Adventures of Superman #464



The Day of The Krypton Man, Part II: "Blood Brawl"

writer/pencils: Dan Jurgens
finished inks: Art Thibert
letters: Albert DeGuzman
colors: Glenn Whitmore
assoc. editor: Jon Peterson
editor: Mike Carlin
Superman created by: Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster

grade: C


It would appear that, much like "The Brainiac Trilogy" before it, this is a multi-part story arc that has no real center. One third into the arc and we still have no idea what the title is referring to, plus Lobo (taking up the majority of the story up until now) is all too easily removed by the end of this issue with a series of conveniences that's almost insulting to the reader:



So his presence was nothing more than a cash-in -- Superman fights DC's hottest new antihero in a relatively uninteresting throwdown that took an entire issue to get to and then gets easily wrapped up/forgotten. That's it. All done. None of this had anything at all to do with wherever this storyline is supposed to be going.


And, of course, where it's going is The Eradicator Device. After nine months of this thing utterly screwing with Clark's life, we're finally going to get rid of it by the close of this storyline (we hope!). In the meantime, it's still screwing with Clark's life as Lois asks him out for the first time



and Clark's brainwashing conveniently blows the moment, Clark explaining that it isn't logical for them to maintain a friendship now that they no longer work together.

We saw the exact same kind of thing happen when Matrix was impersonating Clark. Between that and nine months of The Eradicator Device screwing things up, this just feels very "been there, done that" by this point. This storyline really needs to start speeding things up.

Fortunately, we at least get our first full look at the ultra-cool Kryptonian costume for Clark (designed by Perez?) which I've adored since I first saw it at the age of ten.



I bought my first Superman comic (Superman #42 -- coming up in three weeks) because of that costume and hoped against hope that Supes would keep it. I still like it better; it just needs a cape.


So beyond a sluggish multi-part storyline that's all detour and no development, this is really the first time since he took over writing that Jurgens has disappointed me with his writing, itself. I suspect the problem is that he's now writing for a storyline envisioned by others (remember that he's the low man on the totem pole at the Superman Office at this point) that forces him out of his comfort zone.

For example, he absolutely cannot mimic the kind of success Ordway found with playing the story for laughs last issue. Whereas Ordway was a master of understatement, Jurgens labors far too hard to get the gags across, and most of them are just "look how drunk these guys are," which gets old fast:




Additionally, when he randomly has Draaga stumble across the monument Superman erected for Cleric,



I can't tell if he's going for humor (probably in bad taste to make a joke out of a character's burial site) or foreshadowing something coming later in this storyline. It's an awkward moment, though certainly not the only one in the issue.


Finally, I was sick of Lana Lang being this franchise's resident sad sack as early as Man of Steel #6. I get it; she's supposed to be the Betty to Lois Lane's Veronica, but, in three years worth of stories by this point, all she's come across as is pathetic to the point of being outright unlikable. We really don't need more of her laying on the pity syrup here:



Reveal the damage Clark is causing to those who care about him through other characters; it's time to take Lana out back and put her down.



Important Details:

- Lois asks Clark out; he rejects her while under the spell of The Eradicator

- First meeting of/battle between Lobo and Superman. Lobo's memory of this event is erased by having drank too much Okarran Berry Juice (DC's convenient new means of getting aliens drunk without portraying alcohol).

- Lobo may still be in possession of the five shards of Kryptonite he stole from The Fortress of Solitude (unclear)



Minor Details:

- Bibbo is now the #1 fan of Lobo after believing he has seen Lobo defeat Superman. Unclear if Bibbo will remember any of this later (Okarran Berry Juice again)

- Thornton has had it with Clark's frequent absences at Newstime and is ready to fire him.

- Love the little nods to continuity throughout this issue, especially as Superman ends up fighting Lobo in one of the Kryptonian mecha suits from World of Krypton #2.


- Seriously, with all the detailed explanations we've been given for how Superman does so much of what he does, can't Jurgens teach me how he manages to pull this off without wrinkling his work clothes???






