Adventures of Superman #471 (October 1990)
Adventures of Superman #471 (October 1990)
The Sinbad Contract, Part 2: Davood Nassur, the superpowered 14-year-old from Qurac, continues to shame Superman in every possible way. This time, he outsmarts and roughs up Lex Luthor, something Superman has failed to do in his entire career so far.
Back in Part 1, young Davood came across a mysterious belt owned by Luthor that amplified his latent metahuman powers: he can now fly, shoot psychic blasts and see through walls. Davood’s sister Soraya, a secretary at LexCorp, calls Luthor saying she convinced her brother to return the belt. Naturally, as soon as Soraya politely hands over the thing, Luthor turns around and orders her killed – at this point Davood crashes through the wall and gives Luthor a psychic beatdown. Turns out Soraya gave Lex a fake belt just to see if he’s really evil. (Spoilers: he is.)
Meanwhile, Superman once again runs into those armored flying dudes who are also looking for Davood’s belt. They invade a hospital just to rescue one of their members who ended up there last issue, only to try to kill him so there won’t be any loose ends. Superman isn’t fast enough to save the guy, but Davood is (Davood: 3, Supes: -5), and then reads his mind to find out who he works for: it’s some organization called “D.M.T.” Oh, right, Davood can read minds now. Also, he teleports back home, because why not.
Superman then goes to Metropolis’ Little Qurac sector to see if he can talk to Davood, but the citizens attack him with bottles and boo him off, because they’re still pissed at Superman for invading their home country a while back (apparently they don’t remember the huge killer tanks Qurac’s president sent to Metropolis before that).
Superman puts on his pants and comes back as Clark Kent, but it turns out Quraci residents just hate white people in general and Clark finds himself surrounded by a crowd of angry people.
The issue ends with Luthor joining forces with the leader of the mysterious D.M.T. guys, who offers to sell Lex a UFO. Seriously. TO BE CONCLUDED!
Plotline-Watch:
There’s a scene with Lex shooing his sexy secretary away from his bedroom because he’s getting weaker and weaker due to his terminal disease. His illness was first hinted back in Action #656 when Lex yelled at Dr. Kelley for giving him some bad news, but it still isn’t explained what exactly is wrong with him (though it’s not that hard to guess). Hint: it’s not alopecia.
Also, I wonder if Davood saying “Assuming you have a future” means he read Lex’s mind and found out about his illness there. In that case, that’s probably the only thing that saved Lex from an even more humiliating psychic wedgie.
WTF-Watch:
So how does Davood get the codename “Sinbad”? Well, Lex Luthor pulled it out of his ass. After Davood beats him, Lex retaliates by calling the cops and telling them Davood’s entire family are terrorists – they ask for Davood’s name and “Sinbad” is the first thing Lex comes up with. You know, because the kid is Middle-Eastern and stuff.
Good thing he didn’t go with “Aladdin” or “Osama” or something.