups, and ultimately (spoiler warning here) the challenges of marriage and parenthood. 

Interestingly, Zahler leans away from the superheroics of the universe. Sure, we see Mark using his powers all the time, but we virtually never see any superhero fights or adventures, merely the aftermath, as the relationship between Mark and Abby is what’s actually important. That gives this series a perspective that completely sets it apart from every other not-quite-Superman on the market. 

It’s only fair to admit that I’m an enormous fan of this book. In fact, for the Mark and Abby’s nuptials in issue #13, I took advantage of a “wedding” package Zahler made available to fans to get yourself drawn onto the wedding scene on the cover, so if you’ve got that issue, you can actually find me with (my then-girlfriend, now wife) Erin attending Mark and Abby’s wedding. What’s more, Zahler and I have struck up a friendly acquaintance over the years, and he even name-dropped me as the owner of a po-boy shop in New Orleans in his series Cupid’s Arrows. I say this not to brad, but to be quite clear that am not unbiased in my praise for this series.

But I hope you believe me when I tell you that I would be just as effusive a fan even if it weren’t for any personal connections we have. It’s just a sweet, lovely book, and every so often when he brings out a new miniseries or special, I’m as gleeful to pick it up as I was the first time. 

Sat., Nov. 8

Comics: Adventures of Superman: Book of El #3, Absolute Superman #13

Notes: I’m going to hit this week’s new Superman comics today – only two of them, but they still count. And I’m starting with the third issue of Adventures of Superman: Book of El. Trapped in a future that believed him to be lost, Superman and his last descendant, Ronan Kent, return to the Fortress of Solitude to find a way home. Unfortunately, Brainiac’s legion is on his trail, and determined to keep him in this distant future instead of allowing him to go home and prevent this world from happening. There’s also a nice reveal at the end, a hope spot that’s subverted and sets the stage for the rest of this miniseries.

Reading this book is a little frustrating to me. I should like it. I honestly should. There are tons of little elements that work well – a time machine that looks like it was dropped out of H.G. Welles, a giant turtle Jimmy Olsen…and Phillip Kennedy Johnson completely understands the characterization of Superman. There’s a point where he tells Ronan “As long as you wear that symbol, your strength doesn’t belong to you. It belongs to those who NEED you.”

And yet somehow…I’m just not engaged. I think it’s the nature of the project – Superman is stuck in a future where he was lost. He wants to go home to prevent that future from happening. And since we know that DC isn’t going to allow him to stay in the future forever, his successful return is a foregone conclusion. It doesn’t matter how high the stakes get, in the end, it still feels so inconsequential. At least in an Elseworlds story you know that the consequences for THAT universe are real. I don’t get that here, and that’s dulling my enjoyment considerably. 

Absolute Superman, on the other hand, not only feels like the consequences are real, but also that – in this Absolute universe – virtually anything can happen. As Lazarus begins its attack on Smallville, Kal-El orders Sol to override its original programming to protect him and, instead, expend its energy becoming a shield surrounding Smallville. But the resources of Lazarus and its Peacemakers are too much, even for Kal-El, and the small town is overrun. As he struggles against their forces for weeks, Lois and Jimmy try to broadcast the truth about what’s happening in Kansas to the rest of the world. 

Most of the issue bounces around non-linearly from the beginning of the war to the “present,” six weeks later, showing different conflicts and encounters both on and off the battlefield. Jimmy and Lois reflect on how the appearance of Kal-El is what made them turn against Lazarus, which is just one of the things I really like about this issue. The thesis of the Absolute Universe is that this is a world fueled by Darkseid, where “hope” is always the underdog…and yet this is where the hope shines through. Kal-El, Superman, even in this dark world is held up as a beacon. There’s a scene where he confronts someone who – well, did him wrong, let’s just say – and for a moment you wonder just where Jason Aaron is going to take the scene, but in the end, he does the Superman thing. And I just love it.

Feature Film: The Iron Giant (1999)

Notes: Anyone who loves The Iron Giant knows already why I’m watching it for this week’s theme. Anyone who hasn’t seen it – I envy the fact that you’ll get to experience this for the first time. Because of all the stories that do NOT actually feature Superman, there is none that more fully captures the Superman ethos than Brad Bird’s 1999 animated masterpiece.

In 1957 Maine, a lonely boy named Hogarth finds an enormous robot alone in the woods. Hogarth befriends the Giant, who has a dent in his head that seems to have damaged his programming, leaving it with no memory of its origin or purpose. Hogarth begins to teach the Giant about humanity, playing games with it and showing him his comic book collection – including classic issues of Action Comics, and the robot finds a role model. But the military, naturally, is searching for the Giant as well, fearful of what it may represent. An agent named Kent Mansley tracks him down, but is unable to convince his superiors that the threat is real.

Playing with the Giant, Hogarth points a toy gun at him, temporarily causing his original programming to kick back in and it reveals him to be a weapon of some sort of alien civilization. Broken-hearted at learning the truth about itself, the Robot flees, and Hogarth follows. When a pair of boys fall off a roof in town, the Robot reveals itself and saves their lives. The town watches him in awe, but Mansley and the army turn back around to combat the threat. They open fire on him in the middle of the town while he’s holding Hogarth, and he flees. Each attack continues to bring his programming to the surface, but he fights against it until they hit him with a missile, blasting him from the sky. Hogarth is knocked unconscious in the crash and the Giant’s programming takes over, turning on the army and attacking with the full force of his weaponry. Mansley convinces the general to target the Giant with a nuclear weapon, then in his panic hijacks a walkie-talkie to order a strike that will wipe the small town and all its innocent citizens off the map. But the Giant overcomes his original programming, remembering the lessons Hogarth taught him. In the end, he makes a decision that proves him not only worthy of the “S,” but that – like Superman himself – his alien origins are irrelevant. His soul may be among the most human of us all.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched this movie, but I can tell you how many times I’ve watched it without crying, and that number is zero. Director Brad Bird, who would go on to much greater acclaim at Pixar with movies like The Incredibles and Ratatouille, uses the era of the Red Scare as a backdrop here. It’s a shorthand to amplify the fears of the townspeople of the Giant, making the concerns put on display a bit more justifiable and somewhat removing the need for a more traditional antagonist. To be certain, the military in this movie are the ones who are acting against the Giant, even threatening his life, but none of them are doing it from a place of evil. Mistrust, misunderstanding, sometimes even arrogance, but everyone who tries to destroy the Giant does so out of a sincere belief that he’s dangerous. Mansley is the most villainous character, lying to the general, telling him that the Giant has killed Hogarth (as far as he knows, the Giant is merely CARRYING Hogarth) in order to get them to continue their attack, and generally being a jerk. Even he, though, sincerely believes that this giant alien robot is dangerous, and it’s hard to disagree with the logic behind that fear. Honestly, it’s not even like they’re wrong – had his original programming not been subverted when he came to Earth, it seems quite likely that he WOULD have laid waste to the entire planet. So yeah, this is one time where the antagonists kinda have a point.

