Superman #53 (March 1991)
Superman #53 (March 1991)
Superman must save a Saddam Hussein stand-in from corrupt US soldiers. At last, Superman renounces the decadent imperialists! Death to the AmeriKKKan empire! Well, not really, but this issue is still way less patriotic than the cover would have you believe.
The story picks up from the end of Action #662, with Superman having just mentioned to Lois Lane that he’s also Clark Kent. Or vice-versa. Lois is strangely understanding about it, given the “my fiancee has been lying to me for years” thing. She also tries to save her journalistic reputation by saying that on some level, she always knew about it. Suuuuuuure.
Still, she asks for some time alone (best line in the comic: “When you go, don’t forget to lock the door– or, um, the window”). That’s when Superman is contacted by the US military and asked to escort a plane carrying Marlo, the freshly deposed dictator of Qurac. You know, the Middle-Eastern country Superman singlehandedly went to war with and defeated back in 1987? I’m surprised it took the US that long to arrest this guy.
Anyway, Superman agrees to escort the plane out of Qurac, since terrorists could attack it to prevent Marlo from spilling their secrets once he gets to the US. Instead of terrorists, however, the ones who try to blow up Marlo’s plane are a bunch of mysterious American soldiers in fancy planes and a submarine. And they do it!
But then: plot twist! It turns out Marlo was actually in another plane, because the big shot in charge of this operation, US Army Major Holcraft, was secretly behind the assassination attempt. Holcraft and his group, the Sons of Liberty (Tuesdays on FX), had done some shady dealings with Marlo in the past and wanted to prevent him selling them out. Holcraft is arrested, but Superman isn’t happy with the military when he finds out they’d known he was a traitor for six months and let him keep funding terrorism so they could catch him red handed.
Then we get this great ending with Superman storming off on a general, who’s scared that Supes might turn to communism or something:
Character-Watch:
It’s good to see ol’ Marlo again after so long. He’s in great shape. It’s great that he’s in US custody, too, because they’ll finally be able to interrogate him and find out if “Marlo” is his first or last name, or if he’s got a Cher thing going on. There are a couple of scenes with the army guy in charge of looking after Marlo in the plane making chit-chat with him and bringing him coffee, at which point Marlo tries to kill him with a poison ring. Long story short:
I like those scenes, but the focus on that random army guy is kinda odd, since we’ll never, ever see him again. It would have been cool if he’d turned out to be Agent Liberty, the new superhero who will debut in future appearances by the Sons of Liberty/Major Holcraft.
Plotline-Watch:
A dramatic development related to Lex Luthor’s will: the document found by a LexCorp lawyer last issue names Luthor’s heir as his secret son. Didn’t Lex specifically say in a recent issue that none of his ex-wives gave him children? Yes, but according to the will his son’s mother isn’t a wife, it’s… Dr. Happersen! I mean, Dr. Gretchen Kelley! Which is almost as weird as it would be if the baby mama was Happersen (and it’s about to get way weirder).
Superman mentions the time he went into Qurac and smashed their entire army with his fists, and I could be wrong but I believe this is the first time he admits he might have gotten a little carried away there. I think Jerry Ordway just likes drawing Superman fighting armies (which is why next issue is gonna be awesome).
The Misadventures of Jose Delgado: Jose feels inadequate about the size of the bouquet of flowers he gives to Cat Grant on Valentine’s Day, compared to the giant floral arrangements she got from other show business people (there’s one signed “Sly” – Sylvester McCoy?!). Also, Jesus, he’s still hung up on Lois? You dated her for like five minutes, dude.
Nostalgia-Watch:
I remember being at a book fair that had comics as a kid, and this issue was in one of the racks. Some older kids saw the cover and went “See, this is why I don’t like Superman: he’s such a boy scout.” (They were probably Spawn fans.) I wanted to say “YOU DON’T KNOW SHIT!” because, actually, inside the issue Superman is pretty badass and refuses to blindly follow the general’s orders. Then I had to run away, because I actually said that out loud and they were looking at me funny. This has been another mostly true episode of Nostalgia-Watch.