Superman #73 (November 1992)
Superman #73 (November 1992)
The return of Waverider, the Linear Men, and time travel fuckery in general! Clark Kent is having a delightfully awkward double date with his ex-girlfriend (juicy details below), when an old guy in the same restaurant has a heart attack. Before Clark can take off his pants and do something about it, time freezes and our pal Waverider shows up – the old guy is Waverider's grandpa, and the little kid in the same table is his younger self.
(Back when his hair color was "blonde" and not "fire".)
Turns out this has been orchestrated by the Linear Men, the debatably competent protectors of the timestream, who've been looking for Waverider since he stole their time-traveling bracelet one year ago. Supes and Waverider end up in the Linear Men's HQ outside of time, Vanishing Point, where the group confronts ol' fire-hair about recklessly messing with history. The main Linear Man then reveals what we've known since his last appearance: he's actually Matthew Ryder, an alternate version of Waverider (or, to be more accurate, Waverider is an alternate version of him). Rather than calming him down, this just makes ‘Rider angrier and he murders himself.
And then Vanishing Point, uh, disappears – the whole place was made by Matthew using technology from the future, so without him, none of it exists. Superman, Waverider and the other two Linear Men (Liri Lee and Cabl… I mean, "Hunter") find themselves trapped in a black void, with no way to get out. They can't even travel in time! And then Waverider travels in time anyway, prevents Matthew's death, and saves everyone. The Linear Men decide to punish him for murdering their leader and nearly dooming the others to spend eternity in infinite darkness by… offering him a spot in their team. A happy ending for all!
Then we see some panels of someone punching a metal wall, and…
Hey, wait a minute! We already saw that last week! Was this a printing error?! I'm writing DC an angry letter.
Character-Watch:
Aaaaand that's how Waverider joined the Linear Men, which was his status quo in the comic most people know him from, Zero Hour. Frankly, I'm surprised Superman ever teamed up with that guy again considering he, you know, killed someone in cold blood. To be fair, Waverider does regret his actions, but only after merging with Matthew's corpse and looking at his life story (just like he used to snoop on superheroes' lives during Armageddon 2001).
In that sequence we get another hint that Hunter is an older Rip Hunter, DC's foremost time traveling adventurer, though I think they never flat out confirmed they're the same person. But whatever: what's important is that I can now tag this post "Rip Hunter" and thus attract DC's Legends of Tomorrow viewers.
Plotline-Watch:
The issue opens with Liri Lee visiting Superman at the JLA headquarters, which causes Booster Gold to freak out, since he still remembers when another Linear Person tried to arrest him for screwing with time travel. Don Sparrow says: "Gotta love Booster. Even though he clearly thinks Liri is a threat, he still has the presence of mind to acknowledge that she’s a babe."
Later, we get the official explanation for why the Linear Men let Booster stay in the 20th century: that big dope is “essential to the evolution of man". Coincidentally (or maybe not?), this line is delivered by Hunter, who will be revealed to be Booster's son about 16 years after this issue.
Oh, right, that awkward dinner! My favorite part of the issue. It's always adorable how uncomfortable Clark gets when he's around Lana Lang and Pete Ross, his two best childhood friends, now that they're sleeping together. By the way, I called Lana his "ex-girlfriend" because the issue does, but I'm not sure that's the correct term: she liked him when they were kids, stalked him for a while (due to manipulation by space robots), and blamed him for ruining her life as adults, but I wouldn't call that dating.
There's another awkward moment in the issue involving the return of a certain lady-puncher, but I'll let Don Sparrow cover that in his section, after the jump…
Art-Watch (by @donsparrow):
We start with a way cool infinity cover, taking Waverider and a fairly traditionally posed Superman, and replicating him into infinity. Why the cover works so well is the faded nature of the other versions of the pair, so that the one in the foreground really pops. Really cool cover (especially since I’m writing this review the week DC’s new time travel show debuted, featuring a time-ship called–what else–the Waverider!) and certainly a visual hint of things to come, as this issue features more photostat-ing of existing panels and backgrounds than any other issue I can think of!
A great splash page welcomes us on page 1, along with a pretty cool visual effect of Liri Lee phasing into our reality–I always love it when we see things being outlined in something other than black, especially knowing how difficult that was to do in this era before photoshop.