That said, what makes this work so beautifully is the way the Giant grows beyond what he was originally built for. Anyone who’s seen this movie can remember two lines from Vin Diesel (voicing the Giant in his most lifelike performance outside of Groot). One, when Hogarth tries to make him the bad guy in his game, is the adamant declaration: “I AM NOT A GUN.”  The other comes at the end, as he makes the choice to sacrifice himself for the lives of the people below him – not only Hogarth, but the very ones who chased and attacked him. As he takes to the air to save them all, he closes his eyes and smiles and whispers the name he has chosen for himself: “Superman.”

There’s another line that echoes in the film: “You are what you choose to be.” Harry Connick Jr.’s character says it to Hogarth, and later Hogarth says it to the Giant. Then, 26 years later, Jonathan Kent says something very similar in James Gunn’s Superman. It may be a coincidence, but only in that two storytellers who intimately understand the Man of Steel chose to use the same sentiment to get that idea across. 

I don’t like pop culture gatekeepers. I don’t think anybody has the right to dictate what a “real” fan is to anybody else. That said, I find it very difficult to conceive of anybody who truly understands Superman without being utterly in love with this movie. It’s one of the greatest superhero movies ever made. 

TV Show: Superman and Lois Season 3, Ep. 2, “Uncontrollable Forces”

Sun, Nov. 9

Comics: Supreme #1-6

Notes: The works of Rob Liefeld can sometimes be…well…divisive. And to be perfectly blunt, I’ve never been a fan. But this summer, I happened to come across the first six issues of Liefeld’s Superman pastiche, Supreme, while rummaging in a dollar bin in a comic shop in Mississippi. Knowing that “Almost Superman” was on the docket for later in the year, I decided it would be worth the six bucks to get a taste of it. Now I know that most people say that the best Supreme stuff came later, when Alan Moore wrote the title, and would probably suggest it’s more beneficial to read THAT run than Liefeld’s original. To those people, I simply say: the Moore stuff wasn’t in the dollar bin.

Liefeld shared both the writing and art chores with Brian Murray for this book, which oddly enough is labelled as “Volume Two” even though, as far as I can tell, there was never a “Volume One.” In “Second Coming,” Liefeld’s premiere superhero team Youngblood is summoned to outer space when a strange figure approaches Earth. He claims to be Supreme, a hero who apparently vanished 50 years ago, and after a very 90s scuffle, they accept him as who he claims to be and return him to Earth. Although offered a place with Youngblood, he leaves and returns to orbit, looking down on Earth and crying. Issue two begins with Supreme lamenting the loss of the heroes he fought with 50 years prior and looking down at the heroes that exist on Earth now: Youngblood, Spawn, Savage Dragon, Cyberforce, WildC.A.T.S (it’s a “Who’s Who” of early Image). He’s upset that the heroes of today seem to be created and funded by corporations (this is clearly NOT true of Spawn), then drops in to a prison to murder somebody named Grizlock. Grizlock seems to be his arch-enemy, his “Lex Luthor” if you will, who killed Supreme’s equivalents of Jimmy and Lois some 50 years prior. Before he can get his revenge, he winds up fighting some superhumans called Heavy Mettle who appear from that magical space between panels, because nothing else makes sense. After several pages of Supreme battling characters that I could swear were designed to deliberately lose a bet, they convince him to hear out their boss, Jason Temple, explaining why Grizlock should get to live. 

At this point, friends, I’m going to give up on the play-by-play, because any attempt to continue with that exercise would be to imply that anything that happens in this comic book series makes the slightest bit of sense. I read six issues of this nonsense, and here’s what I can tell you: Supreme spends several issues fighting some guy called “Khrome.” Yes. “Khrome.” Who apparently was formerly his ally, but now they’re trying to kill each other, because it was the 90s. Khrome is as boring and generic a villain as you can imagine, which means he fits in with the rest of this comic book like a jigsaw puzzle with a picture of a dog peeing on a fire hydrant. Every character is dull and generic, with designs that look like somebody spilled a box of Lego minifigs and assembled the pieces entirely at random. The names and powers are forgettable, and the motivations are nonexistent. It’s a lot of punching and blowing things up at the expense of anything resembling a plot or characterization. 

My intention, this week, has always been to compare the kinda-Supermen to the real deal, but there’s not even enough of Supreme to do that. He seems sad to have lost people in his past, but his callous disregard for the lives of the bystanders to his pointless battles defies anything that could be considered Superman-like. There simply isn’t anything THERE. This is one of the worst things I’ve ever read, and I don’t just mean in comics. This is the first time I’ve ever read the letter column of an old comic book and felt the urge to seek out the people who wrote in and praised the book to ask them if they ever sought out the psychiatric help they so clearly deserved. 

From what I can tell, Alan Moore’s run on this comic started with issue #41. It is a testament to the money-printing machine that was the earliest years of Image Comics that this book ever even made it that far, because it was an utter, absolute, incomprehensible mess.

All that said, it’s still better than anything AI could make.

Mon., Nov. 10

Comic: Big Bang Comics #2, Mr. Majestic #1, Jon Kent: This Internship is My Kryptonite #18, Infinity, Inc. #6 (Team Member Power Girl)

Notes: Today I’m going to move on to a series that’s as delightful as Supreme was frustrating: Big Bang Comics. Big Bang is a publishing imprint created by a revolving group of writers and artists who have crafted a shared world that pays tribute to all eras of comic books. Their universe is populated by thinly-veiled homages to the all-stars of DC and Marvel Comics, with stories set in – and emulating the styles of — the Golden, Silver, Bronze, and Modern ages of comics. There are legacy heroes and names passed down from one generation to another, and in the 30 years of its publication they have played host to numerous ongoings, specials, and miniseries featuring their assorted heroes, such as the Knight Watchman (their Batman analogue) and the Round Table of America (no points for guessing what that might be). They were originally published by Caliber Press, then had a nice run at Image Comics. These days, they self-publish, and new installments are still released a few times a year.

