Superman #32 (June 1989)
Superman #32 (June 1989)
In this issue: Mongul punches Gladiator Superman right in the beard! Big mistake, Mongul. Never mess with the beard.
After the events of the epic Action Comics Annual #2 (if you haven’t read my recap go do it right now, or none of this will make sense), Superman ended up as a gladiator in a planet called Warworld ruled by the aforementioned beard-puncher, Mongul. After Superman refuses to kill his last opponent, Draaga, Mongul goes down to the arena himself to fight Superman. Unfortunately, Superman is kinda weak from the lack of sunlight and, you know, having fought all of those other guys for hours, so Mongul kicks his ass.
Mongul takes Superman and Draaga to a dungeon to execute them – Draaga is begging for someone to kill him, because his honor demands a dramatic death after losing a single fight, but Superman breaks his shackles, knocks out Mongul and saves Draaga’s ungrateful butt. However, while Superman is trying to free Draaga, Mongul cowardly seizes the moment and shoots a disintegrating ray at Superman, seemingly killing him. Draaga is like “Hey, man, that wasn’t very honorable!” but Mongul retorts with a “STFU” (more or less).
In truth, Superman didn’t get killed: he was transported by the Eradicator to the asteroid where Cleric and Blurpy are. (Who the hell are those people? You’d know if you’d read the recap for Action Annual #2 before this one like I told you.)
Character-Watch:
We get a little backstory for Mongul, which amounts to “He likes going around the universe with his Warworld and conquering planets.” By this point he already has a massive empire, so he amuses himself making aliens fight for him in a barren moon while the inhabitants of Warworld watch through a giant hologram. He probably makes a nice dime from the PPV sales, too.
Plotline-Watch:
Back on Earth, Matrix/Supergirl is still wandering aimlessly through Metropolis looking like Clark Kent (since Adventures #454). After having slept on a doorstep like a hobo, he/she bumps into notorious hobo-befriender Jimmy Olsen, who naturally thinks it’s the real Clark and calls a cab to take him to the Daily Planet (we don’t find out what the cab fare is, but I’m guessing $6.50).
Also, we get our first hint that the Eradicator might have a conscience of its own: it just decides to transport Superman to the asteroid by its own initiative, because its mission is to preserve the Kryptonian legacy at all costs. No way that can backfire in the future.
Death-Watch:
There was an interesting part of Action Annual #2 I neglected to mention: turns out there’s something called the “Kryptonian death-chant,” a phrase they utter when they’re about to die. We see someone using it Krypton’s far past, then Jor-El and Lara saying it right before the planet explodes, and finally Superman (after having his mind linked to Cleric through the Eradicator) sort of mumbles it during the fight with Draaga. Why doesn’t Superman use the death-chant while fighting Doomsday, then? Because he didn’t die this time, obviously, so he was already covered.
Incidentally, I detect echoes of the future in the Superman vs. Mongul scene: the panel I showed above reminds me of the image of Doomsday pushing Superman into the ground, and the one below resembles the iconic cover to Adventures #498 (1993):
Coincidence? Impossible. It was planned all along!