Adventures of Superman #495 (October 1992)
Adventures of Superman #495 (October 1992)
Superman helps some space hippies get their baby back from Space Hitler! Meaning Darkseid, of course. Like all good literary classics, the issue starts with a dimensional portal opening in the middle of a busy metropolitan street.
The portal spits out the Forever People, the aforementioned space hippies, who recently helped Superman defeat an invasion by other, less chill aliens (during "Panic in the Sky"). Now it's time for Superman to do them a favor: the daughter of two of their members, Big Bear and Beautiful Dreamer, has apparently been kidnapped by Darkseid and taken to his shithole of a planet, Apokolips. Supes suggests they form a plan of action and ask the Justice League for backup, but the Forever People go "haha, no" and just go straight to Apokolips with him.
In Apokolips, Superman and Infinity Man (the Forever People's Captain Planet-esque alter ego) punch giant dogs, bug-like robots and flying soldiers until they attract the attention of Darkseid, who summons them to his palace with his eye-beams. It turns out it wasn't Darkseid who kidnapped the kid after all: it was the Granny Goodness, the headmistress of Apokolips' orphanage/child soldier training facility and not an actual grandmother. Granny wanted to train the kid to eventually join her ladies-only hit squad, the Female Furies, but Darkseid didn't know about this plan. Since it's important to fill out the proper forms and secure the necessary permits before you kidnap a child, Darkseid reprimands Granny and returns the girl to her parents.
Superman and the Forever People are teleported to the latter's home planet, bright and shiny New Genesis. The FP are like "Wait, why did we ever leave this place? It's awesome! Let's stay here!" Superman is briefly tempted to stay in this city of flying supergods, too, but all that perfection kinda freaks him out, so he returns to Metropolis (and to, you know, his fiancee).
Plotline-Watch:
Speaking of whom, there's some brilliant foreshadowing in this scene with Lois Lane: when Superman goes off to meet the Forever People, Lois says she "worries to death" about him whenever old friends show up. Supes replies with a joke about his friends from high school – clearly, this is a reference to Kenny "Conduit" Braverman, who we'll meet in 1995.
We also find out that Lois wrote a story about the domestic abuse situation in Clark Kent's building, but she left out the name of the couple to avoid causing more problems to them (even though the story would have been more sensational with names). This blows Ron Troupe's mind. "You can be a journalist… and not be a dick to people? Whoa."
Speaking of… journalists, let's catch up with Jimmy Olsen! Turtle-mania is running wild all over Metropolis: Jimmy's Turtle Boy character, initially the mascot of a local pizzeria, is so popular that WGBS president Vinnie Edge wants to turn it into a cartoon. The pizzeria's owner signs a contract without even looking at it, even though this network has a history of screwing people to badly that they snap and turn into psychopaths.
One detail I liked is that the Forever People mention they've been living in Habitat, the abandoned tree city outside Metropolis – which, like them, was created by that creative madman, Jack Kirby. There are more Kirby homages in this issue (in fact, the whole thing might count as one), but I'll let Don Sparrow talk about that in his section, after the jump…
Art-Watch (by @donsparrow):
We start off with our cover, and it’s a good one, Superman and his hippie friends mid-book tube trip–aside from the yellow glow of the boom tube, this appears to bean homage to The Forever People #1–and there are echoes of that story throughout the issue. In that issue, which I read in the first “Greatest Superman Stories Ever Told” collection, Superman and the Forever People’s collective alter-ego “Infinity Man” battle Darkseid. Superman hears descriptions of “Super-Town” (which turns out to just be plain old New Genesis) and wants to go there via boom tube, but at the last moment, pulls back and can’t abandon Earth, even for a place where he’d fit in more naturally.
