World of Smallville #3 (June 1988)
World of Smallville #3 (June 1988)
IN THIS ISSUE: Baby torture! By space robots!
Clark Kent and Lana Lang are in a bank in Smallville, for some reason (I didn’t know Smallville even had banks), when the place is assaulted by bank robbers (I didn’t know Smallville even had bank robbers). Clark manages to defuse the situation using his heat vision and super breath, and somehow we segue into Lana remembering her whole life story. The only new information here is that Lana’s parents were abducted by Manhunter robots when she was a baby and accidentally killed when the robots tried to put mind-controlling chips in their heads. That’s when the Manhunters came up with the idea of putting the chips on babies instead (of course!), starting with Lana, and then using those babies to keep tabs on Superman (also a baby at this point).
Next we get a flashback of the flashback on Adventures #436 when a Manhunter replaces Smallville’s only pediatrician, Dr. Whitney, to execute the aformentioned baby-hijacking conspiracy. Lana develops a crush on Clark when they’re both kids, presumably because of the Manhunters’ secret influence, and then sleepwalks to Dr. Whitney’s house every night to report on his activities. When they’re both eighteen or so, Clark reveals his powers to Lana (as seen in Man of Steel #6), and then flies away to travel the world, leaving Lana broken hearted.
That’s when Lana and the rest of the Manhunter Teenz are activated again and made to move to different parts of the world to spy on Clark. Lana just happens to be on Metropolis when Clark makes his debut as Superman (MoS #1) and… TO BE CONTINUED! But before, the flashback is interrupted for another group hug with Ma and Pa Kent at the farm.
Plotline-Watch:
This is a historic issue not only for Superman comics but for the entire comic book medium in general, for I believe that you could pinpoint this as the moment when John Byrne officially stopped giving a shit. Back when he was writing and drawing Alpha Flight (which he admitted not being that much into) Byrne used to pull shenanigans like throwing in some blank pages in the middle of the story or repurposing old X-Men issues as “flashbacks,” but the end product always managed to be entertaining. Byrne uses the “recycling old scenes” trick here again, but that’s not the main problem – the main problem is that dear god this is all so dull.
And don’t tell me it’s impossible to fill four issues of Smallville stories and make it interesting, because John Ostrander and Tim Truman managed to fill twelve in the 1998 series The Kents, by adding cowboys (hopefully I’ll be covering that one day).
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