Superman #61 (November 1991)
Superman #61 (November 1991)
TIME AND TIME-AGEDDON 2001! Superman finally comes face to face with the two unrelated time traveling parties that have been messing with him lately: the Linear Men (the continuity cops who accidentally sent him ping-ponging through the eras in “Time and Time Again”) and Waverider (the chronal voyeur who spied on Superman’s futures during Armageddon 2001). Now that his own series is over, Waverider is wandering around Metropolis and sees Superman moving a quantum field generator from the ruins of the S.T.A.R. Labs building (which blew up in Action #670). Oh, and the Metal Men are helping him, because this issue didn’t have enough guest stars already.
Anyway, Waverider notices that his own past self, lil’ Matt Ryder, is there watching Superman with his parents, which is weird because Waverider doesn’t remember this happening. Then it finally hits him: “Ah, right! That was the day Superman messed up and my parents died in a quantum blast!”
The generator explodes, but before it can kill everyone who was standing there watching like a dummy, the whole world suddenly takes a time out, Saved by the Bell-style. Nope, it wasn’t Waverider – it was the Linear Men, who take the frozen explosion (and Superman) to their headquarters at the end of time so they can study this historic event from the comfort of their own home. A hooded dude who appears to be the top Linear Person explains to Superman that, sometimes, they have to let tragedies like this one happen in order to preserve the sanctity of the timestream, but Supes is having none of that jazz.
While everyone argues time-traveling morality, Waverider steals the exploding generator, takes it to the distant past, and makes it blow up there, preventing his parents’ death (and changing his past). The Linear Men are pretty pissed… until the hooded dude shows his face and reveals he’s the grown-up Matthew Ryder, who as a result of the events of this day, majored in time studies and became a Linear Man. (I swear this is all way less confusing when you read the comic.)
Character-Watch:
This issue made me realize something I can’t believe I never saw before: Waverider is basically Silver Surfer, only traveling in time instead of space. Seriously, it’s all there. The shiny look. The surfing pose. The melodramatic inner monologue.
As for the Linear Men, the ones present in this issue besides Not-Waverider are Liri Lee (the nice lady who froze time for Superman and Lois in Superman #59) and a guy called Hunter, who bears a striking resemblance to Cable of the X-Men but is actually another previously existing character: Rip Hunter, DC’s classic time traveling adventurer. And Booster Gold’s future son. See, it all comes back to Booster sooner or later.
Plotline-Watch:
Don Sparrow says: “So much of this story seems like an hors d'oeuvre for Zero Hour in a few years, which I felt was a pretty underrated event.” Same here! You can actually trace a direct line from Armageddon 2001 to Zero Hour through Waverider’s appearances in various comics, even though both crossovers are four years apart, which is one of the great things about the beautiful mess that is the DC Universe.
At the end of the issue see that the immortal Mr. Z has returned to Metropolis, via plane crash, to get his revenge on Superman for stealing his soul-sucking gem (last seen when a Greek god hijacked it to summon a giant snake it during War of the Gods). This is a teaser for the awesome saga starting next week: “Blackout!” I’d like to clarify that I used an exclamation mark because I’m excited, not because there’s one in the title.
For some reason I’m just not feeling the plot about Colin Thornton, the devilishly handsome owner of Newstime Magazine, running for mayor of Metropolis. In this issue we see him saying that if he’s elected, he’ll make sure that superheroes can’t just carry dangerous equipment in the middle of the street while families watch. He’s got a damn good point there.
Don also points out that Dr. Will Magnus, creator of the Metal Men, can’t seem to “make up his mind as to whether the MM are robots, or more-than-robots” – it’s true, last time we saw them, he didn’t give much of a crap if a Metal Man died and now he’s all worried about them. I think the reason for the discrepancy is that this issue is meant to foreshadow the 1993 Metal Men miniseries by Mike Carlin and Dan Jurgens, in which it's revealed that the Metal Men were once Magnus’ human pals. Alternatively, you could see it as foreshadowing for 2006’s 52, where the above origin is retconned and it's established that Magnus simply suffers from bipolar disorder.