To represent this world I’m digging into 1994’s Big Bang Comics #2, the first comic with a story starring their Superman representative, Ultiman. (This issue also contains stories of their Flash substitute the Blitz, and the Human Sub, who’s kind of a mashup of Aquaman/Sub-Mariner and Bulletman, but Ultiman is what we’re going to focus on.) Writer Gary Carlson and artists Jon Schuler and Don Simpson craft this Golden Age-style tale of Ultiman, “the Ultimate Human Being,” as he battles the “Sub-Oteurs.” The Nazis, it seems, have developed a drilling craft with the ability to tunnel underground, which they are using to attack freight trains delivering supplies for the war effort. When he hears about the attack, Ultiman (who apparently sits around his house in full uniform listening to a radio with his emblem on it) leaps into action from his home in Empire City. Just as Golden Age Superman couldn’t fly, Ultiman hitches a ride on the outside of a passenger plane that takes him to the scene of the attack, then rushes to save miners trapped in a nearby cave-in. Rescuing the miners, he discovers an odd tunnel with tank treads on the ground, following it to the German “submarine” that’s attacking a dam. Ultiman uses a car and his “thermal vision” to seal the cracks in the dam, then sets out to tackle the Sub-Oteurs. He captures the Nazis and sends the empty sub on a trajectory to drill straight to the center of the Earth.

This is an almost flawless representation of the Golden Age of comics. All it would take is redrawing Ultiman and maybe adding a page of him as Clark Kent hanging out around the Daily Planet and it would be virtually indistinguishable from the real thing. That’s the charm of Big Bang, the way they so lovingly recreate the worlds of classic comics. This isn’t a parody or a satire, nor is it a deconstruction. It’s just a new world that mimics the classics.

Later Big Bang stories would develop Ultiman’s world much more, giving him a secret identity and an origin, related characters, and even using the multiple Earths concept to have two Ultimen (those of Earth-A and Earth-B) come into contact with one another.  I wish there was some sort of omnibus of the entire universe, but alas, no such thing yet exists. Still, if Gary Carlson or anybody at Big Bang is listening, there are at least some of us who would be really happy if here was an easy guide to buying and reading the entire universe, even digitally. (The new stuff is available digitally, I should mention, it’s the older stuff that’s harder to find.) 

The most important takeaway here is that if you’re trying to find classic stories in the style of Superman from various ages (or Batman or Captain America or any of a dozen others), Big Bang Comics has what you’re looking for. 

Moving on, let’s look at Mr. Majestic #1, from Wildstorm Comics. Wildstorm began at Image Comics before Jim Lee sold the company to DC and became one of its executives, and it was at DC that their one of their Superman analogues, Mr. Majestic, got his first miniseries. (The other analogue would be Apollo of The Authority, but Majestic is more “classically” Superman.) As Wildstorm became more integrated into the DC multiverse, Majestic met Superman several times and even temporarily took his place in Metropolis during one of those periods when Superman went missing for one reason or another. I’m going to look at the first issue of his first series for today’s entry. 

Written by Joe Casey and Brian Holguin with art by frequent Superman artist Ed McGuinness, “Cosmology” begins at some point earlier in the 20th Century with the alien hero Mr. Majestic in space, taking care of the sort of extraterrestrial menace that superheroes have to take care of, before returning home to his secret lair inside of Mt. Rushmore. With the help of a boy genius named Desmond, Majestic determines the probe he fought in space was engaged in the task of mapping Earth’s solar system in exquisite detail, for a purpose that he fears goes even beyond a simple alien invasion…something, he says, that is likely to occur within a century. He gathers a braintrust and begins making preparations, spending decades seeking a way to somehow hide the entire solar system, ultimately deciding upon moving various heavenly bodies and altering the appearance of others in a sort of camouflage. In the end, the thing the probe was summoning arrives, and Majestic can only watch to see if his decades of effort have been worth it.

I very much enjoyed this one. Majestic is like Superman in a lot of ways, not only in his power set, but in his sheer determination to protect Earth, which comes across very much as a Superman sort of thing to do. And while the editors of DC Comics would never have approved a story where Superman sets himself forth on a single task that lasts for decades (at least not without some sort of timey-wimey reset button at the end), it’s very much the kind of thing he WOULD do if he deemed it necessary. This first issue of Mr. Majestic is a perfectly encapsulated standalone story that showcases a Silver Age style problem and response with a Modern Age execution. Like Astro City and Icon, I’m left wanting to continue and read more of his adventures. 

Tues., Nov. 11

Comics: Squadron Supreme #1, Justice League of America #38 (Team Member), Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane #15

Notes: To close out this week, I wanted to end with arguably the most successful otherworld Superman in comics – Marvel’s Hyperion of the Squadron Supreme. The Squadron was first introduced in the pages of Avengers in a story by comics legend Roy Thomas, who reportedly just wanted to do a story in which the Avengers fought the Justice League. This was before the era of crossovers though (and even once that era arrived it still took over two decades for JLA/Avengers to come out), so Thomas had the Avengers cross over to another universe where they met the Squadron, a team of characters who were an awful lot LIKE the JLA. Nighthawk was their Batman, Power Princess was Wonder Woman, Golden Archer was Green Arrow, and so forth. Their leader, Hyperion, was in reality Mark Milton, the final member of his universe’s race of Eternals, which obviously calls into question the name of the species. 

Anyway, the struggle I had with this was figuring out which story to read for Hyperion. In most of their appearances, the Squadron has usually appeared as a team, with little focus on solo stories for the individual members. There was eventually a Hyperion miniseries or two, but those were part of the Supreme Power line, which was essentially the Ultimate version of the Squadron, and honestly not the one I’m interested in. After a bit of prevarication I decided to go with the first issue of the legendary Squadron Supreme limited series from 1985, which is almost certainly the best story ever told with these characters, even if it isn’t Hyperion’s story specifically. 

