Superman: The Man of Steel #15 (September 1992)
Superman: The Man of Steel #15 (September 1992)
THE BLAZE/SATANUS WAR: PART 3! Everything goes to hell! Or, to be more accurate, to a place that's sort of like hell but more… Steve Ditko-ish. In Part 2 of this storyline, Superman, some of his friends, and the whole place they happened to be standing in (the Newstime building) were all transported to a bizarre dimension. A dude called Lord Satanus did this to prevent his sister, Lady Blaze, from using that building to take over the city of Metropolis. Apparently, mystical invasions work the same way as Monopoly: whoever has the most buildings wins. (Note: I don't know how to play Monopoly.)
Now Superman and Satanus are fighting an endless horde of flying demons to protect the people trapped in the building. Unfortunately, Superman's powers are all wonky because the rules of physics are different in this dimension.
Blaze knows she can't beat the Superman/Satanus tag team while they're together, so she comes up with a simple plan to separate them: she transports a church from Metropolis, which will attract the people trapped in this dimension, which will expose them to the demons, which means Superman will have to drop what he's doing to go save them. This actually works, and Superman is overwhelmed by demons when he tries to fight them without Satanus' help.
In the meantime, Satanus has managed to get ahold of Sam Foswell, the unfortunate guy Blaze is using as the nexus of her invasion (her Monopoly piece, if you will) – now all he has to do is kill Foswell and the whole thing will be over. Blaze knows Superman won't let Satanus kill an innocent, though, so she brings them all together for an epic fight… which will take place next issue, because this one is over. CONTINUED!
Plotline-Watch:
Foswell is still stuck in his demon form, which I'd been calling “Fos-Hell”, but it actually has an official name: FOSGOYLE. You know, because he kinda looks like a gargoyle. I still like Fos-Hell better. Also, he can shoot glasses from his hands now, for some reason.
The church Blaze brings into Satanus' dimension is, of course, the desecrated one from Superman #15 (1988), which is apparently the only place of worship in Metropolis. Before transporting it, Blaze lures Perry White and his wife inside by making them think their dead son Jerry is hanging out in there. Does that mean the vision of Jerry that Jimmy Olsen had two weeks ago was fake, too? I can't remember, but we'll probably find out next week.
Hey, what's with the art in this issue? It looks like two different artists, neither of which is Jon Bogdanove. Allow the great Don Sparrow to clear up that and other mysteries of life in his section, after the jump:
Art-Watch (by @donsparrow):
We start with a pretty topsy turvy cover, which looks pretty familiar, but not so much that I can figure out what the homage is supposed to be. It has a real Ditko feel to it, though, so I’m wondering if it’s a Doc Strange swipe? Help me out, Marvel fans! Inside the issue, we’re immediately treated to an incredible splash page, one of the best images ever drawn by guest artist Kerry Gammill, one of many this issue.
He manages to make Superman look not only like a real person, but a real person grimacing believably, with details like his tousled hair and torn uniform making it seem all the more real. Which is why it’s our PANEL OF THE WEEK. Yup, that’s right. The first panel is the panel of the week. Deal with it.
The art duties on this book are split between the dynamically realistic team of the aforementioned Gammill and Dennis Janke, Trevor Scott, as well as the shadowy, loose and mystical team Keith Giffen and Trevor Scott, a clever way of filling pages by guest artists, and also showing a clear delineation between conventional Metropolis goings-on and those in the wacked out mystical hell dimension.
Gammill’s action scenes are amazing. His exaggerated postures (and wide strides) really denote action and movement (first panel above). Plus, he can do spooky well–that spectral image of Jerry White is truly freaky. The Giffen sections are pretty hard to follow, for the most part. It’s interesting seeing Spawn-like grit and cape-lengths on these characters but without the dialogue, it would be near impossible to tell what’s happening in these sequences. [Max: I'm glad I'm not the only one who has that problem with Giffen. I love his style, but the composition is usually very confusing.]
Gammill also excels at the thankless job of the scenes at Blaze’s. Both outside (very daunting to get all that architecture right) and the details inside are solidly drawn.
Overall though, a lot about this issue feels like a fill-in. Not much happens to advance the plot, aside from the two buildings being sucked into the other dimension, and much of the art is weird-for-weird’s sake. Not an inappropriate choice, given the mystical nature of the story, but not a high-water mark for the era either. It’s almost as if there’s a really huge storyline coming up in a few months that the regulars needed to rest up for.
STRAY OBSERVATIONS:
GODWATCH: Again, it’s throughout the whole issue, with these otherworldly threats, but on page 1, Superman asks what in “Heaven’s name” is causing the disturbance, then on page 2 surmising that there’s “nothing heavenly” about a demon (great investigative journalism there, Clark). Alice and Perry talk throughout about things that are unholy (invoking the divine directly on page 6) Plus, the whole end of the story involves Superman combating demons, so his friends can get to Church on time. Shades of David Bowie!
Kerry Gammill draws the best Maggie Sawyer in comics, I think. [Max: Co-signed. His Supergirl is pretty great, too.]
The exodus of the demons on page 8 through the torn wall puts me in the mind of Giant-Size X-Men #1, in a weird way.
Yeesh. That baseball-catcher’s position shot of Blaze on page 14 is a lot more of her than I want to see.
