Superman #56 (June 1991)
Superman #56 (June 1991)
“The Red Glass Trilogy” Part 1 – Superman finds himself trapped in his worst nightmare: A FILLER STORY! Also, a world in which everyone hates him for being a psycho who murdered all his villains. The skeptical Superman looks into the matter and discovers that he did, in fact, execute Metallo, Mr. Mxyzptlk, the Prankster and others at some point – in fact, there’s even a museum in Metropolis for Superman’s poor victims, complete with wax replicas of them:
(Madan Tussaud died of a mysterious heat vision blast to the head shortly after donating these.)
Superman finds out the museum is funded by Lex Luthor, who is alive in this reality, and flies to LexCorp for a final showdown. However, once there he finds a rather sad-looking Lex sitting on a crate because all his belongings have been repossessed after Superman bankrupted his company. Lex admits he may be screwed, but at least he made sure Superman’s true worst enemy will destroy him. So who is Superman’s “worst enemy”? Sleez? Mr. Z? Freakin’ Psi-Phon and Dreadnaught? Nope, it’s…
I KNEW IT! DAMN YOU, JIMMY! DAMN YOUUUUU!
Ahem. To be continued.
Bonus Story!
Third and final Newsboy Legion back-up story by Karl Kesel. As the Guardian recovers from his fight with an evil Jimmy Olsen clone last issue (or “even more evil,” I guess), the Newsboys continue making fun of little Gab for believing in a furniture-eating purple monster called Angry Charlie – because that’s what a group of kids cloned from 1940’s newspaper vendors who fought Nazis consider unfeasible. As they talk, we see Angry Charlie eating a night stand he stole from the Guardian’s room and finding an old photo in it. The photo triggers some memories in Charlie:
Apparently, Charlie was one of the lab monkeys that Dabney Donovan used in the experiments that got him kicked out of Project Cadmus. Or a modified clone of one of the monkeys, maybe. Charlie has a fit after remembering what Dabney did to the other monkeys and trashes a lab, thus explaining his name. The story (and this mini-serial) ends with Charlie looking at the torn photo of his monkey pals as he remembers some phrases he overheard elsewhere in the Project:
Plotline-Watch:
The “Red Glass Trilogy” is a three-part (duh) fill-in storyline by guest writer James D. Hudnall intended to give a little break to the usual creative teams before jumping into the next big crossover. Yes, adding “Time and Time Again!”, that’s three different crossovers in a row. Welcome to the ‘90s!
In this alternate reality/dream world/whatever (I honestly don’t remember), Lois Lane has been crippled by the Joker after Superman couldn’t be arsed to save her. It’s interesting how “Superman failing to stop the Joker from doing something bad to Lois” is sort of a multiversal constant across several realities (Kingdom Come, Injustice: Gods Among Us… and this one, eventually).
In the Newsboy Legion story, the Newsboys mention their old enemy Boss Moxie. Later, the grown ups say they’re looking into setting up a “halfway house” near Metropolis for the kids so they’ll stop running around Cadmus – yet more seeds for ideas that Karl Kesel will only explore three years later in the Guardians of Metropolis miniseries. Roger Stern isn’t the only one who plays the long game here.
WTF-Watch:
It’s weird to me that Hudnall also wrote what’s probably the most mature Superman story we’ve covered so far (Lex Luthor: The Unauthorized Biography), and yet this issue is some silly-ass stuff. Probably the most ridiculous moment is when Superman runs into Lois in a wheelchair and tries to scan her with his X-ray vision to see if she’s a cyborg, but accidentally fries her with eye lasers.
Before re-reading this issue, I’d mostly blocked all memory of this whole storyline (except the excellent Angry Charlie back-up). I can sort of see why now. But hey, at least the cover’s pretty cool!