Squadron Supreme #1, by Mark Gruenwald and Bob Hall, opens in a very Supermanly way: Hyperion in outer space, struggling to prevent the collapse of the Squadron’s satellite headquarters as it’s falling to Earth, and ultimately steering it to the ocean where it won’t hurt anyone. He meets up with his fellow Squadron members, Amphibian (Aquaman), Dr. Spectrum (Green Lantern), and the unfortunately-named Whizzer (the Flash) to bring it from the ocean and find a resting place for it. The destruction of their satellite turns out to be symbolic – the entire world has crumbled around the Squadron in recent years, and things on their Earth are getting worse and worse. We see the other Squadroners dealing with things like riots, blackouts, and a refinery on the brink of an explosion. How could things have gone so wrong? 

The next few pages give us the recap. Nighthawk, in his secret identity of Kyle Richmond, had decided that he could do greater good in politics, running first for congress, then president. And it was President Kyle Richmond who was taken over by an alien invader called the Overmind, who then proceeded to take control of the rest of the Squadron – save Hyperion – and use them to conquer the world. Hyperion, with the help of “other heroes” (notably some he brought over from Marvel’s Earth-616) defeated the Overmind, but the world is still in dire straits after what happened to it. Hyperion reflects on the human parents who raised him, and how they taught him to use his powers for good, but not to interfere too much in the development of humanity. His parents, Hyperion decides, were wrong. At his urging, the Squadron decides that the only way to clean up their mess is to take control and do it themselves – in other words, superheroes taking over the world. All of the Squadron agree to his proposal, except for Amphibian and Nighthawk, and Nighthawk quits in protest. 

A series of vignettes shows each of the Squadroners reconnecting with their civilian loved ones – in the case of Hyperion, letting down his Lois Lane analogue by telling her he “used to masquerade” as Mark Milton, he’s abandoning his human identity, and he’s sorry about leading her on for all those years. The next day, Richmond resigns as president and, moments later, Hyperion steps up and announces his plan for the Squadron to save the world by taking it over themselves. They ask the people of Earth to give them one year to conquer “hunger, poverty, war, crime, disease, pollution, and oppression,” and swear to voluntarily give up power if they cannot do so in 12 months. Then together, the Squadron removes their masks and promises a “new age of trust and friendship and unity for all the Earth!”

Spoiler alert: it didn’t go that well.

Coming out in the mid-80s as it did, Squadron Supreme is often overshadowed by the likes of Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns in the conversation about great deconstructions of the superhero genre, but I’ve always felt like it belonged right on that same tier next to them. In fact, in some ways I think it’s even more reflective of what superhero comics actually WERE at the time. Watchmen was an alternate history and Dark Knight was set in the future, but Squadron Supreme was in the here and now (or at least the now) and showed what the consequences in the modern world would be of having a superhero team that actually followed through on the logical fear that critics of the genre have about superheroes – what if they just decided to take over?

Hyperion comes off as much colder than Superman here. His ideals are similar, but the way he dismisses his human parents and the woman who apparently loved him (who I’m pretty sure never shows up again in this series, although it’s been some time since I read the entire thing) is very harsh. Even in the Silver Age, when Superman treated Clark Kent as a disposable disguise, even when he would put Lois Lane through ridiculous turmoil in order to “teach her a lesson,” it came from a place of genuinely wanting to make her better, with at least a token effort made to protect her feelings. Hyperion has no such concerns for Lonni, and in fact, shows far more emotion about the defection of Nighthawk, who even crafts a bullet out of Hyperion’s local equivalent of Kryptonite, but can’t bring himself to pull the trigger

This is a great look at a different type of world, and it’s one that would come back and be relevant to the Marvel Universe again many times and in many ways over the years. Plus, it’s just an excellent story.

It was a fun week, guys. I’ve taken a look at a lot of cool, interesting variations on the Superman theme, and I also read six issues of Supreme. But as great as many of these stories are and as interesting as the faux Supermen have been, I’m going to be happy tomorrow to get back to the original, because when you get right down to it, there’s nothing like the real thing.

The Iron Giant comes close, though. 

Blake M. Petit is a writer, teacher, and dad from Ama, Louisiana. His most recent writing project is the superhero adventure series Other People’s Heroes: Little Stars, volume one of which is now available on Amazon. You can subscribe to his newsletter by clicking right here. You can join in the Kryptonian Konversation every day in the Year of Superman Facebook Group!

Year of Superman Week Ten: The Reign Begins

blakemp Year of Superman , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Last week, I spent most of my Superman time reading the story of his death from 1992. This week we’re jumping ahead over that gap in publication to look into the story that brought him back. Get ready for “Reign of the Supermen,” friends! But first…

It’s gonna get CRAAAAAAAZYYYYYYY…

Wed., March 5

Comics: Adventures of Superman #500

Supposedly, you could peel off the top layer of this cover and remove Jonathan’s hand. I never tried it. I don’t know why the hell anybody would want to.

Notes: The return of Superman begins right where Superman #77 ended with Jonathan Kent lying in a hospital in cardiac arrest. I think back to 1993, when we had to wait about three months in the relative hours that passed between these issues. It truly seemed, at the time, that Jonathan had died of grief over the death of his son, and unlike Clark, we didn’t really feel certain that Jonathan would necessarily be coming back. I think that’s one of the things that still makes this issue so damned good.

Before I get too deep into this I need to make something clear – if you have never read the “Reign of the Supermen” story before, I’m going to be spoiling stuff left and right, beginning in this little recap of this issue. I’m assuming that anyone reading this blog is a hardcore Superman fan and already knows the story pretty well, but on the off-chance that you don’t, consider this your spoiler warning. I didn’t worry quite as much about spoilers when it came to the Death of Superman because…well, it’s right there in the title. But there are a few twists coming in the story of his return, so if you don’t know (for example) who the four people who stepped up to fill Superman’s shoes are, this is your warning to go read the entire story first before you come back here.

Okay, back to Adventures #500. The first half of the issue follows Jonathan into a near-death experience. In a strange realm somewhere between the living and the dead, Jonathan sees Clark being taken away by a contingent of Kryptonian spirits. He charges after his boy, uncovering the truth – the “Kryptonians” are minions of Clark’s old foe, the demon Blaze, and it’s up to Jonathan to convince “Kal-El” to turn around and come back to Earth.

