Clark didn't have fully developed superpowers, as a child, post-Crisis; but, he is not entirely "normal," either. In Man of Steel #1, Byrne has him run down buy a bull, but survives unharmed, when he was 8 years-old. Then, he is shown lifting the back end of Jonathan's pick-up, to retrieve his ball. By his adolescence, his x-ray vision has manifested and so has his flight. His strength and speed allows him to become a football hero, in high school, leading Jonathan to tell him the truth of his origins. Byrne established that he was a living solar battery and that he grew more powerful as he aged and absorbed more sunlight. So, the powers are there, at the start, just at lower levels.



That shaving panel brings to mind the work of Liberatore(from a slightly different angle)...

Not really. 2 pages a week - or rather, 8 pages a month is a not-unheard-of amount of pages for a comics artist. When you factor in the other work he was doing, that often came to about 30 pages a month, a little less than Swan was doing just a few years earlier but still more than many artists produce in a month.

Also, there may have been the consideration of not taking too many pages away from the other current Superman artists.



The first "new" Superman issue, Man of Steel #1, was published with a cover date of October 1986. The Earth Stealers prestige format book was cover dated May 1988. I wouldn't call a full year-and-a-half later "right off the bat." Up until then Swan's Superman work was pretty much limited to the Superman IV movie adaptation, and I really don't think anyone can call that "high profile." Swan was pretty much off the radar until Earth Stealers and ACW.

If we wanna get conspiratorial here, note that Swan likely would have begun work on Earth Stealers and ACW around the same time, or not too long after, Andy Helfer was off the Superman books. Hmm...



It didn't apply to other books because Swan was (usually) assigned to draw entire issues of other books, and likely couldn't handle an additional Superman title on a regular basis (even when Swan was drawing two books a month every month, that was when page counts were a bit shorter). Swan was not assigned to Superman, other people were, and they presumably had contracts guaranteeing them a minimum number of pages, which Carlin and DC couldn't take away to give to Swan without a good reason. Swan got a bit of extra work in issues like Superman #35 because of things like artist Kerry Gammill being too slow.




I have heard several times that Swan was asking for more work. I can't recall ever seeing anyone claim Swan was specifically asking for more Superman work. Maybe he was, I don't know. But I wouldn't say he "seldom" had other penciling jobs. Swan's time on M.A.S.K. lasted for something like 9 months, and after ACW ended in that iteration, Swan did 5 issues and a Special of Aquaman, which as far as I can tell, was intended to be an ongoing series. Swan even did at least one extra feature in ACW - the one I'm thinking of was in #641, which had a character in the "Nova" costume that Superman once used in an issue of World's Finest (drawn by Swan, or course).

After Aquaman and before Superboy: The Comic Book, Swan kept busy drawing for Secret Origins and various Superman stuff, and I think he did a bit with the Legion of Super-Heroes in there as well.

And as someone noted elsewhere in the thread, toy tie-ins probably paid better than books like Superman or Action Comics.

It appears to me that the period was Swan was doing the least amount of Superman work while not picking up a lot of other work was in 1988, after Earth Stealers. As you noted yourself, 1988 was a pretty jumpy time for the Superman line. You even pointed out an issue that seemed to be cut-and-pasted from 2 issues into 1, complete with a separate inker on some of the pages. You mentioned once that Byrne's work read like "a man who knows his days are numbered"... no doubt a few other people, or at least editor Mike Carlin, knew it too, and was scrambling. I doubt that had much chance to figure out where to fit in Swan with all that going on.

Also, Swan did do a few things during that time that I had forgotten about. At least one issue of New Titans with Marv Wolfman, and I believe work on Secret Origins and (I think) a bit of Legion work. And don't forget the commissioned issue of Superman that Swan did for that rich guy's kid.

I do have to say, however, that while I'm not convinced of your case here, you do have me wondering just what all was going on. There definitely are some curiosities here.



If I had to take a wild guess, I'd say that might have been something of a coincidence. At the same time time they planned the Swan 3-parter, Swan filled in for Jim Mooney on Superboy while Mooney was sick. Then again, it could have been planned that way all along, and Mooney didn't fall ill until he was supposed to return with issue #11. But you might be right with your management comment.


On a semi-related note, I really wished at the time that they would have had Kurt Schaffenberger draw some Superman stories back then.

Starman (1988) #28 (November 1990)



"Krisis of the Krimson Kryptonite, Part Two/A: The End of a Legend?"

script: Roger Stern
Pencils: Dave Hoover
Inks: Scott Hanna
Colors: Tom McCraw
Letters: Bob Pinaha

grade: A-

Nope, not that Starman, but some of us have love for Will Payton too!

