"THE FALL OF METROPOLIS," Finale! The final (for now) battle between Superman and Lex Luthor! Wait, isn't Luthor practically a vegetable now? Is this just 22 pages of Superman beating up a cripple? No, it's actually a fair fight because Lex is back to his old Pre-Crisis habit of wearing purple robot armors (I guess they're traditionally more green than purple, but still).
As seen last issue, Lex's paralyzed body is being taken to S.T.A.R. Labs in an ambulance so they can administer the cure to the Clone Plague that left him in this state, but he's got other priorities: mainly, punching Superman. Following Lex's programming, a Kryptonian Battle Suit (the same one that Superman just sorta left laying around in Metropolis during "Reign of the Supermen") comes to retrieve him, trashing that poor ambulance in the process.
Now able to see and hear again thanks to the armor's sensors, Lex witnesses the destruction in Metropolis for the first time and is like "I can't believe I accidentally destroyed the city I love... anyway, let's destroy it some more!" More specifically, he wants to destroy the statue of Superman that stands atop what was once his tomb.
Superman comes to stop Lex from causing even more property damage (and prevent him from showing what's inside the tomb and spoiling a storyline that isn't supposed to start yet...). Superman evades the armor's punches and missiles, but Lex is able to club him with the statue itself -- which you already saw on the cover, but I'm showing it to you again because it's such a cool image.
Lex tries stepping on Superman and burning him with ignited rocket fuel (so hot that it turns the armor's hand into a stump), but Superman is Superman, so he ends up ripping the suit open, taking Luthor out... and flying him to S.T.A.R. so they can give him the cure. Because, again, he's Superman. But, unlike Superboy and other Clone Plague victims, Lex doesn't simply go back to normal after getting the cure: he's still paralyzed, probably because his clone body was "grown more quickly" than the others (he should sue that Dabney Donovan fellow for his shoddy rush job).
Of course, Lex blames Superman for the results of his own dumbass choices and swears that one day he'll make him pay...
...but, for now, he better get comfy in that bed, because he's gonna be there for a good while. THE END!
Plotline-Watch:
That closes the actual "Fall of Metropolis" storyline, but Metropolis will remain fallen for a little while longer.
This is also the end of the Clone Plague storyline, since Lex was the last surviving clone to get the cure. If you're wondering what happened to the Underworlders: at S.T.A.R., Dr. Kitty Faulkner says they all "seem to have perished." Damn, even the babies? That's brutal. Considering they never appeared again except in flashbacks, Kitty is probably right, but I prefer to believe they simply retreated even deeper underground and never had to deal with the surface world's bullshit ever again.
Lex wearing a green/purple armor finally fulfills the tease seen on the first page of 1986's The Man of Steel #5, when we're made to think a random goon in a proto-Lex-Men suit is Lex. Then we see businessman Lex himself and it's like "Ha! You thought this Lex Luthor would ever be caught dead inside something so corny? Dream on, nerds!"
This issue is written by Karl Kesel (plot) and Louise Simonson (dialogue) since Roger Stern left in Action #700 and the new guy hasn't arrived yet. Speaking of Stern, that blurb at the end saying that hopefully both he and Lex will return one day is exactly what's gonna happen, but it won't be in Action or any of the existing Super-Titles...
Shout Outs-Watch:
Awesome Kryptonian Battle Robot-sized shout outs to our supporters, Aaron, Chris “Ace” Hendrix, britneyspearsatemyshorts, Patrick D. Ryall, Bheki Latha, Mark Syp, Ryan Bush, Raphael Fischer, Kit, Sam, Bol, and Dave Shevlin! Join them (and get extra articles) via Patreon or our newsletter’s “pay what you want” mode!
And now, keep reading for the great Don Sparrow's take on this issue, Roger Stern's run in general, and what does Clone Lex have between his legs...?
Art-Watch (by @donsparrow):
We start with the cover, and it’s appropriate for a title like Action—Superman’s Kryptonian warsuit duking it out with the Man of Steel at his own memorial. Great sense of motion from the rubble flying off, without motion lines, which is a real feat. It also reveals that the Superman statue in Metropolis Memorial Park is in fact stone or concrete. This whole time I was imagining it was bronze (we don’t have many stone sculptures in my neck of the woods in Northern Canada, as they tend to crack with the wild temperature differentials).