Flash-forward to 1992, when this issue was released, and there was already buzz in the industry and Diamond Previews about a certain, unnamed, upcoming Superman storyline, which gave every issue that preceded it (like this one) a strange poignancy–almost like they were trying things out, knowing they may not get to it later. In my mind, this was the issue where Superman finally got to accompany the Forever People to Super-Town (though in the intervening years, I’ve come to realize Superman had made it to New Genesis countless times, but I hadn’t read those comics!) [Max: I also read that issue for the first time in "Greatest Superman Stories…" and it was one of my favorite of the book, so it was awesome to come across this "sequel" later on.]
The opening pages to this story are also a call-back to Jack Kirby stories of the past, in particular the two page spread of the Forever People bursting into Earth’s reality looks almost exactly like Kirby’s spread of the same in that issue.
Once the issue actually starts, the fish out of water imagery of these alien hippies in downtown Metropolis is pretty funny. Superman being brought up to speed in the boom tube raised some questions for me–I thought transport using it was fairly instantaneous, but they seem to be in that tunnel for quite a long exchange.
The story really gets going once Darkseid and Wormtongu–I mean, Desaad–enter the picture. Tom Grummett is a big Kirby fan, and it shows–his Darkseid is great, and a lot more spry and active than we’ve seen him by other artists. Even the wrinkles on his tunic give him a sense of activity we don’t normally see in this statuesque character. The panel top right of page 17 with Darkseid’s eye glow is excellent,and calls to mind Keith Giffen’s interpretation of the character.
And then with Granny Goodness, Grummett goes full Kirby, with the thick, fluid looking eyebrows and wide mouth.
All in all, this is a weird story–both the disturbing content (that Granny Goodness was apparently torturing a toddler) and also how quickly it wraps up. I didn’t know much about Maya before reading this–I didn’t even know Beautiful Dreamer and Big Bear had a child, to be honest! [Max: She was introduced in the DeMatteis/Cullins Forever People miniseries from 1988, which is actually pretty cool. The characters were also aged quite a bit and got new costumes in that series, so when I saw them again in "Panic in the Sky", I was a little disappointed that none of this was acknowledged. I saw this issue as their way to make up for that by having the whole story revolve around the kid.]
Apparently, in certain incarnations, Maya is considered the living embodiment of Mother Box (the iPhone of the New Gods set) which almost explains Darkseid’s interest in her–though not his hasty and near-apologetic return of the child to the Forever People. I did appreciate Superman momentarily being intrigued by staying in Super-Town, but liked how he came back to earth, figuratively and literally, at the thought of Lois. Lastly, I wonder if there isn’t some intended dark irony to Superman’s delight at his return to “good old, boring Metropolis” as though foreshadowing events that will be anything but good, or boring.
STRAY OBSERVATIONS:
Interesting discussion on page 5 with Ron and Clark and Lois–particularly that Perry White seems to contradict Lois and Clark’s more sensitive position.
The hushed conversation with Lois getting annoyed at Superman’s weird friends disrupting their lives is pretty adorable. Ordway seems to really have a handle on the cuter moments of a relationship.
GODWATCH: Lois thinks a slightly miffed prayer as Superman rushes off “head first into who knows what?”
Superman’s suggestion that the Forever People may have been drugged sure elicits a non-reaction from the group. "It’s hard to say, Superman–we’re on so many drugs already.“
Yeesh, I almost missed the naked people being tortured by Desaad on page 14. Superman and Infinity Man couldn’t have just stopped by to free them? [Max: Same here, because Desaad always has something like that going on in his "office". The naked people being tortured are just part of the scenery by now.]
Jumping to Turtle Boy Olsen from the main story is pretty jarring, mainly due to those ping-pong ball eyes. I’m glad that’s just artwork from the TV show, and not Jimmy taking a meeting in full garb.
Do you think that Superman saying "this is awfully familiar” is also a nod to Forever People #1? He did get a glimpse of the city before it faded out, after all.
Speaking of drugs, Serifan’s blank grin while he admits to conversing with squirrels on page 21 is flat out hilarious.
[Max: Yep, definitely on drugs.]