Superman: The Man of Steel #23 (July 1993)
Superman: The Man of Steel #23 (July 1993)
REIGN OF THE SUPERMEN! In this issue: Steel vs. Superboy! I mean, “Superman" vs. "Superman". The Man of Steel is battling some hoodlums armed with hi-tech killer weapons when the Metropolis Kid decides to butt in and "save him” in front of the cameras that follow him 24/7. (Side note: Was Superboy the first ‘90s reality TV star?) The Kid draws all the firepower to himself… accidentally causing the bad guys to shoot down a Daily Planet helicopter containing Lois Lane. The chopper blows up, signaling the death of a classic and beloved DC Comics character: Frank the helicopter pilot. RIP.
Lois, meanwhile, manages to jump out of the exploding chopper in time (probably out of pure muscle memory) and is rescued by Steel in a rather familiar-looking scene.
Lois tries to turn the tragic situation into an exclusive interview with Steel, but Steel has something more important to do: chewing Superboy’s butt for scaring off those criminals he was trying to interrogate (and, you know, causing a man’s death). The Kid is like “I’m da real Superman, yo!” and bails… but as he flies away, he actually starts questioning his half-assed approach to superheroics. I’m sure Frank’s wife and 12 children would find great comfort in that.
Meanwhile, Steel is approached by Lex Luthor Jr., who wants to offer him a job as one of his armored security guards (because having one S-shielded superhero in his pocket isn’t enough for him). To butter Steel up, Lex offers him the location of the White Rabbit – aka, the lady distributing all those highly advanced weapons to street gangs. Steel thanks Lex for the tip and immediately ditches him, making it clear that his services aren't for sale.
Steel drops by the White Rabbit's penthouse, and she turns out to be an old flame from his time as a weapons designer for the military. Things almost get steamy for a second in there, until Steel remembers that this lady has made him indirectly responsible for countless deaths (all those weapons are his design). Once she takes the hint that Steel won't work for her (either), White Rabbit just shoots him point blank with one of those big-ass guns, launching him off the building and into a convenient tanker parked outside.
Superboy (who was following Steel to apologize for being a dick) flies in just in time to pull Steel's body from the resulting tanker explosion:
By the time Superboy and Steel return to White Rabbit's penthouse, the place is already empty. The two Supermen then bond over that whole "we've both caused innocent people to die today" thing and part amicably. Awww!
Plotline-Watch:
Ponytailed scumbag Jeb Friedman, having given Lois Lane WEEKS to recover from her fiance's supposed death, urges her to "forget Clark" and go to Cairo with him. Don Sparrow says: "I hesitate to even mention that the hated Jeb Friedman appears here, and even Jimmy doesn't want Lois rebounding with him. Serious question, though: are we supposed to hate Jeb? Or is it just happenstance?" If we weren't supposed to hate Jeb, would they have given him a ponytail, Don?
After meeting Steel, Lois reflects on the fact that the other Supermen may look like Clark, but Steel is the only one who acts like him. Obviously she doesn't think Clark's already been reincarnated as an adult black man, but she does seriously wonder if ghostly possession is a real thing.
I love how efficiently Steel's backstory is presented in this issue. As he and White Rabbit are about to lock lips, we see a handful of black-and-white panels showing the two working together for the military, hooking up, finding out his weapons were being used against innocents in Qurac, and then a flashback-within-the-flashback of Steel's grandparents having just become victims of gang violence. It's only half a page but it tells you everything you need to know about this dude and his motivation.
Superboy burns his hands while rescuing Steel, even though a clone of Superman should be equally invulnerable. Hmm. Hmmmm. Hmmmmmm.
The issue ends with Supergirl telling Lex she's going off to look for Superboy, which leads to the next issue of Adventures.
And this leads to the end of my section! For more commentary, Easter eggs, and gratuitous images of White Rabbit, check out Don Sparrow's section after the jump:
Art-Watch (by @donsparrow):
Maybe it's just me, but I feel like none of the other four Superman titles seems as swayed by the importance of the storyline as SMOS. What do I mean? I mean that when it's a big storyline, like Panic in the Sky, or Doomsday, the art on the title really seems to rise to the occasion, and there's some standout stuff being produced. But in the meantime, when a story doesn't feel as important, the quality seems to dip a little. To me, this is one of those issues. We begin with the cover, and it's not one of Bogdanove's best. Sure, his artwork could be called cartoony at the best of times, but this one really took on a loose, loony tunes sketchiness, particularly in Superboy's "ain't I a stinker?" expression and giant wall of teeth. He looks less like a 16 year old than he resembles Rex Leech, a character we'll come to know better in time.