Inside we’re treated to back to back splash pages to open the story, both with a great look at the rogue warsuit in action. The image of the suit plucking a stark naked Lex Luthor is a pretty memorable one. And if you’re a fan of nude Lex, this issue doesn’t disappoint. I hesitate to even mention such a thing, but is this is the first canonical appearance of Luthor’s pubic hair? Moving on…
[Max: I always took that as a shadow. That panel did make me wonder if Lex's clone body had everything, or if perhaps he asked Dabney Donovan to forget certain parts and just focus on making sure his pecs and abs remain rock hard even if a plague turns him into an old person.]
The image of Superman flying in to combat the Lex-driven warsuit is an all-timer, and would have made a great sticker.
The battle in this issue is reminiscent of the "Doomsday" storyline, in that we’re treated to super-sized panels, with only one or two images per page. This is a treat, as the artwork really gets to breathe, but it has the unfortunate effect of making the issue a pretty quick read, as there’s a lot less text than in a normal issue. It also makes my job of picking the standout panels a little harder, as they’re all pretty stunning throughout the book. The image of a raging Superman, having just thrown some missiles back at Lex is a good one, and very en vogue in this era, the peak of Image Comics grim & gritty style. The image of the warsuit brought to one knee was another standout, as I really appreciate the difference in textures, the sold lugubrious brushline on the warsuit denoting its shininess, against the greasepencil looking streaks in the sky illustrating tendrils of smoke.
We get another intense Superman image on page 19, where Superman marches out of the flame undaunted (visually recalling the utterly badass house ad for the Super titles in 1990). One of the final images we see is Superman carrying the limp, near-dead body of Luthor into flight. Again, I think decency dictated this pose—surely carrying him in both arms, pieta style would have been safer for the passenger, but then we’d get an eyeful. Is there a reason Lex couldn’t just be wearing underwear throughout? [Max: Lex hates Superman so much that he refuses to wear undies on the inside OR the outside.]
SPEEDING BULLETS:
Well, at least Superman also acknowledged that leaving the warsuit on the docks was stupid.
This issue seems to reveal that Kryptonian metal isn’t all that much more durable than regular metal, as Superman shatters the leg of the warsuit pretty easily. In the silver age, it was unscientifically explained that Kryptonian metal was also super-charged by Earth’s yellow sun and lessened gravity, making it way stronger than conventional metal.
It’s a rare thing that a cover image comes to pass but we really do see Lex knocking Superman through his own memorial in a great splash on pages 10-11.
For such a knock-down drag out fight, taking the suit apart seems pretty easily for Superman on page 20—the very next panel, Lex is out of the suit, and in Superman’s arms.
A side by side comparison reveals that they really did redraw Lex on the last panel, despite similarities to how he is shown on page 12.
We are left with a small farewell caption to the great Roger Stern, with a hint that he—and Lex—could return to the super-books in the future. “When we least expect it” would prove to be a little over a year later, but we’ll drive off that bridge when we come to it. Perhaps because he’s not a writer/artist like John Byrne, Dan Jurgens or Jerry Ordway, it took a little while for me to recognize Stern’s greatness on these books. But his Action Comics title consistently had some of the very best characterization and consistency in all these stories. So many of my favourite moments (Lois finding out Superman’s secret identity, Batman getting Luthor’s Kryptonite ring, the return of Amanda McCoy, the introduction of Maxima) were all Stern scripts, and that’s saying something. While in retrospect, I don’t love Supergirl being a protoplasmic synthetic entity, or Lex Jr. being a secret Aussie clone of Lex Sr. (storylines that mainly featured in Action) those were interesting options for their time, and certainly don’t stand in the way of Stern being among the all-time greats when it comes to Superman writers. And, from my own weird personal point of view, much of the spiritual stuff I’ve collected over the years in our now-famous Godwatch feature has come from Stern. So, God bless you, Roger Stern!
In an interesting sidenote that has no better place than here to mention—were you aware that in the Law and Order franchise, there have been dozens of characters with the last name Stern, which originated as a shout-out to Roger Stern from fellow comics writer turned Law and Order writer Gerry Conway (creator of no less than Firestorm, Power Girl and Killer Croc)? There’s even a particularly creepy episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent where a perp has that exact name. Conway also frequently used Hudson University in his episodes, which comics fans know is the alma mater of one Dick Grayson—which essentially means Law and Order is set in the DC Universe. Cha-chunk! [Max: Wait, does that mean all of the DC Universe takes place inside some kid's snow globe?]
