Superman #41 (March 1990)
Superman #41 (March 1990)
Day of the Krypton Man, Part 1! Superman’s growing assholeness from the past issues reaches a boiling point. That’s seriously what this major storyline is about: Superman being a freaking dick to everyone. Coincidentally, everyone wants to fight him. For starters: Lobo.
We start with Superman returning to his brand new Fortress of Solitude (inaugurated in Adventures #461) to hide the receptacle with kryptonite bullets that his doctor gave him last issue, because there’s no way anyone could ever, ever find those here. As he enters the Fortress, he feels a strange sensation and his trunks briefly change color:
This is important.
Anyway, Superman wishes he could spend all day playing with the Kryptonian relics in the Fortress, but alas, he’s an adult and has to work. He arrives at his new job as editor of Newstime magazine and changes into Clark Kent, then almost immediately decides “Wait, no, fuck it, I am gonna spend all day at the Fortress.” Unfortunately, his mom calls him to remind him it’s Lana Lang’s birthday, and since she apparently has no other friends or family, they’re throwing her a small party. Superman reluctantly attends Lana’s birthday, but he arrives late, doesn’t bring a present and behaves like a robot the whole time.
Meanwhile, out in space: the DC Universe’s favorite genocidal bounty hunter, Lobo, has gone into a bar looking for a fight (as teased at the end of Action $6.50). An inebriated Lobo ends up talking with some dolphin-headed merchants who have made a lot of dough trafficking holo-chips of Superman’s fights as a space gladiator, so they offer Lobo a reward if he brings them a video of himself killing Superman that they can sell. Lobo agrees, and they hook him up with a dude name Raof who has teleporting powers (he’s like a very distant relative of the X-Men’s Nightcrawler) to bring him to Earth.
Upon arriving on Metropolis, Lobo spots Superman’s name on the shirt of his #1 fan: Bibbo Bibbowski.
A brief fight ensues at the Ace o’ Clubs bar, to the despair of the owner, but it quickly evolves into a friendly drinking session between Lobo, Bibbo and Raof (or “Ralph the Doggie” as Bibbo has re-christened him). The issue ends with the drunken trio following Superman’s “presence” (a thing Lobo can do, apparently) right into his Fortress of Solitude – you know, where the kryptonite is hidden and no one will ever find it. CONTINUED!
Character-Watch:
This was right before Lobo hit it big with his first ultra-violent miniseries, back when he still had human proportions. Also, Lobo connoisseurs probably realized right away that he only talked to the fish-faced guys because he has a well documented weaknesses for dolphins. At this point, Lobo was a member of the group L.E.G.I.O.N. ‘90 along with Vril Dox… a.k.a., Brainiac’s (non-evil) son. That fact isn’t addressed in this issue, but it will in an upcoming annual.
Plotline-Watch:
Also coming from space to fight Superman: Draaga. At one point Lobo has Raof teleport him into the space-cab Draaga is occupying to goad him about the fact that he’ll reach Superman first and kill him before Draaga can reclaim his honor. Also, this issue acknowledges that Draaga left his post as ruler of Warworld (as seen in Superman #33) to dedicate his life to pursuing Superman, which seems like a questionable career choice.
During the two minutes where Clark is actually at work in the Newstime offices, the only productive thing he does is tell his secretary to turn away Jimmy Olsen when he comes to visit. I suspect this may have less to do with Superman’s cold behavior lately and more with him finally getting tired of Jimmy’s bullshit.
Jimmy wanted Clark’s help with getting into Project Cadmus to tell them about the whole mess with his dad’s clones – Jimmy attempts to get in by himself in his piece of shit car, but he only gets as far as the outskirts of Cadmus’ tree city before Guardian finds him and is like “What the hell are you doing, son?” Guardian does agree to let him talk with the Cadmus bosses, since even he didn’t know Jimmy’s dad worked at Cadmus.
WTF-Watch:
I like this sequence with Lex Luthor having a William Shatner in the Twilight Zone moment, courtesy of Lobo…
…mainly because that’s not the most bizarre part to me: that’s the woman filing his nails. Then again, I guess Lex has to take extra care of the few nails he has left.
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