Adventures of Superman #473 (December 1990)
Adventures of Superman #473 (December 1990)
Superman teams up with Green Lantern and Green Lantern. This issue is called “Rings of Fire” because both Green Lanterns have power rings, and also because Clark Kent just gave Lois Lane an engagement ring last week in Superman #50 and now she’s showing it off to people. None of those rings are made of fire, though. I demand a refund.
Clark is having lunch with his beloved fiancee (who still doesn’t know he’s secretly an alien supergod), when they see a giant Green Lantern logo appear in the sky and morph into a Superman logo. Superman ditches his ladyfriend and goes looking for a Green Lantern to find out what that stunt was about. Unfortunately, out of all 3600 GLs the only one listed in the phone book is Guy Gardner, the Justice League’s resident butthead. Superman finds Guy using his cosmic powers to look at boobies.
(The things we had to do before the Internet.)
Guy has no idea about that sign in the sky, which means it was created by Earth’s other Green Lantern: Ryan Re- um, Hal Jordan. Hal, who’s going through a “finding himself by hitchhiking across America” phase in his own comic, was last seen in Wyoming before disappearing. Superman goes off to look for Hal, but Guy insists on tagging along to prove that he’s the best superhero.
Superman and Guy track down Hal’s power ring to an US Air Force base and are immediately attacked with missiles, which Guy sees as evidence that they’ve been infiltrated by commies. It’s something worse than commies, though: Guy and Superman stumble upon a huge alien spaceship buried deep under the base, and that’s where they run into…
…freaking Psi-Phon and Dreadnaught, Superman’s second and third least favorite characters ever (the first one being Guy Gardner) (you thought I was gonna say Jimmy Olsen, right?). Turns out Hal was kidnapped by the Galactus-sized alien living in that ship, who has been stuck down there for centuries after a bad landing. The alien created Psi-Phon and Dreadnaught to find him an energy source for his ship, and after a few years of dicking around they finally came across Hal Jordan’s Green Lantern power battery. Unfortunately, the ship is so big that it’s gonna destroy like half of Wyoming if it lifts off.
Galactus’ cousin takes down Superman and Guy using the power of Hal’s battery, but this distraction allows Hal to free himself and help the other two. Superman, Guy and Hal hit the alien with a concentrated Green Lantern willforce blast, which involves joining hands and thinking nice thoughts. Guy loves it, naturally.
The alien is like “aw, now I’ll never leave this place” but Superman goes “all you had to do was ask for help, dummy.” Supes and the GLs manage to take out the ship without killing anyone and push it to space, and in return Galactor (I don’t know if that’s actually his name) promises to take Psi-Phon and Dreadnaught with him and never bug Superman again.
Character-Watch:
In this issue Superman makes it clear that Hal Jordan is the “real” Green Lantern to him while Guy Gardner is just an annoying asshole, but ironically, Superman will end up becoming a lot closer to Guy than he ever was to Hal. Superman and Guy will clash constantly when they become teammates in Dan Jurgens’ Justice League (this issue is almost a trial run for that book), but they’ll slowly learn to respect each other. Also, Guy turns out to be a college buddy of a member of the Superman Family, so they’re practically related.
Hal, on the other hand, ends up trying to kill the universe and punching Superman. You never know where the road of life will lead you.
Plotline-Watch:
So, this explains the weird cliffhanger in Adventures #469, when Psi-Phon, Dreadnaught and Mrs. Dreadnaught go into a military base and are told off by an army guy: that guy was being mind controlled by Galactor. This doesn’t, however, explain what their attack on Superman in their first appearance (Adventures #442) had to do with helping their boss find a power source. Alas, Galactor’s promise to keep those jokers off Earth will not be fulfilled.
As I mentioned, this is the issue where Lois and Clark tell everyone they’re engaged, or more accurately, when they let Jimmy Olsen do that for them. Lois also announces she’ll be keeping her last name once they’re married, because Lois-El doesn’t sound that great. Wait, no, she still doesn’t know she’s marrying Superman.
Speaking of which, Guy is surprised that Superman didn’t know Hal’s secret identity since they’re been in the same business for a long time, and Superman says “there was a time when nobody told their [identities]”. Foreshadowing?
The Misadventures of Jose Delgado: I said last issue that Jose is pretty lucky to be dating Cat Grant now. Maybe not so lucky, since it looks like Cat still doesn’t get over the Daily Planet’s biggest heartbreaker:
Once you make out with Clark Kent, no other man compares.