Superman #19 (July 1988)
Superman #19 (July 1988)
Superman’s powers betray him in the middle of a fight with his greatest enemy: Professor Killgrave! Wait, what’s the opposite of greatest? Because that’s the one I meant.
It all starts when a spaceship (first seen approaching Earth on Adventures #441, which I forgot to mention) crashes on Metropolis’ West River. When Superman swims down to investigate, the ship appears to be empty but Superman mysteriously loses his super-holding-his-breath-underwater powers. Later, the aforementioned Professor Killgrave (the tiny dude with the Moe cut on the cover) breaks out of prison and while fighting him, Superman also loses his super-strength and flight powers. And so on, every time Superman uses a power, it just stops working.
Luckily, Professor Killgrave has the stature and the strength of a first grader, so Superman dispatches him pretty easily. By the end of the issue, Superman only has his invulnerability and some of his eye-related powers left – and the invulnerability goes when someone throws a truck at him. From the truck emerges a tiny alien dude named Psi-Phon (the occupant of the spaceship, it is assumed), who claims to have “psiphoned” Superman’s powers into his partner, a talking space rhino called Dreadnaught. And then, CLIFFHANGER!
Character-Watch:
Professor Killgrave was mentioned in World of Krypton #4, but this is the first time we see his tiny, hideous face. He’ll be back very rarely, whenever a writer thinks “What’s an ugly and useless villain I can use?” Psi-Phone and Dreadnaught too will have maybe four appearances, total.
We also get our first glimpse at Jimmy Olsen’s dad, and it turns out he looks exactly like Nick Fury (the non-Samuel L. Jackson version). Jimmy’s hot mom is visiting the Planet offices when she spots Mr. Olsen in the background of an old photo taken in Southeast Asia after he was given for dead, in which he’s right next to a Vietnamese-looking woman. Does Jimmy have Vietnamese half-brothers somewhere?
Plotline-Watch:
Luthor’s Kryptonite: As revealed in Action #600, the kryptonite ring Lex has been wearing in his right hand has slowly poisoned him, and he is now five fingers and a palm short. Dr. Kelley replaces his amputated hand with a robot one. Rather than thinking “You know, I may have taken this Superman obsession a little too far,” Luthor now hates Superman even more.
Another tiny development in the Supergirl mystery: she still has no idea who she is or why she was frozen in ice for 200 years (as mentioned in Adventures #441), but she remembers she has to go to Smallville, for some reason. So she does.
On Superman: The Earth Stealers Superman’s relationship with Lois Lane takes a big step forward, but this issue reminds us that she hates Clark Kent more than ever. She wants nothing more to do with him, and mentions there’s another man in her life. I honestly don’t know whether she means Superman or Jose Delgado, though.
WTF-Watch:
OK, this Jimmy Olsen/Cat Grant plot has officially started to creep me out.
Since when is Jimmy back with Lucy, too? Is he lying to get out of having sex with Cat Grant? Anyway, that’s when the spaceship crashes on Metropolis, so presumably nothing happened. Presumably.
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