The Man of Steel #5 (December 1986)
The Man of Steel #5 (December 1986)
Lex Luthor tries to make a perfect duplicate of Superman (wouldn’t it just punch Luthor and throw him in jail?), but the clone comes out wrong due to Superman’s weird alien DNA and Luthor is like “ugh, throw it in the trash.” Evidently Luthor’s cloning specialist Dr. Teng isn’t also a waste disposal specialist, because the defective clone, Bizarro, ends up going to Metropolis and messing shit up.
Meanwhile, Lois’ sister Lucy is blind (what?!) but when Bizarro is around the dust that comes out of his face makes her start regaining her sight (#comics!). In the end, Bizarro sacrifices himself during a fight with Superman so that Lucy can see again.
Awwwwwww.
Character-Watch:
Both Dr. Teng and Bizarro (OK, technically another Bizarro) would come back years later. We also meet Lucy Lane, who as of this issue has spent a year of her life being completely blind, a fact that is literally never mentioned again in the history of Superman comics. In fact, at one point she even comes across another incarnation of Bizarro and says nothing.
Plotline-Watch:
You Can’t Clone a Kryptonian: This issue establishes that Kryptonians can’t easily be cloned, a fact that will paradoxically lead to Superboy’s creation during "Reign of the Supermen". Cloning also has a long and complex precedent in Krypton’s history, which will be explored with sweet Mike Mignola art in the World of Krypton miniseries.
The Lex-Men: What started as a little in-joke (Superman holding a Luthor goon in a robot armor, making us think Luthor is using his Pre-Crisis supervillain costume) would eventually lead to Lex getting his own armored flying security guards/goons, the Lex-Men.
WTF-Watch:
Bizarro forcefully makes out with Lois.
Ewwwwwww.
Art-Watch (by @donsparrow):
This series seems to toggle between super-important issues, and then a less-important issue, and this is the most dramatic shift, as this one is kind of a big nothing. As Super-commenter Neil said, I think this issue is Byrne's way of dealing with the Bizarro concept, but also having the story dictate that there probably won't be any more Bizarro stories to follow.
The art throughout this issue is a bit off, at least in my copy. It looks like the inking lines were perhaps too fine for the presses, because a lot of the hatching gets lost, so without those fine lines, it looks a lot less detailed than the previous issues.
We open with the cover, and it's an interesting play on the convention of the previous ones. It's not intended to be funny, but there is something amusing about a character as "backward" as Bizarro facing the wrong way, even if the intention is to be more tragic, and like Frankenstein's Monster. (The Walgreens exclusive Bizarro action figure from a couple years ago was also displayed backwards in the box, which I thought was great!) [Max: HOLY CRAP I've had this issue for like 25 years and I swear I never made the "he's backwards because he's Bizarro" connection. I'm turning in my badge and my gun.]
Inside, we get the aforementioned fake-out with Superman seeming to be shaking around Lex in his battle armour, only for it to be revealed that it's a faceless, mentally compromised drone. I get that this is Byrne's way of saying "this is a very different Lex Luthor", but man, that armour still looks really cool.
Slight colouring error on page 3 as Superman strangely has a bare arm (again, this might be because of the poor printing of the inks, where the cuff of Superman's shirt almost disappears). [Max: Still there in my reprint, wonder if they fixed that in the new collection?] This issue also affords us our first look at Lucy Lane, who was actually a pretty major long-term character in Superman comics, though the writers only occasionally used her in the modern era. She seems to be thinner and taller than Lois, with more clearly 80s fashionable hair.
Speaking of fashion, one of the strengths of the Byrne era is the up to date clothing. Sure, some of the fashion (particularly that of the female characters) looks a little dated, but having the cast be in modern 80s clothing was such a change from the prim way these characters had been drawn just a year before. Clark in particular looks pretty sharp with his white tie on black shirt combo, a welcome departure from his navy suit with red tie of decades past.
The reveal of Bizarro, particularly in his shabby disguise is a jarring one, and I do like that Byrne also went to lengths to explain the discolouration of Bizarro's costume--it was scorched by Superman's heat vision!
