Superman #10 (October 1987)
Superman #10 (October 1987)
Superman’s powers go wonky and he starts destroying Metropolis like Henry Cavill in that movie where he plays a lumberjack or something. It all starts when Clark Kent is at the Daily Planet and his X-Ray vision accidentally makes him see Cat Grant’s boobs… but also Perry White’s (a more accurate text for Perry’s dialogue in that cover would be “Get out of Metropolis, Superman – YOU LOOKED AT MY DICK!”). Unable to control his powers, Superman tries to get as far away from the city as possible, but just at that moment he gets attacked by a stock villain named Klaash (another #guywhoneverappearedagain). What Superman doesn’t know is that no one else can see Klaash, so it looks to everyone like he just went crazy and started fighting himself, a la Tyler Durden.
After accidentally fighting the Metropolis Special Crimes Unit, Superman figures out that (shock) Luthor is behind everything: he’s been pumping Superman with solar energy from a satellite for weeks in order to disrupt his powers, and sent Klaash to keep him in the city and maximize the damage. Superman brings the incriminating evidence to the police (perhaps Luthor should have remembered to remove the “Lexcorp” logo on the side of the satellite), but once again Luthor is cleared of all charges thanks to his lawyers.
Character-Watch:
Clark Kent formally meets Cat’s son Adam, whom he’d previously only met as Superman – speaking of which, Adam was terrified of Superman back in Adventures #429, but now he’s wearing an S-shield shirt. Make up your mind, kid.
Our favorite cop-lady Maggie Sawyer does a whole bunch in this issue, which pleases me. First she gets a phone call from her ex-husband (wonder why they split) saying their little daughter ran away from home. Then she and the MSCU try to bring down Superman when everyone thinks he’s crazy, and finally Maggie has a great scene with Luthor (after he gets away with everything) where she tells him “I don’t like you.” As a result, Luthor tells his assistant to look into Maggie’s past and dig up some dirt. Hope you deleted your Livejournal, Mags.
Plotline-Watch:
The “Superman’s powers go nuts” thing had been hinted back in Superman #8 when he accidentally shot an eye-blast at the Legion of Super-Heroes, and then again at the end of last issue: after Luthor is done ruining that waitress’ life, he says to his driver “Let’s go back to Project Overloard.”
Also, there’s a cool mini-crossover in this issue: when Superman’s super-hearing goes up to 11, he actually hears bits of dialogue from 13 other DC comics that came out that month. Comics Should Be Good has a full list with the original panels.
WTF-Watch:
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