"THE FALL OF METROPOLIS," Part 4! Metropolis is invaded by aliens! And werewolves! And Nazis! And Lois Lane dies! And Professor Hamilton loses a limb! Only one of these things ends up being true by the time the issue is over.
Metropolis is still in ruins after the explosive events of Action #700 (it's not like they can magically fix it from one issue to the next, right?) and on top of that, the city is now covered in so much fog that it's giving me Superman 64 flashbacks. But this is no regular fog: when some armed preppers walk through it, one of them suddenly hallucinates that his friends are alien invaders and kills them in a panic. Elsewhere, three soldiers are affected by the fog and start seeing everyone around them as "commies," the Viet Cong (so "commies" again), and werewolves (communist ones, presumably).
Superman stops a soldier from shooting a rabbi/imaginary werewolf, but the soldier sees him as a vampire while the rabbi thinks Superman is a Nazi (both solid Elseworlds premises).
While trying to contain all the people tripping balls around Metropolis, Superman runs into Lois, who's just chilling in the middle of the ruins. Just as Superman comments that he seems to be immune to whatever is making people hallucinate their worst fears, that trigger-happy prepper from before appears and shoots at them, thinking they're aliens (well, he's half right).
Superman just lets the bullets bounce off his chest... not noticing that one bounced in Lois' direction, fatally injuring her. NEXT: Reign of the Lois Lanes?!
Making matters worse, Ma and Pa Kent happen to stroll by, having seemingly traveled to war-torn Metropolis just to tell their son what a disappointment he is. Then Lex Luthor shows up too, with his luscious red locks inexplicably restored, and tells Superman none of this would have happened if he hadn't stolen Lois and Metropolis from him. Lex finally concedes that Metropolis is "Superman's city," but only because, as Superman just noticed, the city is full of nothing but corpses now.
Meanwhile, Professor Hamilton is having a tough time too: a prostitute has just shot him in the arm because she hallucinated that Hambone was her abusive pimp. Hamilton is rescued by a white-haired young lady who smacks the prostitute with a plank of wood. Ham and the girl jump into his car to escape the crazed crowd around them, but then he hallucinates his worst fear: not being able to operate a vehicle because the controls are too complicated.
"Also, I'm naked!"
The girl jump-starts the car's engine and they speed away from the crowd -- only to realize that being in a speeding car with someone who's hallucinating at the wheel isn't such a brilliant idea. They end up driving the car off a pier, and right before they do, we see that Ham happened to have a box full of something called "synthetic enzymes" on his back seat...
Back to Superman, he angrily flies into the sky with Luthor, who morphs into his old school bald self and goads Superman into killing him. Superman refuses to give in to hatred and delivers a speech about rebuilding a better, Lex-free Metropolis, causing Luthor to fade away, as does Lois' corpse. Right then, Hamilton and the white-haired girl come to tell Superman that they've figured out how to stop the hallucinations: no, not "facing and overcoming your deepest fears," but simply spreading that convenient "synthetic enzyme" throughout the city to negate the fog's effect.
(This is why I never leave the house without synthetic enzymes in my car since reading this issue.)
Superman makes the enzyme rain down over Metropolis and everything goes back to normal... except for Professor Hamilton who, to quote Arrested Development, is now "all right," because he lost his left arm. Superman and Hamilton figure out that the crazy fog was another one of Luthor's "fail-safes" in case he was ever defeated, like the killer robots that have been attacking Metropolis over the past weeks (Man of Steel #35 and Superman #91).
But there's still one fail-safe left, and it's a big one...
TO BE CONCLUDED!
Creator-Watch:
This month's issue of Adventures is guest-drawn by Peter Krause, who coincidentally also guest-drew Adventures and Superman exactly two years ago during the Agent Liberty two-parter. We'll see a little more Krause in the near future via another Adventures issue and the Metropolis S.C.U. miniseries… and maybe a LOT more in the not-so-near future if our plans to cover his Power of Shazam! ongoing series with Jerry Ordway in our newsletter come into fruition. (Don is a big fan and I've always been curious about it because 1) it's Ordway and 2) José "Gangbuster" Delgado is in it.)
