Action Comics #645 (September 1989)
Action Comics #645 (September 1989)
Introducing Maxima, the space lady who wants to get inside Superman’s pants! Or underpants, technically, I guess. She wants to have sex with him, is what I’m saying.
Adventures #458 ended with a spaceship approaching Earth – in this issue, the ship’s passengers, a tall redhead called Lady Maxima and a shorter, weirder hooded woman called Sazu, are walking down Metropolis when some no-good hoodlums start using coarse language towards them (or towards the sexy one, at least). When one of the hoodlums tries to get fresh with them, Maxima murders his face. Sazu then informs the others that they now work for Maxima.
That little guy’s like “Do we get a dental plan?”
Later, Maxima shows up at the Daily Planet and demands to see Superman, but everyone in the office becomes stiff when they see her. Literally stiff, because she hypnotized them with her mind powers. Sazu points out that they won’t get much information out of them in that state, but Maxima says she had a better idea to attract Superman anyway: arming her new hoodlum servants with robot armors and kidnapping Mayor Berkowitz. Superman shows up to fight the robo-hoodlums, as Maxima ogles his pecs from the Mayor’s office. Sazu, however, is scandalized because Superman won’t kill his enemies, which makes him unworthy of visiting Maxima’s loins.
Superman finally arrives at the office to save the Mayor, but he’s immediately trapped inside some sort of psychic field, as Sazu and Maxima start arguing whether he’s sponge-worthy or not.
“I will not have another Chad situation, milady.” “He is nothing like Chad!”
Finally, Sazu turns on Maxima and apparently destroys her body, because it’s her mission of protect Maxima’s “royal bloodline” from being polluted with the genes of a no-killing, pantyhose wearing wussy. Sazu falls down from the resulting explosion and her hat comes off, and it’s only then, upon seeing the giant third eye on her forehead, that Superman realizes these two ladies with psychic powers must have been aliens.
The issue ends with the real Maxima watching the scene from her home planet, and commenting that now she’ll have to go to Earth herself to punish her servant for destroying her “simulacrum” and convince Superman to be her boyfriend (but that will happen in another issue).
Character-Watch:
So that’s the first appearance of Maxima, who over the course of a few years will evolve from an arrogant, man-obsessed supervillain to an arrogant, man-obsessed superhero, and will even join the Justice League of America along with Superman. Why did the JLA let her join after she killed a dude in this issue, you ask? Because it was later explained that Sazu was controlling the Maxima simulacrum the whole time. Yes, the same simulacrum she later argued with and killed. Apparently Sazu was schizophrenic.
Plotline-Watch:
At the beginning of the issue Superman is saying goodbye to Starman, after the two fought the Parasite together in Starman #14. The Parasite is a big purple dude who absorbs people’s life forces. He’s traditionally been a Superman villain, so it’s kinda weird that this modern version first showed up in issues of Firestorm and Starman (we won’t see him around these parts until 1991).
Superman briefly visits Lana Lang, who is still in the hospital after almost being killed by Matrix/Superman/Supergirl last issue. Then we see that Lois Lane still has that sling in her arm from the robot attack in the issue before that, and Jimmy Olsen is still under observation with Professor Hamilton from his recent (and painful) elastic adventure. Being Superman’s friend sucks.
Speaking of Jimmy, Superman calls Hamilton to check on him and Hamilton doesn’t mention anything about the whole “You might be carrying an alien virus right now and infecting people” thing. Either this whole issue happens before Hamilton and Jimmy realized that, or he’s the most neglectful scientist ever. (Actually, that does fit his character.)
Excuse-Watch:
Apologies for the lack of updates this week: I was dealing with the dumbest plagiarist in the world, who tried to blackmail me but failed hilariously. You can read the whole sad story in a post I entitled How The Dumbest Plagiarist In The World Tried To Blackmail Me (And Failed Hilariously).