Superman #20 (August 1988)
Superman #20 (August 1988)
Superman and the Doom Patrol join forces against Metallo! Even though Metallo doesn’t have kryptonite now, so Superman probably could have kicked his ass by himself (especially since this is the Doom Patrol’s pre-Morrison “let’s add some teenage angst” years).
Last time we saw Metallo was in Superman #2 when Luthor tore out the kryptonite from his chest and made himself a ring out of it. Apparently Lex just tossed Metallo’s body in the trash after that, believing he was dead, but he wasn’t and eventually started raiding Lexcorp wharehouses looking for his kryptonite (seen in Adventures #441 – thanks to donsparrow for pointing out that was Metallo!). Meanwhile, Lexcorp has been selling spare parts to the Doom Patrol’s Robotman, apparently based on Metallo’s technology, and this allows Metallo to take control of Robotman’s body and wreak some havoc in Kansas City. Metallo, the “possessed” Robotman and some other loose robot parts he’s using as drones beat the crap out of the whole Doom Patrol (as depicted in the cover to Doom Patrol #10).
Superman, who happened to be in Smallville visiting Lana, hears about the ruckus and flies over to help the Patrol with their robot problem. There’s some punching and some teenage angsting, but inevitably the good guys win.
Character-Watch:
Metallo’s body is destroyed in this issue, but his head manages to escape. But enough about awesome supervillains: let’s talk about extremely minor supporting characters! Fuck yeah! During a Daily Planet scene, Alice the Intern appears for a few panels and makes the “I’m always here before anyone else because I live in the storage closet!” joke again. The saddest part is that we’re still two years away from the issue where they realize she’s not joking.
Plotline-Watch:
The Supergirl plot is finally kicking into high gear. In Adventure #441 the mysterious and mostly-amnesiac Supergirl bumped into Lana. In this issue Lana doesn’t mention anything about that to Superman when he visits Smallville… because she’s actually Supergirl, impersonating Lana for some reason. Now, there’s probably gonna be something in the next issues that will disprove this theory, but hear me out: what if the World of Smallville miniseries happened during this visit? So that’s why Lana is pointlessly retelling her whole life story – she’s actually Supergirl, learning that story for the first time. It’s shaky, but at least it would give some purpose to that boring flashback-fest.
There’s a page with Captain Maggie investigating some voodoo killings. This is one of the plots Byrne will leave hanging when he gets into his Kryptonian spaceship and ejects from this comic, leaving it for Roger Stern to figure out what the hell that was about.
Another page shows Milton “Brainiac?” Fine’s wife refusing to get back with him despite his doctor’s insistance that she’s the only thing keeping him from going psychotic again. Then she’s run over by a car. Whoops.
WTF-Watch:
Cat Grant is still sexually harassing poor Jimmy Olsen, laying down on top of his desk and showing off her massive cleavage while he tries to work. Some might think that the fact that Jimmy was hitting on her some issues ago but isn’t interested now is an inconsistency, but I say it’s not: Jimmy simply didn’t know what the hell he was getting himself into back then.
Man, this section won’t be the same after Byrne leaves.
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