Superman: The Man of Steel #7 (January 1992)
Superman: The Man of Steel #7 (January 1992)
1992 IS HERE! The year of alien invasions, Justice Leagues and Doomsday! But first: a romance issue. (With bizarre supervillains running around in the background, because it's still a Superman comic.) Lois Lane and Clark Kent get mad at each other after Clark gets jumped by a bunch of Daily Planet workers for not joining their (now finished) strike, and he's defended by Lois' old "friend" Jeb Friedman. Clark is like "I don't need your help!", then Lois comes to help Clark, and he's like "I don't need your help either!". It's like a Melrose Place episode, except one of the involved could murder everyone with eye lasers.
Meanwhile, the terrorist group Cerberus gets two of their weird superpowered agents to stalk Lois so they can use her in a ploy to get at Superman: they are a half-skeleton lady called Jolt and a big dude with the head of Dennis the Menace called Blockhouse. For most of the issue, they follow Lois around Metropolis as she thinks about what a jerk Clark is – Blockhouse tries to snatch her a couple of times but Jolt stops him, since those weren't their orders.
Anyway, Superman is pretty mad at Lois too, and flips over a car with some gangbangers inside.
Eventually, Lois, Clark and Jeb meet again at a voting place, since Metropolis' mayoral elections are tonight. Jeb isn't actually there to vote, though: he just wanted to apologize to Clark for being a jerk (while still being a jerk), and says he has to go back to his home planet. Or the West Coast, one of the two. I'm not taking out the issue to check. Lois realizes that Clark acted snippy because he was jealous of Jeb, and the two adorably reconcile. Awww.
Wait, uh, what happened to Jolt and Blockhouse? Find out next issue.
Plotline-Watch:
This issue is all about the love triangles:
Jolt/Blockhouse/Cerberus: OK, not a love triangle (I hope), but the important thing is that we see "Cerberus" for the first time and apparently he's just one tall dude in a suit who collects heads in jars. Or is he?
Lucy/Jimmy/Babe: Jimmy Olsen gets kicked out of his apartment (to be fair, we've specifically been told he can't afford rent for like six months, so it was about time). While fighting with a hobo over a shirt, he comes across his girlfriend Lucy Lane, and rather than explain what happened, Jimmy just breaks up with her. Jimmy ends up crashing at the place of his rocker buddy Babe (from a couple of issues ago), but of course her band and her practice all night. Don Sparrow sez: "Why, that Shredded Metal band plays all night and sleeps all day. Their schedule is almost vampiric!" #foreshadowing
Pete/Lana/Clark: After decades of pining after her while she pined after Clark, Peter Ross finally scores with Lana Lang. All it took for that to happen was for Lana and Pete to be neighbors in Washington for several months, and her roof to cave in during a storm, and her favorite portrait of Clark to get cracked. Remember when I naively declared the Lana/Clark plot to be over a year and a half ago? OK, now it actually is.
Everyone who read this issue as a teenage boy is now saying: "You're not gonna include THOSE panels with Lana?!" Yes, we are… in Don Sparrow's section below the cut! (I'm getting great at these segues.)
Art-Watch (by donsparrow):
For whatever reason, this is one of those issues that I have utterly memorized from having read so many times, maybe because it’s one of the saddest issues of this era, to me at least.
We begin with the very dramatic cover, with Lois and Superman appearing to break up, which is a tad misleading, since they really only have a minor spat in the issue. A fairly simple design, but it shows the issue well as we get a hint of Jolt and Blockhouse, two soldiers in Cerberus’ army in the distance, Lois and Superman’s emotional turmoil, and the storm that carries through the whole issue. Not sure who’s responsible for the cover’s lettering, but that “Stormy Weather” tag is very well done.
Inside we’re introduced to Jolt and Blockhouse fairly quickly, and while their early action scenes skip along at a goof, easy to follow pace, neither design really does much for me. Blockhouse in particular has such an exaggerated physique, it’s hard to take him seriously. Plus, the entire rest of the issue features fairly realistic looking proportions and design, so the very Image Comics look of Blockhouse is all the more out of place. From there we get another glimpse at the big man himself, Cerberus. From this we learn he has only three fingers on his hand, and not a lot else. I know these teases are meant to build suspense about this mysterious character,but the Cerberus storyline is so drawn out that it almost pushes the character to the back of my mind, rather than the forefront. I remember being confused as a kid, thinking that Blockhouse himself was Cerberus, since Blockhouse’s weird tiny head looked like it was removable, like that of Cerberus.
