Super Titles Round-Up (May 1994)
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Super Titles Round-Up (May 1994)
This month: Superboy gets animated! Supergirl gets even! Steel gets that cool-ass Jon Bogdanove cover up there!
Superboy #4 (May 1994)
Superboy is pretty sick due to that pesky Clone Plague running through the Superman titles, so his friends try to cheer him up by showing him the pilot episode for Superboy: The Animated Series. The episode is about two villains called Lock ‘n’ Lode trying to kill Superboy’s manager, Rex Leech, depicted as a handsome “philanthropist and adventurer” in the show (because he’s the one who paid for it). Meanwhile, Dubbilex appears as Rex’s “wacky telepathic D.N.Alien butler” and Roxy Leech as an “undulating mass of primordial slime,” which neither of them appreciates.
The animated scenes are drawn by late Batman Adventures artist Mike Parobeck in that classic broad-chinned Bruce Timm style, so this issue serves as kind of a preview for the other animated-style DCU titles that would come later in the decade (I always thought it was funny that Superboy got an “animated” design before Superman himself did). Anyway, in the show, Lock 'n’ Load are defeated thanks to Rex’s cleverness, mastery of geometry, and flawless marksmanship, though Superboy helps too. We even get a happy ending for Roxy, as an accident in the “Super-Grotto” causes her to evolve into fungus.
Unfortunately, things are less cheerful in the real world, since the issue ends with Superboy collapsing in the kitchen and his friend Tana remarking that he’s not breathing. TO BE CONTINUED!
Supergirl #4 (May 1994)
Final issue! After finding out that Lex Luthor Jr. has been playing her for a gosh-danged fool all these years, the all-new, all-edgy Supergirl goes around the world torching Lex’s properties (after making sure all employees have evacuated them, because she’s still a sweetheart deep down). Lex figures out what Supergirl is doing and sets an explosive trap in one of his properties that leaves her as a pool of protoplasmic goo on the ground.
But Supergirl was only playing dead, so she uses the fact that Lex thinks he killed her to surprise him at LexCorp Tower. However, once she reaches Lex’s office, Supergirl finds out that the red-haired adonis she was expecting to see has been replaced with a frail bald guy in a floating wheelchair. The shock of seeing Lex like that makes Supergirl drop her guard for a moment, which is enough for him to try to kill her again. Lex crawls into his Team Luthor armor for protection, but an even-more-pissed-off Supergirl tears him out and actually throws him through a window to a certain death.
For better or worse, Superman shows up just in time to save Lex, even though he looks like he might drop dead any second anyway. Supergirl is shocked to learn that Lex wasn’t lying about his sickness, especially because she would have gladly helped him if he’d just asked her instead of sneakily cloning her to try to make a cure. Supergirl morphs back into her old self as she flies away in tears.
In the epilogue, the Kents let Supergirl know she’s very welcome to come live with them again, but she decides she wants to travel the world and grow as a person/sentient lump of protomatter. The miniseries ends a few months later, with Supergirl going to Paris to reunite with Lex’s ex-wife Elizabeth Perske, who agrees to be her new mentor. Perske will appear in a few issues of Supergirl’s solo series, but the more interesting part in this flash-forward is the mention that U.S. Congress has “passed a measure approving aid for strife-torn Metropolis.” Look out for some strife in the main Superman comics, coming soon!
Steel #4 (May 1994)
Steel’s evil former employers at Amertek want to get back at him for destroying their headquarters last issue, so they hit him at a place where they know he’ll be: at the funeral for a kid who died during a gang fight due to their weapons. Did I mention they’re evil? They send a shirtless dude hopped up on Tar, the drug that turns people into Rob Liefeld characters, to crash the funeral, and since John Henry doesn’t have his armor on, he has to hit the attacker with church pews until the drug runs out. (Would have been cool if he’d built himself a new armor out of church pews on the spot.)
The attack intensifies the gang war going on in the tough streets of D.C., resulting in another little kid getting shot (an adorable boy named Paco who wanted to be a gang member when he grew up). Then, the issue ends with John’s niece Natasha getting ran over by a gang member’s car as she’s going to the hospital to see Paco. I have a feeling this comic is trying to tell us something about gangs, but I’m not sure what it is.
Oh, yeah, this issue also features a cameo by Lois Lane: John calls her (at home, since she was just fired by the Daily Planet) to figure out what he can do with the CD full of incriminating evidence he got from Amertek’s HQ. She hooks him with her college roommate, policewoman/hacker Shauna Beryl (the lady on the cover up there), who will become a recurring character in this comic.
The Ray #1 (May 1994)
In the first issue of his solo series, Ray “The Ray” Terrill takes a trip to Hawaii on the same day that a little troll creature prays to Darkseid next to a volcano, causing a giant lava monster called Brimstone to emerge (Darkseid created a previous incarnation of Brimstone during the Legends crossover). Superboy shows up to help fight Brimstone, but instead of working together, Ray spends most of the issue thinking about how much he hates this kid and calling him a cheap poser. Eventually, after Brimstone has been “defeated,” Superboy has enough and punches Ray to finally get him to shut up.
By the way, this issue and the next one are supposed to take place between Superboy #3 and #4, meaning that Superboy was already seriously ill while fighting Brimstone, so I don’t blame him for losing his patience with this hater. Ray then hits Superboy back with a big blast of energy and looks mighty smug for a moment… until he notices that Superboy isn’t moving or breathing. Yes, that’s two comics in one month that end with someone yelling that Superboy is apparently dead. Oh, and then Brimstone wakes up. TO BE CONTINUED, TOO!
Damage #1 (April 1994)
I missed this issue during the April '94 round-up (shout out to Neil in the comments for alerting me of its existence!), so here it goes. Our old pal Metallo is the main villain in the first issue of this series, which is about a wimpy kid called Grant Emerson who occasionally has bursts of explosive strength that allow him to total cars with his fists. Some mysterious villains broke Metallo out of Stryker’s Island and gave him a new giant body just to send him to kill Grant at his school. The most interesting part for me is that this backstory is told in the same format as Metallo’s backstory in John Byrne’s Superman #1, with the green flashback panels at the end of every row.
Damage defeats Metallo, but also destroys his entire school in the process, and then other villains show up to capture him… but that has nothing to do with Superman, so it’s none of our business.
NOTE: Our post about Adventures of Superman #512 went up earlier this week, check it here out if you missed it!