Super Titles Round-Up (December 1994)

This month: Superboy gets eaten! Steel gets arrested! The Eradicator gets punched by Superman (again, from another angle)!

Superboy #10

Superboy and Tana Moon are spending a weekend on the Hawaiian town of Hilo to "figure out" their relationship, but they keep getting interrupted by giant monsters attacking the place. First it's a talking tree, then some talking electricity, and then the Godzilla knock-off seen on the cover. All three turn out to be a little blue guy called Bernard Emil Morlock (he prefers "B.E.M.") who has the power to transmute himself into anything he touches. Once discovered, he tries to turn himself into a car-themed monster, but Superboy punches him into the water...

...causing him to get transmuted into bits of liquid that get lost in the ocean. Superboy saved the day! And also, he might have killed a guy?! Superboy's pretty upset about it, and even yells at a crowd of people trying to cheer him for saving them, but soon enough he gives in and starts cheering himself too. Gotta say he dealt with that much faster than the time Superman felt bad over killing some guys.

Of course, B.E.M. isn't really dead -- that Silicon Dragon gang we've been seeing lately is already trying to put him back together. Meanwhile, Tana is so moved by seeing Superboy looking sad because he (thinks he) killed a guy that she kisses him, and I guess they're officially dating now. Huh, he would have probably killed someone earlier if he'd known that's what it'd take...

Steel #10

Speaking of members of the Superman Family killing people: this issue is about Steel being arrested for the murder of his psychic friend Rosie. As seen last issue, Rosie was actually killed by a big cat-like monster called Alter, but the cops think Steel did it because he happened to be near her body. Steel's cop ladyfriend, Shauna, helps him escape and find the real killer, who turns out to be... the belligerent detective from last issue who had "I'm a serial killer" written all over his face!!!

Actually, the detective has split personalities due to childhood abuse, so he didn't even know he was the killer. All of his victims were accused child abusers, except for Rosie, who became a victim of police violence AND supervillain violence because she was about to expose him. I'm sorry I ever doubted Rosie's powers -- it turned out she was TOO psychic for her own good.

Steel brings Alter down with Shauna's help, and he's thrown into the special section of S.T.A.R. Labs for villains who will never appear again (in this comic, anyway; he'll briefly show up in a Green Lantern issue). So, yeah, this is a pretty heavy issue, dealing topics like child abuse and the death of a recurrent character, on top of the usual gang violence. NEXT: Steel goes to space! How's that for tonal dissonance?

Outsiders #13

"DEAD AGAIN!," tie-in! An uncharacteristically pissed-off Superman stops by to fight the Eradicator because he thinks that's who put a Superman-looking corpse in his old tomb. Yes, this is (in part) a retelling of Action #704 from the Outsiders' perspective. We get some bonus dialogue when the Outsiders are trying to decide if they should help the Eradicator or not, and I finally get to read the end of the Eradicator's unfinished sentence, after 30 years: he says "Thank you."

(Yeah, I'd kinda figured.)

The Eradicator is so thankful to the Outsiders for trying to help him (even if they took their sweet time) that he proposes they stick together to "continue helping the innocent and crushing the guilty." And by crushing, of course, he means "killing." I thought they were already doing that, but okay. The rest of the issue is about non-binary light beings from another dimension coming to collect team member Halo, who used to be one of them. This serves as an excuse to inform us that her teammate Faust isn't into, uh, "Crying Game things."

That's what I get for trying to read the pages without the Eradicator in them. Next!

Anima #9

This one's about the titular teen heroine being stuck in another another dimension, which is actually kinda interesting but, you know, not our problem. Why am I telling you this? Because when she gets back to Earth at the end, she finds herself in Hawaii. Oh, and also, it's the future, and everything's on fire. Superboy is there, but he's older, has a scar over his one remaining eye, and he wants to kill her. I'm sensing a running theme here.

This will be continued in the next issue, which features the younger, non-scarred, less-murderous Superboy. Wait, Superboy in a dystopian future with a scar over his eye? Why do I feel like I JUST saw that somewhere? (My Adventures with Superman spoilers.)

Metropolis S.C.U. #2

After the events of last issue, Lois Lane is allowed to try out for the Special Crimes Unit, and, just like Marge Simpson in that one episode where she becomes a cop, she turns out to be shockingly good at it. Meanwhile, Maggie Sawyer and the S.C.U. gang investigate another oil plant explosion in Venezuela (isn't that a little outside their jurisdiction?), where the locals help them identify Terra-Man due to his Chaplin-like jumping technique.

Something he's been famous for since, well, this issue.

Mags thinks Terra-Man must be behind the explosions, but the cutaway scene of some other old dude saying ominous things in a bio-dome suggests otherwise. The issue ends with Lois graduating from the Police Academy as her loved ones smile at Maggie's speech about how much life will suck for them all from now on...

(It's completely in-character for her dad to be stoked about it, though.)

...which is followed, not coincidentally, by Maggie finding out her girlfriend, reporter Toby Raynes, has left her. That's what happens when you keep going off to Venezuela on flimsy pretenses and spending quality time with rival reporters.

Guardians of Metropolis #2

As promised last issue, this one is about the Cadmus crew going to the circus -- the evil circus, courtesy of the madman Dabney Donovan, who has trapped them in cages with explosive mime clones. That's exactly what it sounds like. Meanwhile, the Guardian is forced to fight none other than... Wolverine! Yes, I mean Lupek the Wolverine Man from Jack Kirby's old Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen comics (seen on the cover).

Meanwhile meanwhile, the Newsboy Legion kids have infiltrated an (also evil) orphanage ran by Darkseid's forces while looking for the Guardian's "nephew," Bobby Harper. They eventually succeed, only to realize that Bobby is... a girl??? Ewww.

Speaking of goils I mean girls, Tommy, the smoothest of the Newsboys, becomes smitten with Gilotina of Darkseid's Female Furies, even though she's trying to kill them all. When the orphanage is raided by the S.C.U. and Darkseid's forces escape back to Apokolips, they leave Gilotina behind, and Tommy's like "I'm here for you, girl." See, smooth.

Oh yeah, Maggie appears in this issue, as does the S.C.U.'s Dan Turpin, who is revealed to be an old acquaintance of the Newsboys. We also learn that his good friend Maggie thinks his name is "Ben," apparently.

As for the Newsadults, they escape the explosive-mime-filled circus by... making some mimes explode, but that leaves them stuck in the caves under Cadmus with one of them in pretty bad condition. Eh, they can always clone him again.

NEXT: A flashback issue set in World War II, with the full story behind Dan "Ben" "Brooklyn" Turpin's connection to the Newsboys!

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