Page 4 and 5 have some great Clark Kent stuff, and some very good visual staging of a crowd scene. One thing I love about this era of Superman comics is that Clark is just as square and forthright as Superman would be, and doesn’t hesitate to step in and do the right thing, even at the risk of a beating , or worse, revealing his identity. I’m sure this scene is meant to be a balanced portrayal of the contentious labour squabble in Metropolis, but it comes off as far from balanced to me: the Daily Planet workers and their leader Jeb seem like real jerks here, assuming that because Kent didn’t walk the picket line, it then follows that he believes that workers should never organize. A pretty straw-man argument (plus a condescending pat on the head) from Jeb, so if we’re meant to hate him, then Louise Simonson is doing a bang-up job.
Plus, Jeb is so nonchalant about the fact that the workers he represents were just punching and stomping someone’s head. On the art front, that image of Jeb from page 5 is probably my most enduring memory of him. I only wish I could place who it is he looks like. I want to say Ricardo Montalban, but it’s not quite right. It’s probably some personal friend of Jon Bogdanove’s, which might be why I can’t place it.
Jon Bogdanove really excels at slapstick, which see on page 7 with Jimmy’s obliviousness that it’s his own stuff being left on the curb. The marbles area classic gag, and also a nice storytelling touch that young master Olsen, who still collects marbles, may not be mature enough to live on his own.
As the story continues, I’m a little disturbed by Superman’s callousness at booting that Impala full of gang members–even if it is a great visual. I also love the camo parachute pants on the gang member, just so we know we’re in the early 90s, in case Jeb’s ponytail wasn’t reminder enough.
Then page 13 and 14 has more Jimmy bad luck, in the pouring rain. Maybe not the most sensitive portrayal of a street person (is that one of the Apokoliptan lowlies from Superman #3?) I’ve read, but I think it was my introduction to the word “anorak” back in the day. Lucy’s expression as Jimmy (preemptively) breaks up with her is heartbreaking, and as a longtime Superman fan, it’s a much bigger bummer, because outside of Grant Morrison’s brilliant All-Star Superman,we never see this classic couple together again (in the new 52, it is even strongly hinted that Lucy no longer even goes for men anymore).
There were so many great stories generated by these two characters, it all seems a waste to end all that tradition and potential. From a storytelling standpoint, Jimmy’s whole posture of “It’s for her own good, what do I have to offer her?” continues to cement my view that Jimmy is pretty much Peter Parker if he never got powers.
This week in sex crimes: Jeb is pretty handsy in the middle panel of page 15 (and judging from Lois’ expression, I dearly hope his hands are the only sensation she’s feeling). I continue to hate how tolerant Lois is of Jeb’s overtly physical come-ons and flirtations, especially since it seems to only be in the pages of MOS, but I do like seeing Clark’s stiff body language in reaction to the slimy Friedman. How bad of a guy is Jeb Friedman?–he doesn’t even vote.
Some great colouring of the fire lit apartment on page 19, and good choreography of the almost kiss between Lana and Pete. Can’t say I remember a time when Lana smoldered as much as she does on pages 20 and 21–she’s really jumping in with both feet, apparently. NEW THEORY: Maybe Pete and Jimmy exist on a luck pendulum, and since Jimmy has the absolute worst luck, Pete’s cup (and Lana’s towel) runneth over. Va-va-va-voom!
While I still don’t fully think Lois is acting in character through this issue, the staging of her body language as she rails at Clark on the last page is pretty adorable, and very well drawn. I also love the retro style Bogdanove always injects into Lois and Clark’s wardrobe.
STRAY OBSERVATIONS:
We see fanged monkeys in a pet store window on page 9–have you ever seen monkeys loose in a window display? I haven’t, but maybe this is typical in large centers?
Gee, Lana’s neighbour on page 10 is eerily perceptive about her relationship with Pete. [Max: Is that Pete (and, later, Clark's) future presidential running mate from Action Annual #3, or am I being racist?]
Since when is Lucy so snobby? Or is this an indirect reference to her father’s bootstrap conservatism? [Max: She's a stewardess! They're used to certain luxuries.]
Speaking of Jimmy Olsen/Spider-man–that’s a very Mary Jane pose from Babe on page 18. Hence, I would imagine, the direct shout out to JR on her shirt!
