Super Titles Round-Up (April 1994)
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Super Titles Round-Up (April 1994)
This month: Superboy fights an elderly person! Supergirl fights herself! Steel fights, uhh, capitalism I guess!
Superboy #3 (April 1994)
Last issue, a cybernetically-enhanced old guy called Scavenger appeared out of nowhere and stole an ancient Hawaiian spear Superboy had been trying to protect ("trying" being the keyword there). Now both the Kid and the old guy head to an archeological dig to look for a gem that supposedly gives the spear vast magical powers. When they run into each other there and start fighting over the mystical artifacts, Scavenger teleports them both inside an active volcano to give himself an advantage, since he happens to be wearing a handy talisman that makes him impervious to burning alive inside volcanoes.
Scavenger manages to nab the gem and comes close to killing Superboy with it as he rants nonsensically about some mysterious "enemy" that's out to get him with his "secret society" (sounds like a Q guy). He also brags repeatedly about his anti-lava talisman, which wasn't such a great idea since Superboy simply snaps it off his neck and forces Scavenger to escape while swearing revenge.
So Superboy finally retrieves the spear, but the historian who was giving him shit about losing it (Dr. Kaua) still isn't happy, since he secretly wanted to use it to become a REAL Hawaiian superhero and he can't do that now that the gem ended up at the bottom of a volcano. The issue ends with Dr. Kaua moping on the beach when he randomly bumps into some sort of container that says "Property of U.S. Navy Pearl Harbor," which immediately blows up on his face. Be careful what you wish for and stuff…
This issue also ties into the Clone Plague storyline going on in the main Super-books: Superboy is constantly coughing and collapses right after defeating Scavenger. Dubbilex (who had a psychic phone call with the Guardian about the Plague earlier in the issue) thinks they should take him back to Project Cadmus for examination, but Superboy's friends propose a better treatment: a sandwich, some time in bed, and a VHS tape with the pilot episode of Superboy: The Animated Series, which we'll see in the next issue.
Supergirl #3 (April 1994)
The issue starts with a distraught Supergirl showing up at Lana Lang's doorstep, saying something about how she "killed them all." We flash back and find out that, after discovering that LexCorp's scientists think she's a dumb bimbo and lied about the tests they've been running on her, she impersonated one of them to infiltrate the main lab and saw the horrible truth: they've been growing mindless clones of her and, for some reason, dressing them up in S&M gear.
Supergirl fights the clones and ends up destroying the entire lab with them inside — as well as "poor" Dr. Happersen, who was already in a wheelchair after his encounter with Bizarro and ends up buried in the rubble. Supergirl still refuses to believe that her beloved Lex Luthor Jr. had anything to do with this experiment until she remembers that he ominously told her "I wish I had a hundred of you" (back in the Supergirl and Team Luthor one-shot) right before the "tests" started.
FINALLY realizing that Lex Jr. is an asshole who's been manipulating her all along, Supergirl morphs into an edgier new look apparently inspired by her dead S&M "sisters" and promises she's gonna hurt him (but not in a fun way).
Steel #3 (April 1994)
John Henry Irons stops by his old employer, Amertek, and demands to know how the weapons he designed for them ended up in the hands of street gangs. The main guy there, Colonel Weston, acts dumb and says he has no idea what's going on, so John leaves Amertek and comes back later, thus giving them ample time to get a whole squad of armored goons ready to fight him. Which was… what John wanted, for some reason?
So, Steel manages to sneak into Weston's office and burn himself a CD full of incriminating Amertek data, but then like 20 goons show up to fight him. John puts up a good fight, but eventually his armor starts overheating from being shot with too many Toastmasters and turns yellow.
This gives Weston an idea: he has John chained up and directs all the goons to shoot him with the Toastmasters at the same time to find out what his Steel armor can withstand. That's when a ruptured gas line causes the entire office to blow up. John survives thanks to his armor, but so does Weston, because one of the goons somehow smelled the gas through his helmet and flew him away right in time. Miraculously, that CD with incriminating data isn't even scratched, and the issue ends with John saying he'll use it to bury Amertek.
It's a pretty goofy issue, and the goofiest part is that John didn't want to believe Colonel Weston was evil and feels bad about "burying" him, even though he's shown to be a racist dickhead who twice says John's "kind" isn't very clever. To be fair, it's possible he was just talking about engineers.
Hawkman #6 (February 1994)
I missed this sizeable Eradicator guest spot in the February Super Titles Round-Up, but that works out fine because he had no appearances in April ‘94. This is part of a storyline in which Hawkman's brain is hijacked by a guy called Count Viper, leaving Hawkman's mind trapped in Hawkwoman's body. Using Hawkman's face, Viper infiltrates the Justice League of America's HQ and hypnotizes Wonder Woman, Bloodwyn, and the Eradicator, who happened to be in the general area. Apparently, the Eradicator was extra-easy to hypnotize because Viper and him share the same patriotic ideals (they're fascists).
Of course, the heroes (and anti-hero) eventually snap out of it and help Hawkman and Hawkwoman defeat Viper and return to their proper bodies. The Eradicator was actually used as a big cliffhanger in the previous issue when he appears as a shadowy figure and Hawkman yells "SEVEN HELLS!" (that's "OH SHIT!" in Thanagarian). My theory is that Hawkman writer John Ostrander asked to use Superman as the third hypnotized hero and the Superman office was like "Nah, but you can have his fashy knockoff if you want."