Action Comics #666 (June 1991)
Action Comics #666 (June 1991)
“The Red Glass Trilogy” Part 3 – Superman is HIGH AS HELL on alien moon crystals. Previously: everyone started calling Superman a crazy murderer, and he sorta proved them right by accidentally killing Lois Lane, Booster Gold, and all of Metropolis. This issue starts with Superman getting nuked by the army and then super-nuked by two atomic-powered superheroes, Captain Atom and Firestorm. However, at this point Superman’s line of thinking is “Whelp, if everyone calls me a psychopath I probably am,” so he starts acting the part.
After exploding Captain Atom with his heat vision and literally screaming the entire Doom Patrol to death, Superman starts feeling bad about what he’s done. Luckily, Wonder Woman comes along with a handy piece of kryptonite to allow him to kill himself. So, Superman grabs the kryptonite and then… PLOT TWIST! This whole insane, improbable storyline was a dream! I’ll give you a second to recover from the shock.
So, exactly how many late night burritos did Superman eat to deserve this nightmare? None: turns out he’s actually on the moon, investigating some unusual activity for NASA. The one responsible for those crazy visions is a telepathic alien crystal coming out of a nearby crater, which is terribly embarrassed for causing Superman so much distress.
The crystal explains that it became stranded on our moon thousands of years ago, and while trying to reach out to Superman for help, it accidentally gave him visions of his worst fear: losing controls of his powers. Superman’s like “eh, it happens” and frees the space crystal, allowing it to finally fly away from our shithole of a galaxy, searching for a better place to raise its crystal kids. THE END.
Plotline-Watch:
What is it with Superman comics and people going crazy on the moon? Last year Superman tried to kill Draaga there during his “Krypton Man” phase (Adventures #465) and just a month ago a Daxamite went nuts and tried to blow up the whole thing (Adventures #478). Though the crystal did say it tried to talk to Superman before and wasn’t understood, so maybe it was at least partly behind those other instances, too (and the word “lunatic” in general).
I said last issue that this storyline reminded me of a Vertigo comic, so it was a nice surprise to see the Grant Morrison version of the Doom Patrol show up in this one. It was unusual for the Patrol to appear in other DC comics during this period, since it was a “mature readers” series and all, but “Superman killed the entire team with his voice” totally sounds like something that would happen in their own book.
Usually these fill-in stories have little connection to the ongoing continuity, but there’s a big link to the next storyline here: the issue ends with an ominous shot of the sun, where there’s some weird flare activity going on. Some of you know where this is going, but I’ll just say that we’re about to see yet another example of Superman’s tendency to toss dangerous shit into space backfiring on him.