Superman: The Man of Steel #28 (December 1993)
Superman: The Man of Steel #28 (December 1993)
SUPERMAN VS. NUCLEAR WASTE! No, this isn’t a very special issue about the environment: “Nuclear Waste” is a group of super-hitmen who debuted in this issue and Never Showed Up Again™, probably because they were too 1993 to exist outside of this year. Seriously, it’s like a parody of a ‘90s supervillain team. There’s PDQ, who has the power of acrobatics and… is he vaping?!
Strongbox, who is strong (and wears a backwards cap)…
Hardknox, who is stronger (and makes Strongbox redundant)…
And Fadeout, who can make herself and the others invisible. Maybe she forgot to turn off her power after this issue?
Wait, I guess Strongbox DOES serve a purpose: he operates the team’s beeper. Anyway, Nuclear Waste are hired by Lex Luthor Jr.’s main lackey, Dr. Sydney Happersen (under the airtight alias of “Happy Syd”), to kill a LexCorp employee who bumped into Lois Lane at the coffee shop and accidentally babbled about LexCorp’s shady activities. Like, enough for a whole article.
Meanwhile, Superman spots a LexCom satellite falling into the atmosphere and goes to catch it before it ruins someone’s BBQ – presumably a distraction orchestrated by Lex Jr. to keep our hero occupied while Nuclear Waste wastes the (now former) LexCorp employee. Superman gets back to Metropolis in time to see the guy taking an involuntary diving lesson in the river, so now Nuclear Waste has to distract Supes for several pages while their victim drowns.
Once they’re confident that their target is dead, the members of Nuclear Waste disappear (forever). Superman does pull the guy from the water and hands him to some paramedics, who say they might be able to save him. If they can, that would give Nuclear Waste a 0/0 batting average, making them the least effective supervillain team in comics. I’m guessing they quit the assassination industry after this and became a '90s rap/rock band.
Plotline-Watch:
Superman briefly teams up with an armor-less John Henry Irons to take on some gangbangers who are still using the Toastmaster weapons John designed in his old life. Afterwards, John says he’s given up superheroing and is gonna visit his old bosses in Washington DC to find out how his weapons ended up in the hands of guys with names like “Ricco” and “Mucus”. He’s also gonna see his family, while at it. (SPOILERS: the “no superheroing” thing won’t last long, as seen in the Steel spin-off series starting soon.)
Bloodthirst, the shadowy mastermind shown in recent issues, is seen operating on Bloodsport II (no relation) to give him the same gun-teleporting powers Bloodsport I had. Later, he operates some lady who’s obsessed with technology in exchange for her messing with Superman and just creating chaos in Metropolis. I’m not a fan of this guy, and I’m also not crazy about the artist in this issue, Bloodlines’ Chuck Wojtkiewicz (simply because he isn’t Bogdanove), but this is a cool panel:
Lex Jr. very unsubtly gives Happersen the order to get rid of the loose-lipped LexCorp employee right in front of Supergirl, and she doesn’t bat an eye. Like, what could Lex possibly be talking about here other than murder? Did she think it was weird that the same guy then turned up in a river? Is she that dumb or is Lex THAT good in bed?
The Misadventures of Jose Delgado: Cat Grant’s little turd of a son, Adam, breaks a photo of Jose Delgado/Gangbuster while running around the apartment. Poor Jose hasn’t been in this comic for months and he’s still getting disrespected. However, it turns out that Adam’s turdiness is simply a manifestation of his guilt – he thinks Jose left due to Adam changing the channel from Superman’s death back in Adventures #498. Cat assures him it wasn’t his fault and they end up crying together and hugging. Good to see some character development for little Adam, a character who will surely stick around for a long time!
In completely unrelated news, kids have been going missing in Metropolis and towards the end of the issue, we see a kidnapped girl being offered a toy by whoever’s keeping her trapped in a basement. Huh? What kind of kidnapper gives their victim a toy, man?
A friend of Keith the Unlucky Orphan spray-paints “SUPERMAN LIVES” on top of a moving metro train to get on a street gang, and of course Superman has to save them both. What kind of gang celebrates Superman’s resurrection? Was the full graffiti “SUPERMAN LIVES? UGH!”?
There’s a short but cute scene about a “hostage situation” in a nursing home that turns out to be a stunt by the old geezers to get the media’s attention about the crappy conditions at the home. Lois is happy to help, but the geezers aren’t fans of Superman.
While fighting the gangbangers, Superman slightly misjudges a push and ends up demolishing a whole building (it was condemned anyway). We’ve all been there.
In this issue alone, Superman teams up with Steel, saves a family from a tornado, looks for the missing children, deals with the “hostage situation,” saves Keith and his friend, catches a satellite, fights Nuclear Waste, and saves the LexCorp employee. Lois tells him to take it easy on the last page, but he’s like “nah” and flies off to fight some more gangbangers.
Patreon-Watch:
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