It's been exactly a year since Batman had a high-profile bordered crossover event that incorporated a lower profile title as a means of cross promotion:



In that case, it was a high profile franchise everyone knew with a pricey direct market-exclusive title that many folks weren't buying. This time around, we are dealing with a far more accessible newsstand title that very few readers are following because they don't know the character. Superman made a guest appearance waaaay back in Starman #14 as a means of lending the title some sales, but that adventure had no real impact on the Superman titles. This time around, this is a critical chapter with a lot going on, and it depends pretty heavily on this critical event from the aforementioned Starman #14:




Well, of course it doesn't work this time (that would end this storyline far too fast!), but the crossover is still well-earned. Stern writes Starman like Superman's younger, spunky brother, and it's so charming that, when I read this as an adolescent, I immediately went out and started reading the Will Payton Starman. We also get a few pages showing us the supporting characters in Will's world, and they come off similarly rich in characterization. It's a really really good sales pitch for the series.

But the absolute highlight of this issue is Starman impersonating Superman as a means of convincing Luthor and Metropolis that everything is fine:



It's really been a bad couple of weeks for Luthor!


This little impersonation is even more meaningful if you read and remember that first meeting between Superman and Starman, specifically where Superman advises that:



Boy are we glad that he did!




Obviously, this solution is only temporary, so Professor Hamilton offers yet another alternative:



While Superman in super armor is a pretty cool concept (and it's about to make an amazing cover), I have to shake my head at the level of disbelief we are regularly asked to afford to Professor Hamilton, once again. Hamilton took the inspiration from Luthor, but made the hardware himself. So not only is the guy advancing numerous sciences by leaps and bounds, and doing it single-handedly, how in the world is he purchasing and manufacturing this kind of tech? Even if he's selling patents to make rent, this kind of a suit would likely cost millions to manufacture. Everything else about the Post-Crisis Superman is so real and believable. There have even been serious efforts made to realistically explain how his powers work, but this kind of tech would make more sense coming out of S.T.A.R. Labs.


Finally, the big reveal in this issue (which Chris more or less called) is that the "red kryptonite" is totally bogus.



Mxyzptlk depowered Superman directly and, I suspect, is more interested in somehow using this to get back at Luthor for their past history than at Superman.

Is it bad that I'm actually starting to feel sorry for Luthor with all that's happening to him?



Important Details:

- We get our first glimpse of Stryker's Island. Looks like we're about to see a pretty interesting story go down there:





Minor Details:

- Why is this part Two/A? It's a legitimate installment in the storyline where the plot advances (far more significantly than it did in Part One). I'm sure it's all going to get recapped next issue, but still...

Well, probably post-crisis the All-Knowing-Mad-Scientist trope was considered an overused cliché. And, like they toned down Superman's powers, they did the same with Luthor's intelligence.

And now let me quote myself about pre-crisis Luthor...

Well, probably post-crisis the All-Knowing-Mad-Scientist trope was considered an overused cliché. And, like they toned down Superman's powers, they did the same with Luthor's intelligence



And that's the part which confuses me here - Byrne seemed to make it clear that Luthor had great business acumen, a skill for manipulation, and the intelligence required to come up with the LexWing, but that was about the height of his brilliance - anything else, such as creating Bizarro, finding out what Clark Kent's connection was to Superman, examining kryptonite - those were areas his intelligence couldn't quite probe into.  Gone was the Luthor who was a genius at "science" with "science" being defined as everything from being an expert at chemistry, biology, robotics, quantum mechanics, botany, time travel, etc, etc.  Post-Crisis, Luthor seemed to have certain limitations placed on him and I'm just curious as to what those limitations were.  Could he singlehandedly create a kryptonite ray, enlarging ray, 2-D or 3-D ray, etc?  I would have thought "no way" during the start of Byrne's run since he's a guy who needs others to do such things for him, but towards the end of Byrne's stint, he's got Luthor in lab coat creating the giant Kryptonoid Man and here he's mixing chemicals together to cure some disease no other doctor can as if it's child's play. 

I'm wondering if this was something that just sort of eased it's way into Post-Crisis continuity or if it had been established following Byrne's Man of Steel and I happened to miss it.  

Keep in mind that even the Lexwing and this cure for Lois' mother may have been created by Luthor's people and not the man himself. Would it be so out of character for him to take credit for the work of others? Remember how Prof. Hamilton came to hate him. Again, The Unauthorized Biography establishes Luthor coming into his first fortune and building the basis of his empire while in the seventh grade. So unless he built the Lexwing before that (my own Post-Crisis Superman timeline has him in his late 20s or early 30s when the Lexwing came out, which Prof. Hamilton said happened in the 1970s), he probably had others design it for him.

I loved the black and red one. The design was overly simplistic, but the colors were bold and effective for me. That first costume was a nightmare on the level of Crazy Quilt, though.

Tom Lyle did some other memorable work at DC, including Robin mini-series in 1990, as well as the unofficial sequel in Batman #467-469, Robin II: The Joker's Wild, and Robin III: Cry of the Huntress. But Wikipedia suggests your assumption is correct that he hasn't produced since Marvel.