Adventures of Superman #477 (April 1991)
Adventures of Superman #477 (April 1991)
“Time and Time Again!” Phase Four – Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes versus a giant pink cloud that eats suns! While there’s no evidence of it in this or any other issue, I firmly believe this thing is Galactus’ grandmother. Why is Superman in the Legion’s era (the 30th century), you ask? Because a Nazi atom bomb exploded on him, and Superman has gained the cool but impractical superpower to travel in time whenever there’s an explosion in his direct proximity, something he’s slowly catching up to:
Superman finds himself in a futuristic planet where everyone suddenly got frozen and died, victims of the Sun Eater’s sun-eating. With the help of a talking spaceship, Superman flies off into space to stop the Sun Eater’s cosmic gluttony and runs into a group of Legionnaires trying to do the same thing. It isn’t going too well for them.
In order to kill the Sun Eater the Legion needs to reach the giant orifice in its center (I hope that’s its stomach) and insert a bomb in there, but they can’t get too far in without getting zapped by electricity. Superman helps them devise a clever plan to do that, but, what do you know, the explosion happens right in front of him, and Supes is thrown right back into the timestream…
Character-Watch:
Last time we saw the Legion of Super-Heroes they were just three kids in silly costumes, but since a lot of years have passed on their end, the group has grown: they are now several teens in silly costumes. The members present in this issue are Lightning Lad (shoots lightning, is a lad), Wildfire (a sentient cloud of energy wearing an orange Cobra Commander costume), Phantom Girl (alive, but intangible), Ultra Boy (has all of Superman’s powers, but can only use one at a time), and Shrinking Violet (guess what she does).
It’s worth noting that for the Legion, taking down the Sun Eater isn’t just business, it’s personal: they hate Sun Eaters in general because in a classic Legion story, a Legionnaire called Ferro Lad bravely sacrificed his life to stop one of those bastards (Galactus’ great aunt?). We’ll actually see a retconned version of that same story around these pages in a few years, this time set in the present. So everything I just said won’t count anymore, I guess, and you should have skipped this paragraph.
Plotline-Watch:
It turns out the Linear Man, the time cop who started this whole mess, has been monitoring Superman’s time traveling adventure from some mysterious place with lots of monitors and clocks (we’ll find out what the place is called next issue). The Linear Man is trying to send Superman to a specific point in time but hasn’t been able to do that because, as has been established by now, he’s not very good at his job.
Superman once again asks the Legion to tell him about his future (because Lois wanted to know if she’s marrying an immortal), but this time they flat out refuse to do it. That’s wise: no one should know too much about their own destiny, Marty. Meanwhile, in the present, Lois is still worried about Clark’s disappearance, but she finds some comfort in his empty pants.
The “LexCorp Lawyers” soap opera heats up: they’re still stuck at the office trying to figure out how to save the company, and one guy has to call his wife to tell her he’ll be late. I can’t… I can’t take the excitement in this plot anymore! (I bet that guy is actually calling for a pizza, though.)
Mrs. Olsen is apparently not quite ready to have grandchildren, because she sits right between Jimmy and Lucy Lane during their date night. Yes, on the same sofa where they were just getting it on two issues ago.
And now, the important stuff:
I’ll remind you that all of the Metropolis scenes we’ve seen throughout this entire storyline are happening within the same night, so Bibbo is on like his fourth beer by now. His thirst is even greater than the Sun Eater’s!