Superman #81 (September 1993)
Superman #81 (September 1993)
REIGN OF THE SUPERMEN! The secret origin of the Cyborg Superman! We find out that the genocidal robot guy posing as the dearly departed Supes is actually someone we’ve seen before – a seemingly minor threat from the past, supposedly lost in the vastness of space. That’s right, the Cyborg is in reality… freaking Psi-Phon and Dreadnaught.
No, not really. The Cyborg is none other than astronaut Hank Henshaw, the Reed Richards analogue from that “Fantastic Four, but they all die horribly” story in Adventures #466.
Two months after that, in Adventures #468, we found out that Hank’s mind had survived by jumping into a LexCorp computer after his irradiated body fell apart. Hank builds himself a dorky new robot body, but unfortunately, his wife couldn’t handle seeing him in that state and went catatonic… and died, too, apparently? Or at least Hank and his minions seem to think so. At this point, Hank decided to jump into Superman's Kryptonian baby rocket and leave the Earth because his powers were messing with our satellites, and also to avoid being sued by the creators of Johnny-5.
Anyway, Hank traveled the universe for a while until he bumped into the little backwater planet currently ruled by Mongul, former leader of Warworld (last seen running away all the way back in Adventures #455). Hank basically zapped Mongul until the big yellow oaf agreed to become his lackey on his quest to get revenge on Superman for supposedly failing to save his fantastic friends. Upon finding out Superman was dead, however, Hank came up with another plan: using the DNA from the Kryptonian baby rocket to make himself a new body that looks like Superman and nuking the Earth’s cities to ruin his good name.
Meanwhile, in Metropolis, the mysterious long-haired Superman in the black suit is having trouble convincing Lois, Lex Luthor Jr., Steel and Superboy that he’s the real deal. For starters, he doesn’t even have any powers. Lois looks more convinced after she and man in black share a (pretty familiar looking) kiss, but he can’t use that same tactic on all the others. Eventually, he gets tired of all the arguing, grabs some flying boots from one of Lex’s armored bodyguards, and says he’s just gonna go stop the Cyborg and the others can join him if they want to. Superboy and Steel are like, “ugh, FINE, we’ll go too.” CONTINUED!
Character-Watch:
I'd be really interested in seeing a story about how, exactly, Hank started hating Superman. He still seemed pretty sane at the end of his last appearance, and left willingly to avoid interfering with the Earth's communication systems. I guess the vastness of space drove him mad, but I'd still like to see his evolution from Sadder Reed Richards to Crazier Doctor Doom. My personal theory is that being inside LexCorp's computers had something to do with it. Maybe some remnants from Brainiac's mind (remember he also lived inside LexCorp at one point) combined with seeing Luthor's secret porn stash drove Hank insane.
Also, we never actually saw his wife's death (how did Hank find out about it, anyway?) and every comic book reader knows that if it didn't happen on panel, it didn't happen. So, I think another interesting Cyborg story would be Hank finding out she's still alive, but her death is such a central part of his delusion that he refuses to believe it and maybe ends up killing her. (Call me, DC! I have a really good artist friend.)
Plotline-Watch:
Hank's story is being told by two of his alien minions, a guy who looks like a lion crossed with an Ewok and a guy whose gonads are apparently hanging from his face, all 12 of them. Spin-off series, please.
There's a brief update on the Eradicator's state: he's "healing well" at the Fortress of Solitude, but the Fortress robots are worried that he'll be sad he missed Kal-El's return in Metropolis.
The man in black references various moments from the Lois/Clark relationship to try to convince her that he's telling the truth, like when they got engaged, when he came out as Superman, that time they had their little mountain talk, and, uh… something else. Don Sparrow wonders: "That rainy night in July when we first WHAT Clark? It wasn't raining the night they first kissed. Hmmmmmm." It was raining… Jose Delgado's tears. (Also, funny that it was the "Fantastic Four" issue.)
Lois' reluctance to believe that the man in black is Superman is understandable given that, as she points out, she's gone through this four times already. The first thing that gets her to listen to him is when he says "To Kill a Mockingbird" – which, as we learned in Superman #67, was Clark's favorite movie. And then there's the kiss, which is a hairier remake of the kiss they shared before he died in Superman #75.
How come Supergirl doesn't join the Team Superman on their mission to stop the Cyborg? Because Lex Jr. didn't give her permission, while calling her "my pet". I'm starting to think their relationship isn't that healthy.
Dan Jurgens is clearly a fan of Dave Gibbons' take on Mongul in Alan Moore's For the Man Who Has Everything…
…but the art department is Don Sparrow's turf, so I'll let just him talk about that and other stuff I missed in his section, after the jump!
Art-Watch (by @donsparrow):
I love this issue. Starting with the cover, which lets us know in no uncertain terms that they're no longer playing around--big things are happening. Besides being a great drawing, I love the relative silence of the image, and how it plays. When you see it,you just have to open it to find out what's really going on, and whether the man himself might really be back. It's such a good cover, that I can forgive it for the sleight of hand with the Tarzan hair, which for some reason they have been hiding in recent issues. [Max: I still think they had no idea he'd have long hair when they made these covers.]