Plotline-Watch:
The loss of Professor Hamilton's arm will be the longest-lasting consequence of Metropolis' destruction. (It will also be used to turn him into a villain after this era, but we won't be covering those issues and I'm glad.) I like that good ol' Ham is so absent-minded that he seems to have forgotten about his missing arm like five minutes after they amputated it. He also forgot that his hair is supposed to be grey, apparently.
There's a dark irony to Hamilton losing a limb after being shot by a prostitute, considering that Adventures #425, his second appearance, was about him kidnapping a "strumpet" at gunpoint out of desperation after Luthor stole his invention. He did his time and got his shit together after that, though.
Yes, Luthor's final fail-safe is the Awesome Kryptonian Battle Robot, which was built in ancient Krypton, sent to the Phantom Zone, ended up in the Fortress of Solitude (where Professor Hamilton used it to play tag with robots), and was most recently used by the powerless, recently resuscitated Superman to walk from Antactica to Metropolis during "Reign of the Supermen." I guess Superman sorta lost track of it after that, but to be fair he did have a lot on his mind at that point.
At S.T.A.R. Labs, Dr. Kitty "Rampage" Faulkner tells Superman that right before Project Cadmus was destroyed (as far everyone knows, anyway), they used some fantastic sci-fi technology called a "modem" to send S.T.A.R. their info on the cure to the Clone Plague. Despite Luthor being a dick in and out of Superman's hallucinations, Superman still makes sure he's delivered to S.T.A.R. at the end of the issue so they can apply the cure (though we already know he won't stay there for long).
"Mardis" up there is Dr. Jean Louis Mardis from the recent S.T.A.R. Corps miniseries, who is somehow still employed by S.T.A.R. despite trying to pass off alien tech as his own inventions, accidentally turning a bunch of regular people into superpowered freaks and nearly causing an AI to conquer the world. S.T.A.R., which has also employed Hamilton in the recent past, seems to be big on second opportunities.
As far as I can tell, that white-haired young lady who has a weird amount of protagonism in this issue Never Showed Up Again. [EDIT: k9feline reminded me in the comments that she DOES show up again, with her rock band! Shame on me.] Given the color of her hair, her surprising skill with machines, and the fact that she keeps calling Professor Hamilton "pops," I'm gonna assume she's supposed to be his secret lovechild (with a prostitute?).
Big Belly Burger sighting! "Eat 'em!"
Shout Outs-Watch:
Big belly shout outs to our supporters, Aaron, Chris “Ace” Hendrix, britneyspearsatemyshorts, Patrick D. Ryall, Bheki Latha, Mark Syp, Ryan Bush, Raphael Fischer, Kit, Sam, Bol, and Dave Shevlin! Join them (and get extra articles) via Patreon or our newsletter's "pay what you want" mode!
And now, stick around for The Don Sparrow Show:
Art-Watch (by @donsparrow):
We open with the cover, and it’s a pretty affecting one, a pieta style pose with a massive Superman mourning an apparently grievously injured Lois Lane. Very emotional, and pretty restrained, in terms of '90s-excesses—in the hands of a lesser artist, the idea of Lois’ tattered clothes would be treated as titillating rather than sorrowful, so it’s an effective choice that Barry Kitson makes here.
The cover is all the Kitson we get, as the interiors are handled by Pete Krause, a terrific artist, and soon-to-be companion of Jerry Ordway on the excellent Power of Shazam! series. Though I think his sharpest work is ahead of him, his pencils are solid throughout this issue, an interesting middle ground between the shadowy slickness of someone like Stuart Immonen (indeed, I don’t remember Krause ever looking so much like Immonen), and the pure linework of someone like Tom Grummett. The shot of Superman rescuing the old man is a great one. Our introduction to Lois Lane in the story is also a cute panel, as Superman greets her with a (fairly wide) open mouth kiss.
The image of Professor Hamilton getting shot in the arm is something of a mixed bag—the expression of pain is great, but it also doesn’t actually show him getting shot (the drawing appears to indicate that he was only grazed by the bullet) but we later learn that the injury is so severe his arm must be amputated. [Max: I also got the impression that the injury wasn't so severe, but the girl does mention that Ham spent "hours" looking for Superman without getting medical attention, so that didn't help.]
The smoke is well used as a framing device for the dream sequences, as both the cause of the hallucinations, and a good way of demonstrating the dream like quality that feverish fantasy lends. The panel of a majestic Lex II is particularly well done.
The best panel in the book might be on page 16, where an enraged Superman flies Lex II up up and away, and Lex’s roses fall to Earth, giving a real sense of height and motion.
