Adventures of Superman #460 (November 1989)
Adventures of Superman #460 (November 1989)
It’s Superman vs. the cosmic egg his grandpa’s grandpa made: Round Two! And this time, the egg wins.
So, last issue, Superman dropped the Eradicator (the aforementioned egg) into a hole in Antarctica, after realizing that the damned thing was to blame for everything bad that’s happened to him recently. In this issue Clark Kent is bantering with Lois Lane at the Daily Planet offices when he gets a splitting headache. Clark is able to figure out who’s behind the mental attack thanks to this subtle clue:
Yes: The Coca-Cola Company! Nah, it’s the Eradicator. Superman flies back to Antarctica to see what’s going on and finds out that the Eradicator has been pretty busy: it built some sort of giant antenna in the middle of the icy landscape, using Kryptonian technology it’s getting from some sort of portal. It even recreated some of those floating servant robots Superman’s dad had, and brainwashed two human scientists into talking and dressing like old-timey Kryptonians.
Superman tells the Eradicator to stop whatever it’s doing, but the Eradicator reacts by trying to, well, eradicate him. Eventually Superman is subdued by the Kryptonian machines and knocked unconscious, and then…
…we cut to Clark Kent back at the Planet again, feeling perfectly fine and with no memory of what happened. Which is a pretty disturbing ending, considering what happened the last time Superman had memory problems.
Character-Watch:
This issue introduces us to Kem-L, Superman’s racist great great great grandpa (or thereabouts). In a flashback, we find out the Eradicator was created by Kem-L when Krypton’s ruling class asked him to figure out a way to keep alien visitors off the planet (Krypton wasn’t big on tourism). Kem-L’s solution was to create a device that genetically chained all Kryptonians to Krypton while murdering any dirty immigrants who dared to step on the planet. Unfortunately, an old troublemaker called Cleric ended up stealing the Eradicator and taking it off-planet (as seen in Action Annual #2), so even if Kem-L ever realized “Wait, no, that was a stupid idea,” it was too late to fix it.
Another first appearance: a dapper fellow named Colin Thornton, the publisher of Newstime magazine. We don’t know this yet (because not even the writers knew this yet) but he’s actually an ancient supernatural evil, and the brother of the Satanic voice who transformed Skyhook in Superman #34.
Plotline-Watch:
Colin Thornton shows up at the Daily Planet looking for Clark because he wants to offer him a job as Newstime’s managing editor. Of course, Clark would never leave the Planet in his right mind. In his right mind.
Those two scientists the Eradicator brainwashes are the same ones Superman met in Antarctica after being eaten by that giant bug, in Action #646. Poor guys, first they get their base leveled by a monster and now they’re kidnapped by an alien egg. Worst of all, it doesn’t look like the Eradicator is letting them wear proper attire for this weather.
Lois (who is showing off her new Annie Hall/Perry White look) mentions Jimmy Olsen’s recent Superman-caused problems, and Clark gets kinda defensive about it:
“Just because he’s super strong and smart and awesome doesn’t mean he can do anything, Lois! And handsome and a talented singer.”
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