Superman: The Man of Steel #0 (October 1994)
Superman: The Man of Steel #0 (October 1994)
“Peer Pressure,” Part 1! ZERO MONTH IS HERE! After the universe-destroying and universe-rebirthing events of Zero Hour, every DCU series gets a #0 issue where we go back to square, uh, zero and recap the character’s origin. In Superman’s case, that means we get to see poor, doomed Jor-El and Lara again… with all-new dialogue, compared to 1986’s The Man of Steel #1. (No more “Jor-El declaring his love as the world explodes,” sadly.)
The rest of Superman’s origin unfolds pretty much as we know it, with one new addition: we see that Ma and Pa Kent’s neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Braverman, happened to be giving birth to their son on a pickup truck in the middle of the road right when Kal-El’s baby rocket crash landed on the Kent farm. The Kents’ dialogue has also been changed by Hal Jordan’s meddling with the timeline (Pa no longer says the classic line “They’s bin sendin’ dogs and monkeys up into orbit”), but at least this panel survived the chronal carnage:
(RIP Ma Kent’s skirt.)
With the mildly retconned origin out of the way, we cut to the present, where Superman is dealing with some gangsters shooting each other with Toastmasters in Metropolis – which is looking pretty un-destroyed for a city that got bombed to hell a few months ago. We get an explanation in the next scene, when Superman reunites with Lois Lane and he mentions that, after Zero Hour, all of Earth’s heroes got together and rebuilt the city in record time. Plus, they go out of their way to mention that “Death of Superman” didn’t get retconned – your Superman #75 copy is still worth big bucks, kids!
As Lois and Clark deign themselves to get to work at the rebuilt Daily Planet offices, they see that someone left Clark an envelope containing a photo of his fifth shared birthday with little Kenny Braverman (you know, the pickup truck baby), but little Clarkie’s face has been cut off. Clark thinks it’s “probably nothing” – but, right on the next page, some debris happens to fall on them as they’re walking outside the Planet and would have crushed them if it wasn’t for Clark’s quick reflexes.
Clark finds another creepily vandalized photo waiting for him in his building’s mailbox. This one shows Clarkie (sans head) at a school play where he got to kiss Lil’ Lana Lang because Kenny, who was supposed to do the smooching, was sick that day. As Lois and Clark look at the photo, the building’s elevator has a malfunction they wouldn’t have survived if one of them wasn’t able to fly. Right after each strange accident, we see a mysterious helmeted character who seems to know Clark and hates his guts, for some reason.
Clark is starting to get the impression that someone is trying to kill him. He doesn’t have long to dwell on that before another emergency comes up: someone has set fire to the orphanage where Keith the Unlucky Orphan lives (see why I call him Keith the Unlucky Orphan?). It turns out the mysterious villain started the fire in order to attract Clark, who happens to be the one reporter in town not covering this “Superman saves orphans” story. However, Ron Troupe picked this day to crib Clark’s “glasses and fedora” look, causing the villain to mistake him for his target. At least we know that this particular bad guy isn’t racist, since he apparently doesn’t see race.
(To be fair, everyone looks the same race under the pink glow of an orphanage fire.)
This time, the photo arrives after the attack, this one showing Kenny and Clark as Boy Scouts with Kenny’s dad as their Scoutmaster. Clark remembers that Kenny somehow caused a fire that time and got chewed out by his dad, while Clarkie got hailed as a hero for putting it out with sand. Clark doesn’t see much significance in that jolly childhood memory, but Lois wonders: “What if this is someone letting you know – they set fire to the orphanage on purpose?” Clark should have handed her all his Pulitzers right then.
TO BE CONTINUED!
Character-Watch:
First appearance of Superman’s Childhood Classmate, Kenny Braverman, who cinephiles will no doubt recognize as that bully kid from Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel (and also one episode of Superman: The Animated Series, according to Wikipedia). Not sure what Kenny did to deserve that depiction, since he seems like a perfectly nice young kid in this issue. Oh, and guess this is also the first appearance of that mystery villain trying to kill Clark, even though we all know who that is… you’ve gone too far this time, Jeb!
Plotline-Watch:
A significant (to me) retcon in this issue is that Jor-El and Lara no longer say the Kryptonian Death Chant right before getting blown to krypto-pieces, as established during the “Exile in Space” and reaffirmed in the Eradicator saga. That’s a shame; I liked that morbid little bit of Kryptonian culture.
On the other hand, I’m pleased that the freak storm that trapped the Kents in their farm for months, conveniently giving them an excuse for suddenly showing up with a baby, is still part of the continuity (and presumably still orchestrated by Manhunter robots, as revealed in the Millennium crossover). Hey, wait a minute, shouldn’t Clark’s official birthday be months after Kenny Braverman’s, then? Did Kenny let Clark celebrate their birthday together because “no one knew” the exact date for Clark’s, due to the storm? Such a good friend.
I’m not totally sure why Lois mentions a “fight with Satanus” when Clark asks if she remembers Metropolis’ destruction. Is she talking about the “Blaze/Satanus War” storyline? I do remember a building getting turned into a portal to Hell there, but the level of destruction was still way lower than in other storylines like “Panic in the Sky!” or, you know, “Doomsday!” (if it has an exclamation mark at the end, you know Metropolis is getting fucked up).
The full tale of Metropolis’ reconstruction will be told in a future Adventures issue, because I guess they didn’t want new readers to have to deal with all that. Curiously, Lord Satanus will be involved in that flashback story, but he usually acts from the shadows so I don’t think Lois could be talking about that. Maybe the writers intended to retroactively slip another Satanus story into the continuity post-Zero Hour, but ended up settling for making him a part of that “rebuilding Metropolis” issue?
