Action Comics #703 (September 1994)
Action Comics #703 (September 1994)
The final Zero Hour crossover! Superman visits an alternate timeline where he did what babies would normally do if put on a rocket and sent to another planet! You know, die.
We start with Metropolis being attacked by a version of Starro the Conqueror who’s visiting from a timeline where he defeated the Justice League of America during their first appearance. Superman takes the giant starfish monster down within a couple of pages, making the JLA look like chumps since it took them a whole issue to do the same thing (or not do it, in this case).
After that, Clark Kent stops by the Daily Planet’s temporary offices (since their actual offices got blown up by missiles) to check in on the gang, and everything seems pretty normal… until Perry White disappears in front of everyone. Clark realizes old people are getting Marty McFly’d because the time crisis is erasing the decades they were born in. And who else does he know who’s pretty old…?
(I’m not sure if Pa should feel insulted or flattered.)
Superman flies faster than he’s ever flown to Smallville (is this the start of that trope?), but once he gets there, reality shifts around him again, and instead of Ma and Pa Kent, he meets… Ma and Pa Kent, but young. He’s now in a world where time moves slower and it’s still the ‘40s, which, on the upside, means he’s got more time to save his Ma and Pa. The Young Kents think this circus strongman must be a goon sent by someone they refer to as “the doc” and decide to chain him up. Normally, this wouldn’t be much of a problem for Superman – if the metal box where Past Pa keeps his chains didn’t happen to also contain some kryptonite. How did it get there? Past Ma helpfully explains while her son from another reality agonizes.
In this timeline, the Kents were on a weekend trip to Kansas when the Kryptonian rocket landed in their farm, so by the time they got to it, poor baby Kal-El had passed away. Oh, and some heartless bastard had stolen the rocket and left the baby lying there. But hey, at least the Kents got some neat glowing rock out of it!
That heartless bastard was Dr. Emmett Vale, the alien-hating scientist who would go on to create Metallo in Superman’s timeline. The Kents leave Superman chained up next to the kryptonite as they go visit Vale with a shotgun to make him pay for sending garishly-dressed thugs their way, plus the baby murder and stuff. Superman is too weak to move away from the kryptonite, but not too weak to melt the wheels of Pa Kent’s truck with his eyes, causing the metal box with the kryptonite to slam shut (thank Rao most metal boxes in this timeline are also lined with lead, for some reason).
Meanwhile, the Kents have already been captured by Vale’s goons. Vale, who is terribly concerned about an alien invasion, says he used the technology from the Kryptonian rocket to build a machine to cross to a neighboring dimension and steal some of the “awesome weapons” there, which he plans to use against those hated aliens. In fact, he hates the aliens so much that he has no regrets about leaving a tiny one to die. Unfortunately for him, a bigger alien overhears that.
Vale activates his dimension-crossing machine, which causes the Old Kents to start materializing in the portal as they sync with this timeline, meaning they’re once again a few seconds away from getting Marty McFly’d. While Superman worries about that, Vale activates some '40s-style robots and sends them after him, but Superman isn’t terribly intimidated. (He did just fight a much scarier killer robot a couple of months ago.)
Superman destroys two of the robots, but the resulting electric shock (plus some lingering kryptonite poisoning) leaves him stunned. Past Pa actually saves Superman from the last robot using his trusty shotgun, while Past Ma saves herself from Vale using her nails.
With the Young Kents safe, Superman uses the portal to try to bring the Old ones into this reality to buy them more time. When he’s about to do that, he finds himself transported into the timestream by Linear Lady Liri Lee, who tells him it’s time to go back to the Zero Hour series and fight “the true cause of this chronal chaos.” Superman curses her for dooming his parents, but then she shows him that the Young Kents’ timeline is disappearing anyway. Superman agrees to rejoin the crossover just to kick its mystery villain’s butt (of course, if you’ve read ZH #1, you know it already happened the other way).
Meanwhile, in Metropolis, Lois Lane reports on the latest breaking news story: the end of time. She watches from a rooftop as a wave of entropy swallows Metropolis, and only interrupts her narration at the very end, to say…
And then: four pages of nothing (which was a running theme in several DC comics this month). TO BE CONCLUDED IN ZERO HOUR!
Plotline-Watch:
At the start, Clark tells Lois he took some time to check in on Metropolis since he and the other heroes had “stopped the chronal deterioration in the future” in Zero Hour #2, meaning this must take place between that issue and #1. The only problem is that Liri Lee and Matthew Ryder had been left in stasis by Extant in ZH #4 and were only freed by Superman and others in #1… but I guess that’s not a massive continuity screwup given that she’s a time traveling character and all. Hell, it could even be 2025 Post-Zero Hour, Post-Infinite Crisis, Post-New 52, Post-whatever Liri visiting this old timeline.
