Adventures of Superman #452 (March 1989)
Adventures of Superman #452 (March 1989)
Part two of the two-part Hfuhruhurr story, and part three of the 23385267-part “Superman in Space!” saga (it might be more like 10 parts, I can’t remember for sure).
In Superman #29, Superman bumped into his old pal Hfuhruhurr (he calls him “Helferfer” for short), an alien who goes around the universe stealing people’s brains to form something called “The Union.” A pissed off Superman chases Helferfer around his huge spaceship, which is packed with millions of brains stolen from different species. Helferfer then harnesses the power of all these brains into a being called Eon, a physical representation of The Union, the members of which are surprisingly okay with that jerk having killed their bodies and stashed their brains in little aquariums.
Superman fights Eon for a while, until their scuffle breaks one of the aquariums – Superman tries to save the hideously big, boomerang-shaped brain that was living there, but despite his best efforts it dies. The Union is moved by Superman’s selflessness and stops helping Helferfer, who is just a schmuck without their power. Superman is like “Should I kill this guy? Wait, no, that didn’t work out so well last time I tried it…” but luckily, The Union/Eon volunteers to take control of the ship from now on and make sure Helferher doesn’t go back to his brain-stealing habits, which is good enough for Superman.
Beard-Watch:
No beard-related developments.
Character-Watch:
This is the last time we see Hfuhruhurr or Eon. Presumably that creep spent the rest of his days refreshing the aquariums for those millions of brains. An interesting detail is that The Union tells Superman he didn’t kill those thousands of South Dakotan brains after all during his first encounter with Helferfer (in Adventures Annual #1) – the brains only took control of his body and partially erased his memory to keep him restrained while they killed themselves, which is an important distinction for Supes, since it means he has one less murder in his conscience. Yay! Now it’s just those three Kryptonian criminals, and those millions of space hobos…
Plotline-Watch:
On Earth, Perry White forbids Lois Lane from running the story about the ol’ South Dakota brain carnage until she gets confirmation that Superman was involved. Unfortunately, she just noticed that Superman hasn’t been around lately. Meanwhile, she still thinks Clark Kent is dead. Yep.
With Superman in space, Lex Luthor is getting restless and his bald head is itching for a new opponent to focus his energy on. The comic then shows us a shot of S.T.A.R. Labs, the only major non-Luthor owned company in Metropolis (besides the Daily Planet, which did belong to Luthor at one point). Uh-oh.
Morgan Edge and Cat Grant’s romance continues to blossom as Morgan buys Cat’s son one of those electric cars for little jerks. Morgan then makes a vague mention of his criminal activities as head of Intergang, and Cat goes “Please tell me, a reporter you’ve only recently met, more about this crime thing.” Presumably Morgan was too dazzled by her boobs to think anything of that.
WTF-Watch:
Dan Jurgens does a great job in this issue, but someone forgot to draw Luthor’s robotic hand. (Unless that’s just a really good prosthetic.)
I would forgive this oversight if they’d added a single tear to that last panel, though.