It’s also nice to see Superman’s place in the JLA represented here as a reminder for readers who don’t regularly pick up JLA. Another cool effect when Lee disappears on page 3 (and she’s drawn very beautifully throughout, as usual, though my liking of her is no secret).
I love the way Jurgens lays out his panels to heighten the awkwardness of when wife-beater Gary emerges from the elevator.
At the restaurant, Lana looks great, and the repeating background panels are put to good use, with very little of the darkening effect that can happen in comics of this era when panels are repeated (though there is a little).
While Jurgens draws a great Superman, at times I feel like he gets the nose a little wrong, a little rounder than I picture Superman’s nose really being. I know this is a weird quibble, but after reading tens of thousands of Superman comics, you start to notice these patterns. My guess is that, like all artists, Jurgens will sometimes use his own face as reference, and since his nose is also rounder than Superman’s, it takes on those characteristics. Adam Hughes has done this as well, and can you blame them? Who wouldn’t want people to associate them with Superman? All this to say, I really love the way Dan Jurgens draws Superman on page 8, very handsome and classic looking. That’s why it’s our PANEL OF THE WEEK.
As the story continues, we get more classic timestream energy rainbows, which always look great, and then the photostat repetition pretty much takes over the issue (which makes sense, considering the importance of the issues that are coming up, Jurgens and company might want to save some energy). Superman is oddly ineffectual when Waverider kills the alternate universe version of himself, it’s only after Matt Ryder is killed that Superman even threatens taking action, saying "you’ve gone too far this time , Waverider! I’ll have to…” before trailing off, distracted by reality disappearing (what are Hunter and the others breathing in that utter empty vacuum?). The intensity on Superman’s face as he questions the Time Masters (?) is very well done, making their immediate, “Yeah, whatever, bye” that follows all the more unintentionally hilarious.
[Max: Do I detect a Neal Adams influence there? Also, the panel below has a certain Legion of Superheroes ring to it.]
Lastly, the repeating panel of young Matt Ryder’s horror is spooky–I really like the weird candlelit colouring in that sequence. [Max: I there's a cool parallelism here between Superman having to watch Waverider's grandpa die without being able to do anything and a situation Waverider himself will be involved in soon…]
All in all a pretty interesting issue, though not much really happens that matters, aside from Waverider joining the Linear Men (but, since this issue has that second cameo last page, I remember this comic going into second and third printings!). I’m not even sure Superman’s horror makes a lot of sense, aside from foreshadowing, since Waverider doesn’t actually resurrect Matt Ryder, like, say Lazarus or something. He just plucks him from the timeline before he gets melted, which isn’t really the same thing.
STRAY OBSERVATIONS:
That bubble pattern that Matt’s grandmother’s dress has must be all the rage, considering we saw Lana with a similar pattern a few months back (when she was seductively baring her midriff to God and everybody)…
Why is Clark hitting what is clearly the “up” button on the elevator to leave for the restaurant, when he lives on the third floor? [Max: It's a rooftop restaurant, obviously. In a residential building.]
I don’t think the restaurant Clark and Lois dine at is making the best use of floor space, there appears to be about 30 feet between each table.
I’m not sure I like Clark’s churlish attitude toward meeting with Lana and Pete. I can appreciate the awkwardness, on some level, but he’s dreading it as though he hates Lana and Pete, which is a bit out of character–previously he’s shown that he cares very deeply for both of them. [Max: I think he still cares for both of them, but any time your childhood friends start hooking up, it's gonna take a while to get used to it… and he did, eventually.]
Why is Waverider doing this to himself? As he says, he has all of time and space to explore, so why is he choosing to go back to watch his grandfather die? Why doesn’t he go back to his first kiss, or the moon landing, or literally anything else? Also, who is still this upset about their grandfather dying? Bruce Wayne doesn’t seem as upset about his parents’ murder as this dude is about his elderly grandfather dying of natural causes. [Max: I got the impresion the Linear Men had trapped him in that moment as part of their plan to catch him, but I could be wrong.]
Is there any difference between Matt Ryder’s pink time travel suit, and Brainiac 5’s outfit? Besides the green skin, they could be the same dude.
If I were Matt Ryder, I might not be super-stoked that a super-powered identical version of himself is around, particularly working in such close quarters with Liri Lee, who already married a less cool version of Waverider (but that could just be my crush on Liri Lee talking). Also he cooked him alive. [Max: Very good point.]