Adventures of Superman #427 (April 1987)
Adventures of Superman #427 (April 1987)
Superman lifts a tank over his head in an Arab country, as you can see. Said country is Qurac, the one that sent a terrorist Voltron to Metropolis in Adventures #425, because attacking a city inhabited by a flying man who can lift tanks seemed like great idea at the time. Superman goes around Qurac, happily decimating their armed forces and possibly ruining their economy, until he reaches the offices of their President and pushes him against a wall.
Aaaand that’s when things get weird. A couple of mysterious butt-ugly mutants living in Qurac’s sewers telepathically mess with Superman’s head, making him think he’s back on Krypton with his parents, who tell him he should be ruling the world. Superman has to abandon his meeting with the president and go for a nap in his hotel room (or Clark’s hotel room). Once there, the sewer mutants go back to messing with Superman’s head, making him see visions of past villains and potential lovers (Lois, Lana and Cat) taunting him about his motives for helping people. Superman resists, though, and the main mutant, Prana, dies from all the mental stress.
Character-Watch:
The mutants call themselves “The Circle” and Prana may be dead, but there’s a whole bunch more of the ugly bastards. This is also the first encounter between Superman and Qurac’s President Marlo, a guy who- OK, he’s just Saddam Hussein. He has the same mustache and all.
When Superman is hallucinating about previous villains, we see Luthor, Bizarro, Metallo and… some fucking guy called “Synapse”, for some reason. This is a dude with an armor that Superman won’t even meet for another six issues. Also, he’ll be called “Combattor”. He has nothing to do with The Circle. No idea why Superman’s dreaming about the guy. And while we’re at it, why is Superman dreaming about Cat Grant too, when he’s only known her for like one issue?
Plotline-Watch:
This is a strong beginning to the long-running storyline about The Circle: they’re the ones who gave the Transformer technology to Qurac, and after this issue they move to Metropolis to keep a closer eye on Superman, thinking he might be one of them. Their story would continue on and off for the rest of Marv Wolfman’s run as Adventures writer, until he finally remembered “oh, right, I have to explain what the hell was up with those guys” in his last issue.
WTF-Watch:
This is a pretty heavy issue, what with all the destruction, politics and that one guy dying, but the image of a talking Baby Superman ardently debating morality with his parents on Krypton during one of the hallucinations is never not funny.
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