Action Comics #600 (May 1988)
Action Comics #600 (May 1988)
Anniversary issue! Superman’s anniversary issues always manage to feel like big events despite the fact that he has like four times as many of them as other superheroes (due to the whole “multiple monthly titles” thing). This one is an 80-page giant with several stories:
The main course is the date between Superman and Wonder Woman. And Darkseid. The date is going somewhat awkwardly after Superman just went and kissed her (shown in Adventures #440), when Wonder Woman gets a distress message from her friends in Mount Olympus – Darkseid has invaded the home of the Greek gods and also manipulates Superman and Wondy into fighting each other. Then it turns out the gods weren’t even there and they just let Darkseid take over. He tries to blow up the place, but it can’t be blown up. So he just leaves, grumbling to himself. Then Superman and Wonder Woman decide to be friends. Yeah, this story is anticlimactic in every way, but at least the John Byrne/George Perez art is very, very nice.
In the second story, Lois Lane has gone undercover as a prostitute to track down a wanted criminal (that explains the scene with her sister in Superman #17). Lois singlehandedly captures the criminal and his henchmen and returns to the Daily Planet… only to find out that her story has been knocked off the front page by Superman and Wonder Woman’s torrid affair (Wondy’s publicist sorta blew it out of proportion). Lois feels extremely distraught by the news. Uh, isn’t she supposed to be dating Jose Delgado now? Poor Jose.
Lex Luthor calls for a meeting with Captain Maggie Sawyer and subtly lets her know he knows about her sexual preferences. He accomplishes this by calling a voluptuous assistant and having her wave her butt in front of Maggie’s face. Maggie refuses to be blackmailed and tells Lex to eat a dick sandwich, because she’s awesome. At this point Lex slams his fist into his desk… and screams in pain. Remember when he complained to Dr. Kelley that his hand hurt in Superman #13? Well, now we know why: he’s got radioactive poisoning from that kryptonite ring he’s been wearing for the past year to mess with Superman.
Speaking of kryptonite, in the next story Superman is helping out with an emergency when a wave of cosmic radiation from Krypton’s explosion hits Earth, having traveled across the universe for decades, and starts killing him. Jimmy Olsen takes Superman to some underground caves to protect him from the radiation, but it’s not working. And that leads us to…
Man-Bat, the occasional Batman ally/enemy who looks like a giant man-bat, goes into the same cave to chill with his bat-bros and finds a delirious Superman there. Superman tries to kill him for a while, until Man-Bat manages to calm him down. Then Superman asks him to please contact his pal Hawkman, because the only solution for this cosmic radiation problem is to… RETURN TO KRYPTON! Yeah, to be continued.
Character-Watch:
During the Luthor segment, his physician Dr. Gretchen Kelley gets quite sassy with him and mentions how they’ve known each other their whole lives. We’ll get the full story later on and she’ll be instrumental to the long plot kicked off by Luthor’s health problems, which will lead to his fall, his rebirth, and then his other fall.
Also, during the sequence in Mount Olympus, Superman recognizes one of Darkseid’s cronies as Amazing Grace, his traitorous former lover from back when Superman became the Che Guevara of Apokolips. I’m not sure how he remembers her since he got his mind-wiped after the whole thing, though.
WTF-Watch:
You probably thought I was kidding about this part.
DON’T LOOK AT THE BUTT, MAGGIE.
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