I wonder if there was ever a temptation to have Superman fight this battle himself, do the sort of “power of will” ending that so many of his stories have had in the past. Certainly, it would have been adequate, but…this is better. Having him saved by Jonathan is just better. Showing the father risking everything to save his child is always something that’s going to tug on my heartstrings, and the fact that the child in question is Superman himself somehow makes it even better. “Oh, my son is the most powerful man in the world? Man of steel? Man of tomorrow? His symbol literally means ‘hope’? Shut up, hand me a shovel, and get out of my way.”

I love Jonathan in this book. 

The shovel, by the way, is a really nice callback to the last chapter of John Byrne’s Man of Steel, where Clark was mesmerized by a hologram of Jor-El and Jonathan broke him free by smashing it with a shovel. Here it’s not really Jor-El, but demon wearing his form, but the fact that Jonathan manages to summon a shovel out of the ether to save his boy just makes me want to jump up and cheer.

The main story ends with Lois and Inspector Henderson of the Metropolis PD going to Superman’s tomb to find that it empty, just in case the Christ allegory in the character wasn’t obvious enough. After that, though, we get into our first sightings of the four new characters who stepped up as the stars of the series for the next few months, and each of them has an introduction that is quite fitting for the person they would prove himself to be. John Henry Irons is first glimpsed pulling himself from rubble and proclaiming that he’s got to stop Doomsday – the hero inherent in him is already clear. The “Last Son of Krypton” first shows up dishing out a rather brutal brand of justice – the right intentions, but the wrong path. “The Kid” (who at this point had no name) is broken free from Cadmus by the Newsboy Legion and demonstrates the pigheadedness that defined his early years with a simple proclamation: “Don’t ever call me Superboy!” And finally, the Cyborg makes his first appearance in a wordless sequence in which he lands in front of the Daily Planet building and destroys the marker that designates the spot where Superman died, proclaiming simply “I’m back.” As the true villain of the piece, it’s a nice introduction. Would the real Superman necessarily destroy his memorial? Possibly…but a villain intent on destroying Superman’s good name would definitely do so.

I’m looking forward to reading the rest of this again, my friends. 

Thur., March 6

“One of these things is not like the others…”

Comics: Action Comics #687, Superman: The Man of Steel #22, Superman Vol. 2 #78, Adventures of Superman #501

Notes: The return storyline begins in earnest today. Like I said yesterday, I’m not going to bother to try to hide the reveals for these books, but at the same time, I’m also going to try to recreate the thought process we went through as readers when these books were still fresh, still coming out one week at a time (except for these first four issues, which were all released on the same day). The story begins with the “Last Son of Krypton,” who would eventually be revealed to be the Eradicator, being reconstituted in the Fortress of Solitude by the very robots that he built. Ever since he was supposedly destroyed back in Action Comics #667, the energy that made up his essence had been trapped in the walls of the Fortress, finally restored here. Roger Stern structures it in such a way, though, that it’s not immediately obvious that we’re looking at the Eradicator. It’s possible, or so it seemed at the time, that this energy-being who then went to retrieve Superman’s body, was actually Superman’s soul. He’s less compassionate than our Superman, less personal with Lois, but this too could have been an artifact of his encounter in the afterlife from Adventures #500. 

Man of Steel #22 gives us John Henry Irons’ first full appearance, and we first see him sitting on the stoop of an apartment building, telling kids the story of John Henry versus the machine. Again, subtlety was not a strong suit for these comics. Anyway, John – under the alias “Henry Johnson,” is horrified when a gang hit kills one of the neighborhood kids using a weapon he recognizes as a “Toastmaster,” something he designed in his previous life. He remembers how Superman once saved his life, and told him to “make it count,” inspiring him to make the Man of Steel armor to clean the streets of his weapons. I’ve made no secret of my love of John Henry, and how of the four Supermen, he was my favorite. I think it’s important to point out, though, that the idea of him being the “real” Superman wasn’t out of the question at the time. Although the other three all LOOKED like Superman, John Henry was the one who ACTED the most like Superman. What’s more, this first issue introduces us to John’s neighbor Rosie, the clairvoyant, who claims the Man of Steel is a “walk-in spirit,” the result of a soul whose body has been killed but who instead finds another body to inhabit. If that sounds ridiculous to you, keep in mind that this is part of a universe that includes Deadman and the Spectre. Although it didn’t turn out to be true, at the time the notion that Clark Kent’s spirit was somehow inside John Henry’s body was not something that we could safely rule out. 

In Superman #78, the Cyborg makes his big splash, breaking into Cadmus to take Doomsday’s body. In order to prevent Westfield from attempting to clone the creature, he brings it into space and chains it to an asteroid, drifting – seemingly – aimlessly. The Cyborg then encounters Lois, who insists he visit Professor Hamilton for study. To everyone’s shock, Hamilton’s tests reveal that the Cyborg’s metallic parts are indeed Kryptonian, and his body is genetically identical to Superman. He is, to all appearances, Superman brought bac to life. The truth is that Hank Henshaw, in a computer consciousness, stole the Kryptonian Matrix that brought Kal-El to Earth as an infant, giving him the material to build a convincing body. He was also clever in that the parts of his body that were replaced with metal corresponded pretty well to the areas that seemed to suffer the most damage during the battle with Doomsday. This was the Superman that I remember finding the most plausible in that first month, for the aforementioned reasons. There is, however, one other clue that convinced me pretty well that turned out to be a cheat: in his internal monologue, the Cyborg looks at Doomsday and thinks, “They didn’t bother to wash MY blood off you.” That particular possessive pronoun makes no sense for anybody to use except Superman, and was one of the strongest arguments – among readers – for the Cyborg’s claim to the throne. It still doesn’t make sense that the Cyborg would think that way. That’s a little bit of narrative cheating that bugs me to this day.