The pages where Superman puts Hamilton’s cure into action are great, as Superman soars into action, and creates a water spout to deliver the cure.
Finally, I always love seeing the Mignola-designed Kryptonian battle suit in action, and it’s an efficient piece of storytelling that Lex picked it up when it was just abandoned on the harbour in the "Reign of the Superman" storyline.
I’m not generally a fan of dream sequences as I often find them to be indulgent writing, and also inconsequential plotting—they rarely mean anything more than actual dreams do. But this issue on the whole wasn’t as frustrating as some fever dream issues can be, as Karl Kesel deftly uses Superman’s nightmarish doubts to fuel action that did matter to the plot.
SPEEDING BULLETS:
Though the film is decades away, the alien infected soldiers from Jeff Scully’s chemically induced reverie look for all the world like the Orcs from the unrelentingly terribly 2017 movie from future terrible Superman writer Max Landis, Bright.
I can’t remember a time when a one-off character got so many name mentions as Jeff Scully, who gets identified no fewer than three times in the book. I wonder if it was a buddy of Karl Kesel’s perhaps. [Max: Since he's obsessed with aliens, I always took it as a little X-Files shout out.]
Then on the other end of the spectrum, we’re introduced to the lady in the headband who pulls a Thelma and Louise off a pier with Professor Hamilton, but in spite of having pages of dialogue, is never given a name, that I can find.
The “baker to alpha” soldier is a dead ringer for Pork Chop Hill era Gregory Peck, in my estimation.
I’m not entirely sure who I’d cast as Emil Hamilton, but in the final pages of this story, he looks a lot like Awakenings era Robin Williams to me.
I had forgotten exactly how Hamilton lost his arm, I just remember that he suddenly had a robot arm. It’s a bit odd that a high tech character like him loses his arm to plain old gunfire.
Am I alone in being confused why the toxin was able to affect Superman’s super-efficient system? Though he needs to breathe, traditionally, he’d never show much vulnerability to gases in past stories. [Max: I guess it's possible that Lex intentionally designed it to be strong enough to affect Superman, and the military rejected it when they were like "uh, why does the budget include a $100 million 'Kryptonian respiratory system research' item...?"]
GODWATCH: A very overt reference to the almighty from our Holocaust survivor elderly man, thanking both God and Superman for dispelling the fear toxin—complete with a literal and symbolic rainbow after the storm.
One wonders if Lex’s weaponized fear toxin was in any way based off of Batman villain Scarecrow’s concoction. Seems like a missed opportunity, though it’s a pretty jam packed issue.
"THE FALL OF METROPOLIS," Part 3! Superman vs. giant city-destroying robots, although the real villain in this story is… the greed of man. Specifically, one random LexCorp corporate climber called Mr. McDonald who, at the start of the issue, is digging through the ruins of a bank to look for a safety deposit box full of money. A homeless man (technically, everyone's homeless now that Metropolis got bombed, but he was already homeless) called Wild Bill tries to make polite conversation, but McDonald tells him to piss off. Even when the aforementioned giant city-destroying robots show up, McDonald is too focused on finding his box to get scared.
Meanwhile, Superman is shocked to learn that Lex Luthor is being kept in a fancy hi-tech medical pod while thousands of people injured during Metropolis' destruction are on the street. However, a doctor convinces him that this is actually necessary to keep Lex alive now that he's in a vegetative state, meaning he's conscious but can't move or talk. That last part is unfortunate for Lex and everyone around him, because if he could talk, he'd be screaming about the killer robots that he knows are heading directly this way.
The robots do arrive and hit Superman pretty hard, causing him to come crashing down right in front of Wild Bill and Mr. McDonald. Bill, who by the way is a friend of Bibbo's, thinks they should help "Sooperman," but McDonald is only interested in the fact that the fight broke part of the bank's vault, finally allowing him to reach his precious money box. It's up to Wild Bill to nurse Superman back to health using nothing but a juice box -- or at least I think that's juice. Maybe there was something slightly stronger in there.
(Note: Those panels make it look like Superman drank the juice and immediately flew off, but I need you to know he actually thanked Bill first and told him any friend of Bibbo's is a friend of his.)