We get more John Byrne computer graphics here, as Superman scans Bizarro's cells, and it's pretty effective.
BYRNE NOTICE (the odd things that Byrne does that make you scratch your head on a second reading):
I haven't read that many superhero comics that deal with suicide directly, but I can't imagine another book approaching this topic as shallowly as it's handled here, where Lucy decides to end her life after about 30 seconds of deliberation, all because she could no longer be a flight attendant. Even the "forgive me, Lois!!" comes off like a shrug rather than a weighty moment.
John Byrne is overall a good writer, I think, but maaaaaaan, sometimes he has a tin ear for dialogue. Lois Lane is a Pulitzer prize winning journalist, so I would imagine she'd be a commanding conversationalist (especially since we know her personality is so winning, she drew the romantic interest of Superman himself). And how does she greet her fellow Daily Planet staffers? "Greetings, wage-slaves. What's news?" YIKES. Can you imagine the cringe that would happen if you or I had such a corny expression as our greeting when entering a bustling workplace? And this was not a single slip of the tongue, shouting out to the newsroom the most obnoxious and embarrassing cliché imaginable, as an error that she wouldn't repeat. No, she says this lame-o phrase so often that Clark Kent rejoins saying that "it would be news if [she] came in one morning and didn't say that." Again, yikes.
More yikes: I just want to echo how disturbing it was for Bizarro to kiss Lois like that. Furthermore, I worry just what Byrne meant when he said "I've got to stop him before something REALLY tragic happens!"
STRAY OBSERVATIONS:
While overall I like Byrne's Luthor, especially that he's essentially an ongoing cast member of the story, the casualness of the cat and mouse between he and Superman is a little grating. Superman, for all his strong wording about wanting to "nail" Luthor still seems a little blasé about it all. "Ok, I'll go bury this guy, but I'll get you next time, yawn." There just seems to be a lack of urgency, on both their parts, but especially on the part of Superman, who should be boiling with righteous anger about his inability to stop Luthor from hurting people.
The concept of Bizarro as a botched clone is a great update of the "duplicator ray" concept from the 1950s (and indeed, from this point on Bizarro is usually depicted as a flawed clone of Superman, even in most other media), but certain elements here seem almost as silly as that. How Lex and Dr. Teng could possibly get memories or personality from a biometric scan is pretty un-scientific, and I demand perfect realism from my comic books about a solar-powered spaceman. [Max: Co-signed.]
I do appreciate the cute effort to include the "Bizarro" name, as Lex dismisses the crystallizing clone, saying "I certainly did not want this bizarre--ohh-h! Forget it…" [Max: ANOTHER obvious thing I didn't get. In my defense, I usually read this issue in Spanish.]
While I agree with Super-commenter Neil's assessment that it's ludicrous for this comic to propose that a chemical could undo another chemical, thereby healing Lucy's eyes, Superman's microscopic analysis kinda maybe explains her eyes being healed. Superman points out that his cells aren't truly alive, but are instead mimicking the actions of living cells (in this case, the cells Lex was able to get off Superman), The cells from Bizarro's crumbling body might have come in contact with Lucy's living cells, and mimicked the function of her eyes, similar to the theory behind stem cells. What do you think? Possible? [Max: I buy it!]
It goes without saying that this entire issue is a love letter to Bizarro's first appearance in Superboy comics, back in 1958, where a very tragically depicted Bizarro befriends a similarly blind girl (looking very similar to how Lucy does here). In that story, like this one, Bizarro allows himself to be destroyed, and his destruction results in the healing of the blind girl's vision. He also steals clothes (in the original comic, from off a scarecrow, rather than a discount suit store) to fashion a crude disguise.
Overall a pretty decent issue, it's just not on the level of the previous ones in this series (nor the one that follows it), I just thought it was a bit out of place, especially with the abruptness of the sudden ending. And I thought Lex gave up on the Superman clone idea pretty darn easily--he made a being with ALL of Superman's powers! Not bad for a first try!
See comments on Tumblr: https://superman86to99.tumblr.com/post/57184265038/the-man-of-steel-5-december-1986-lex-luthor#disqus_thread
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