Inside, the story gets off to a slow start, as we're abruptly thrown into a video of wannabe gangsters, moving in on where they think they'll find John Henry Irons. The double page splash revealing his location is an exciting one, and Dennis Janke does some interesting things with his hatching to indicate the shine of the metal, leaving certain areas unhatched to show a glimmer.
Bog's depictions of The White Rabbit continue to push the envelope for how much skin a comic code approved book can show, both on page 7, and then later in the book. [Max: This next sequence of panels burned itself into my young mind. Because of the cool panel layout, I mean.]
[December 2018 edit: White Rabbit's body has been covered with Mike Carlin's face so that Tumblr doesn't delete this post. Sorry.]
Page 8 brings us a long sought after in-comics cameo. If you'll recall, back on one of my first reviews on this site, I interviewed the great Tom Grummett and asked him if there were any Easter Eggs that we should look out for while we were reading. He answered that “My personal favorite moment was when Jon Bogdanove drew me in a scene with Jimmy Olsen in one issue of Man of Steel. I'm the one with the moose on his shirt. Happy hunting." Well, we need hunt no more, as a certain fellow pops up, arguing with Jimmy Olsen, and what's that on his shirt? A moose?! Found you! [Max: Are we the first on the internet to point out this cameo? I don't have time to look it up, so let's go with "Yes".]
I also love the little gag in the lettering, where the first part of "Saskatchewan" (Tom's home province) is shown as "Saskatch" and then below that Bog has written "W-1", phonetically completing the phrase. It's also a very Neal Adams-y couple of panels when Jimmy and Tom start to get heated debating who the real Superman is. [Max: I wonder if the Neal Adams-esque panels above are homaging a specific Adams comic, or just his "intense argument" poses in general…] Then a page later, there's an unmistakable rendering of another Super-Teamster, none other than group editor Mike Carlin, scanning the police radio for scoops.
As the story progresses, there's a great shot of the Metropolis Kid (who they refer to as Superboy on this page, without a rebuttal from the Kid) showboating and holding one hand behind his back. But, on the page that follows, a pretty heavy end for Daily Planet chopper pilot "Frank", made all the more sickening by the lack of concern from the Kid leading up to this point.
Some great visual callback on page 12, as the mob scene when the Man of Steel rescues Lois Lane recalls the meet-cute at the shuttle disaster wayyyy back in MOS #1.
The scene were John Henry confronts the Kid about his carelessness is well-done, even if it gives way to another mention of the preposterous ‘spirit-walk-in' idea, which even these characters seem to find tenuous.
The flashback with White Rabbit does a good job of filling in the gaps of John Henry's history (interesting how similar Irons' motivation is to that of Tony Stark's, at least in the movies) but it's an odd scene--not just because of the aforementioned vamping from White Rabbit, but also Irons' inaction in the scene--he went there to capture her, but mostly just stands around and then lets her stroll back over to the bed, where a weapon is clearly visible from where he's standing. [Max: Can't imagine what else he could be looking at.]
As The Metropolis Kid rescues The Man of Steel, we get more looney tunes-style comedy, when the Kid comedically blows on his burning hands, trying to cool them. They seem to be working hard to establish how different his powers are from Kal-El's, though they eventually go back on almost all of this stuff.
Moving on, we get a really nice look at Lois at a rainy window, once again musing on how the Man of Steel, while physically the most removed from Kal-El, seems to embody his "soul" more than the rest.
STRAY OBSERVATIONS:
Is the cameraman gangster supposed to be a riff on Spike Lee? The glasses seem pretty similar to ones Spike wore at the time.
How is it that we never noticed such a giant, futuristic tower on the Metropolis skyline before?
Jimmy Olsen wearing a Spin Doctors t-shirt is a little too meta for my head, since one of their biggest hits was "Jimmy Olsen's Blues". What does the DC Universe Jimmy think when he hears a song about himself, lusting after Lois Lane? They were also one of my favourite bands when this issue came out, so my mind was doubly blown.
What is it with Lex hanging onto VHS tapes? Thank God he never got his hands on that one of Big Barda! [Max: Dammit, I'd JUST managed to erase that from my mind, Don.]