After the revitalized Superman goes back to fighting the robots, Wild Bill hears a scream and sees a girl whose legs were buried under the rubble. He tells McDonald they should dig her out, but LexCorp Bro refuses because he's already on his way to use his box full of money to buy himself a cozy room in the only major building in Metropolis that wasn't bombed out, the Newstime Building. Again, Wild Bill helps the person in need all by himself (no juice for her, though, which is probably for the best...).
While fighting the robots, Superman finds out that they were made by Luthor to "prevent Metropolis from suffering the same fate as Coast City" in case of an alien invasion -- or, failing that, finish wiping the city out in order to "leave nothing for the conquerors." Given Metropolis' current state, the robots assumed it must have been invaded and went into "scorched earth" mode. The robots have now reached the hospital where Lex is and are about to give their creator a very ironic and very painful death, but Superman intervenes and saves him (and only feels a little bit sorry he wasn't too late). Instead of thanking Superman, Lex curses him out because he would have "welcomed death" now that he's a vegetable, seemingly forgetting that two pages earlier he was all "NOOOO!"
(Pretty sure he soiled his medical pod there.)
Once he's finished punching the robots into scrap metal, Superman starts relocating the people from the now half-destroyed hospital, plus Wild Bill and that girl he rescued, to… the Newstime Building, just as McDonald has finished bribing his way into it. McDonald is indignant that he spent all his money to get here and now there won't be any space for him, and even brags about being one of the "top dogs" at LexCorp who helped fund those impressive robots. Superman is unsurprisingly unsympathetic to his plight.
I'm assuming the crowd jumped on McDonald's ass one second after Superman left. As a general rule, it isn't very wise to brag about being responsible for killer robots in front of the people they just tried to kill.
Creator-Watch:
As with last issue, this one is guest-drawn by Brent "Kurt Busiek's Astro City" Anderson, since Dan Jurgens needed a two-issue break from drawing Superman to focus on drawing Superman and like 200 other characters in the upcoming Zero Hour event (it's kind of insane that it was only two issues, considering Zero Hour will have five in one month). As a kid, I didn't appreciate "the good Superman artist" (they're all "the good one," foolish child!!!) going away for two issues, especially since the cover credits promised a Jurgens/Rubinstein joint, but Anderson's moody style has grown on me over the years. More on him in Don Sparrow's Art-Watch section below!
Plotline-Watch:
I guess we're meant to understand that the other giant city-destroying robot that appeared in Man of Steel #35 and Wonder Woman #88 was part of the same LexCorp program, even though that one looked completely different and had a human brain inside it (Superman made no mention of anything like that in this issue, though it's possible he's just numb to finding human brains inside robots by now). I prefer to think that other robot was a leftover Cerberus agent awakened by the city's destruction. Seems like the sort of thing they'd come up with.
Wild Bill's role in this issue could have been played by Lois Lane's homeless friend (and occasional George Carlin lookalike) Charlie, if they hadn't killed him during the Clone Plague storyline. Or, going further back, by Jimmy Olsen's homeless friend Pete Shoemaker, if he hadn't been murdered by Brainiac. Hm, I think I know why Wild Bill never showed up again...
I was recently lamenting the fact that late '93/early '94 was the first time since Jurgens joined the Super Squad full-time that we didn't get a Very Special Dan Jurgens Christmas issue. '89/'90 had "Homeless for the Holidays," '90/'91 had the drunk driving story, '91/'92 had "Metropolis Mailbag," and '92/'93 had "Metropolis Mailbag II," all classics. Unfortunately, now that we're in constant crossover mode, there doesn't seem to be much space for little stories like that. This issue has nothing to do with Christmas, but I do feel like it could have scratched the same itch as those older one-off stories... if it wasn't set in the middle of a big storyline and didn't have to devote most of its pages to it, anyway.
Shout Outs-Watch:
Shout outs to everyone who joined our new newsletter (check your spam folder for that verification email if you haven't clicked it!) and double shout outs to our supporters, Aaron, Chris “Ace” Hendrix, britneyspearsatemyshorts, Patrick D. Ryall, Bheki Latha, Mark Syp, Ryan Bush, Raphael Fischer, Kit, Sam, Bol, Gaetano Barreca, and Dave Shevlin! Become a supporter and get extra articles via Patreon or by upgrading to the newsletter's "pay what you want" mode!
And shout out to Don Sparrow too, whose section is up ahead...
