Superman: The Man of Steel #35 (July 1994)
Superman: The Man of Steel #35 (July 1994)
“WORLDS COLLIDE,” Part 1! And “THE FALL OF METROPOLIS,” Part 2! And a Wonder Woman crossover! And a long-time character dies, as spoiled by the cover! This issue might be peak ‘90s. This is the most '90s you can cram into 22 pages without the comic exploding.
Things are a bit rough in Metropolis after Lex Luthor’s main lackey launched some missiles that destroyed almost every building in the city (Action #700). Keith the Unlucky Orphan and his friends are trying to gather food from what’s left of their orphanage, when a bunch of gangsters with machine guns show up to steal everything, reminding us why we call him Keith the Unlucky Orphan. Luckily, though, the kids are protected not just by Keith’s pal Superman but by Myra, the Orphanage Lady, who decides to keep a couple of those machine guns in case the ruffians return.
Combined with the scars she got on her face after saving Keith from an hypnotic lizard lady last issue, Myra is only some shoulder pads away from looking like a badass '90s anti-hero.
While Superman tries to help people around the ruins of Metropolis, a Giant Robot That Shoots Death Lasers From Its Chest (GRTSDLFIC) emerges from the ground and starts creating more ruins. The monster runs into Keith and the other orphans, so Myra bravely stands in front of it with her new toys and tries to distract it.
And she does! For about a second.
As he holds Myra’s body, Keith yells out for Superman, who arrives right in time to save him from getting death lasered too. The Special Crimes Unit also stops by to help, and the GRTSDLFIC turns out to be smart enough to target Maggie Sawyer out of all of the officers because it can tell she’s the top dog (or maybe it’s just homophobic, dunno). Superman saves her, because one strong female supporting character death is enough for this issue.
Superman realizes the GRTSDLFIC is alive and needs to breathe, so he flies it up into orbit to take out its air and leaves it suspended there while he goes deal with other problems. (Presumably by also throwing them into orbit, like usual.) Meanwhile, Keith begs Maggie and SCU to take Myra to the hospital, but it’s too late for her. The kid has an understandably tough time accepting that another mother figure has left him.
RIP, Myra the no-nonsense orphanage lady. When we met her back in Man of Steel #1 (1991), I don’t think anyone guessed that she’d die wielding dual machine guns while facing a Giant Robot That Shoots Death Lasers From Its Chest. But we should have, dammit. We should have.
Plotline-Watch:
- So, wait, why is this part of a crossover called “Worlds Collide”? Because a whole 5 pages are devoted to Lois Lane’s mailman, Fred Bentson, who is still having weird nightmares where he finds himself in another universe. Professor Hamilton meets Bentson at a Red Cross shelter and takes him to a clinic to treat his sleep disorder, which involves becoming immaterial while he sleeps and being haunted by an inter-dimensional monster. At the clinic, some rather shady psychologists hook Bentson up to a machine that can project his dreams, and they all see him naked as he’s chased by the nightmare monster and tries to get help from… STATIC?!
- By the way, the shady sleep clinic happens to be located right under the bridge that was half-destroyed during Superboy’s fight with that Spider-Man wannabe called Stinger almost a year ago, which is still half-destroyed. At least it doesn’t stand out from the rest of the city anymore (thanks, Dr. Happersen!). The half-bridge will be a relevant plot point during this storyline.
- And why is this a Wonder Woman crossover? Because she appears for a single panel while Superman is fighting the Giant Robot and wishes she’d picked another issue to come ask for his advice. The comic tells us to buy Wonder Woman #88 (which briefly shows WW helping Superman against the robot) for the rest of the story.
- On that subject, Don Sparrow says: “Superman doesn’t appear very prominently in the connected issue of Wonder Woman #88. All that happens is Wonder Woman requests that Superman stop her if she ever loses control of herself. It’s not a great issue, largely because Christopher Priest writes both Diana and Superman fairly out of character throughout, and the art in the issue manages to depict Wonder Woman as both matronly and pervy. (The issue also features the choice line of dialogue “female be trippin’”, so if you don’t rush out and find the issue, you’re not missing much, apart from another great Bolland cover featuring Superman).”
