Monday, January 6, 2014

Superman Retrospective '86

You can check out the previous installments of this rather lengthy series



SUPERMAN #6




This is the second part of Superman vs. Huge Robot Mummy, which had superman getting knocked out by a giant robot discovered in an excavation in South America. And this is not your typical Science-powered robot - it contains the souls of 500 members of an advanced race that lived on Earth half a million years ago, and every single one of them is a jerk.



Most of the jerks left the planet when germs started killing them, but a bunch stuck around by putting their souls inside the robot and burying it deep. Isn't that the plot of a John Travolta film or something?



Anyway, Superman wakes up two days after getting KO'd to find that everyone in the excavation camp, including intrepid visiting reporter Lois Lane, has been possessed by some of the souls living in the robot, and they're planning to body-snatch even more people and take over the world. Superman fights the robot in an undetermined South American city for a while until he figures out how to beat it: Superman plays dead and lets the souls inside the robot try to posses him, but since they're all jerks they start arguing over who gets Superman's splendid body and the robot explodes. It literally overdosed on jerkiness and died. Another happy ending!



ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN #429



Clark Kent finds out that his lady friend Cat Grant has a son named Adam, whose father is a Hollywood guy who has ties to the Mafia and is kind of a jerk, so Cat is not allowed to see her son. So Superman pays a visit to Cat's ex and tries to talk him into letting the mother and son meet, but as proof that the guy is a momentous jerk and not very bright, he tells a guy who can literally rip him in half to stay out of his affairs. Suddenly, they get attacked by the big monkey-faced guy on the cover.



Monkeyface was sent by The Circle, those mysterious mutants Superman pissed off in Adventures #427, who think Superman might be the "missing one" of their legends (but still want to kill him). Naturally, Superman defeats Monkeyface and throws him in jail, but Cat's ex is seriously hurt during the fight (which destroyed his entire apartment) and little Adam becomes traumatized and is now afraid of Superman. But it's all worth it, because Cat gets to see her son in the hospital. Yet another happy ending!



ACTION COMICS #589



This issue, Superman teams up with the Green Lantern Corps, and I'm glad this isn't a manga because they're fighting a bunch of space tentacles. This actually picks up where the last issue of Action left off, with Superman being stranded in outer space because Hawkman is kind of a jerk.



Luckily, Superman is rescued by a bunch of Green Lanterns who just happened to be visiting that particular part of the vastness of space because they were looking for a suitable habitat for a bunch of worm-like thingies they met. This multicultural group of GLs includes Hal Jordan (white), John Stewart (black), Arisia (orange), Katma Tui (purple) and Ch'p (squirrel).



Anyway, the Lanterns bring Superman back to Earth, only to find that the planet is about to be attacked by a cloud of goo and yellow tentacles. The GLs are having a hard time against the tentacles because their powers are hilariously ineffective against the color yellow, but luckily Superman knows how to punch. Upon closer inspection, the cloud turns out to bethat living cemetery Superman threw into space back in Action #585! The sun's radiation mutated the land and made it grow tentacles, because science, and now it's back for revenge. With this information the heroes are able to turn the thing into an inert planetoid where the worm-like dudes from the beginning of the issue can live. See how it all ties together?



SUPERMAN #7



Lois Lane is visiting a laboratory where scientists are working on a new source of energy, and of course the whole place explodes. Seriously, I don't know why they still invite Lois Lane to places. Superman flies down to the place of the explosion and from the rubble emerges a giant mutated lady -- for a while Superman thinks Lois turned into a monster in the accident, but it turns out to be one of the scientists, Kitty Faulkner. Which is great news, because now Superman can punch her without feeling bad.



Meanwhile, Metropolis Special Crimes Unit boss-lady Maggie Sawyer is chilling in her desk when someone comes in and says "Superman is fighting a half-naked amazon!" and Maggie is like "I'm so there." Superman fights the crazed woman (dubbed "Rampage") with help from the MSCU, until he figures out he can absorb the energy that mutated her the same way he absorbs the rays of the sun. With that, Rampage reverts back to Kitty Faulkner and Superman flies off to dump all that energy elsewhere. Let's say a dance marathon.



That would be it for now. Stay tuned for the 7th part next week. I literally have a truckload of these comics so we can keep this going for a LONG time. In the meantime, you can add me on Twitter: @mrmxy or read the stuff I wrote for Cracked at http://www.cracked.com/members/Mxy
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