Super Titles Round-Up (October 1994)

This month: Superboy gets X-Ray vision! Steel gets naked (again)! Superman gets fragged by Lobo… as a baby!

Superboy #0

Or: “Professor Hamilton’s Hawaiian Vacation.” Good ol’ Hambone arrives in Hawaii to escape from all the stress in Metropolis, only to immediately run into a fight between Superboy and his archnemesis, Sidearm! You know, that guy with the robot arm who was introduced in Superboy #1 as a villain the Kid had supposedly fought once before (or a “Giant Rat of Sumatra,” a term I learned from our commenter Carstonio). Hambone, the DC Universe’s foremost Supermanologist, is so intrigued by Superboy that he puts his vacation plans aside and invites him to be examined at S.T.A.R. Labs’ Hawaaiian branch.

Superboy agrees to get, uh, Hambone’d. The Professor reassuringly points out that his experiments never hurt Superman – “except when he lost his memory and almost married that cave woman.”

(Which sounds like a “Giant Rat of Sumatra,” but no, that actually happened during the “Blackout” storyline.)

Hambone’s examination requires Superboy to recap his origin, because “recapping the hero’s origin” is what these #0 issues are all about. He remembers being grown at Cadmus (and hearing Director Westfield saying “You’re going to be the next Superman, son!”) (🤔), getting freed by the Newsboy Legion, and then, in a scene taking place between Adventures #500 and #501 that we hadn’t seen before, fighting his first villain: Sidearm, who was trying to rob an ATM! So that clears up that mystery.

(Side note: Very hypocritical of Superboy to make fun of Sidearm for being touchy about his name when he insisted on calling himself Superman.)

In the present, Ham thanks the Kid for the valuable data by giving him some cool X-Ray specs to make up for his lack of vision powers. Naturally, the first thing he uses them on is Tana Moon’s… skeleton (and everything else). The issue ends with members of the Silicon Dragon gang breaking into a prison and freeing someone named “Nanaue,” who instantly slaughters them. He sounds nice!

(Side note #2: Kesel and Grummett sure love ending comics with a panel of pointy white teeth in the dark, which also happened in Adventures #505. I’ve been waiting about 30 years to make this observation.)

Steel #0

Hazard, the criminal mastermind behind every bad thing that’s happened in this comic, sends more TOTALLY RAD ‘90s villains to attack Steel while helpfully recapping his origin for new readers. It’s pretty much what we already learned in Man of Steel #22, with a few new details here and there. Oh, and a big part of this recapping happens while Steel is semi-naked because villains took away his armor (again), which reveals the one way Zero Hour retconned his continuity: he now wears briefs instead of boxers.

John is about to get killed by Hazard when his armor magically appears on him, to everyone’s surprise, including John’s. He manages to escape this villain-filled lair by persuading one of those villains to teleport him away… to the middle of a desert somewhere in the world, but still. Meanwhile, there’s some stuff about John’s psychic friend Rosie trying to help the cops find a serial killer, and a brief appearance by his former lover/enemy the White Rabbit, who’s looking pretty healthy for having apparently blown up the last time we saw her (Man of Steel #22). CONTINUED, I GUESS!

Outsiders #0

The Eradicator’s origin is only very briefly mentioned in this issue, probably because “an ancient Kryptonian device gained sentience, pretended to be Superman, and merged with a cranky terminally-ill scientist” was too much to lay on new readers. We do at least learn one exciting new detail about the Eradicator’s human identity, Dr. David Connor: he was addicted to pills!

(But very bad at aiming them at his mouth.)

Speaking of addiction, the Eradicator runs across some strange “vampiric guns” that drain energy from whoever is shooting them, which seems like the opposite of how guns should work. He recruits some former members of the Outsiders (who broke up last issue) to figure out where those guns are coming from, and more or less accidentally pulls the gang back together. Problem is, someone else already put the Outsiders back together, and now it looks like both teams are gonna do the “X-Men Blue vs. X-Men Gold” thing. Why can’t brooding superheroes just get along?!

Lobo #0

What do you know, this issue also recaps Lobo’s origin, this time courtesy of some space criminals who unknowingly ripped him off and now tell each other stories about the Main Man as they await their inevitable disembowelments. At one point the leader of the gang says “Next ya’ll be tellin’ me he took on Superman!” to which someone else replies “Uhh… yeah. Several times!”

Normally I wouldn’t bring up such a minor appearance, but I’m doing it this time because 1) I like showing four covers at the top of these posts and there were only three Superman-related comics this month outside of the main titles (way down from the thirteen the previous month, and that’s not even counting Zero Hour and Elseworlds) and 2) I’m using this as an excuse to mention another Superman/Lobo moment from a comic that came out around this time: L.E.G.I.O.N. Annual #5, to my taste one of the best Elseworlds annuals that DC put out in 1994. Definitely the funniest.

Most of that issue is devoted to a James Bond parody starring Lobo and his L.E.G.I.O.N. pals, but the real treat are the short “Elseworld Rejects” stories at the end. One of those is about a universe in which Superman’s baby rocket ran into… ah, frag it, I’ll just show you:

Another “Reject” shows the mashup absolutely no one asked for but everyone needed: L.E.G.I.O.N. combined with the Newsboy Legion, in tribute to the then-recently departed Jack Kirby. (Curiously, this one is drawn by Kieron Dwyer, who will also draw the upcoming Guardians of Metropolis miniseries starring the Newsboys.)

There’s also a Silver Age Legion-style story by Curt Swan, a Beverly Hills 90210 parody by Mike Parobeck, and other fun stuff. Some of that stuff is Green Lantern-related, so keep an eye on @greenlantern94to04 for a little bit more on this wacky-ass comic!

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