Superman #40 (February 1990)
Superman #40 (February 1990)
Superman vs. the Four-Armed Terror, who has a pretty self-explanatory name: he has four arms and is scary. More villains should be this considerate.
The issue opens with some LexCorp scientists in Ireland looking for “meteor rocks” to study (actually pieces of kryptonite their boss hopes to use to kill Superman), when they come across The Evil Factory, the malevolent cloning facility mentioned last issue where Jimmy Olsen’s mom happens to be a hostage. The Factory’s owners, a yellow-faced guy named Mokkari and an ape person called Simyan, release a bunch of cavemen to kill the nosy scientists and then go back to work – “work” in his case meaning sending their newly produced Four-Armed Terror to Metropolis to collect genetic samples from Superman (by punching him).
Normally, the Terror wouldn’t be much of an opponent for Superman even if he had sixteen arms, but since the Factory is right next to a big chunk of kryptonite, that means the Terror gives off a faint radiation that Superman is deadly allergic to. While getting the crap beaten out of him, Superman notices something weird (or, even weirder): there are two microscopic dudes carrying tiny cameras flying around the Terror.
Jimmy Olsen comes across the fight and recognizes the Terror from his visit to that limbo where the Evil Factory dumps its failed experiments (also last issue). Even though Jimmy still hates Superman, he figures out he can scare off the Terror by putting on an eyepatch and threatening to shoot killer rainbows from his eye, since that’s what the clone of his dad living in that limbo could do. Obviously, this perfectly logical plan works, because why wouldn’t it?
Mokkari and Simyan teleport the Terror back to the Factory (it already got the blood samples they wanted anyway), and they try to get it to bring Jimmy along, but the weakened Superman prevents that with a surprise drop kick. This makes Jimmy even madder at Superman, since he actually wanted to be reunited with his mom at the Factory. Fortunately, Superman passes out and has to be taken to the hospital before Jimmy can yell at him for too long.
Character-Watch:
As the great donsparrow pointed out (it’s always worth it to check the notes in my posts in case Don added something important I missed), Mokkari and Simyan are from Jack Kirby’s old Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen comics, where they were actually alien New Gods serving under Darkseid. In this version their story is only a tiny bit more complicated: they were made in Project Cadmus, escaped, set up a rival cloning shop in Ireland, captured Jimmy’s secret agent dad when they sent him to find them, and made experiments with his DNA (hence the Olsen clones and winged atrocities from last issue).
Eventually Jimmy’s mom found them looking for her long-dead husband, so they just kidnapped her too (they should rename it the Kidnapping Factory). One of Daddy Olsen’s clones found out about this before getting flushed into the limbo dimension, where he met Jimmy and told him about his mom’s whereabouts. See? That wasn’t so confusing.
Plotline-Watch:
In the hospital, Superman is treated by Dr. Sanchez, the same surgeon who removed Bloodsport’s kryptonite bullets from his body way back in Superman #4. He actually uses the same bullets (yes, they were still in the hospital) to weaken Superman’s skin so they can treat his allergy. Then Dr. Sanchez is like “you better take these things before some tweaker finds them here,” so Superman does.
Another reference to Superman #4: one of the LexCorp scientists looking for kryptonite meteors at the beginning is Dr. Kimberly, the guy who created Bloodsport’s technology. Unfortunately, he’s trampled by cavemen so his second appearance is his last.
There’s a short scene where Bibbo sees a girl drawing Superman while he’s fighting the Four-Armed Terror, and he goes: “You drawed him too young, like a Super boy! Haw haw!” This is clearly foreshadowing for the Superboy issue from 10 years later when Superboy fights the Terror (or a Terror, anyway).
Good news and bad news for Morgan Edge. The good news is that his attorney figured out a way to get him off the hook for that time he tried to destroy Metropolis with a giant robot: just say Brainiac made him do it! The bad news is that when he goes back to work after being away in the hospital/jail, he finds out his dad Vinnie Edge usurped his position as president of WGBS. Morgan’s reaction is literally “Whaaat–?”
And finally, after several issues of managing to behave like a mature person, Jerry White reverts to his assholish ways when he throws a tantrum because his parents are letting Allie the homeless Daily Planet intern stay in their home (since Adventures #462). Whit isn’t amused.
SPOILERS: Jerry will die soon. All who anger The Whit must pay.
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