Superman #72 (October 1992)
Superman vs. domestic abuse: round two! The previous week in Man of Steel #16, Superman tried to help a neighbor of Clark Kent who was being beaten by her husband, but she actually sided with her abuser and told Supes to get lost. This makes Superman nostalgic for the time, years ago, when he threw another wife-beater out of a window to scare him. In this issue we find out the rest of that depressing story: it turns out Superman’s intervention inspired that abused wife to try to leave her husband… who prevented that by murdering her.
Back then, Superman spent several days looking for that guy (instead of eating or sleeping or shaving) and when he finally caught him, the killer actually blamed Superman for not killing him before he could kill his wife. As a result, Superman has decided not to intervene in the current wife-beating drama unless his neighbor Andrea wants him to get involved. Lois Lane, on the other hand, has no patience for bullshit and just goes up to the neighbors’ apartment to tell the wife-puncher he sucks.
At this point, Andrea finally asks for help, causing Clark to go into “Heeeere’s Johnny” (but for good) mode.
“Hey, I’m beating my wife here! Where are your manners?!”
As Clark persuades the husband to go away, Lois stays with Andrea and gives her the number of a women’s shelter where she can stay if she wants to end her marriage. In the end, this is up to Andrea herself, so all Lois can do is hope she’ll make the right decision… or she can spy on her through a radio. That works, too.
Later, Superman finds Andrea’s husband about to jump off a bridge (it’s bridge-jumping season in Metropolis, apparently). The two have a talk and the man ends up admitting he has a problem and needs help, too. The issue ends with a reinvigorated Superman flying off with the man, presumably to get him the help he needs and not to drop him from a great distance. You’re a terrible person for even thinking that.
Is this the tragic origin of Superman’s beard? I can’t think of an earlier story (chronologically) that features it. What’s clear by now is that the beard mostly emerges when Superman is distraught, such as when he auto-exiled himself to space, or when he went to Hell, or when he auto-exiled himself to space again.
Hey, that long hair looks pretty good, too. He should consider keeping it.
The flashback sequence also includes Clark’s first meeting with Inspector Henderson, who, according to the keen celebrity-lookalike-spotting eye of our pal Don Sparrow, “looks for all the world like Robert Loggia as Mancuso.” (Scroll up and compare for yourself.) And just to make it 100% clear that this part of the comic takes place many years ago, at one point Clark rides a cab and guess how much it costs. Go on, guess.
Another important milestone: I believe this is the first time since Superman #1 that we see Clark Kent and Lois Lane going jogging together. In the same scene we find out that Superman apparently regards Toyman as being as big of a threat as Lex Luthor and Brainiac, which, okay, sure.
But wait, there’s more! Join Don Sparrow in his section for all the stuff I missed or was too lazy to comment on:
