Adventures of Superm-- er, Alpha Centurion #516 (September 1994)
Adventures of Superman Alpha Centurion #516 (September 1994)
The effects of Zero Hour get crazier as our hero meets a strange visitor from another reality: some long-haired dude called “Super-Man” who dresses in garish blue tights and, worst of all, has the hots for Lois. How will Alpha and the gang deal with this weirdo?!
We open with this new character flying into Metropolis when he’s hit by a lightning bolt, which he just shrugs off (overpowered much?). As he approaches Metropolis, The Superman seems surprised to realize that the city isn’t in ruins – which suggests that he isn’t a very good superhero, since he apparently allowed Metropolis to be destroyed by some supervillain in his own reality.
Confused, he decides to investigate by infiltrating the Daily Planet offices wearing a hilariously flimsy “regular person” disguise consisting of: 1) an office worker suit, 2) a pair of glasses, and 3) a ponytail. When he sees Lois Lane, “Clark” (as he calls himself while wearing the glasses, kinda like how Batman calls himself “Patches” when he has an eye-patch on) just walks up to her and kisses her on the mouth. We can add “sexual harassment” to this guy’s seemingly interminable list of powers. She slaps the shit out of him, of course.
Embarrassed, “Clark” changes back into his blue tights in a supply closet (looks like they haven’t invented the concept of changing rooms in his reality) and flies off to deal with an emergency that his Superman-Senses detected – only to find that good ol’ Alpha Centurion is already handling it. About time the actual protagonist of this comic showed up! Alpha recognizes Superman from the crowd scenes in Zero Hour #3 and cordially invites him to team up against Bloody Mary and her robots, to which Superman initially reacts by just standing (well, floating) there looking confused.
The fight leads them to Centurion Park (home to the Alpha statue from “Death of Alpha Centurion”), where Mary’s jetpack seems to malfunction and Alpha has to save her. They almost have a tender moment, but then Mary reacts to Alpha turning down her advances for the 516th time by stabbing him in the gut with her animetal hand, also for the 516th time. Yes, we’ve been keeping track.
Superman finally makes himself useful by stopping Mary as she’s trying to escape, but Maggie Sawyer from Metropolis’ The 100 police force understandably assumes this ridiculously-dressed flying being must be another villain and tries to arrest him. Alpha quickly clears up the misunderstanding, and then Superman returns the favor by taking him to Alpha Tower for healing. This scene re-confirms that Superman’s an inferior superhero, since his reaction makes it clear that he doesn’t have a big building shaped like the first letter of his name or an awesome swimming pool where he heals himself.
(Not to mention a cool Moe Howard haircut under that wig.)
As Alpha heals, he retells his origin for Superman’s benefit (and because they needed to fill two pages with stuff we’ve heard a million times, I guess). You know the drill: he was a Roman Centurion, he was taken to another planet to study with aliens for 10 years, he came back to Earth 2000 years later because quantum physics, he saved a space shuttle, and a “tenacious reporter” gave him his superhero name (as seen in 1986’s The Centurion of Alpha #1 by Junius Byrne).
Just then, that same reporter stops by and immediately starts making out with him Alpha, this time with both parties’ full consent. Superman doesn’t take the smooching well, and that’s when he explains his awkwardness around Lois: in his reality, not only is he the hero of Metropolis but he’s also her boyfriend! (Really, alternate reality Lois? Him?)
Superman says he has to go back to the Zero Hour series to “straighten out” the screwed up timelines. Alpha announces that he’s coming along too, despite Superman warning him that this might “erase him from existence” (as if DC would just delete their biggest cash cow, and right when Lois and Marcus: The New Adventures of Alpha Centurion was in the air). Superman and Alpha depart together, meaning this will be CONTINUED IN ZERO HOUR!
Character-Watch:
The character debuting in this issue (after that brief Zero Hour cameo) would go on to make a ton more appearances throughout the ‘90s, though in a somewhat more irritating form than the reasonable chap we see in this issue. Why, he’ll even get his own Superman Special! According to the DC wiki, though, he hasn’t appeared since a 2007 issue of Alpha Centurion/Batman. I’m actually surprised Geoff Johns or James Robinson didn’t using him as cannon fodder in some crossover in the '00s.
Plotline-Watch:
Perhaps fittingly for a crossover about time weirdness, it’s not clear when exactly this issue takes place: the blurb at the end directs the reader to pick up ZH #2, but that issue starts directly after the end of ZH #3, with the heroes dealing with the whole “a future city is about to crash into New York” issue. I kinda doubt Superman would take a break to check on Metropolis during that, so this story must have taken place at some point afterwards. This probably explains why the ZH reading order we’ve been using places this issue between #2 and #1 (it’s been 30 years and the inverted numbering is still hard to get used to).
Aside from Maggie Sawyer, another member of Metropolis’ The 100 police force is Jim Harper, who presumably wasn’t allowed to wear his Guardian suit in this reality because Alpha Centurion has a monopoly on golden helmets, so he had to become a super-cop instead. (By the way, I’m pretty sure Maggie wasn’t supposed to be piloting a ship that looks exactly like Bloody Mary’s in the panel below… art error or chronal disturbance?!)
In the other reality, The 100 (at one point upgraded to The 1000) was the name of a criminal organization that fought Metropolis-based heroes like Thorn, Black Lightning, and Booster Gold, but wisely stayed out of Superman’s way for the most part. I’m guessing that has nothing to do with the version in this issue, which is called that because Roman centurions had exactly 100 soldiers at their command.
I like the idea for this issue a lot, but it kinda feels like Karl Kesel ran out of space and had to end it very abruptly, before there could be any real conflict. Superman explains what’s going on, Alpha is like “oh dang,” the end. Both this story and Superman #93 could have benefited hugely from being month-long storylines, but then it would have been even more awkward to have the main character running back and forth between his own series and Zero Hour. Plus, we probably would have missed out on the fantastic Man of Steel #37, so maybe it was all for the best. Kesel would go on to write a much more satisfying version of the “issue set in the middle of an alternate reality continuity” idea in Amalgam’s Spider-Boy #1, a.k.a. The Perfect Comic Book.
Shout Outs-Watch:
A hundred shout outs to Alpha Centurion LXXXVI to XCIX (AD)’s supporters, Aaron, Chris “Ace” Hendrix, britneyspearsatemyshorts, Patrick D. Ryall, Mark Syp, Ryan Bush, Raphael Fischer, Kit, Dave Shevlin, and Dave Blosser! Join them (and get extra Alpha Centurion-related articles) via Patreon or our newsletter’s “pay what you want” mode!
And now, more from the great Donelius Sparrow!
Art-Watch (by @donsparrow):
We start with the cover, and we often talk on here about how it can sometimes be frustrating when a cover is symbolic only, and you actually wanted to see the image depicted take place within the issue. This cover, by the regular Super-team of Kitson and McCarthy is accurate to a fault—not only does the story really feature a statue of Alpha-Centurion, and Lois Lane viewing Superman as a complete stranger, but it more or less summarizes the entire plot of the issue—Superman has been replaced in this timeline, in every sense, by Alpha-Centurion. Despite their names being on the cover, this is the last we see of Kitson and McCarthy, as art chores inside are actually handled by the unique team of Peter Krause (who would go onto pencil Jerry Ordway’s criminally underrated Power of Shazam series) and Jackson Guice (who at this time inked only rarely). I’m a big admirer of both these artists, but the overall result is a little mixed. The storytelling throughout (pacing the action, detailing the backgrounds) is generally pretty strong, but there’s a generally scratchy, rushed feel I don’t associate with either artist normally, and while some of the cartoony facial expressions are welcome, on the whole, Superman looks muggy and ugly for most of the story.
