Superman #1 (January 1987)
Superman #1 (January 1987)
JOHN BYRNE'S EXCITING FIRST ISSUE which is actually his seventh issue, because it continues from his Man of Steel miniseries. In fact, right off the bat we start with a dangling plotline from MOS #6: Superman tracks down the dude who stole the rocket in which he arrived on Earth as a fetus, and he turns out to be 1) inside a creepy laboratory full of pictures and data about Superman and 2) dead.
The dead scientist, it turns out, thought Superman was an evil alien invader (in all the years he stalked Supes, he never noticed the guy spends all day saving people), so he used the kryptonite inside the rocket to build his own alien-killing Terminator, Metallo. Metallo’s first order of business was terminating his creator. The second is beating the ever-lovin’ crap out of Superman.
This is a dang good first issue. I was a little underwhelmed when I re-read the Man of Steel miniseries, but this one has it all: visceral action (there’s an almost Doomsday-level fight – Metallo and Superman tear down a whole bank in their fight, and then Metallo emerges from the rubble holding Superman’s cape); some interesting narrative choices; and just kick-ass storytelling. Also, it’s cool that they establish right on the first issue that this Superman is very much capable of getting his ass handed to him.
Character-Watch:
In case you didn’t notice by now, this issue introduces Metallo. He’s some guy whose body got trashed in a car accident, and then a possibly-schizophrenic scientist moved his brain into a kryptonite-powered robot body. It’s one of the coolest and most threatening Superman villains ever… and they only used him again like four times.
Plotline-Watch:
Luthor’s Kryptonite: The fight suddenly ends when Metallo is mysteriously abducted. The kidnapper turns out to be Luthor, who has grander plans for the kryptonite in his chest.
The Misadventures of Hank Henshaw: Superman literally rips the chunk of land under the dead scientist’s lab, and leaves the entire building (along with the Kryptonian fetus rocket inside) suspended between the Earth and the moon so that no one will find it. Years later someone did find it, and that led to the creation of Cyborg Superman, the destruction of Coast City and Zero Hour.
WTF-Watch:
Re-read that last paragraph, please. What? Instead of just wiping the data about him in the lab, Superman throws the entire building into space and forgets about it for years. I’m actually glad that this decision came back to bite him in the ass big time.
Art-Watch (by @donsparrow):
We start with the cover, and I have to say, I appreciate that it's just an original image, not an homage to some historic image (it would be so tempting to do a take on the bent arm/pointed arm soar of the original Superman #1). While the cover text marks that it's a first issue, there's not a lot of other fanfare, we basically just hit the ground running. As with the Man of Steel mini, John Byrne is pretty experimental with textures and cutouts, and the spatter cutout making up Metallo's body is a pretty cool effect. I also realize, reading this anew, how radical Byrne's redesign was of Metallo. Being as familiar as I am with the post-Crisis version of the character, I can forget how mysterious this shape was to a new reader back in the day.
The opening splash page is pure Byrne, showing everything I love about his interpretation of Superman--smiling,dynamic, and hugely muscular, Byrne's Superman is all about strength and joy.
Plus the shattered wall gives the pose some forward motion and energy. The first issue pairs Byrne with Terry Austin, 80s inker extraordinaire, and it honestly doesn't look that much like the Terry Austin I know. These pages are intricately detailed with very fine lines, while Austin's other work (most particularly his inks over Kevin Maguire in the then-upcoming Justice League reboot of 1987) tended to be thick, flat lines. Some of the great detail gets a bit lost in the muddy colours, particularly in these early scenes in the darkened laboratory. The shot of Superman discovering the dead scientist is well drawn, giving us just enough detail to frighten, without enough to repulse.
The sequence of Superman carving and lifting the entire laboratory is well drawn, and a novel use of Superman's abilities.
The issue really kicks into gear once Clark arrives for his date with Lois. I absolutely adore the way Byrne draws her, so each page is a treat. He definitely draws her sexier (or in more revealing clothing) than previous Superman artists, but relative to the artists from 2000 on, it's actually a marvel of restraint. John Byrne's Lois is fit, and gorgeous, but still looks like a real, everyday woman.