Inside we're greeted with another great splash (honestly, we're in the peak era of the Jurgens and Breeding team here, as the next few issues of Superman are every bit as good as the Death storyline, visually, so it was hard for me not to scan every darn page!) and I love the different facial expressions here, with Lex and Lois having expressions of disbelief (though that disbelief is clearly motivated differently between the characters) to the determination and spunk of the Metropolis Kid to the cool authoritative detachment of the Man of Steel at the back.
More great body language on the next two page splash, as--to me– Jurgens and Breeding convey, just with a pose, that the real Kal-El has returned. Though we'll learn he's mostly depowered (thanks to the Eradicator using Kal-El's regeneration matrix as his own energy piggy-bank) he still holds himself with the confidence and invulnerability we expect from Superman. Am I reading too much into a single panel? Almost certainly. But man, this looks great.
There's also some great character work from Lois throughout, and they draw her conflicted facial expressions really well, as she just can't allow herself to hope that this really is what it appears to be--the love of her life, returned to her. I'm sure the Eradicator wearing his face for all these months can't have helped either.
As we cut back to Engine City, we get another view of how amazingly this art team draws tech, followed immediately by possibly the most painful thing the Cyborg does in these pages--full force heat vision to Mongul's junk. Ouch. Ok, maybe that's not as bad as blowing up a whole city, or annihilating a handful of survivors, but still. [Max: He annihilated millions of Mongul's future children.]
The flashback to the Cyborg Superman's origins is cleverly delivered, thanks to the alien mercenary's "pocket 'puter". The image of Henshaw reassemblin ghimself (apparently into Johnny 5) is particularly well drawn, and deeply unnerving. There's also a great image of the bored dissatisfied Mongul on the throne. I wonder if the alien he's telling the story to minds his conquered planet being referredt o as "simple" though.
As with the Engine City pages, Jurgens and Breeding excel at drawing technology, so the freaky dragon creature Henshaw into which converts Mongul's ship is a great piece of art. The full page splash with Cyborg Superman in his current form is one of the better images of the character as well.
The heart of this issue, though, is the slow change in Lois, who has held on for so long without Clark by being tough. As Superman speaks to her about their life together, she is finally able to melt. As with earlier in the book, the emotions on her face are so well done in this transition.
I love the callback of their kiss, and how it mirrors the tender moment from Superman #75. And, in a storytelling device that they'd use again on shows like Smallville, it is the familiarity of his kiss that convinces her that it really is her fiancé. Goosebumps, man! This is beautiful, romantic stuff. And in true Superman fashion, he just can't stand around and celebrate the reunion--there's a job to do, and it falls to him to do it. More goosebumps.
STRAY OBSERVATIONS
A recurring thing in these pages is the artists playing fast and loose with just how tall Steel is. Sure, he's got the platform jet boots, but at times he is depicted as gigantic as his silver-screen counterpart, and other times he seems roughly as tall as anyone else. This issue veers into the gigantic.
I'm glad he's back in any form, but it is a bit tough to see Superman wincing at being squeezed on the shoulder by Steel.
Yeesh, we get it, Henshaw's team were supposed to be analogues for the Fantastic Four, you can stop using the word "fantastic" to remind us. The other hints at it were plenty.
Funny that even that long ago, a handheld computer was the stuff of science fiction, while today, you might be reading this on a "pocket computer" smaller and more powerful than the one the alien holds. [Max: And whilst sitting on the toilet.]
While it's not the focus of the panel, when the Cyborg "forms the shape of a man" he sure looks a heck of a lot like the Ed Hannigan design of Brainiac from the 80s.
I love that Jurgens, knowing he's picked up a lot of new readers with this storyline, makes it ULTRA easy to follow, even having the narrating alien say, "still not understand?" before recapping the recap from the previous pages.
I dig the slow burn on Lex Luthor II, and tha this villainous nature is creeping out more and more. When he calls Supergirl his "pet", it doesn't sound affectionate, but literal here. [Max: Hey, when did Superboy get that Soder Cola? Does a soda vendor follow him around, like Homer Simpson and the hot dogs guy?]
I will never tire of Superboy's "cool" 1990s speak. Rather than read it as a middle aged writer trying to use hip lingo, it could be read as Superboy being "raised" by pop culture. Because he was rapidly aged, maybe his entire knowledge of the world was programmed by others, who were guessing at how a young person speaks? So he's not trying to be cool--it's literally all he knows. But what I still don't understand is where Robin came from!
Reading this issue for the first time, I still (mistakenly) worried that the man in black wasn't the real Superman. This was both because the Eradicator, in his healing bath, has Superman hair (even though we saw his hair get blown off last issue) and because I misunderstood the Kryptonian robot's line of dialogue about 'the master wanting to be there when Kal-El arose'. Though this is actually a confirmation that Kal-El has indeed arisen, I thought it meant that the guy in the bath was the real Kal-El. Plus, Steel has been the character the most "right" and in-tune with the spirit of Superman, and throughout this issue, he's very dubious of the man in black being the real Superman, even saying how it seems to wrong. Which I read as a hint that maybe there was another twist coming.