Superman #50 (December 1990)
Superman #50 (December 1990)
KRISIS OF THE KRIMSON KRYPTONITE: KONCLUSION! The one with Superman’s engagement! And also the one with Superman vs. a massively overweight Lex Luthor clone with the head of a magical imp. I feel like that part doesn’t get mentioned often enough.
This epic, action-packed anniversary issue starts with Clark Kent getting unceremoniously kicked out of the LexCorp tower by security. Again.
Having lost his powers thanks to Lex Luthor’s mysterious red kryptonite, Clark must now suffer the indignity of taking public transportation to go home instead of simply leaping there. While doing that, Clark runs into a mugging in the street and a giant mutant rat in the subway, but they’re stopped by Gangbuster and the Guardian, respectively – the point being that maybe Superman isn’t that necessary after all. Now that he’s a normal, boring human who doesn’t have to save people all day, Clark finally gets around to unpacking his bags from his romantic trip to Smallville a few months ago, and finds out that Ma Kent slipped a little surprise into his luggage: an engagement ring. You know, just in case he ever wants to stop living in sin and make an honest woman out of Lois Lane.
Having nothing better to do right now, Clark figures “what the hell” and pops the big question to Lois. And Lois says… “I have to think about it.” To be fair, she does have a lot going on right now, what with her mom being in critical condition due to a secret, years-long plan by Lex Luthor to get laid with her (Lois, not her mom) (although, who knows). Anyway, Lois gets a phone call from Luthor related to the aforementioned drama, but Clark manages to hijack the conversation to schedule an interview with Lex. The subject of the interview? The fact that Lex took away Superman’s powers, thus robbing the world of its greatest hero. Lex says sure, why not.
Now, you may remember that Mr. Mxyzptlk’s one rule when he gave the red kryptonite to Luthor was that Superman couldn’t know where it came from… but Lex doesn’t know Clark is Superman, so he tells him anyway. Superman gets his powers back, and as a result Mxy reveals himself and sets a new rule: he’ll go away if Superman punches Luthor. Since Superman doesn’t wanna do that, for some reason, Mxy has no choice but to grow a giant, morbidly obese Lex-monster from a tiny fragment of Lex’s skin and force Superman to fight him across Metropolis.
Superman eventually relents and punches the shit out of the Lex-monster, making Mxy disappear. With his powers back, Mxy gone and Luthor feeling like he failed in life, Superman’s job is done and he goes visit Lois’ mom at the hospital. It turns out the old lady is suddenly no longer dying, and Lois’ grumpy dad is so happy, he even admits that Clark doesn’t completely suck. And then, on the last page, this happens:
Superman is engaged to Lois Lane! Or Clark Kent is, anyway, since he’s still lying to her about his secret identity. Always a good way to start a (six-year-long) engagement.
Reference-Watch:
Back when this storyline started, Mxyzptlk told Lex he couldn’t personally mess with Superman because he was busy having fun in another dimension. Now we get a glimpse at that other place, and the shape Mxy uses when he’s there:
Those are clearly (the legs of) the Fantastic Four, albeit with The Thing temporarily covered in pink goop for copyright reasons. The coolest part is that those pages are even drawn by John Byrne and inked by Jerry Ordway, who were the creative team on Fantastic Four before they both moved to DC. So, the vacationing place Mxy was talking about was actually the Marvel Universe, where he’s known as classic FF villain The Impossible Man. The implications of this revelation are vast and fascinating, so I’ll ignore them and move on.
Plotline-Watch:
This is an oversized issue and an Ordway-written issue, which means plotlines galore:
When Luthor is trying to sweet-talk Lois on the phone, he tells her she should write his biography, but Lois is like “Didn’t your last biographer end up dead?” Well, yeah.
If you were wondering what the hell was up with that giant rat on the subway that the Guardian stopped: it was actually one of those Underworld mutants that escaped from Project Cadmus, as seen in Adventures Annual #2.
At one point Superman runs into Luthor’s grandmotherly personal physician, Dr. Gretchen Kelley, and he says Luthor is lucky to have her. Then Kelley looks all somber and thinks “Luck has nothing to do with it.” We’ll find out her sordid story in an upcoming issue.
So, uh, when exactly did Lois figure out Lex was behind her mom’s accident? A few issues ago she loved the guy for helping her mom, and now she suddenly hates his guts. Then again, there are many unanswered questions about this plot, starting with “What was Lois’ mom sick of?” and “How did she get cured?” I’m just gonna go ahead and assume Mxyzptlk’s magic was behind everything. Problem solved.
Speaking of Lois, apparently the “Ma Kent hates Lois” plot (which might have been just in my head) ended before it began, since Ma secretly gave Clark the engagement ring months ago.
The Misadventures of Jose Delgado: Jose/Gangbuster is in this issue, and no buildings fall on him. Not one building. In fact, things are looking pretty good for him since he’s officially dating Cat Grant, who must be loaded now that she has two jobs (Planet columnist and GBS reporter).
Things are looking good for Jimmy Olsen, too: Not only does his mom finally wake up from that bullshit coma she mysteriously fell in a while ago, but Jimmy manages to spend an entire issue without being an annoying turd. Good going, Jimbo!
On the other hand, Perry White is sort of falling apart: He has a strong argument with Lois on the Planet offices, and then we see that he still resents his wife for the whole “you never told me Lex Luthor was the real dad of our son who died” thing. Perry will take a drastic decision next issue and the DC Universe will never be the same.
And finally, the second most historic moment in this issue: For the past few years, there’s been a running joke in the Superman titles where every cab in Metropolis costs $6.50 – they even did a whole issue about that, sort of. Well, it was all building up to this punchline:
It truly is the end of an era.