Adventures of Superman #435 (December 1987)
Adventures of Superman #435 (December 1987)
The final confrontation between Superman and The Circle, which takes place in the form of a long acid trip. We begin with Clark Kent about to drive a race car, presumably for a Daily Planet story about race car driving, when he starts seeing weird visions of the sewer mutants from several issues ago (The Circle), telling him to go to a building. As a result Clark crashes the car, and no one thinks it’s too weird that he survived the big explosion without a scratch despite supposedly not being an indestructible alien demi-god. Jimmy Olsen does mention this will make a great front page story, though (“DUMBASS REPORTER WRECKS $500,000 DOLLAR CAR”?).
Meanwhile, Superman’s recent enemy Concussion (aka Monkeyface) is broken out of prison by Superman’s other recent enemies Charger and Duece – all secretly members of The Circle. Superman goes to the building where The Circle has gathered and another vision unfolds: this time Superman sees all his friends (including Perry White, a horse and several animals) dressed in Superman costumes and calling him worthless. After fighting a giant green version of Jimmy Olsen, Superman finds the leader of The Circle, who tells him they need Superman’s help to get back to their dimension or whatever. Superman says “Well, you could have just asked that from the beginning.”
A second after agreeing to help them, Superman wakes up in the rubble of the building, with The Circle completely gone, never to be seen again. So either Superman did help them go home and doesn’t remember it, or he destroyed the building while tripping balls and killed everyone. Either way, a happy ending.
Plotline-Watch:
Kind of a sudden close to The Circle’s storyline, probably because this was Marv Wolfman’s last issue as Adventures writer and he couldn’t leave without at least trying to explain who those guys were or what they wanted. Turns out they’re God’s “first experiment” before humanity. However, their legendary “Missing One” is still, well, missing, and the issue ends with Superman wondering if he’ll ever meet him. Nope, that’ll never happen, and we’ll never hear about The Circle again.
WTF-Watch:
I like that when Superman sees a vision of his closest friends, random Daily Planet staffers Alice-the-intern and Whit-the-possible-serial-killer are included. I knew Superman cared more about them than he let on.
See comments on Tumblr: https://superman86to99.tumblr.com/post/62358064838/adventures-of-superman-435-december-1987-the#disqus_thread
Missed an issue? Looking for an old storyline? Check out our new chronological issue index!
This newsletter is free and always will be, but if you'd like to support us with $1 a month or more, you'll get access to extra articles about non-continuity '90s Superman stuff (shows, video games, Elseworlds, etc) and cool giveaways. Click here to become a paid supporter!