Jimmy Olsen wearing shirts for '90s bands was a staple of this era, but they’ve never been quite as… revealing as the NIN one he decided to wear to the office in this issue. Is he trying to impress Lucy Lane now that she’s an alt-rocker girl (or grrrl)? Did a time fluke make him switch clothes with a much shorter Jimmy from another timeline? Or did he realize the world is ending and said “screw it, I’ll dress like I always wanted to dress”? I think it might have been the shock of seeing Jimmy wearing that what made Perry White drop out of reality, not the entropy wave.
Previous appearances had depicted Dr. Vale as a kooky scientist, while this one shows him as more of a rich mob-boss type character. It’s possible he lost his fortune, henchmen, and weight as he grew older and more paranoid about aliens, or this is just one of the differences between the timelines (another one being that Superman’s rocket landed in the '40s, which means this Kal-El would have been in his fifties by 1994).
This issue would be greatly improved by one small change: instead of a shotgun, Young Pa should have been carrying around his shovel (you know, the shovel from The Man of Steel #6 and Adventures #500) and that’s what he uses to save Superman from the robot at the end. You messed up, Michelinie.
Shout Outs-Watch:
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And now, more about this issue’s most important topics (including, yes, Jimmy’s fashion choices) from the great Don Sparrow:
Art-Watch (by @donsparrow):
We start with the cover, and it’s a perfect representation of the Zero Hour storyline—bright white entropy erasing away reality. There’s something about the way Superman’s arm is stretched out slightly to the side that makes it look like he’s just waving “ahhhh, nuts to you” to the outstretched arms of Lois Lane. One small, but interesting detail is that even the trade dress “Superman in Action Comics” is brightening as it’s erased by the white wave.
Inside the issue we get great, pitched action as the story opens, with helicopter military gunner firing on Starro the Conqueror.
A few pages later, Clark and Lois are tastefully dressed, but I wish I could say the same for Jimmy. I get that they want him to seem modern, which is why they stick him with a then-current Nine Inch Nails shirt, but why it’s a sleeveless belly shirt is a mystery to me. Jimmy’s look also showcases a common problem in superhero storytelling—everyone is a mesomorph! I’m sure Jimmy is in fit condition, but here he’s shown with a bodybuilder physique to rival even Superman’s.
The image of a determined Superman soaring to check on his parents (who, being older than Perry White, already should have disappeared) is a good one, though it begs the question of what his plan is—he couldn’t seem to do anything to stop Perry disappearing, how will his parents be any different?
[Max: Had it been established that the Kents are older than Perry? Superman says otherwise in this issue. The hair does make Perry look younger; I bet it would be the other way around if Pa wore a toupée.]
Moving along, the shot of a thoughtful Superman in shadow is a great drawing.
As we’re introduced to Emmett Vale, he looks like Al Capone by way of Winston Churchill. By the time the robots show up, the wheels are really off this story. [Max: I like the '40s-style look of the robots, but I also can’t help thinking Bogdanove would have had a lot more fun with these guys than Guice did.]
Vanishing Point always has a distinctive look, which I’m guessing was hard to pull off in this era of four-colour colouring. Finally, Lois’ expression of blank terror is appropriate as the wave of destruction erases reality. Having the final few pages totally blank is pretty nervy, and definitely has a disquieting effect, though in this specific issue, it also feels like we were shortchanged a little on story. [Max: I checked and we still got 22 pages of story… but no lettercol, which I always enjoy reading in these backissues. So yeah, shortchanged.]
SPEEDING BULLETS:
A cute shoutout to the artist ho drew the very first appearance of Starro (and the Justice League), Mike Sekowsky, as one of the soldiers bears that surname.
Wait, what is Lois eating? It kinda looks like an ice cream treat, but the white stars on blue looks like paper? What is that thing? [Max: Yeah, that always bugged me. Why is she biting the paper?! Is this her “it’s the end of the world, gonna do what I want” moment?]
We are definitely in the Lois and Clark era, as comic book Perry is saddled with TV Perry’s catch phrase “Great Shades of Elvis” as he disappears into nothingness. [Max: Maybe this is actually Lois and Clark timeline Perry, and no one noticed.]
It’s telling to me that in a crisis of this magnitude, Superman seems to choose his parents over Lois. Unless he thought they were in more immediate danger than the younger Lois. Still, her getting wiped from reality all alone is pretty sad to see.
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