Action Comics #664 (April 1991)
Action Comics #664 (April 1991)
“Time and Time Again!” Phase Five – Superman meets the Flintstones! Well, he meets Dino. Okay, he meets a dino. Several dinos, actually. Superman’s temporal quest has left him stranded in the jurassic era, is what I should have said from the beginning. Luckily, it turns out that Superman is a Ross from Friends-level nerd, so he knows the names of all the dinosaurs and the exact period where he’s trapped. Not so luckily, he’s still trapped. Six weeks pass, and Superman has developed 1) a sweet beard and 2) a friendship with a dinosaur (of the non-talking variety) called Drom.
One day, Superman hears a scream for help: it’s Chronos, a C-list time-themed supervillain who also ended up in dinosaur times after a fight with the Blue Beetle. After Superman saves Chronos from being digested by a T. Rex, the two make an uneasy alliance to try to return to the present using the chronal energies in Superman’s body. Naturally, Chronos can’t resist being a dick and tries to betray Superman and travel in time by himself. A seriously pissed off Supes (the beard makes him angrier) destroys Chronos’ equipment with his heat vision, causing a big explosion:
The explosion sends Superman hundreds of millions of years into the future… which means he’s still like 500,000 years from home. Luckily, it turns out that Superman is a me-level John Byrne comics nerd, because he remembers that back in Superman #6, he met an ancient, super-advanced alien race who left the Earth around this time. Superman arrives on their giant city in the Andes just as the alien rockets are taking off for space, and the explosion at the base of the ships sends him into…
Science-Watch:
To the unscientific mind, it might seem like a ridiculous coincidence that Superman should happen to land on the exact same year that Chronos was stranded in, and that later on he should randomly arrive right before that alien race left the planet. However, there’s a perfectly rational explanation for this: back in Adventures #476 (or Phase One of this storyline), the Linear Man said he was able to land in Superman’s present because there was a time anomaly in that period. Clearly, there are also anomalies in all the periods Superman has visited – my theory is that they’re created by future time travelers doing discreet tourism in popular years, such as World War II, the Camelot era or the one with, you know, those alien guys, whatever they were called.
What is a huge coincidence is that Superman was stranded in time because of Booster Gold, and Chronos was stranded because of Booster’s best friend Blue Beetle. That is just unacceptable.
Plotline-Watch:
I’ve read this issue a few times, but I’m always surprised to see the return of the alien jerks from that old Byrne issue. There’s even a flashback panel showing the Huge-Ass Robot Mummy that Superman fought back then! I should stop saying “and we never saw those guys again” in these posts because I’m usually wrong.
We never saw poor old Dromie again, which is a shame, because he’d make a much better sidekick for Superman than Jimmy Olsen.
Speaking of Jimmy, the story of how his mom ruined his chances of ever getting laid with Lucy Lane continues, as Mrs. Lane breaks out the embarrassing old baby photos during Jimmy’s hot date. Jimmy decides there and then that he needs to get his own apartment.
Bibbo’s kindness towards his friends (in this case, High Pockets) is as big as his butt-crack. That is, extremely big.
Lois Lane’s cat Elroy isn’t taking the news of her engagement well: he has shredded Clark’s clothes which, as established last issue, are Lois’ only comfort now that Clark is lost in time. Dick move, Elroy.
The LexCorp Lawyers are like “man, you thought we were stressed about the company’s leaderless state before? Wait till you see how stressed we get in this issue!” They’re very stressed! But at least they’ve decided to elect an interim leader, so that’s something.
WTF-Watch:
Superman says that Drom the Dromiceiomimus helped him retain his sanity during those long weeks alone in the distant past. I’m… not so sure about that.
No man in his right mind would sing Was Not Was.