Based on her facial expression, Lois doesn’t approve of the decision to cast Lana Lang as Snow White. Next thing you know, she’s gonna start making YouTube videos about why the Snow White actress is DESTROYING Disney and make hating this one poor girl the main part of her personality.
Shout Outs-Watch:
Mildly retconned shout outs to our SUPporters, Aaron, Chris “Ace” Hendrix, britneyspearsatemyshorts, Patrick D. Ryall, Mark Syp, Ryan Bush, Raphael Fischer, Kit, Dave Shevlin, Dave Blosser, and a huge welcome to Bryan! (The retcon is that we added him to the list.) Join them (and get extra articles) via Patreon or our newsletter’s “pay what you want” mode! Both of those also have free tiers, if you just wanna get posts like this one in your inbox.
Also shout out to the winner of our latest art giveaway, as decreed by the random number generator gods: Murray Qualie, via the newsletter! We’ll be in contact shortly about getting you that fine Don Sparrow art.
And speaking of Don, here’s his take on the art in this issue, including that one panel of Superman FURIOUSLY chopping onions:
Art-Watch (by @donsparrow):
We start with the cover, and it’s an appropriately simple, jumping on point type cover, reintroducing the core (literally) elements of the basic Superman story, this time depicting the Fabio era Superman with the explosive death of Krypton behind him. My memory is faulty, I think, because I remember thinking that Bogdanove’s art fell off after the death and return storylines, but if this issue is any indication, he’s as good as ever, because this whole comic is just show-stopper after show-stopper. [Max: In my memory, Bog’s art was the most consistent part of this era, and one thing that kept me going through my disaffected teenager years.]
Inside the comic, we get another, even more detailed view of Krypton’s end, with the familiar Byrne-era rocket speeding away. With so much great art, I don’t want my section to go too long, so I’m going to have to be choosy about what I focus on, but the entire contrasting sequence of how both the Bravermans (Bravermen?) and Kents become parents is so well done.
The image of infant Clark squirming as his Matrix opens is a good one, even if his size seems to vary a lot in the panels that come.
Page 5 we get an absolute jaw-dropper of a splash page, with Superman diving through the skies backed by a postcard worthy view of Metropolis. There’s certain iconic images of Superman that always hold a lot of power (the shirt opening reveal, the chain snap, the bullet bounce, etc—what are some of your favourites?) and Superman stopping a train is up there as a candidate. Bogdanove brings great gesture and a sense of effort as he halts the train before it hits the damaged part of the track. [Max: This panel reminds me of Frank Miller’s cover for Superman: The Secret Years #3, which I only know about because it was also a pinup somewhere.]
Page 8’s splash is another real highlight, showing both Lois’ daintiness and their shared passion after being apart so long for the strange events of Zero Hour.
Say what you want about the character, but I really love the design on our mystery assailant (seen on page 11), especially the inscrutability his reflective costume gives him. It reminds me of Alien, by way of Snake Eyes from GI Joe.
There’s something domestically intimate about Superman chopping a mountain of onions, and I like the distant concentration on his face as he does so. I do wonder if carbonara was meant to be Bolognese, as a traditional carbonara contains no onions. Or was that the point Lois was making, that zero onions are needed for their meal? At any rate, my spaghetti Bolognese contains two full onions, for the record. Maybe we’ll give the FULL recipe to foodie patreon subscribers, ha ha. [Max: You heard him! Join today!]
The rim-lit Superman is a great, simple panel, and a part of a great sequence—does it get more Superman than rescuing orphans? Though Keith should get a shoutout for his quick thinking of dousing everyone in water to keep them safe until help arrived.
I can’t let how good Lois looks as she types up the arson story pass without comment, so here’s me commenting: she looks great.
SPEEDING BULLETS:
I like that in virtually his first lines, we get the sense that Al Braverman is no Jonathan Kent. Sure, it’s a husband’s job to encourage his wife to push when she’s in labour, but the addition of “dang it” hints at what a jerk he is, as does his wife Beryl feeling like she needs to apologize for being in labour at an inopportune moment. It’s done subtly enough here that I thought it was worth highlighting.
Plenty of GODWATCH this week, with Martha, then Jonathan invoking the “Lord” in the moments they find their future son on page 3, and then Superman thanks Heaven that Keith and the other children are alive.
Are we OK with Lois’ use of “gangstas” to describe the combating rivals on the train?
While certain elements of the story (Al Braverman generally sucking as a parent) are deftly handled, the “mystery” of the stalker leaving the photos behind shouldn’t last more than a couple of panels for two investigative reporters like Lois and Clark (to her credit, Lois is dubious of Clark’s “crank” dismissal virtually from the jump, asking the incredibly basic questions Clark should be asking himself, like where did they get the picture?).
I presume Mrs. Weisinger is based off of Thelma Weisinger, lifelong wife of famed DC Comics editor Mort? I can’t find much in the way of photos of Thelma (her eyewear actually remind me of Bob Kane’s wife Elizabeth Sanders, who played Gossip Gertie in the Schumacher Batman films, one of the more harmless indulgences of those films) but that’s my guess. I don’t remember her featuring too prominently in upcoming stories, but we’ve established I have a fuzzy memory for certain things. [Max: Mrs. Weisinger pushing Lois and Clark to get married already is appropriate, since the real Mr. Weisinger was one of the few creators who, according to a ‘70s poll, was actually okay with that happening and predicted the engagement/wedding pretty much as it unfolded in the '90s.]
Kenny’s father seems like he should be the target of this retribution moreso than Clark!
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