Adventures of Superman #513 (June 1994)
Adventures of Superman #513 (June 1994)
“THE BATTLE FOR METROPOLIS,” Part 4! The Death of Project Cadmus! (Well, “death” in comic book terms.) After the events of last issue, in which a bunch of Cadmus-brand rockets exploded all around Metropolis, a royally pissed-off Superman heads to the formerly top secret government installation to register his displeasure with Director Westfield… only to find out that someone beat him to it, because Westfield has been murdered.
Since Cadmus’ top dorks don’t have much experience shouting orders at soldiers (the guy in charge of that just died), Superman steps in to fill that role while they try to figure out who killed Westfield and where his ear went.
Given that Cadmus’ other, nerdier directors have spent days in a probably very stinky lab trying to come up with a cure for the Clone Plague ravaging Metropolis (and a small part of Hawaii), the main suspect for Westfield’s murder is Dr. Carl Packard, a nervous little guy who tends to disappear for days. Also, he was just found wandering the hallways muttering about someone who “deserves death,” so that doesn’t look too good for him. Before Packard can explain himself (he was talking about his other evil boss, Lex Luthor), the whole murder mystery matter is shuffled aside when the nerds actually find the key to curing the Plague: the blood of one of the few clones who didn’t get sick, the Guardian! Hope he’s got a lot of it.
As it turns out, they need Packard to create that Guardian-fueled cure, so everyone agrees to forget about the fact that he’s probably a murderer for a while. As soon as they let Packard near a computer, however, he uses the secret program in all LexCorp PCs that notifies Lex if someone types his name (yes, Lex was the original “searches himself on Twitter all day” billionaire) to send him a message telling him about the cure. Instead of letting Packard cook and then stealing the cure, the Plague-stricken and increasingly insane Lex orders his Lex-Men to invade Cadmus and kidnap the Guardian. To be fair, he does look like he’s about 15 seconds away from shriveling up into a prune, so I get the urgency.
So, Superman and the few Cadmus soldiers in there (most are out fighting angry clones in Metropolis) have to defend the facility from an army of flying armored goons while the nerds try to work on the cure. Lex uses a hologram of himself when he still had hair to try to convince Superman that he should let Superboy, the Newboy Legion kids, and all those sewer clones die so that Lex himself can live (“Would you let Einstein die to save the Bowery Boys?”), but somehow he isn’t dissuaded. Not only that, but Superman even calls Lex “contemptible”… and, uh, everyone else who uses a wig.
Lex must have really hated that crack about his baldness, because the next thing he does is order the Lex-Men to blow up Cadmus’ reactor and kill everyone inside. If he can’t have the cure, no one can. Superman looks a bit overwhelmed with the soon-to-explode reactor and the Lex-Men trying to stop him from containing it (so much so that he calls them “idiots,” about the strongest insult you’ll hear from this Superman), but then someone stops by to help him: patient zero of the Clone Plague cure…
…Superboy! Who could barely stand up the last time we saw him and is now flying and punching goons, so looks like that cure is working. Superman tells the Kid to take those goons outside while he tries to prevent the reactor from exploding, but as soon as Superboy makes it out, there’s a huge explosion and the mountain surrounding Cadmus collapses. Superboy wants to start digging up the survivors, but Superman tells him not to bother: everyone is dead. And he’ll make Luthor pay for this and all his other sins, once and for all… next week, in Action Comics #700!
TO BE CONCLUDED, obviously.
Plotline-Watch:
- That’s it for Project Cadmus, and everyone who worked in it, which will never appear ag– ok, no one actually believes that. We’ll see how they saved themselves and why Superman is pretending they died next issue. Note, however, that Superboy isn’t pretending to believe that some of his best friends are buried under a mountain, so his chipperness in that final panel is disturbing.
- As you’ve probably guessed if you’ve been paying attention, the one who stole Westfield’s ear was the same maniac who killed him, disgraced geneticist Dabney Donovan. I don’t remember if Dabney ever used Westfield’s ear in one of his experiments, but even if he didn’t, at least he got to use it for a couple of corny jokes.
