The Legacy of Superman #1 (1993)
The Legacy of Superman #1 (1993)
With Superman dead and never, ever coming back, Metropolis' other heroes step up to preserve his legacy! (Yes, Metropolis has other heroes.) This special consists of five separate stories, each focusing on a different not-Superman:
Guardian and Project Cadmus: The nuttiest story in the bunch takes place while Cadmus had Superman's corpse and was unsuccessfully trying to clone it. Cadmus' scientists have figured out a way to digitally approximate Superman's DNA, but they don't feel comfortable cloning the big man until they run more tests. Director Paul "Most Punchable Face In Comics" Westfield doesn't feel like waiting, so he orders one of his secret experiments (a flying, metal-skinned super-clone of Guardian called Auron) to retrieve the floppy disk containing Superman's digital DNA. As Auron tries to get the floppy from the Newsboy Legion, they manage to get through to the Guardian part of his psyche – Auron copies the information into his jetpack computer, but destroys the floppy to make sure Westfield doesn't get it. The story ends with Auron flying through space to keep Superman's DNA away from the wrong hands.
Rose and Thorn: Metropolis' criminals, emboldened by Superman's death, have done the unthinkable: they stole the VCR of some lady called Rose Forrest. Those monsters. Rose's heroic alter ego/split personality, Thorn, emerges again and she kicks criminals until she gets back the VCR. The world is safe once more!
Gangbuster and Inspector Henderson: Gangbuster, freshly dumped by his girlfriend (Cat Grant) and mourning the death of his pal Superman, works out his issues by brutalizing mobsters for 7 pages. It turns out the authorities don't look kindly on that type of justice, though. Inspector Henderson finds Gangbuster and gives him the heads up: get out of the city right now, or get sued for every bone he's broken. The last panel is of ‘buster looking at the bus ticket Henderson was nice enough to buy him.
Sinbad and Soraya: Davood "Sinbad" Nassur, the kid with telekinetic powers who beat up Superman a few years back, has secretly been honing his abilities since then, becoming more and more powerful. Today, he uses these amazing powers to… have picnics in the sky with his sister Soraya, a secretary at LexCorp. Lex Luthor Jr. is aware of this, and manipulates Davood so that he'll revive his Sinbad identity and take care of a rival criminal gang called the Terrormasters. Then the gang all dies in an explosion, and Davood is like"man, Superman was so much better at this than me." As much as I liked Sinbad's original storyline, this was the weakest story in the issue for me. And the best one is…
Waverider and the Linear Men: The last time we saw the Linear Men (the time travel police), they'd just accepted the hot-headed Waverider into their ranks. Now they're studying one of the most important moments in history: the day Superman snuffed it. When Waverider finds out Supes was killed by Doomsday only a few days after their latest team-up, he's like "that's bullshit" and travels back in time to Superman #75 to save him. However, Linear Man Matthew Ryder points out that they can't just turn every good person who ever lived into an immortal (it would get very crowded). Waverider eventually realizes Matthew is right, and says goodbye to Superman on the frozen instant before his death. However, Matthew hints that this may not be the end of the story…
…and this is definitely not the end of this post, because there's more by Don Sparrow after the jump!
Art-Watch (by @donsparrow):
This is an interesting issue for me, and really shows me how my tastes and appreciations have changed. Back when I first read this, at the age of 13, I didn't care much for the cover art. I was used to the realism of Jerry Ordway, Tom Grummett and Dan Jurgens, so the exaggerated physique, and large eyes on Art Adams cover left me cold. Looking at it now, in part because I am more familiar with Art Adams' work, I can see it's a terrific cover--he nails all the characters, as well as Jurgens' unique time energy waves that typically come with a Waverider storyline. The squinting, ghostly Superman also gives the image a certain weight, and the choice to have his eyes in shadow is once again effective and mysterious.
Inside the issue it's a similar story. Being an art philistine at the time, with very specific (even narrow) tastes, I just didn't get Walt Simonson. I found his lineweight too uniformly thin (as though it were drawn by a felt tip pen rather than crowquill or brush) and his body gestures too exaggerated and cartoony. And once again--I was so wrong! No, this isn't the realism you'd get from a Jerry Ordway or Brian Bolland, but it is very effective, kinetic storytelling, particularly with such caricatures as the Newsboy Legion involved.