For more commentary from Don and the stuff I missed (Jimmy! How did I forget to mention Jimmy’s subplot?!), click HERE:
Art-Watch (by donsparrow):
As always, we start with the cover, and it’s another gooder from Jurgens and Breeding. I love the way they draw the timestream, and also really appreciate the inventiveness in the colouring of this era. Shading was tricky with four-colour printing, and it would be so easy just to have flat colour, so to have the glow effect on Superman’s figure, as well as the rounded airbrushy looking shading on Liri Lee's torso really took some doing, so I greatly appreciate the effort in this time of limited options. Nice stuff.
The opening splash page, on page 2 is nicely coloured as well, as Superman being in shadow does a nice job of suggesting the massive scale of the debris Superman and the Metal Men are working on.
I don’t think anyone draws the Metal Men as well as Jurgens and Breeding do (though Ivan Reis did a pretty excellent job in the current JLA books-especially on Tina, and both are worlds better than Duncan Rouleau), as their surface textures and personalities always look great. Small wonder that team (along with Mike Carlin) later got a shot at a Metal Men miniseries. Jurgens does well at staging the tension of the scene, best exemplified by the last panel on page 4, where the three ‘scientists’ wait breathlessly for the team to clear the hazardous material.
Page 5 we get more of Jimmy’s woes, and, at the risk of incurring the wrath of Max for spoiling events to come, a very familiar outfit choice from Lois Lane. That look is so ingrained in my memory, that it’s jarring to see her wear it in happier times. [Max: I'll forgive you for the spoiler because I'd never noticed that, holy crap, it is the same outfit.] MOVING ON–I like the classic 9 panel grid, and how it helps to get quite a bit of story into just one page of B-plot.
I always love seeing Mr. Z–one of my very favourite creations from Jerry Ordway, and the way his face is rim-lit by the flames is a cool visual,as he shuns a rescue (from a Shecky Green lookalike EMT) with some Jedi mind tricks.
This is the first we see of Vanishing Point, as far as I know, and again the art team does well at making it seem mysterious. [Max: We'd seen it before, but this is definitely the first time they name it.] I love the choice they make to have the interior not look overly futuristic, so that it seems more eerie, and timeless. And the literal vanishing point, complete with a testing of Einstein’s curved space theory are nice touches. [Max: It always reminded me of World 7 in Super Mario Bros. 3. Who's Einstein?]
The Kirby dot explosion at the end of the story is also a great use of white negative space. [Max: See plotline-watch above.]
STRAY OBSERVATIONS:
One person who must be loving Jimmy Olsen’s financial woes is Doc Magnus. Now he can buy Jimmy’s old sports jackets at thrift shops for pennies on the dollar.
Yee-ouch! I don’t know if robots have 'sensitive’ areas, but either way, Platinum rupturing on page 7 looks terribly, terribly painful.
“Think of Adolph Hitler, for example!” I kind of want an extra panel on page 17, where the other Linear Men roll their eyes because Liri Lee is talking about Hitler again. "What is it with you and Hitler, Liri?“
Speaking of characterization, Rip Hunter is portrayed differently here than he will be in years to come. He seems to be very much in line with the Linear Men in their approach to time preservation, which is a real contrast from future stories like Hypertime, where he’s treated like the 'dumb kid in class’, despite having a much richer understanding of time travel. Or maybe he’s just humouring them.
That second last panel of Superman on page 17 is a strong visual precursor to the cover to Superman72.
Liri Lee has got it goin’ on. I really love the way they draw her.
Interesting that we get a depiction of Hitler in the same issue that kicks off a battle against a genuine Nazi, Mr. Z.
I forgot this issue was called "Time and Time Again Again” which was the title I wanted to use for my sequel to the 'Time and Time Again’ storyline, where Superman must help himself succeed in his original jumps through time, Back to the Future 2 style. Can I still do that story? Give me a call, DC. If necessary, I could call it Time and Time Again Again Again or maybe Time (Again) and Time Again Again… [Max: 2 Time 2 Again]