Plot synopsis: Clark is not himself, brushing off Lois as she asks him out on a date for the first time. We're given increasing signs that The Eradicator device is messing with his mind as Maxima's ship overruns Draaga's on its way to Earth (also) in search of Superman. Meanwhile, Clark is telepathically made aware that Lobo and friends have invaded his Fortress of Solitude and feels an intense desire to stop them. He and Lobo end up fighting, Lobo discovers the five shard of Kryptonite hidden there and uses them against Superman, and he determines that the only way to get rid of Lobo is to use a holographic projector in the Fortress to make Lobo believe he has killed Superman. Meanwhile, Lana Lang is feeling sorry for herself on her birthday because Clark doesn't care, Thornton over at Newstime is ready to fire Clark over his frequent absences, and Lobo returns to the guys who hired him to kill Superman, his mind wiped from excessive drinking of Okarran Berry Juice, and his video of the encounter screwed up by Bibbo.

DC's policy at the time was to charge more for the lower selling titles to make them more viable, and less for the better selling titles using volume to make he books profitable. If fans wanted to support a second tier character, they had to pay more because the book didn't sell well, and the target audience was usually the hardcore direct market fans who would follow books no matter what. However, they kept prices down on the top tier books to make them more accessible to more casual fans and a mass audience who were more likely to just check in on the big guys or impulse buy. Somebody-Giordano, Levitz, or Khan, had an editorial/publishatorial on the hype page explaining it around that time-which struck me because Marvel was doing the opposite-raising prices on X-Men and Spidey and the like but keeping prices on the second tier stuff lower using the extra revenue of the good sellers to buoy the second tier books across the line, and I was always kind of curious which was the better strategy, however, soon prices went up line wide at both companies and it was a moot point.

-M

For what it's worth, when Lobo gets his own limited series nine months from now, the cover will advertise "First issue! Only 99 cents":

By the way, I've generally been on top of tracking Superman's Post-Crisis Powers and Abilities but I don't have anything in regard to Super Breath until now. Has Superman used this power previously? In fact, has he ever used his freeze breath anywhere in a Post-Crisis story? I wouldn't expect anyone here to remember specifics, but maybe even just a vague recollection?

Superman #42



The Day of the Krypton Man, Part IV: "Krypton Man"

writer/pencils: Jerry Ordway
inks: Dennis Janke
colors: Glenn Whitmore
letters: John Costanza
assoc. editor: Jon Peterson
editor: Mike Carlin

grade: B-


First off, a moment of nostalgia for me. This was the first Superman comic I ever bought or read. At the age of 10, that Ordway cover and new costume caught my attention fast. I was convinced that Superman was changing his costume (and maybe name) permanently because, you know, I was a stupid ten year old. It's interesting to now contrast the series my adult self has been reading and analyzing for the first time against my memories of first entering at this point as a kid. I didn't understand a lot of what was happening in this issue, but I did understand that Clark was choosing an identity more aligned with his Kryptonian heritage. As a kid, I thought this made total sense because, not having been part of three years worth of continuity (nor, for that matter, the past few months of continuity) I didn't understand that Krypton was now bad; a place that "deserved to blow up". Suffice to say, this issue didn't make a regular reader out of me, but I came back again for Dark Knight Over Metropolis, and that storyline ended up being a lot more accessible to me.

As for "The Day of the Krypton Man" storyline itself, it now appears that the Superman Office's first big multi-title story arc can be easily summed up as "three aliens all conveniently decided to travel to Earth in search of Superman at the same time, he fights each one off [two with very little excitement], and decides he's The Krypton Man." Not much of a story there. Hopefully, the final two chapters will add a little bit more to the mix.

So this issue marks the third of Superman's battle royals with aliens who have come to Earth in search of him. But the big final showdown between Supes and Draaga that we've been awaiting for ages now doesn't end up doing all that much for me. Once again, Ordway is giving the whole thing a Wrestlemania feel with the poses he draws, as well as the cameras and circling helicopters broadcasting the whole thing, but it lacks the kind of kinetic energy and pacing Perez gave to the battle with Maxima. Honestly, it's dull.




However, it's nice to see us getting back to tidying up some of the final loose ends left behind from the Byrne era. Looks like Jose Delgado is about to become Gangbuster again, and waaaaaaay back when Cat Grant first started dating Morgan Edge, we got all sorts of foreshadowing that something terrible was going to happen to her son. I think we're finally going there:






And Ordway is mindful of several little details that made me smile in this issue. For example, this billboard keeps popping up as of late, and this time Kraamdan and Draaga have driven right into it:



It's one of several reminders Ordway gives us in this issue that Luthor still controls Metropolis, even after his embarrassing three part loss during the Brainiac Trilogy (lost to Brainiac, was nearly convicted of working with Brainiac, was saved by Superman). Clearly, we haven't heard the last from Luthor.