Last, we get Adventures of Superman #501, the introduction of the Metropolis Kid. The lad who would one day be Superboy comes to town saving joggers, fighting crime, and proving just how arrogant a super-powered 15-year-old would be. He’s upfront from the beginning, though, telling the world that he’s Superman’s clone, although this would later turn out to only be part of the story, and that story itself would change more than once before it settled on its current status quo. Of the four Supermen, this was the one that I never once thought could be “our” Superman brought back to life…however, that didn’t necessarily mean he wasn’t “real.” After all, if Rosie was right about John Henry’s body containing Superman’s soul, he would need somewhere to go, right? Some comic book science aging the Kid could have made a perfect vessel to contain it, had the story gone in that direction.

I’m remembering the fun of this storyline now. For the last 30 years, any time I’ve read these comics again it’s been with that perspective of knowing the ending. While I can’t throw that lens away, I’ve kinda rediscovered the way I looked at the stories at the time, trying to measure all the possibilities…and that’s a fun way to read these. 

Fri. March 7

The “telescope” is literally a giant horseshoe magnet. Trust me, this image is cooler.

Animated Short: The Magnetic Telescope (1942)

Notes: Unsure if I can get in any reading time today, I decided to squeeze in the next Fleischer short while I have a chance. In this one, a scientist (I’ll let you decide for yourself if there should be a “mad” in there) invents a telescope with an enormous magnet attached, with the intention of drawing celestial bodies closer to Earth for further examination. The problem with this, of course, is that he is DRAWING CELESTIAL BODIES CLOSER TO EARTH. It doesn’t help when the police shut down his machine, cutting off the power after he’s already pulled a comet towards Metropolis and robbing him of the ability to send it back. Superman, naturally, is going to have to get in there and save the day. The short is pretty standard, with the usual gorgeous animation and a story that is fairly predictable. The most interesting thing, I think, is the lack of common sense displayed not only by the scientist, but by Clark Kent, who is taking a TAXI to the observatory after Lois calls in to report the catastrophe. It isn’t until the cab gets stopped by falling meteor chunks that Clark decides to switch to his costume and fly there. Why is he wasting money on a cab in the first place? 

Sat. March 8

Comics: Superman: The Man of Steel Annual #2, Action Comics #688, Superman: The Man of Steel #23, Superman Vol. 2 #79, Adventures of Superman #502

It was the 90s, you see, there was nothing more important than “Edge.”

Notes: The tricky part of reading the “Reign of the Supermen” and related comics is going to be working in the annuals. As they don’t carry the “Triangle” numbers the way the regular issues do, I’m going to cycle them into the reading order as close as I can figure to when they were released, relative to the other comics, and that means I’ll be starting with Superman: The Man of Steel Annual #2. Now in 1993, DC’s summer annual event was a story called Bloodlines, in which a group of aliens came to Earth to feed on humans. Some of the humans they attacked, however, didn’t die, but instead had their metagene awakened, giving them superpowers. The result was that each annual this year introduced a new superhero or villain. Some of them were pretty cool, others were kind of lame, and the only one who had any real lasting impact was Hitman. Edge, for instance, the character that John Henry Irons meets in this issue, hasn’t made an appearance since 1995. It’s pretty tertiary to the ongoing story, with the biggest contribution being that it shows how the Man of Steel is becoming accepted in the neighborhood.

They’re fighting over who has the better hairstyle.

Moving back to the regular issues, we’d entered an interesting time. Although the Triangle Numbers and weekly serialization continued, each of the four would-be Supermen had their own plots and stories that lasted for the first couple of months of “Reign” before the Cyborg played his hand and tied the four titles together again for the rest of the run. In Action #688, for instance, we see a confrontation between the Eradicator and Guy Gardner. In a move that’s surprisingly touching, Gardner is outraged to see four people wearing Superman’s symbol, having gained a new respect for Superman following the Doomsday battle. Guy sets out to put a stop to them, but when he sees how brutal the Eradicator is with criminals, he decides that maybe this fellow IS the Superman Metropolis needs. Ah well, it was fun while it lasted. 

These two, on the other hand, are fighting over who has the goofier nickname on the cover.

Man of Steel #23 then gives us the first encounter between two of the would-be Supermen, Steel and Superboy. The kid makes a mistake that costs a Daily Planet helicopter pilot his life, and John Henry takes him to task for it, but considering that the weapon that dealt the killing blow was of his design, he grows into being more understanding. This is also the issue in which he meets Lois, who feels the same way about John as I always have – this is the only one of the pretenders who seems to have Clark’s spirit. In retrospect, I wonder if Lois’s endorsement was the reason I gravitated so strongly to John Henry, not only then, but in all the years since as well.

Schwarzenegger briefly considered copying this image for his Gubernatorial posters, but decided it was too low-key.

Superman #79 is told through a newspaper column written by Ron Troupe, who is trying to show himself worthy of replacing the (believed to be dead) Clark Kent at the Daily Planet. Perry White challenges him to bring in a story so big that he proves he deserves the job, and it’s hard to argue the SCALE of the story he brings in. Troupe lucks into being on the scene as the Cyborg thwarts a presidential assassination attempt, and in the process, uses a genetic scanner that seems to confirm that he is, in fact, the true Superman. There are two things about this issue that stick with me. First, although I don’t think I realized it at the time, it’s impressive how Dan Jurgens worked so hard to stay away from delving into the Cyborg’s life when he wasn’t in front of the public, and avoided giving us a glimpse into his thoughts (after that misstep in the previous issue). The other thing that stands out to me is that so many, so SO many comic book writers don’t have the slightest idea what a news article is supposed to read like. Even if I accept Ron’s writing as a column rather than a proper news article, the fact that he himself uses the genetic scanner on Superman makes the whole thing a gargantuan conflict of interests. I recognize the irony here, as Clark obviously made his career by writing about himself, but at least he tried to HIDE it. 

All we need is Krypto! (Actually, there’s a version of him in this issue.)

Rounding out month two of “Reign,” in Adventures of Superman #502, Lex Luthor tries to lure Superboy away from WGBS by having Supergirl prance around in front of him in a slinky dress. I wish I was making that part up. But the kid sticks with WGBS when Vinnie Edge presents him with a new manager who also happens to have a teenage daughter…all while the kid is crushing on WGBS reporter Tana Moon. It’s odd, when these books came out I was roughly the same age as the kid is mentally, and I don’t remember being bothered by just how openly he’s manipulated through sex appeal. I suppose it’s the perspective of maturity, or whatever the hell you call it when you apply that particular characteristic to me. This issue is also the first in the “Reign” era to end on a cliffhanger, as Edge hires a villain called Stinger to attack the kid, and winds up blowing up a bridge, leaving Superboy and Supergirl shocked and unable to do anything because they’re out of pages! Man, I hope they figure out a way out of this in Action #689.

