Action Comics #587 (April 1987)
Action Comics #587 (April 1987)
Superman teams up with The Demon, a fearsome creature from the depths of Hell who fights the forces of darkness with the power of rhyme. The Demon is dealing with a case where the friends of his human identity, Jason Blood, have been magically turned into giant crystal towers. Superman sees the towers and naturally begins punching them to shit, until Demon tells him the towers were alive and he just killed a bunch of people (but not before Superman gets to punch Demon for a while, because that’s how he rolls).
In order to break the spell (and prevent the death of Blood’s friends at Superman’s fists), The Demon sends Superman back in time to the 12th century. After an encounter with the “Bring out your dead!” guy from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Supes meets up with the Jason Blood/Demon of that era and the two unite against the sorceress Morgaine le Fay, who has been impersonating a young child. There’s some more punching, some magicking, and finally the existence of the curse is prevented and Superman goes back to the present with no memory of what just happened.
For the record, that’s two Superman-caused massacres he has had deleted from his memory in as many issues.
Plotline-Watch:
Superman’s first time-traveling adventure, unless another one was retconned before this one from the future. The concept of Superman bouncing around in time would be much better explored a few years later in the epic Time and Time Again saga.
WTF-Watch:
I liked how, in the middle of all this insanity, Superman tries to cover his costume when he’s going around the plague-ridden town in the 12th century, because a guy with a red cape around his body somehow looks less ridiculous than a guy in a blue suit.
See comments on Tumblr: https://superman86to99.tumblr.com/post/58815649919/action-comics-587-april-1987-superman-teams#disqus_thread
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