And, of course, Ordway just had to keep this running joke going just a little bit longer:




So, not a terrible issue. I like what Ordway is trying to do with the Wrestlemania feel, and I enjoy his attention to detail, but this issue still bored me. Interestingly though, it foreshadows several things we'll see used again during the infamous Doomsday storyline two years from now -- an alien come to Earth looking to battle Superman, and en epic battle royal ensuing that visually resembles this one pretty closely.


Important Details:

- Clark has now fully embraced the Krypton Man persona (though he only calls himself Kal-El)

- Mannheim, Morgan Edge's employee controlling Intergang for him, is now disregarding Edge's orders and putting out a hit on Cat Grant, Clark Kent, and Lois Lane expressly against Edge's directives.

- Intergang has ties to Qurac (we haven't heard from them in a while!) that they are looking to cement with an arms deal.



Minor Details:

- It really irks me what an overly convenient narrative tool Professor Hamilton has become to the Superman Office. When he was first introduced in Adventures of Superman #424, Hamilton was a poor scientist who had spent years perfecting one invention. Now he's creating brilliant sci-fi gadgetry practically once a month and with seemingly limitless resources. Yes, he's now got a job with STAR labs (that we never see him go to), but that laboratory we saw while he was working on Jimmy Olsen's elasticity condition looked like a multi-million dollar private complex made up of scientific innovations decades beyond even where we are now in 2016.

Anyway, here is his scientific brilliance extended beyond the realm of believability once again in this issue:




- I found it hilarious that Kraamdan comes from a race that reveres G'Nort as a god.



Is this coming out of something that happened in Justice League (my review thread for that title isn't up to 1990 yet), or is this just something Ordway added for fun? Green Lantern volume 3 hasn't hit stands yet, so I know nothing happened there.



Plot synopsis in one sentence: Clark has now fully embraced his new Kryptonian identity and goes to seek Draaga, who is in Times Square and demanding to fight Superman. Professor Hamilton decides to teleport them away from New York City so as to protect the innocent and figure out what's wrong with Superman, but his experiment goes awry and ends up teleporting them both on the moon, along with the top of the Statue of Liberty, where Superman is about to deliver the killing blow as astronauts broadcast the feed to television stations on Earth. Meanwhile, Mannheim has reactivated Intergang's file on Cat Grant and is putting a hit out on her despite Morgan Edge's orders for Intergang to lie low while he faces trial.

I don't remember if we'd seen plain ol' super-breath at this point, but we've seen him suck poison gas into his lungs and expel it into space twice (Man of Steel 2 and Batman: Death in the Family...something about hanging with Batman seems to vastly increase the odds of poison clouds).

Another update...


Old Byrne Plot Points Still Left Unresolved (as of Superman #42, April 1990)



Needs to be resolved:

- There has now been a laboratory floating in orbit of Earth containing ALL of Superman's secret information since Superman #1, and yet no one has noticed it yet.

- Elinore Lane (Lois' mother) is still battling a deadly illness. Luthor is controlling Lois in exchange for treating her mom.

- Amanda McCoy is trying to prove that Clark Kent is Superman and was inadvertently involved in the death of the private detective aiding her (coming up in "Dark Knight Over Metropolis")

- When is Perry going to learn his "son" Jerry is the biological son of Lex Luthor? (probably coming up in "Soul Search")

- What's up with the new director of STAR labs who was implied to be shady and have questionable motives? And is STAR labs still under the control of Morgan Edge's company?

- Luthor and the Kryptonite radiation (coming up in Action Comics #660)



Getting addressed right now:

- Jose as Gangbuster.

- Jimmy Olsen and Project Cadmus / search for his father

- Cat Grant's son. We had some serious foreshadowing that things were going to go bad for that young man.



Probably should be revisited:

-Jimmy Olsen dating Lucy Lane (last mentioned in Superman #4)

-Will there ever be a "real" Bizarro in the Post-Crisis, or are we stuck with the lame clone concept we got in Man of Steel #5?

-Lois and Superman shared a kiss during The Earth Stealers