- Yes, the Keith stuff is pretty depressing, and could be seen as another example of Superman comics going all “Dark Age,” but at least it’ll lead to positive things for the character in the near future. Now, those other orphans who lost Myra, not so sure…
Patreon-Watch:
The results of the Superman/Doomsday: Hunter/Prey bonus artwork poll are in, and after tallying up the votes here and at Patreon, the character who will get drawn by the great Don Sparrow is… Maxima, in her post-Doomsday purple suit! Who won by a whole vote! (For those keeping count: 5 votes for Red Cyborg, 10 for Pouch Superman, and 11 for Purple Maxima.)
Don’s work will be posted for all to see, but the original artwork will be given away to one of our patrons, Aaron, Chris “Ace” Hendrix, britneyspearsatemyshorts, Patrick D. Ryall, Bheki Latha, Mark Syp, Ryan Bush, Raphael Fischer, Kit, Sam, Bol, Gaetano Barreca, and Dave Shevlin. If you’d like to decrease their chances, join them at https://www.patreon.com/superman86to99!
And speaking of Don, stick around for his section, after the jump…
Art-Watch (by @donsparrow):
It’s an interesting cover, with the protagonist and even the title trade dress obscured by shadow. It’s not really an action-type pose, but Superman’s angry expression indicates that action will follow. We also get a hint at the tragedy within, with an injured Myra Allen below Superman.
Inside the book, we get our first glimpses of post-cataclysm Metropolis, seen through the eyes of hard-luck Keith. The double page spread on pages 2 and 3 is a great drawing of Superman, exuding power even in a static pose.
The cybernetic monster, who in this issue gets neither a name, nor an origin (unless the story’s title, Afterburn, is maybe the robot’s name?) but it’s an appropriately Fleischer studios-like design for Bogdanove to draw.
Normally I quite dislike photo-stat backgrounds, but the panel with Superman carrying survivors gets a pass from me, because I love images of Superman saving kids—especially the way Bogdanove draws it.
Myra Allen’s last stand against the robot is stirringly drawn, and to me visually recalls Frank Miller and Dave Gibbons’ “Martha Washington Goes to War” which was hitting newsstands around this time. It’s interesting to see Bogdanove’s version of the famed Brian Bolland pose from Wonder Woman #72, even if she’s facing away.
Keith’s grief at Myra’s passing is as powerful and sad an image as we’ve ever seen in these books, and my heart breaks for the poor little guy (look at his little hand clutching the cape! What an astonishing detail!). Though he’s fictional, it’s hard not to feel for him, when he’s endured so much tragedy in his young life. I appreciate the restraint here, from a story standpoint—Superman offers no words of comfort, or guidance at what comes next, because they would only be trite and empty in a moment such as this. All Superman can do, he does—which is to hold Keith, and let him weep.
Our final cameo of the book is Milestone’s Static, another character Bogdanove seems born to draw. The introduction to him, as the milquetoast Bentson jumps to the Milestone world is fittingly energetic.
SPEEDING BULLETS:
- I appreciate the detail early on that Superman has put “a lot of time into locating” gas leaks and shutting them down. It’s nice that the writer considered something like that.
- We’ve known for a while that the DCU version of Coca-Cola is Soder, but nice to be informed that Sprite is called “Spritz” here.
- Professor Hamilton is perhaps a bit casual about the fact that Bentson was briefly immaterial! [Max: Maybe he’s like “Have I been immaterial before? Maybe during the Husque storyline? Don’t remember…”]
- The great Jose-Luis Garcia Lopez gets a sort of shout out on page 7, as a fresh fruit stand bears his name.
- At the time of this issue’s release I remember being very curious about the Milestone characters, and excited about them crossing over with my favourite character, but I still question the choice of having an uninteresting character like Bentson be the initial conduit between the worlds. Maybe if the previous issues had established him as a recognizable Metropolis fixture (as well as Dakota City) like Whit or Allie or someone, it would have a little more impact (though they do try to build up his importance here, as the mailman who delivered the damaging evidence about Lex Jr.). But I find it hard to really care about the Egon-looking guy, particularly when he’s running around naked.