Sun., March 9

Comics: Superman Annual #5, Action Comics #689, Superman: The Man of Steel #24

“Myriad!” is Latin for “character who has made one appearance in the last 30 years.”

Notes: We’ve got another Bloodlines crossover for you this time. Unusually for this particular crossover, though, it actually picks up on threads from the ongoing comic book. Back in issue Superman #77, Lex Luthor murdered his martial arts instructor, partially because she embarrassed him in training, but mostly to prove he could still get away with it now that Superman was dead. In Superman Annual #5, one of the aliens gobbling up people left and right finds her discarded body in a landfill and makes her into a quick snack, inadvertently activating her metagene and resurrecting her. She wakes up with no memory of her life, but soon finds she can absorb the memories and personality of anyone she comes into contact with, and even control them. She clashes with Luthor and the Cyborg (which I suppose is appropriate, as it was technically his book at the time) before absorbing the memory and personality of one of Luthor’s assassins and vanishes. Myriad’s future, after the Bloodlines crossover, wasn’t much better than Edge. She popped up in an issue of Action Comics a few months later, then – as far as I can tell – nothing until a surprise appearance in a Batman one-shot, Legends of Gotham, in 2023. But you know, I’ve often believed that even the least-interesting characters can be made fascinating if you give them to the right writer and put them into the right story. Who knows? Maybe Myriad could have a comeback some day. At the very least, the next two newbies we’re going to meet stuck around a little bit longer than the first two.

This is exactly the way my brother watches March Madness.

Action Comics #689 picks up immediately after Adventures #502, and this is the point where the four books begin to really intertwine again. As Superboy and Supergirl rescue the victims of the bridge collapse, in the Fortress of Solitude a man crawls from the machinery that has been recharging him. At the time, it was intended to appear as though this was the Last Son of Krypton (aka the Eradicator) having rested up, but in retrospect, this was the issue where the real Superman actually came back, although we wouldn’t know it for some time. The Eradicator had taken his body from the tomb and was using it as a sort of power source in the Fortress, but in so doing, the machinery resurrected him, a process which – at the end of the storyline – they made damn sure to insist would never work again. Except that they kinda did it again years later when Superboy died. Ah well, who’s counting? Anyway, also in this issue we see Steel face off with the Eradicator over the latter’s more lethal techniques, something Steel vehemently opposes, once more proving that if any of these four EVER had a claim to the S-shield, it was John Henry Irons. Oh yeah, and Mongul is guiding a vast warship through outer space on a trajectory to Earth in order to exact his revenge on Superman. That couldn’t possibly be bad, though, right? 

They were REALLY trying hard to make “Iron John” stick, weren’t they?

Man of Steel #24 follows this up as Steel and the Eradicator’s fight brings them to Coast City, California. Steel tries to convince the Kryptonian that his brutality is unbecoming of a Superman and, surprisingly, the Eradicator actually takes his words to heart. He promises to leave Metropolis to Steel, while he tackles injustice out on the west coast, a decision that would prove to be really, really unfortunate for an awful lot of people. The rest of the issue is concerned with John’s return to Metropolis and a battle with the White Rabbit, the source of the Toastmaster weapons plaguing the city and who also happens to be John’s ex. This issue – as well as most of the “Reign” issues – also briefly checks in with Lois, who is still struggling with Clark’s loss. As much as I like this storyline, I don’t care for how little of Lois we see. I get it – they need to tell the story of the four wannabes and, frankly, there isn’t too much to DO with Lois other than show her skepticism. Still, she’s as important to these books as Clark himself, and when she only shows up on two or three pages in an issue, I miss her. 

Mon., March 10

Comics: Action Comics Annual #5, Superman Vol. 2 #80, Adventures of Superman #503

Notes: I’m going to break with my effort to read the annuals in release order because I realized that, after this point, the Eradicator (at least in this form) doesn’t return to Metropolis for the remainder of the “Reign of the Supermen” storyline, however his Bloodlines annual is set in Metropolis, so even though it came out after, it must take place BEFORE the issues I’ve already read. Being a nerd is fun. 

Note: nothing even remotely like this happens in the issue.

Anyway, Action Comics Annual #5 introduces us to Loose Cannon. Eddie Walker is a former Metropolis Special Crimes Unit officer whose reckless behavior (they always called him a “Loose Cannon” – GET IT???) leaves him partially crippled in an encounter with a metahuman perp. Maggie Sawyer calls him back into service to investigate the murders that are being carried out by the alien visitors , and he winds up becoming their next victim. Now, by night, he turns into a seven foot tall bruiser with blue skin that changes to different colors depending on his mood, because they had to make him at least a LITTLE different than the Hulk. He and the Eradicator throw down with the aliens, but they escape because the crossover was only halfway finished at this point. Loose Cannon fared slightly better than previous two “new bloods” we’ve read about, getting his own miniseries and sporadic appearances in the years since, but he’s never gonna be an A-lister. Not that this really sets him apart from the rest of the Bloodlines characters. 

That Newstime ad I mentioned last week seems more prophetic now, doesn’t it?

Superman #80 is where “Reign” REALLY takes a turn. Mongul’s warship arrives on Earth and heads to Green Lantern’s home of Coast City, which is conveniently where the Last Son of Krypton is currently operating. The Cyborg sweeps in to “investigate,” and riiiiight up until this point, you might still be thinking he’s the real Superman. Right up until the page where he blasts the Eradicator in the back and tells him, “You’ll be blamed for the deaths of millions.”

Oh. So HE’S the bad guy. 

Three pages later, Mongul’s ship detonates 77,000 individual explosive devices, annihilating Coast City and murdering the seven million people who call it home.

I cannot stress this enough, the Cyborg really IS the bad guy.

The explosion reduces the Eradicator to his energy form and he retreats to the Fortress of Solitude, where again we get one of those fake-out scenes of “someone” piloting a Kryptonian mech, implied to be the Eradicator, but whom we who have read this story before know is our boy Clark. The issue ends with a wonderfully ominous page of Mongul kissing the Cyborg’s hand as he declares that Metropolis is his next target. 

