Superman Annual #3 (1991)
Superman Annual #3 (1991)
Hey, have you ever wondered what Superman will be doing in the far-flung future of 2001? This issue has the answer! And that answer is: he’ll be a jerk.
A guy called Waverider is going around the DC Universe, secretly touching every superhero while invisible, to find out who will become a villain called Monarch in the future. The first hero he feels up is Superman – according to the possible timeline Waverider envisions, everyone in Metropolis (including Lois Lane) will be killed by a nuclear device in a few years and, as a result, Superman will go nuts and start destroying all the weapons in the planet. When Future Superman carelessly kills seven people while sinking a nuclear submarine, the US government sends Future Batman to take him down. How is a man in a bat suit supposed to defeat a superstrong flying alien? Easy: by using the kryptonite ring said superstrong flying alien himself gave him a while ago (Action #654), just in case this exact type of situation should arise.
Meanwhile, Superman is paranoid that the government will hurt his loved ones, so he takes his wife (Future Lana Lang) and Future Ma Kent to live in the Future Fortress of Solitude. That’s where Superman is contacted by Batman and summoned to Gotham City for their final showdown. With the help of Future Robin, his Superman-killing robot armor and, oh yeah, the freaking kryptonite, Batman eventually beats Superman. For good.
So, bad news: Superman is dead. Good news: he’s not Monarch! (Because he’s dead.) Back in 1991, Waverider is like “Whelp, off to molest another superhero, then” as Present Superman tells Present Lois he just had a feeling like “somebody stepped on my grave”… implying that, in some way, he felt Waverider’s vision and can change this crummy future.
Plotline-Watch:
This is the first of three Superman annuals that tie into Armageddon 2001, the big DC crossover of 1991. What I like the most about this annual is that the Superman comics are plotted so far in advance that they actually managed to show off a whole bunch of future storylines:
First off there’s the 1992 crossover “Panic in the Sky!”, in which Superman teams up with a crapload of superheroes to stop Brainiac’s invasion of Earth. Don Sparrow pointed out to me that the panel we see in this issue is actually a specific moment from that storyline: “We even see Brainiac going for his failsafe device (which a lot of dopes who didn’t read Superman at the time thought was Doomsday, and not "the Swarm” which emerged only an issue or two after PITS).“
Metropolis is destroyed when Intergang leader "Ugly” Mannheim tries to blackmail the city with a bomb, but someone gets nervous and presses the button. Not only do we see that exact bomb in an upcoming issue, but by triggering this vision of the future, Waverider has subconsciously influenced Superman to finally get rid of Intergang before it’s too late (which will happen very soon).
Then we see the wedding of Lois Lane and Clark Kent, which will eventually happen in 1996, but was originally planned to take place shortly after “Panic in the Sky!”. I firmly believe that the main reason they had Superman cut his hair right before the wedding was to avoid contradicting this annual, which showed him with short hair, as opposed to the Fabio look he had between ‘93 and '96.
Before the final fight with Batman, some members of the Justice League go after Superman: Booster Gold (of course), Fire and Martian Manhunter, who is accidentally killed by a crazed Superman for the second time this month (the other being during a moon-crystal fever dream in Adventures #479). Anyway, Future Superman says he’s glad he quit the Justice League a while ago – which, ironically, is a hint that Supes will join the Justice League next year (as a direct consequence of “Panic in the Sky!”, actually).
There are also some connections to another of the Armageddon 2001 Superman annuals: in this future, the president is a crooked guy called Herbert Forrest (whom we already saw as a crooked senator in Superman #24) and it’s mentioned that Pa Kent died of a heart attack years ago. Both those things will also be true in the different future shown in Action Comics Annual #3… only in that case, they’ll result in Superman becoming President of the United States. Yep.
Celebrity-Watch:
Don has inspired a new section by making me see that many characters in this issue resemble celebrities: in the wedding picture above you can see Lois’ “lifelong friends” Marsha Warfield and Joyce DeWitt; President Forrest (get it?) is distractingly George H.W. Bush-like; Albert Einstein is apparently now the Mayor of Gotham City, but Batman calls him “Gordon” for some reason; Waverider is drawn very consistently to resemble Tom Hulce; and there’s an FBI guy called Hooper who looks more like Bruce Wayne than Bruce Wayne does later in the story. I would add that the grown up Robin (Tim Drake) is clearly Jerry Seinfeld.
Find out what else Don noticed about this issue after the jump!
Art-Watch (by Don Sparrow):
I’d never heard of Dusty Abell when I read this comic (basically if a person didn’t regularly draw Superman comics, I hadn’t heard of them!) but I remember being blown away by the linework in this issue. The details in the backgrounds, elongated figures and animated looking faces really struck a chord with me. Plus the way he draws the buffeting of the timestream is as good as I’ve seen it by anyone, and really makes Waverider, in one of his first appearance, seem like a totally different character than one we’ve seen before.
I also love the design on his future Superman, as he looks more regal with the long boots, gauntlets and royal cape, a nice visual foreshadow of his dictatorial turn later in the story.
Immediately after Mannheim steamrolls Metropolis (my deepest apologies) we have our first GODWATCH! Namely, that in this timeline, unlike others, Clark and Lana are apparently Catholic. Who knew?
I can’t say I get what they’re doing with President Forrest. He’s a complete creep, even plotting killing Batman a few minutes after meeting him, but in the context of the story, he also happens to be right about Superman, so it’s a bit confusing. Who are we supposed to be cheering for? Or is that the point, that we’re supposed to feel on edge because we can’t rely on the rightness of either Superman OR the office of President.
Things are getting worse on the homefront as well, as the very “Whistler’s Mother”-looking Ma Kent falls further into dementia, and Lana isn’t allowed to question Superman’s wealth redistribution scheme without losing her table to his super fists.
The whole thing with Batman leads to a Crime Alley showdown. To my own embarrassment, I must confess that when this issue had come out, I’d never read The Dark Knight Returns, so when I saw Batman’s battle armour, I thought it was the coolest and most original thing I’d ever seen, not getting the whole thing was an homage to Frank Miller.
And, like the Dark Knight Returns, Batman doesn’t beat Superman, exactly (what? Why are you looking at me like that? Batman didn’t beat Superman in DKR. If two prize fighters squared off, and one of them had a heart attack, which one would you say won? The guy who walked away to attend the other guy’s funeral, I’d say).
Instead, Superman becomes convinced of what a danger he has become and kind of gives up, but not before asking Batman to take care of his family. The logistics of this arrangement always struck me as odd. I kinda want to see how that would play out: Batman showing up at the South Pole via dogsled and gently explaining , “I’m here to take care of you, Lana and Martha. This is necessary because I just recently killed your husband and son. Mush!”
So kind of a bummer, all in all, and as far as I know, the first of many many many future storylines where Lois dies as plot device to make Superman into a bad guy, or at best, an indecisive guy. I’m sure things will go much better for Lois in the upcoming Adventures of Superman Annual, though! [Maxwell: That was cold, Don. Cold.]
Stray observations:
Dusty Abell really seems to relish drawing Fire’s posterior (page 40, 41)
Robin (Tim Drake), a very hot character at the time pops up in a lot of these Annuals, and is put to good use here. I always liked the idea that he’d grow up to be a senator or something, and not become Batman.
I really hope Lana doesn’t happen to ask if Superman had any last words.
Dusty Abell came back on my radar recently, with his great Superman through the ages piece…