The Man of Steel #4 (November 1986)
The Man of Steel #4 (November 1986)
Lois Lane and Clark Kent are invited to a party in Lex Luthor’s yatch, which is almost immediately taken hostage by South American revolutionaries. Superman intervenes, but it turns out the whole thing was part of Luthor’s plan to test Superman’s powers and offer him a job (the exact position isn’t specified, but I’m guessing “chauffeur”). Superman declines and, upon being deputized by the equally pissed-off mayor of Metropolis, Supes arrests Luthor, who then vows to destroy him. The beginning of a beautiful friendship!
So, this issue shows the origin of the Superman/Luthor rivalry, but there’s an even more important revelation here: we finally find out how Superman shaves. Turns out he does it by shooting eye lasers into an indestructible fragment of his Kryptonian rocket, bouncing the blast so that it hits his face. Of course! Now it all makes sense!
Character-Watch:
We are formally introduced to the pudgy businessman incarnation of Lex Luthor, as opposed to the slim guy in a prison jumpsuit that had existed for the previous forty years. I think it’s interesting that Luthor ends the issue telling Superman “one day, you will die” – if the ‘86-'99 period is a continuous story, then Death of Superman is the central part of it. I know this is completely accidental, but it still feels like introducing a theme to the narrative.
Also appearing for the first time is Mayor Berkowitz, who tells Superman to arrest Luthor. Luthor would prove he can really hold a grudge by having the guy shot for that twelve years later in Superman #131 (during the Electric Suit era).
Plotline-Watch:
Lex Loves Lois: During the party, Lex flat-out tells Lois he "desires" her, prompting her to take off the dress he gave her in disgust and leave. On these early issues it looks like Lex’s infatuation with Lois Lane would play a bigger role, but it was mostly abandoned after a while.
Luthor’s Kryptonite: After Superman helps a pregnant woman stuck in a subway get to the hospital on time, a mysterious figure snaps a photo of him leaving the hospital. This is the same guy who was stalking Superman in MoS #1. We'll find out more about him (and how he'll lead to Luthor's eventual downfall) after the end of this miniseries.
WTF-Watch:
As mentioned, Lex is kind of a horndog in this issue: he’s hitting on Lois and it’s established that he has had seven or eight wives. Odd that he kind of lost interest in women after becoming obsessed with Superman. That, or he lost his confidence after the rest of his sexy red hair fell out and stopped chasing skirts, which makes sense because immediately after regaining said hair (while posing as his own son) he managed to score with Supergirl.
Art-Watch (by @donsparrow):
We begin with the cover, and it's another that makes you stop and take notice--Lex has hair! He has hair throughout this issue, which is another giant Byrne change to the mythology. [Max: Both Golden Age and Silver Age Lex had red hair at one point though! Is New 52 Lex the one exception?] I love Byrne's redesign on Lex, generally. As with the Lois and Batman covers, we learn so much from Lex's posture here. The all-black suit, the powerful but not quite Kingpin level of obesity--just enough to suggest he's a man of appetites and excess. I also never tire of Byrne drawing Superman flying upside-down.
Inside the comic, we're greeted, Mary Jane "Jackpot" style, by a va-va-va-voom Lois Lane, in the very sexiest gown 1986 could offer, and she looks terrific throughout. We also get a look at Clark Kent's apartment, and we'll have to assume that Metropolis has cheaper rents than its' likely real world counterpart of New York City, as a just-hired staff reporter for a newspaper is unlikely to be able to afford that much square footage in THIS reality. Byrne often cited his love of the Reeve Superman films, so I choose to take his little pantomime of "working out" on page 2 as a tribute to the diner revenge scene in Superman II.
One thing I'm not sure Byrne gets enough credit for is how good his backgrounds are. From the hallway, to the roof, to the interiors of helicopter, to the luxury yacht, all are believable and with perfect perspective.
Page 8 gives us our first view of Lex Luthor, and the large panel seems to fit how momentous an occasion this is. I read in a letter column somewhere that Byrne based his "performance" of Luthor on Miller's Crossing era Albert Finney, and it shows (though I privately suspect he's more often visually based on Daddy Warbucks Albert Finney). I can definitely read Lex's lines in the same way as Finney's boisterous, shouty acting style.
Despite the titillating thought that Lois wears only panties under Clark's tuxedo jacket (and whether she's even wearing that is open to interpretation) Byrne for the most part is restrained in actually drawing any cheesecake (a far cry from his later work on She-Hulk). The shot of Superman changing directions in the air is a good one, and the image of Superman confronting Luthor after Lex attempts to buy him off is Byrne drawing him at his most Christopher-Reeve-y.
BYRNE NOTICE (the odd things that Byrne does that make you scratch your head on a second reading):
Fred Mertz? Even in 1986, it's a stretch that Lois Lane would make a reference to a minor character from a TV show that went off the air in 1957. Plus, it's barely insulting! There are certainly more famous bald or balding characters she could have gone with. Weird. [Max: Maybe Lois tried to go for a cultural reference someone of Lex's age would definitely be familiar with, in order to make sure her barb was hurtful.]
I certainly get why Lois wouldn't want to accept a gift from Luthor, but I also don't fully get why she gets THAT mad about it.
Yeahhhhh, some of the exaggerated Venezuelan pronunciation borders on offensive, through2020 eyes, particularly "Here you go, little feesh!"
Flight as a mental power is another Byrne innovation that I like, but I do find the way he shoe-horned it in while lifting the cruise ship was a bit clunky. [Max: Especially since those two thought balloons use a different font. The same thing happens with the balloons related to the "Experimental Space Plane" in MOS #1, which were famously modified after the issue was done due to the Challenger disaster, so I guess Byrne decided he HAD to cram that exposition in there pretty late.]
STRAY OBSERVATIONS:
Is that a slight smile I see on Clark's face,as Lois sheds her gown? [Max: Yes, but I think it's more about her standing up to Luthor than her getting nekkid.]
The explanation of the shaving, and the note about Superman not being able to tell what an appropriate weight set would be are great observations. I remember when the Cavill Man of Steel film came out, Gillette had a promotion asking consumers to speculate about how Superman shaved, and I was like, duh,this was all explained in 1986!
After kind of a dud of a Batman issue, this one is a very important story, one that frames the Lex/Superman rivalry for a new generation. While it's probably an improvement over the Superboy-made-Lex-bald origin, some of the dialogue in Lex's court step threat to Superman veers into Snidely Whiplash territory. Though it was valuable for Byrne to say at the outset (to the reader, through Lex) that Luthor wouldn't be going to jail, that this was a very different kind of Lex.
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