This issue was probably a bigger shocker back in the day than the actual death of Superman was. I mean, we all knew that Superman was going to die. It was on the NEWS. But nobody leaked word that Coast City – home of Hal Jordan and one of the more established fictional cities in the DCU after Metropolis and Gotham – was going to be wiped off the map. This wasn’t just something huge for the Superman books, it was going to have radical consequences for Green Lantern, which in turn would have consequences for the Justice League titles, Guy Gardner’s book, Flash…it was the beginning of a domino chain that reverberated for years. Even now, looking at the current status quo of the Green Lantern corner of the DC Universe, where Parallax is an entity that powers the Yellow Lanterns and each color has its own such entity…this is the book that led to the stories that led to that particular status quo years later. You have to wonder if, in that Superman retreat where the writers were trying to figure out what to do since Warner Bros made them delay the wedding of Lois and Clark because of the Dean Cain/Teri Hatcher TV show, they had any inkling of just how big the consequences of someone joking “Let’s just kill him!” would be. 

Cyborg is really just envious of the leather jacket.

The Cyborg’s plot continues in Adventures of Superman #503. Having taken care of the Last Son of Krypton, he requests that Superboy be sent to the remains of Coast City to “assist” him, really planning to eliminate another of his rivals. He takes the Kid down fairly quickly, but not before making a grave mistake – talking about having powers like the Kid “when I was your age” on the WGBS news feed. Back in Metropolis, Lois hears this and knows for certain he’s an imposter – in this continuity, Clark’s powers hadn’t fully developed yet when he was 15. The real Superman, meanwhile, stumbles from the Fortress in his Kryptonian mech and begins the march back to civilization, and the Kid shows the first glimpse of the power that will later be called “tactile telekinesis,” further evidence that he is NOT – as Paul Westfield at Cadmus claimed – simply a clone of Superman. Without belaboring the point, because I don’t think it actually is clarified until after the “Reign” story ends, we eventually learn that Cadmus couldn’t totally crack Superman’s genetic code, so they manipulated a clone to LOOK like him and used what information they COULD get to give him similar – but different – powers. Years later Geoff Johns came in and further retconned the origins to its current status quo: Superboy is a clone whose DNA is a mix of Superman and Lex Luthor. But they co-parent like champs.  

Tues., March 11

TV Episode: Justice League Unlimited Season 2, Episode 3: “The Doomsday Sanction”

“Okay, tell me when this starts to hurt…”

Notes: I didn’t have any reading time today, guys, and by the time I finally had a chance to sit down I was kind of exhausted. As much as I love reading, sometimes your brain just isn’t in that place, you know? So instead, I decided to dip into the excellent Justice League Unlimited cartoon to check out an episode centering around our old pal Doomsday.

Written by the late, great Dwayne McDuffie, this episode starts with Batman popping into Amanda Waller’s shower in a hell of a power move, confronting her over her activities with Project: Cadmus, which in the DCAU is a project dedicated to creating weapons capable of defeating the Justice League, including clones. One of the Cadmus doctors, Dr. Milo, is told his research is going to be defunded. Angry at being cut off, he goes to the cell where Doomsday is being held and tells the creature that he is an altered clone of Superman who was trained to hate the Man of Steel by Waller and Emil Hamilton, and it’s the two of them who should be his REAL target. Doomsday doesn’t care WHY he hates Superman, though, just that he does, and after dispatching Dr. Milo, he sets out, confronting Superman on a volcanic island the League is trying to evacuate. As the battle rages, Cadmus’s General Eiling sends a missile with a Kryptonite warhead to destroy both Superman AND Doomsday, not caring what it will do to the inhabitants of the island where the battle takes place…an attack that even Waller realizes is going too far. Batman stops the missiles while still over open ocean and Superman stops Doomsday by chucking him into the volcano. The League takes Doomsday into custody, and Superman exiles him to the Phantom Zone. That action doesn’t sit right with the recovering Batman, though, causing him to fear that maybe Cadmus has a point.

This was such a fantastic series. McDuffie’s handling of the characters was amazing, and the way he and the other writers pieced together all the different nuggets of the different DC heroes into a cohesive whole that made sense for this universe is nothing short of astonishing. They never did a real “adaptation” of the Death of Superman storyline, but they found interesting uses for Doomsday nonetheless. It’s a very different TYPE of Doomsday, I must say. He’s not a mindless beast – he’s intelligent and at least relatively verbose, able to exchange taunts with Superman and tell him he’ll live to regret exiling him before they send him off to the Zone. He is also clearly far less powerful than the Doomsday from the comics. Superman’s fight with him wasn’t EASY, don’t get me wrong, but considering that the only way he could be stopped in the comics was by the two of them killing each other, the fact that a mere volcanic eruption seems a little less impressive. Even more so the fact that he is held prisoner – both by Cadmus and by the League – with relatively little difficulty…this is a different Doomsday than the one who kills Superman in the comics. But for this world, for this universe, for a Saturday morning Cartoon Network series that was ostensibly aimed at children, it’s not a bad fit at all. 

If there’s one thing I don’t like about this episode – this series as a whole, to be honest – it’s placing Emil Hamilton on the side of Waller’s Cadmus mad scientists. Hamilton is one of those characters from “my” Superman era – the good-hearted and sometimes absentminded scientist who, after making one mistake which Superman stopped before it could go TOO far, turned into one of Superman’s greatest allies. In the comics they eventually gave him a heel turn as well, and that’s something that has never sat right with me in all the years since. It’s been well over a decade since he’s made more than a token appearance anywhere, and honestly, I’m not even sure what his status even is anymore, vis-a-vis his relationship to Superman, after all the years of reboots both hard and soft. But they always say that comics are cyclical – it’s probably only a matter of time before somebody who loves Emil Hamilton the way I do steps into the shoes of writing Superman and finds a way to rehabilitate him and bring him back. At least, I sincerely hope so.

The Reign continues next time, friends!

Blake M. Petit is a writer, teacher, and dad from Ama, Louisiana. His most recent writing project is the superhero adventure series Other People’s Heroes: Little Stars, volume one of which is now available on Amazon. You can subscribe to his newsletter by clicking right here. You can join in the Kryptonian Konversation every day in the Year of Superman Facebook Group!