Action Comics #586 (March 1987)

Legends crossover, finale! Due to a series of wacky circumstances, Superman thinks he’s the son of the evil alien god Darkseid and, accordingly, got a bunch of people killed. Superman also hooked up with a woman called Amazing Grace, the one who brainwashed him into evilness with her suggestion-based powers (and boobs) (or at least Superman didn’t seem to mind those).

The only problem for Darkseid and his minions is that Superman’s amnesia has also taken away his powers, because he forgot he had them, I guess. Since Darkseid can’t just restore Superman’s powers, the sarcastically-named Granny Goodness is making him stronger the old fashioned way: by making him lift heavy machinery and destroying his back.

Meanwhile, the real son of Darkseid, the hero Orion, has arrived in planet Apokolips with his buddy Lightray in a mission to save Superman. When he hears about that, Darkseid goes “You know what, I can just restore Superman’s powers” and does so, only he tricks Superman into thinking those powers come from his fake dad. Orion tries to talk some sense into Superman, but he’s pretty convinced he’s the real Darkseid Jr. and is prepared to kill Orion to prove it. He’s even started talking like a melodramatic comic book villain.

Since this approach isn’t working, Orion takes off his helmet and shows Superman what one’s face actually looks like when your dad is a stone monster – he’s so ugly that Superman stops fighting, and Orion uses the opportunity to restore his memory with his sentient cosmic iPhone, Mother Box.

Naturally, Superman isn’t happy about what Darkseid put him through. He goes after “daddy” and cleverly turns Darkseid’s own deathly eye-lasers against him. Darkseid goes “ha, nicely played” and just sends Superman back to Earth, while he and Orion agree to postpone their epic father/son showdown until another time because they’re pretty tired and stuff. The end. Personally, I liked the ending of the animated adaptation of this story much better (I won’t spoil it because it’s awesome).

Plotline-Watch:

• And that’s the end of the Legends crossover! I was looking forward to re-reading this storyline and the first two issues didn’t disappoint, but this one was kinda weak. The end is very sudden and kind of a cop-out, and with the massacre at the end of last issue it feels like Superman already lost.

• By the way, Orion deleted the whole “you got a bunch of people killed, asshole” thing from Superman’s memory to spare him the trauma, but at some point it all came back, because in future issues Superman will occasionally go “Remember that time I led a revolution in an alien planet and then betrayed them? That was crazy.” I also like to think that the suppressed memory subconsciously influenced Superman’s decisions during the “Exile in Space” saga (in that he didn’t let the same thing happen again), but more on that later.

• We learn in this issue that Amazing Grace is the sister of Glorious Godfrey, a.k.a. G. Gordon Godfrey, who was in part 1 of this storyline and all over the main Legends series. They have similar abilities, only Godfrey is more powerful and doesn’t need to step into hot tubs with people to finish convincing people of stuff. She’ll briefly appear once more during the Byrne era and then be relegated to flashbacks and crowd scenes, as far as I can tell.

WTF-Watch:

You’d think I’d include the scene where Orion’s ugliness brings back Superman’s memory in this section, but I won’t. It makes complete sense. Dude looks like butt.

Art-Watch (by @donsparrow​):

We start with the cover and it’s a great one, even if I’m not nuts about a lot of cover text.  We have a pretty accurate summary of the story—it really is Orion vs. Superman, and Superman is champion of Apokolips.  Plus a joyful Darkseid cheering them on. One small detail to note: I really like the tasteful credit bar on the Action covers of this era.  

John Byrne and Dick Giordano appropriately seem to be channeling Jack Kirby, as the first few pages of this story are all motion, bold posing and bold striking imagery as even the planet Apokolips itself seems to burst out of nowhere.

Even in our credit page splash features a much wider and stockier Superman than I’m used to seeing, which again feels very Kirby.

On the following page, the different shouting expressions of Granny Goodness is a lot of fun, and there’s something about her mannish appearance that recalls the masterstroke Bruce Timm’s Superman animated series pulled when they cast Ed Asner to voice the character.

We have more of Byrne’s assertion that things and creatures move almost supernaturally quickly on page 7 as Darkseid has Amazing Grace in a classic “Byrne hold” (grasping her neck) between panels, so quickly we don’t even see it happen.  

Visually, it’s always exciting to see Superman in an alternate costume and his Roman looking Apokoliptan getup is a nice departure.

It’s another deep cut that Orion employs his astro-harness in battle with Superman, which enables him to generate the light trails (aka the astro-force) that distract Superman during their battle.  I’d never heard of that power, but Byrne reminds us it’s at Orion’s disposal.  

As always with Byrne issues, it’s hard for me not to comment on every darn panel, because it’s all so consistently good, but I’ll single out Orion’s unmasking as a great sequence.

They could actually go a bit further I thought, in making Orion more monstrous and Darkseid-like.  Many years later, Alex Ross will depict Orion as almost identical to Darkseid, save the skintone in Kingdom Come, and then the great Frank Quitely goes even further in his hideous depiction of the offspring of Darkseid and Tigra.  

Seeing Amazing Grace’s influence powers in action is interesting, particularly her hypnotic eye effect.  Leave it to Byrne to clue us in to Lightray’s physical desire with his lap-to-lap closeup.  Superman’s post-Mother-Box-clarity shout of Darkseid’s name recalls Dave Gibbons in “For the Man Who Has Everything” right down to the painful eardrums.  

The image of Darkseid scorched by his own Omega beams is a great one, though the flame in the beams later that same page just looks kinda weird.

SPEEDING BULLETS:

• Between this and previous issues in this storyline, Byrne seems single-minded in getting people to read the Hunger Dogs graphic novel, which, as discussed, isn’t the Hunger Dogs at all, but rather the much harder to find name of “DC Graphic Novel #4”.  On the very first page, amidst their Silver Surfer-like monologuing, Orion reminds readers New Genesis was destroyed.

• As Darkseid pontificates to his own personal Natalie Harp, Amazing Grace, it is confirmed that Darkseid recognized Superman when Clark Kent arrived, meaning he’s aware of Superman’s dual identity.  I hadn’t remembered that.

• Darkseid kinda calls everything that ends up happening, noting the risk of telling Superman that he’s the son of Darkseid, when Darkseid’s actual son is on hand.

• It seems Superman’s retaliatory rage saves Amazing Grace’s life, as it’s not looking great for her when Darkseid hears his name echoing.

• More of Byrne being faithful to established Kirby lore: Darkseid refers to an upcoming “last battle” between he and Orion, which was long-foreshadowed to be the prophecy, where Orion destroys Darkseid.  

• It’s interesting that Orion spares Superman the knowledge of what happened to his uprising (at least until way down the line).  I doubt Superman dispatched any Hunger Dogs personally, but he’d still feel pretty guilty about any role in making it easier for Darkseid to put them down.  I wonder if Superman also retains any residual hot tub memories, or did Mother Box broom those, too? [Max: Let’s start a #RestoreTheHotTubMemories campaign.]

And since I’m in the habit of sprucing up these Retro reviews with new artwork, here’s a look at how I’d draw Superman in his Savior garb.  What do you think?

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