- Poor Dr. Happersen… he’s trying to tell his boss he loves him and would never betray him, and Lex cuts him off and yells at him. Plus, in the same page Lex made it clear that he still isn’t totally convinced Happersen isn’t Lois Lane’s informant, even thought it obviously isn’t him. It’s hard not to read that exchange with Smithers’ and Mr. Burns’ voices.
- There’s a nice little moment with the Guardian, originally a Captain America self-ripoff by Cap creators Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, saying he’s okay with dying to make the cure because he’s lived a very long life. Lines like that work better when it’s a character who’s actually been around since the ‘40s. I wouldn’t have minded if he had died during this storyline – they could always make another clone later on (and seeing him struggle to live up to his own legacy might have been interesting).
Patreon-Watch:
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And now, more from Don Sparrow (whose newsletter you should be subscribed to, by the way)…
Art-Watch (by @donsparrow):
We start with the cover, and it’s a pretty good one, with co-star Guardian in well-drawn technological peril, and I never tire of blasts bouncing off Superman.
Inside the book we are greeted with a poster (or at least sticker) worthy image of an on-edge Superman flying at the viewer, his Tarzan-like mane flowing in the wind.
Kitson’s art at this time is a bit strange to me—it might be the inker, or more likely it’s the era—the early 90s demanded everything be a bit more exxxxxxtreme and Jim-Lee-like in its rendering, but it mostly seems at odds with Kitson’s naturalistic drawing style. So you get weird in-between drawings, like on page 2 where Superman is yelling, but his mouth appears to barely be open (as opposed to page 5, when Dr. Packard shouts in surprise, and his mouth appears to be fully extended).
A page later Superman’s surprise (and perhaps grief?) at Westfield’s death is captured well.
On page 4, the fun really begins, as Kitson seems to really have a ball drawing the insane and Dr. Robotnik-like Dabney Donovan, and his comedic use of a stolen body part.
A small thing, but worth mentioning: Kitson and McCarthy absolutely kill it when it comes to reflective surfaces. Throughout the issue, the shiny glasses are on point. Great stuff there, particularly with the two-tone colouring of a Lex-Men soldier on page 16.
On page 10 we get our latest look at Lex Luthor, and it ain’t pretty. The little lines on his flesh make it seem so fragile and sickly.
The full page splash of Cadmus mountain imploding seems like a bit of a missed opportunity, as Superboy isn’t really facing the “camera” and the destruction is mostly dust. Finally, on page 21, the drawing of Superman’s righteous anger at Lex wreaking death and destruction is a great one.
In contrast to Superman #90, where I felt not a lot happened, this issue is chock full of activity, with a race against the clock to find a cure for the clone sickness, Lex-Men invaders, and a core meltdown, plus a little pop-in with Dabney AND a Superboy cameo—it’s a big one, and a nice hors d’oeuvres for the very BIG number coming next week.
SPEEDING BULLETS:
- I think Dr. Packard should be played by Micro Machines Motormouth, John Moschitta Jr. It would certainly make his scientific explanations a lot funnier to imagine them being said at lightspeed.
- Superboy makes a reference to a Nancy Kerrigan commercial, which was probably this one for Campbell’s Chicken noodle, where the otherwise waify and demure Ms. Kerrigan bodychecks a hockey player (the Campbell’s slogan, at the time, was “Never Underestimate the Power of Soup”, which is the line that gets cut off as Superboy speaks). [Max: Fun fact, in the Spanish version I read in the '90s, Superboy just says “I learned this from a TV ad.” Guess they didn’t have space for a footnote explaining who Nancy Kerrigan was…]
- GODWATCH: Interesting that Big Words seems to be a believer, as Guardian bravely takes the experimental treatment, the man of science prays that Jim Harper has a “personal guardian”.
- This is a pretty testosterone-driven issue—I can’t remember off-hand another issue that had not a single female appear in the story. [Max: There IS a female Cadmus trooper in page 1, but she doesn’t speak, unless she’s supposed to be yelling “SSSSHHOOOOOOM!” as Superman flies by… which I’d totally do.]
