Action Comics #668 (August 1991)
Action Comics #668 (August 1991)
SUPERMAN VERSUS THE GHOST OF LEX LUTHOR! But not his literal ghost: more like his legacy as Metropolis’ most beloved philanthropist. So, yes, this is a thrilling issue. With economic uncertainty and strikes plaguing the city (on top of the weekly supervillain attacks), some people are like “These things didn’t happen before Lexie died!” Others are going “Nah, he’s alive! I saw him at the bus stop/fish market/pedicurist the other day!”
Superman is fed up with all these silly rumors that Luthor faked his death, but specially with the ones that say he helped him do it. He even has some strong words with the editor of a National Enquirer ripoff, the National Whisper:
(Font size is very important to Superman. That’s how you know he studied journalism too.)
In order to finally end the rumors, Superman uses some of his media connections to get WGBS to air a special report that might as well be called “5 Reasons Why Lex Luthor is Death, For Real, Seriously” (hosted by Cat Grant). The special goes into further detail about exactly what happened back when Superman found Luthor’s remains after his plane crashed in Action #660: first Supes had some Peruvian air force members scoop up all of Luthor’s parts from the fuselage and put them in a bag. Then, Superman flew the bag to Metropolis and had Maggie Sawyer get Luthor’s medical records with a court order. Finally, some science guy at the army did a DNA test and went “Yep, it’s the same guy.”
So there you go. Luthor is definitely dead. You know, in case you were wondering. On a completely unrelated matter, the issue ends with this mysterious scene of Luthor’s favorite cronies, Dr. Happersen and Dr. Kelley about to meet someone in Australia…
Huh. What’s that all about?
Death-Watch:
My favorite part of the issue is a scene at the beginning where Superman does fight Luthor’s ghost – in a nightmare. First, a giant Luthor grabs Superman with his also-giant kryptonite hand, and then we get a replay of the “one day, you are going to die” scene from Man of Steel #4 (1986), with a slight difference. See if you can spot it.
Don Sparrow has some interesting thoughts about this opening sequence: “The stark white background lets the reader know, subtly, that something is amiss here, but Superman’s expressions are enough for us to care, even if we have doubts that this is real. Most telling, and I think a great bit of foreshadowing, on page 3 and 4, Luthor has hair again. Longish red hair to be precise… hmmm…”
I agree, Don. This is definitely foreshadowing… for the Death of Superman storyline, which, as I’ve said before, is the centerpiece of this whole era in Superman comics! All the roads are leading that way (Cadmus, Krypton Man, Warworld, Superman’s rocket, etc.) and this premonition ties it all to Luthor, whose plotline will be one of the few important ones that won’t have a major effect in Death of Superman. Because Lex is dead. Duh.
Plotline-Watch:
Commissioner Gordon makes Perry White quit smoking! Sort of. Perry and Pa Kent are still on that pleasure cruise (uh, with their respective wives) and, while Perry is bitching to Pa about a Luthor article in Newstime Magazine, he reads about Jim Gordon’s hear attack – a storyline in the Batman books that was part of a real-life PSA campaign. Since Gordon’s smoking contributed to his condition, Perry immediately drops his cigar into the sea and he and Pa go off to get some exercise.
Incidentally, Perry calling Gordon an “acquaintance” is consistent with their scenes together in the awesome 1990 World’s Finest miniseries. This pleases me. Carry on.
Jimmy Olsen’s unemployed indignities continue: this issue finds him resorting to photographing children at birthday parties (with the parents’ permission, I’d hope). Then a monkey dressed like Superman steals Jimmy’s negatives and ruins them – making it the second roll of film Jimmy loses in two months, after dropping that other one into a crevice. Also, note that this issue was written before the invention of the word “awesomest”:
Man, everyone’s having a crappy time in this comic, even the Mayor. A TV host rags on Mayor Frank Berkowitz for allowing Luthor’s death to send Metropolis down the toilet, and Berkowitz wonders: “Why doesn’t she just accuse me of killing him?” Eerie words, considering the Mayor’s final fate… (Don’t you Google it, we’ll get there!)
Celebrity-Watch:
Most of the TV presenters in this issue are strangely reminiscent of real people (except of a guy called Jack Ryder at the end, who is the alter-ego of The Creeper). The host chewing up the Mayor is called Suzie Jamie Donatello – presumably the sister of Sally Jessy Raphael and two other cowabunging ladies. Don says: “I always like seeing real life analogues in comics, so page 11’s ‘Renaldo’ is kinda funny (though he looks just as much like John Stossel as he does Geraldo Rivera). Not sure if the greaser on his panel is meant to look more like Arthur Fonzarelli or Danny Zuko, but he stands out.”
I thought he kinda looked like Elvis (not in that panel, though), who is probably jealous that Luthor is hogging all the dead celebrity sighting headlines. Don continues: “There’s something a little off-putting about the way the fella on far right of Renaldo’s the panel is holding hands, as well as his expression. Waitaminute, what’s the other guy on the far right doing with his fingers? What kind of show are you running, Renaldo?”
For way more from Don, keep reading!
Art-Watch (by donsparrow):
We open with a stunner of a cover, from the rarely seem combination of Jurgens and Bob McLeod. Very cool use of colour (which was much trickier back at this time) and I love the look of Luthor’s double -L tombstone(Donald Trump has nothing on Luthor when it comes to branding. It’s actually pretty close in the hair department, come to think of it…). Though the lightning is a bit confusing (Ghost Lex can control the weather?) the dutch angle really grabs the eye. Great, great stuff.
Keeping the disorientation going, we open the story with a jaw-dropper splash, leading to the very cool nightmare sequence:
After the Indiana Jones-like sequence on page 4 [Max: In “Death-Watch” above. Also, ha!], the dream ends with a suddenly hairless (Superman is usually depicted as pretty hirsute in this era) Superman waking up in a cold sweat. The scenes that follow this, with Clark telling Lois about it over a park breakfast are tender, with some great backgrounds (again, slyly letting us know we’re back on earth and out of the dream). And, again, we see the all-ages appeal of this era, as on page5, Roger Stern leaves room for the reader to decide the nature of their physical relationship:
Lois and Clark live apart, allowing for the possibility that they’re not sleeping together, but then Lois also has cute, coy lines like “I don’t mind losing a little sleep for you,” punctuated with an “anyway…” that I find telling, reading it as an adult. The great thing is, once again, they don’t make it explicit–you really can read it both ways, and that’s great storytelling.
Though a tad heavy handed, the full-on anti-smoking PSA that poses are page 16 is quietly affecting, even though I’d pay to see Perry’s shadowed expression in that last panel as Jonathan Kent insinuates they’re both overweight, “wouldn’t hurt either of us to walk off a few pounds, right, lard-ass? Right? Right, tubbo?” And so on.
Stray observations:
The flashback of Superman collecting Lex’s body fills in some blanks from Lex’s death issue, but as an issue of a comic called “Action”, this one is a bit lacking, as the most exciting part is Superman liftinga car to protect it from picketing . In my issue the most intense scene is the ad for WWF Superstars with the Ultimate Warrior.
On the plus side, at least McLeod drew a pretty accurate semblance of what the underside of a car looks like (page 6). So often in comics, they look like plywood.
Almost nobody does shadowy scenes as well as McLeod (page 22) [Max: At the end of the plot recap above.]
While mostly well drawn, this issue features a lot of people with big schnozzes!
[Max: Yeah, I know the two cops here aren’t the best example, but I picked these panels because I have the biggest crush on Captain Maggie. Too bad our relationship is doomed due to a couple of important reasons.]