Soon after we see Lois, we are also introduced to Metallo, initially in "human" form. I feel like the whole look for this character came from John Byrne viewing Terminator a few years earlier, as his John Corben, white hair or no, definitely has the facial bone structure of Arnold Schwarzenegger, and the final form of Metallo, which we see after the building collapses looks for all the world like a T1 robot from SkyNet.
The entire fight sequence is well staged, and really gives a sense of layout in the bank. A particularly standout panel is the one where Metallo hoists Superman up by his shirt, seemingly with his tongue in his cheek, and it's a great, confident expression (but begs the question--how does Metallo's tongue work? We know he has a brain and eyes, but does he have a tongue?). [Max: Looking up "does Metallo have a tongue" reveals little useful information. We want answers, DC!]
The intercutting between the present, and the past with the scientist who created Metallo is definitely some sophisticated storytelling for a Superman comic of that period. The scientist has a real MattFrewer vibe in his appearance, Ithought.
The three panel sequence of Lois' concern for Superman turning into grief is very well done, also.
Lastly, on the final page, Superman's bruises and messy hair look very realistic, and painful, and it's always cool, for some reason, to see Superman's cape shredded.
BYRNE NOTICE
John Byrne works overtime throughout this issue to establish his "new and exciting" ideas to the Superman mythology, mostly through thought bubbles from Superman himself. As heavy-handed as it can be in places (establishing that Clark is the ‘real guy' by saying "the Daily Planet, the newspaper I work for in my true identity", mentioning that the laboratory weighs less when he's flying, implying flight is a mental ability rather than a physical one, etc) I appreciate getting to hear Superman's thoughts. In more modern comics, thought bubbles are out of fashion, which makes the characters a little more remote than we see here. I kind of miss them.
We get another dose of "egomaniac Superman" who muses that Lois would "just fall into my arms if she knew I'm also Superman…but that would be too easy."
Is this the earliest Superman appearance of that signature Byrne move, of a character (usually a woman) being lifted in the air by her throat? I think it might be! [Max: Hmmm, I'm pretty sure he did that to She-Hulk a bunch of times, but I'm not sure if any of those were during his pre-Superman FF run.]
Very weird that Superman demands to ask one question, and then asks two, AND Metallo notices.
When Pearl enters Luthor's office, she exhibits Byrne's weird phonetic dialect, dropping G's and D's but I can't for the life of me figure out how she's supposed to sound in real life. Is it like a Brooklyn accent?
It's also a bit odd that Metallo kills the scientist at his first chance, but then promptly attempts to fulfill every one of the scientist's plans for Metallo's life anyway.
STRAY OBSERVATIONS
Much has been made on this blog about the importance of this laboratory to future events, but it's pretty weird for Superman to move a crime scene into space, even to (or especially to) protect his secret identity. While they did bring the rocket back in later stories, I'd love to know more about the scientist. DC Comics, these are the story ideas you're missing by not hiring us to take over Superman comics! [Max: You heard him, DC! We're up for a Superman's Stalker, Professor Emmett Vale miniseries.]
Lois' "four minutes can be a lifetime" rant reminds me of the great Will Eisner Spirit story "Ten Minutes" where, indeed, a lifetime can pass in just a short amount of time.
On the subject of Lois, one of the common complaints people have about Byrne's run is how harsh and rancorous he writes Lois. That hated word "bitchy" tends to come up a lot. I don't think that's a fair assessment (nor would I ever use that term myself)but I do think the character is a bit excessively hard-edged in these pages. This is in part because Byrne could sometimes have a tin ear for dialogue--Lois calling Clark animal names (swine, weasel) doesn't come off as particularly realistic, and lend to her strident reputation. I really liked the way the writers that followed Byrne dealt with the character--they didn't abruptly alter or "soften" Lois, but they did allow her to be a little more vulnerable and tender, explaining the more grating tendencies of his run as being part of the way she was raised--to be tough and masculine, to please her father, who had always wanted a son.
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