Action Comics #592 (September 1987)
Action Comics #592 (September 1987)
Ah, this one. This issue begins one of the most infamous stories in Superman comics and fiction in general: the tale of Superman’s porn tape with Big Barda.
Big Barda is a former member of Darkseid’s elite all-ladies kill squad, the Female Furies, who abandoned her post and married a superhero. Through a series of random circumstances that involve a fight with a pimp who offered her employment and chasing a purse-snatcher into a sewer, Barda ends up getting captured by a creature named Sleez. Sleez has the power of controlling minds and uses it to be a huge pervert.
Days later, Superman is investigating another case when he comes across Barda, who is performing an erotic sewer dance for Sleez against her will. Superman easily overpowers the grubby little bastard and breaks Barda out of her spell, but then they get distracted debating whether they should kill Sleez or not (Barda says kill, Superman says not). While they’re doing that, Sleez sneaks up on them and throws them into a pit. So now Sleez has two attractive superheroes at his disposal to do whatever he wants. NEXT ISSUE: the porn tape.
Character-Watch:
First and shockingly not last appearance of Sleez, the psychic sex-dwarf. Sleez is another former member of Darkseid’s posse in Apokolips who got kicked out of the planet because he was too perverted even for the most evil beings in the universe. He spent hundreds of years hiding on Earth, waiting for a chance to take his revenge on Darkseid until Big Barda came along and gave him an opening. Wait, no. That came out wrong. Oh God.
This is also the first meeting between Superman and Barda, though he has met other members of the New Gods before (like Orion and Lightray in Action #586), including her husband. So, yeah, that’s gonna be awkward. Supes and Barda will eventually become teammates in Grant Morrison’s Justice League, but they’ll never mention what happened in these issues. For some reason.
WTF-Watch:
Plenty to choose from, but the biggest “what were they thinking” moment is the part where it’s not-so-subtly implied that Sleez has abused Barda during her time as his slave. Which editor saw that and said “Yes, this belongs in a Superman comic, let’s do this”?
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