Action Comics #593 (October 1987)
Action Comics #593 (October 1987)
Part two of Superman’s delightful foray into the porn industry. Last issue, Superman and Big Barda of the New Gods ended up getting trapped by Sleez, a creepy little guy with the power of controlling minds. Sleez wants to raise money to build an army, and naturally the easiest way to do that is to make a porn tape of Superman and Barda doing it and get rich selling copies. You might think it would be easier to just send Superman and Barda to rob every bank in the world, since they’re both indestructible, but how would that involve seeing boobies? See, you didn’t think that through.
Meanwhile, Barda’s husband, the superhero/escape artist/cleaning product Mister Miracle, gets home one day to find the evil Darkseid chilling in his couch, sipping merlot. Darkseid shows Mister Miracle a tape of Barda’s solo act, claiming one of his agents “came across” it (yeah, right). Since Darkseid is no fan of Sleez and also firmly against the exploitation of women by the patriarchal society, he points Mister Miracle in the direction of the one responsible for his wife’s accidental porn career. Mister Miracle barges into the improvised recording studio, which consists on a bed and a VHS camera, just as Sleez is channeling all his psychic powers into Superman’s boner (and failing to lift it, so far). Sleez’s mental control is broken and Superman chases him into the sewers, where Sleez apparently blows himself up, and I mean that in the explosive sense.
At this point both Superman and Barda awkwardly pretend not to remember what they almost did in that bed, while a just delighted Mister Miracle observes. They then go their separate ways, but as far as I can tell no one bothered to destroy all those tapes of Barda by herself that already existed, so I’m guessing they got digitized and uploaded to Kazaa circa 2001.
Character-Watch:
As I mentioned, Sleez appears to kill himself in this issue, but in the end Superman sees an indication that he might still be alive (it involves Sleez’s natural radiation unwittingly keeping some elderly people alive). Sleez will turn up again some time later and force some scientists to create underage clones of themselves.
WTF-Watch:
This whole issue is one big WTF.
See comments on Tumblr: https://superman86to99.tumblr.com/post/61333952807/action-comics-593-october-1987-part-two-of#disqus_thread
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