Adventures of Superman #469 (August 1990)
Adventures of Superman #469 (August 1990)
Superman takes a holiday, but it’s interrupted by two guys in buffalo masks. Also featuring the long-awaited return of two Superman villains! (That you’d probably forgotten by now.)
Superman #46 ended with Lois Lane and Clark Kent making out while watching fireworks in Smallville. Apparently those crazy kids were going at it for a full week, because this issue starts with the exact same scene:
The smooching action is interrupted by Clark’s old friends Pete Ross and Lana Lang, leading to a slightly awkward moment between the two LL ladies. Fortunately, before Lois and Lana can recreate the scene from this cover, a spaceship lands right in front of the crowd watching the fireworks and Clark has to disappear to deal with it. Out of the spaceship come the two buffalo dudes mentioned above who say they’re looking for some fugitives, but as usual, a misunderstanding causes Superman to fight them.
Once the buffalo bros. are defeated (turns out it was as easy as taking off their clothes, since there’s just energy underneath), we find out who they were looking for: freaking Psi-Phon and Dreadnaught, those aliens who “stole” Superman’s powers back in Adventures #442! The pair try to attack Superman, but now that he knows that their power-stealing trick was completely psychological, they’re a lot easier to deal with.
Don’t mess with Superman’s vacation time.
In a bizarre plot twist, out of the big spaceship comes Dreadnaught’s wife, who looks exactly like him in a dress. The lady explains that these two goofs aren’t really scouts for an alien invasion like they claimed in their previous appearance: they just like going around the universe picking fights with other races. Superman leaves them on Mrs. Dreadnaught’s care on the promise that they won’t come back to Earth again.
However, in another bizarre plot twist, Mrs. Dreadnaught’s spaceship doesn’t go to another planet: it heads to a military base in Wyoming, where a big shot army type person calls Psi-Phon and Dreadnaught idiots for almost tipping off Superman about their “operation.” TO BE CONTINUED! In a few months. Because first, there’s another big storyline coming…
Plotline-Watch:
After all the goofy stuff in the main story, the last pages switch gears to show Jerry White doing a drug deal for his boss, only to find out the money he was given has been replaced with cockroaches. The drug dealers don’t appreciate the joke and shoot Jerry in the chest… and also Jimmy Olsen, who came in at the worst possible moment (as usual). The issue ends with the seemingly dead Jimmy and Jerry laying in an alley as Jerry’s boss, Angelica Blaze, comes in says this:
Yep, that got dark pretty quick.
Creator-Watch:
Between the Mxyzptlk issue (Adventures #463), the one with Lobo and Bibbo getting drunk in the Fortress of Solitude (#464) and this one, Dan Jurgens was giving Justice League International a good run for its money for the best humor comic starring people in tights. There are lots of great little gags all over the issue, from the rednecks who are unimpressed by the aliens because it’s all just “wires and special effects” (come to think of it, they weren’t far off from the truth) to this little gem of a panel:
I just love seeing Superman in uncomfortable situations he can’t punch his way out of. Ironically, when Jurgens does take over the JLI, he’s gonna turn it into a straight action comic, and in general the humor will become a lot less prominent in his work (thankfully we’ll have Karl Kesel by then).