Art-Watch (by @donsparrow):
We start with the cover, and it’s a pretty good one, if a little generic—Superman battles an AT-AT like walking robot, firing its between-the-legs blasters at Superman’s cap, as he punches one of the legs. A pretty simple, if dynamic pose, and Jurgens’ Superman is always a welcome sight, particularly in an issue with a guest artist.
Speaking of the guest artist, Brent Anderson takes pencilling duties on this issue, and it’s a mixed bag. The closest description I’d use of Anderson’s work in these pages is like a rushed Neal Adams. There’s lots of great dynamic realism, but it gets a little loose in places. That could be just that his style isn’t gelling with the scratchier, sketchier look of Joe Rubenstein’s inks, or it could be that it is loose like that at the pencil levels. As the story opens we’re thrown into the rubble of Metropolis, picking up from Action #700 where Lex’s machinations leveled the city. We get a full three pages of people we’ve never seen before (kudos to the art team for including the very ‘of its time’ line art shaved into Mr. McDonald’s fade!)...
...until the big 4th page splash, where the ED-209 looking battle bots descend on the rubble. There’s a very Neal Adams-esque angle as Superman spies the onslaught from afar on page 7, which definitely stands out in a good way from the rest of the page. As with some previous fill-ins, Brent Anderson’s ability to draw realistically is almost a detriment—if he had a simpler style, the little errors might be forgiven or look less glaring. But because he can really render, when the faces go wonky, they really go wonky. Obviously the comatose Lex Luthor isn’t looking like a living magazine cover, but the asymmetry in the way he’s drawn here looks really eerie.
[Max: The Cryptkeeper comparison from a few issues back is even more apt now...]
Same as a few pages later, we see Mr. McDonald improbably find his safety deposit box full of cash, with a very wall-eyed expression. Superman getting blasted by a high intensity ray is well done, particularly the grease pencil edges on the bolt hitting Superman.
Superman frequently has the yellow of his crest in shadow, reminding me of a later era where Superman dons black in the S in mourning. The next best highlight comes in the splash on page 20, where Superman flies through one of the battle bots in explosive fashion.
Strangely, the frenetic pace of the issue, with Superman careening wildly from one battle or rescue to another ironically leaves this reader a little bored. It’s all action, sure, but it feels pointless, and a little repetitive after Action #700 had a pretty similar plot. I know the fable of Mr. McDonald, and his cash being useless in a no man’s land scenario was supposed to be poignant, but I found it hard to care much about the story, even in a negative sense. We’re supposed to cheer against this guy, I think, and be inspired by the rabbinical looking homeless man, but since this is just about the first we’ve ever seen of them, I just wasn’t interested. [Max: See, it would have worked better if that was Charlie!] Making matters worse, when McDonald confesses he knows all about the robots as he designed them, Superman is happier to leave with a bon mot than he is getting McDonalds’ expertise on how to stop any further robots, or perhaps what might come next.
SPEEDING BULLETS:
The angle that the robots are following a scorched earth policy in the wake of Coast City is at least somewhat interesting, but it does beg the question why so many programmers, like McDonald apparently went along with this plan.
Aside from a few wide shots later in the story, Metropolis is pretty sparsely populated as drawn here, which again diminishes the impact of the displacement caused by the missiles in Action #700.
Look, I don’t want to throw Cindee any shade, especially since she’s just a kid, but doesn’t it seem like she could have just moved those bricks off herself, one by one? [Max: Maybe she's a junior reporter taking a page from the Lois Lane playbook to get an interview with Superman?]
I get what Superman is saying when he reacts to McDonald’s greed, but the sentiment is a bit weird. Yes, Superman, the robots that killed and crushed are worse than the guy who tried to pay to get a better spot in the queue.
With Anderson and Immonen filling in pretty regularly month to month, it almost feels like these issues are auditions of a sort.
Though we do get an update on the “Lex is trapped in a dying clone body” storyline, the lack of the rest of the supporting cast is felt very keenly. This issue might have felt a lot less like filler if we’d seen what Perry or Jimmy or Lois or Bibbo were up to. Heck, the Bill character could very easily have just been Bibbo, though I guess then we’d lose the have and have not contrast between Bill and McDonald. [Max: Hmmm, I do like the idea of McDonald assuming Bibbo, who'd look particularly scruffy after spending time digging people out of the rubble, is a homeless person when he's probably richer than him...]
There something sweet—if weird—about Superman being revived with a juice box. Better that than a Hostess Fruit Pie, I suppose.
"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.