My favourite art highlights from this early section are the ways that Simonson describes textures. The walls are porous and cement-looking, etched with tiny dots and lines that indicate wear and tear. But best of all is how Simonson does the shine of metallic surfaces, in a style all his own. This is best seen on Guardian/Auron's uniforms, and on the Whiz Wagon (which I never tire of seeing).
On a story level, it's an important one, both because it addresses what the reader might be thinking (why not just clone Superman?) and also because it sets up the storyline to come, in which Cadmus plays a large role. One question bugs me, though--if Director Westfieldis such a nut that he can't be trusted with Superman's DNA, then why does Guardian still take orders from him, and seem to live at Cadmus? Kinda weird. I always thought that Auron would play a big role in a future storyline, as the information he houses is about as important as it gets. So the sendoff he gets in later issues was a real bummer (not least because it involves one of the characters I detest the most, but this is really spoilery, so I'll shut up, aside from saying--don't get too excited about any future Auron stories).
The art in the next chapter, a Rose and Thorn story drawn by (usually inker, this time penciller) Denis Rodier and Ande Parks is a bit less to my tastes (then and now)but is still a solid effort. There are several portions in the story where the story seems to slip into 90s style titillation, but as any reader of vintage Lois Lane comics (where Rose and Thorn was typically the backup story) Rose changing--literally--into Thorn was always a part of the deal.
The art here is serviceable--in no way bad, but not terribly exciting, either. Story-wise it probably fits into the Death of Superman story the least well--Superman gets only a passing mention on a news report and not much else, and the stakes are only for a VCR, which is pretty hilarious.
Next up is Gangbuster, a favourite character of mine. Continuing from his Mxyzptlk story from a few months back, Dennis Janke also pencils this story, inked by longtime Ordway collaborator (and indeed Gangbuster co-creator) Mike Machlan. The story has an interesting looseness to it--the heavy blacks of the inks ground it in realism, but the bodies do have a hyper-muscular, Bogdanove quality to them. The faces of characters have a tendency to look a little asymmetrical, though the characters do seem on-model for the most part.
As a story, it's an odd one--just as we're getting sucked into Jose Delgado's Death Wish act (the bit with the chair is pretty funny) Inspector Henderson pours cold water on the whole case, dropping a one-way bus ticket at Delgado's feet. Kind of a pathetic denouement for an already hard luck character.
Visually, my favourite story is of course the Sinbad story, as Superman legend Curt Swan returns to deliver the story of the Nassur family. There are still some elements of the story that aren't exactly in Swan's wheelhouse--the technology of the Terrormasters' weaponry, for instance, but overall his gentle naturalism makes this story seem the most "real world" of the issue. I love the domestic scenes, particularly Davood's family cobbling together his superhero costume (and that they eschew stereotypical "Sinbad" style ideas--no, the pirate, not the mono-colour dressing comedian).
It's a really odd note to the story that the calculating Lex Luthor the second, harbouring the enormous secret that he's really the original Lex Luthor would be dumb enough to put his thoughts--including ones about how unintelligent his lover Supergirl is--onto a tape recorder. [Max: Maybe it's just me, but I think it's also pretty careless to store a hologram of yourself explaining your evil plan inside one of your illegal weapons.] It also feels like a pretty abrupt ending, and needlessly roundabout way for Lex to dispatch the terrorists.
The final story in the issue probably has the most implications for the ongoing Superman mythology, with Waverider and the Linear Men gang observing the moments surrounding the death of Superman. Trevor Scott's inks are an interesting middle ground over Jurgens' layouts--not as hatchy and loose as Art Thibert, but not as polished and slick as Brett Breeding's. It's interesting to see the battle we're now so familiar with from different angles (I had completely forgotten they did this when I had the same idea for this blog!), and also to see Lois and Jimmy at that precise moment.
In terms of story, I actually thought that Matt Ryder's arguments got progressively worse, rather than more convincing, but I guess he was trying to make the point "where does it end?" in terms of altering the timeline (and in oddly specific ways).
[Max: Very timely, Don.]
But most significant, to me, at least, was the rather hopefully last line, where Matt speaks of what a blessing it is that only they "know what tomorrow will bring" which as a kid reading this was my first and only sign that Superman might be coming back from the dead after all (hey, what do you want? I was gullible, and this was the first time a character of Superman's stature had died, so there wasn't much of a precedent).
On the whole, it's an interesting quilt work of stories, but I suspect it was published only to keep the character's unbroken streak of publication since 1938 intact.