Adventures of Superman #450 (January 1989)
Adventures of Superman #450 (January 1989)
ANNIVERSARY ISSUE! To mark this special occasion, in this issue Superman realizes he’s crazy and goes to live in space. (By the way, is it me or does the cover above look like the cover to Alan Moore’s Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow, from a different angle? Also, with the Planet building in slightly worse shape, due to the recent alien invasion.)
The plot: Seriously, Superman realizes he’s crazy and goes to live in space. For the past few months, Metropolis’ criminals have been terrorized by a violent vigilante calling himself Gangbuster (no relation to Jose Delgado, the original Gangbuster, who was at that point crippled for life). Anyway, in Superman #27 the Guardian manages to tear Gangbuster’s costume and this is what he sees underneath:
Yep, Superman was Gangbuster all along, but even he didn’t know about it, because he’s had some sort of mental breakdown. The trauma of having killed those three criminals in another dimension (in Superman #22), combined with constantly having Brainiac poking in his mind trying to find his dark side (starting in Adventures #445) made Superman snap, grab a helmet and some nunchakus, and go out to beat criminals in his sleep. This explains the constant references to Clark being tired all day, the fact that we never saw Superman and Gangbuster together, and, you know, the 200 other clues that they were the same guy.
Anyway, Superman realizes he shouldn’t be around people right now and decides to exile himself in outer space. He asks Professor Emil Hamilton for a convenient gizmo that would allow him to breathe in space, tells Perry White that Clark Kent will be going off to concentrate on his Intergang expose story for a while, and leaves Ma and Pa on the care of the putty being formerly known as Supergirl, now calling herself “Matrix.” (While he’s in Smallville he also kisses Lana, just in case she’s the last human woman he ever sees.)
The issue ends with a repeat of the last page from Man of Steel #1, with Superman flying away from the Kent farm, only this time it’s supposedly for good.
Character-Watch:
Hey, what about Matt, the dude we were supposed to think was Gangbuster? He’s just some dude named Matt, that’s all. However, here’s something I just got: his name is Matthew (like Marvel’s Daredevil), he wears red (like Daredevil), has light hair (like Daredevil) and on the issue where he’s introduced, someone says “That Gangbuster is a real daredevil!” Also, there’s a picture of a Daredevil enemy at the end. That guy is Spider-Man.
This issue has the first appearance of Bruno “Ugly” Mannheim, the second in command at Morgan Edge’s Darkseid-backed crime cartel, Intergang. He only shows up through an intercom, though, so we can’t fully appreciate his ugliness. There’s also a brief mention to Morgan’s dad, whom we’ll have the pleasure of meeting later on (he’s a big, butt-grabbing perv).
Plotline-Watch:
Oh, right, the alien invasion! I was asked to provide a short summary of the plot of DC’s Invasion! crossover for those who haven’t read it, so here it goes: a bunch of alien races feel threatened by the Earth’s tendency to produce super-beings, so they gang together to conquer us before we get too powerful. They discover that a percentage of humans have something called the “meta-gene,” which grants them powers under stressful conditions. The invaders are defeated by Earth’s superheroes, but as a last minute dick move, they drop a meta-bomb on the planet which is supposed to kill every metahuman, but ends up doing the opposite and activating all dormant powers. The effect of the bomb is seen on pretty much every DC comic that came out that month – in this case, it goes off just as Superman leaves the planet. Superman will actually help fight some of the remaining invaders in Invasion #3 (the last issue), but then he’s really off for good.
The Misadventures of Jose Delgado: Lois Lane dumps Jose with the old “I always saw us as friends” line. Nope! You specifically said “more than friends” in Adventures #439, lady. Jose’s day gets even shittier when Lex Luthor starts remote-controlling him through the LexCorp spine-implant that allowed Jose to walk again. Lex forces Jose to put on an armor and act as his bodyguard, just for kicks.
Morgan Edge invites Cat Grant and her son Adam to spend the weekend at his country house, but Cat says she doesn’t want to confuse Adam because he’s already had too many “uncles” (like, for instance, half the Daily Planet’s male staff). Morgan also pays a cab for her, which costs, whaddayaknow, $6.50. Oh, and Cat seems desperate to mail a letter in this issue. Anyone remember what that’s about?
When Superman goes to pick up the space-breathing gizmo from Professor Hamilton, it turns out that he’d sold it to Kitty Faulkner at S.T.A.R. Labs, so they have to go fetch it from her. Fun fact: This is the first issue that Kitty shows up in where she doesn’t turn into a massive orange beast.
Theory Time!
Superman’s mental breakdown is all Orion’s fault. Yeah, Orion as in Darkseid’s least butt-faced (but still pretty butt-faced) son. Hear me out: In Adventures #426, exactly two years before this issue, an amnesiac, mind-controlled Superman was responsible for the slaughter of thousands of space hobos. On the next part of that story, in Action #586, Orion restores Superman’s mind with a Mother Box (the iPhone of the gods) but erases the “getting people killed” part, because he doesn’t think Superman should live with that.
In Adventures Annual #1 something similar happens: Superman is mind-controlled into killing a bunch of brains in jars, but the memory is erased from his mind. By now, Superman has been conditioned into turning amnesiac every time he’s forced to kill someone. So, when he consciously killed those criminals in Superman #22, it broke his mind: part of it went amnesiac and became Gangbuster, and part of it stayed the same. Nice going, Orion.
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