Not to say that there aren’t highlights! The opening page, with Superman being struck by a lightning bolt (no mere regular, electric one, but a time lightning bolt that seems to shuffle him into an alternate, Kal-El free timeline) is pretty great! Nervy colouring choice by Glenn Whitmore to white Superman out almost entirely.
The image of ponytail Clark (I swear, his hair looks a lot longer when he’s Clark than when he’s Superman in this era) laying a big old smooch on the wide-eyed and disinterested Lois Lane is reminiscent of John Byrne’s famous “Smallville Hello” that Superman laid on Wonder Woman way back in Action #600, with Lois exactly as “into it” as the Amazonian Princess was back then.
The image of Clark cringing of embarrassment is outright hilarious, though, another example of ugly Superman in this issue. The next panel there’s a slight colouring error that seems to happen fairly commonly when an inker doesn’t completely outline the eyelid. I did a quick recolour to show how it was maybe supposed to look.
The double page spread introducing Alpha-Centurion is a great one…
…though the background contains a small colouring error. Sure, Bloody Mary’s costume is plenty revealing, but I’m glad it’s not depicted as revealingly as this panel makes it out to be. [Max: Not coloring errors, Don! TIME QUAKES!] In an era of more-is-more design, Alpha-Centurion’s costume is pretty restrained, though with its brassy gold and blue minimalist combo, it looked to me quite a lot like Triumph’s costume—Triumph being the other time lost hero of Zero Hour. [Max: It’s a decent costume, but I still prefer the original Jovian Shuster design from Alpha Comics #1.]
As Superman teams up with AC to deal with Blood Mary, the robots she employs look for all the world like Japan’s Ultraman (or is it Dr. Who’s Cybermen?).
[Max: Nice shout out to Jack Kirby But Roman Name in that panel.]
SPEEDING BULLETS:
Alpha-Centurion’s main font could use some work—those letter “A”s always put me in the mind of half of the famed golden arches from McDonald’s. [Max: What’s that? Is it like McDowell’s?]
It’s interesting that the timeline hop jumps Superman to a reality where Metropolis is rebuilt. The actual rebuild is almost exactly as finger-snappingly instant, but we’re not there for a few issues.
Alpha-Centurion’s origin—of being plucked from a historical era by semi-benevolent alien abduction is pretty similar to the origin of the Pre-Crisis version of Terra-Man, who was abducted by The Collector, and similarly had time pass more rapidly on Earth than it did for him in space.
What’s Bloody Mary’s deal? The has a pirate-y look with the eye patch and bodice, but seems to be a cyborg, and she has an army of robots? Where’s the synergy?
Alpha-Centurion’s statue begs the question—did he, too, die and come back to life? Or did they just give him a statue just because? [Max: Uh, we’ve covered “Reign of the Centurions,” Don. Don’t you remember the 100 Centurion impostors who show up in Metropolis before the real one returned, wearing an even bigger Moe haircut?]
Alpha Centurion’s Caesar cut pre-dates the ER-based craze by a couple of years. Though, all wet, he looks more like Lloyd Christmas than George Clooney.
Lois’ insistence on Italian, due to AC being Roman is pretty hilarious. Surely they eat other kinds of food?
It’s hard to square the Lois we know with being OK with a romance with a hero who builds skyscrapers in his name and surrounds himself with toga-clad babes.
I hope it doesn’t come off as though I’m dumping on this era, what with my well-established Massacre-hating, but Alpha-Centurion is another character I never fully warmed to, but then again, I don’t think he’s meant to be someone we love, like a Guardian or Gangbuster. He’s really meant to be a foil, or a nuisance for Superman, more along the lines of a Jeb. But I tend to resent a lot of space being devoted to anyone not Superman in a Superman comic, and in years to come, Alpha-Centurion definitely gets some pages. [Max: Obviously! He’s the main character!]
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