Action Comics #669 (September 1991)
Action Comics #669 (September 1991)
Superman teams up with Thorn, the vigilante who doesn’t know she’s a vigilante! Because she’s crazy. Thorn is a lady called Rose (get it?) Forrest (GET IT?!) who developed a split personality after her cop dad was killed by a criminal organization. Now she goes out at night and beats up criminal organizations, then wonders what’s up with all those bruises the next morning. In this case, she and Superman are going up against Intergang – Thorn catches an Interthug just after he firebombed a Daily Planet truck and made it look like the Planet workers on strike did it.
Turns out this was just a distraction to allow other Intergangsters to rob a train full of treasury paper. Superman and Thorn face the tag team of Sweet Leilani and Tiny Bubbles, who are more intimidating than they sound, since 1) they have one of those Apokoliptian power batons, and 2) “Tiny” Bubbles is a freaking giant.
Superman defeats Bubbles and Leilani by blowing up their baton with his heat vision, and then brings down a flying saucer full of more Intergang guys. Meanwhile, Thorn contributes to the fight by leaping around and being all intense and stuff. The team-up is a success, but Superman is getting bored of punching Intergang goons every month and decides he has to do something permanent about them…
Character-Watch:
Superman says he remembers meeting Thorn in “the early days of his career,” but that’s a filthy lie – this is actually the first time we see them together in the current continuity. She was originally introduced on the old Superman’s Girlfriend, Lois Lane series in the ‘70s, then brought back in Dan Jurgens’ Booster Gold. We’ll be seeing more of Thorn from now on, which I recall my young self appreciating quite a bit (I stared at this issue’s cover so much that we technically dated for a few months in '95).
Plotline-Watch:
As promised the previous week in Adventures #482, this issue features the historic first meeting between Ma and Pa Kent and Pa and Ma Lane (nobody actually calls them that), now that their kids are getting married. The evening goes well… for about ten seconds, until Sam Lane starts talking politics.
Five hours later:
Don Sparrow thinks Sam gets a bad rep: “Is it just me, or is Sam Lane not THAT much of a jerk? Granted, he should allow others to talk more, but I don’t see anything too offensive in his opinions. They’re just that–opinions,and some of them (like how rough the city has gotten since Luthor’s death) have been echoed in these pages by Superman himself. Am I nuts?” Well, I think it’s more that he met these people literally seconds ago and he’s already ranting at their faces. With his mouth full, too. He could be talking about something everyone agrees with (“Boy, that Hitler sure was lousy!”) and it’d still be awkward.
Other plots:
Speaking of grumpy old men yelling at people, Perry White goes back to the Daily Planet after his romantic cruise vacation and runs into, as Don puts it, “a joint protest being held by dual union members of both the Pressman’s Union and the Big Nose Society.”
Intergang’s Gillespie feels bad for assuming (as I did) that Sweet Leilani was just some “bimbo” when she was introduced back in Action #653 – turns out she’s some sort of ass-kicking ninja badass. I can’t remember if this actually happens later on, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she and Tiny Bubbles were revealed to be Female Furies from Apokolips.
Meanwhile, Jimmy Olsen… wait, there’s no Jimmy in this issue! What the hell?! I love Jimmy! Gotta have that Jimmy!
That’s it, I’m too angry to continue now. Don, you finish this post. I’m out of here.
Art-Watch (by donsparrow):
We open this one with a pretty moody, Batman-like cover, which is fitting, since 9 out of 10 people who see this cover will think Superman is fighting classic Batman baddie Poison Ivy(who predates Thorn by only 4 years). But it’s a unique perspective that leads the eye upward toward Superman in a nice way, and Thorn’s pose conveys her movement well. So, a good cover.
Inside,we’re greeted with a pretty nice “what-the?” image, with the rare sight of Superman layed out on a couch. This whole scene is actually a pretty nice detail, as writer Roger Stern acknowledges that Superman has been put through the ringer, physically, of late, and is long overdue for some couch time.
I like seeing Lois get along with the Kents (I, like Max, also subscribe to the theory that it took some time for Ma Kent to get over her ideal of Clark marrying Lana Lang), and they’re allied here in trying to get Clark to relax a bit (though, speaking of relaxing, their faces are pretty over-wrought as they detail the beatings he’d recently suffered, on page 2).
From there we jump to a well choreographed–if bizarrely revealing– fight scene between ninjas and the queen-sized mob enforcer, Tiny Bubbles (who one can only assume got tired of being screamed at in the street, and turned to a life of crime). [Max: What do you mean, revea– oh. Huh. I guess my teenage self was too distracted by the cover.]
The scenes with the Kents and Lanes are entertaining, and McLeod does a good job of juggling a pretty large number of characters. I found myself a tad surprised to see the Kents drinking what appears to be alcohol, though that’s not explicitly stated, despite the shape of the bottle.
As the action rises (mobster fire-bombings lead Superman and Lois to investigate, and Superman realizes Thorn’s involvement) we see some pretty great city perspectives on page 15.
Part of me wishes we could see the action on page 20, as we jump right from Superman seeing Intergang’s flying saucer(!) to it disabled on the ground on the next page. I’d like to see how that happened, but there is a nice comedic element to Superman capturing them being such a foregone conclusion, it can arrive off-panel.
Stray observations:
They never really did figure out what to do with Lois’ mother, Ella Lane. I feel weird saying it, but I think Lois’ character works better as depicted in Smallville and other media where Ella died young (especially the tension between Lois and her father). [Max: Yeah, the most interesting thing she ever did was get sick so Luthor could hit on Lois.]
Bob McLeod really seems to relish drawing Thorn’s curves, as we get some pretty lovingly rendered versions on page 10, 15, 16–basically the entire issue.
Lucy Lane is also used well here,and it makes me wish we saw more of her in the comics of today. [Max: No one draws a cuter Lucy Lane than Bob McLeod. However, I think Agent Liberty probably disagrees with you about using her in modern comics, Don.]
Is that an Optimus Prime cameo on page 9? If so, he should probably do something about the fire.
I love Lois knowing Superman’s ID. But it was a bit dickish to have to express out loud that Superman already knew the stairwell was empty.
Very cute expression on Lois’ face as she looks to the sky where Superman flew away. I like the way Stern writes them as a more cooperative reporting team than adversarial(sometimes I think that competitiveness gets a little out of hand in Man of Steel, as we’ll see in coming weeks).
Tiny Bubbles’ true identity is revealed… she’s Interrupting Speech Guy!
