Super-Action: The Copper Age of DC Comics 1984 - 1991

INTRODUCTION

The copper age (1983 - 1991) was a time of reinvention for DC Comics. The first volume of Action Comics, which introduced Superman to the world, and its companion title Superman, came to an end after decades of stories about the original Man of Steel. Writer-artist John Byrne was brought in to reboot Superman with a mini-series that tweaked the character a bit and there was a brand-new Number One issue of Superman. Eventually The Adventures of Superman would continue the numbering from the first volume of Superman, Action Comics would also retain the original numbering, and a brand-new title, The Man of Steel would debut. Fans started getting excited about Superman again.

Similarly, the Justice League of America got a serious – well not an entirely serious – makeover. The first volume of the series was wrapped up after several hundred issues and a new light-hearted approach was employed – eventually Justice League and Justice League Europe/International would pretty much turn into mostly comical parody series. Some fans enjoyed this approach while other Justice League enthusiasts only put up with it because this was the only way for them to read about their favorite heroes. Some good stories were told in spite of the rather silly atmosphere.

Over in Batman there was more than one new Robin. Jason Todd was introduced, his origin and identity abruptly changed in mid-stream, and then he was (temporarily) killed off by the Joker. A third (or fourth) Robin was then introduced. The original Robin, Dick Grayson, rechristened Nightwing, tried to iron out his differences with Bruce Wayne. Fans debated whether Batman worked best with a younger partner or solo. Catwoman temporarily turned over a new leaf, and Bruce had romantic involvements with more than one woman. Wonder Woman was completely rebooted by writer-artist George Perez, and what had often been a silly, throwaway series in the past suddenly became a must-read comic book.

With its 12-issue maxi-series, Crisis on Infinite Earths, DC revitalized and streamlined its entire line of comics. It did away with the multiple earths that had become so pervasive in its storylines and put all of the surviving characters on just one world. Now that the original Superboy no longer existed, and never had – along with other changes – there were continuity challenges by the cartload, but the writers managed to successfully deal with most of them. (Watchmen, another popular DC maxi-series from this era, is not included in this volume as it does not deal with existent DC characters and basically takes place in another universe.)

DC had a hit with The New Teen Titans but was not as successful with numerous other characters who were introduced but failed to catch fire. Nevertheless, there were exciting things coming from Marvel’s main competitor, and while many fans remained loyal to just one company, as writers and artists jumped from one company to another and back again, most comics’ fans eagerly bought titles from both companies.

PART ONE: SUPERMAN AND BATMAN

CHAPTER ONE: SUPERMAN

As the copper age began for Superman, Lois Lane and Superman were no longer an item. Clark Kent was co-anchoring the evening news with Lana Lang, whom he was dating. Old nemesis Steve Lombard also appeared on the news – but only on commercials for used cars. (Lombard later starred in a new Broadway production of Damn Yankees which closed after one night.) Villainous Vandal Savage had reared his prehistoric head and began plotting against the Man of Steel. Master Jailer, who hates Clark Kent because of the former’s crush on Lana Lang, first decides to get rid of Superman with some missiles that irradiate his uniform with kryptonite and make it adhere to his skin. With Supes out of the way, MJ figures it will be easy to eradicate Kent, but the Man of Steel gets out of the trap and saves the day. This was an exciting issue written by Bob Rozakis and Joey Cavalieri with art by Irv Novick and Dick Giordano [Superman 393].

Meanwhile over in Action 551 writer Marv Wolfman and artist Gil Kane expertly crafted a thrilling tale in which Super is tasked with flying to Russia for a certain formula that will save the lives of two dying twin children. Along the way there is one crisis after another – a sinking ship, an earthquake, terrorists hijacking a plane – and then Superman learns the formula has lost its potency and he must gather up the special ingredients in record time only to face even more emergencies. Fortunately he comes through in the end and a rival newspaper which ran nasty editorials about him has to eat its hat.

Action 552 - 554 brings back a bunch of old discontinued DC heroes for a three-part adventure with Vandal Savage. The heroes, led by the Immortal Man (who can die but is immediately reborn in another body and identity), include spelunker Cave Carson, Time Master Rip Hunter, Dane Dorrance of the Sea Devils, Animal Man Buddy Baker, the pretty undersea-swimming Dolphin, Rick Flagg of the original Suicide Squad (and an eventual member of the new team) and hunter Congo Bill, who can switch brains with an ape to become Congorilla. The Immortal Man tells the assemblage that Vandal Savage, who was also first born in prehistoric times and actually comes from alternate Earth-2, has infected Superman with a plague that will turn the planet, its plant life, back millions of years, dooming the human race. Since IM couldn’t contact the Justice League, he gathered together these forgotten heroes. They are able to contact Superman, who flies into the sun to get rid of deadly spores, and then goes with Hunter and his crew back to the dawn of creation, a rather confusing method of foiling Savage’s plans. Hunter and Company survive the trip but Superman disappears. (The Forgotten Heroes, along with a host of forgotten villains, reappeared in DC Comics Presents 77 - 78.)

Apparently some aliens secreted special golden pyramids throughout the world, but when Superman destroyed one back in time, the others detonated and caused the human race to lose aggressive tendencies as well as imagination, making them ripe for conquest in our future. Two small boys, Jerry and Joe, still retain imagination and their creation, a Super-Man, comes into being, turning the world –which lacks cities, technology, and medicines – back the way it was as Superman routs the invaders. The story has little logic, but it was obviously a valentine to Joe Schuster and Jerry Siegel, the creators of Superman, and as such is beyond criticism [Action 554].

As for Vandal Savage he gets his comeuppance in Action 556 [Wolfman/Swan/Schaffenberger]. After a variety of manipulations, Savage manages to get Superman arrested for causing destruction in Metropolis (although it seems obvious that he did not do this deliberately). Although most of the city still supports him, other citizens are beginning to doubt the Man of Steel and turn against him. A moving sequence has Lana Lang reminding Clark Kent of all Superman has meant to both her and the world, and all the decent and heroic things he has done. For such a supposedly superior intellect, Savage is stupidly undone by a very simple method: he confesses to what he’s been up to on tape which Superman then directs to a TV studio whereupon the whole city can hear it.

Villains Old and New

Superman encountered some brand-new villains during the copper age. Superman 396 introduces Intellex, the Brain Bandit, a nasty alien who collects brains of particularly intelligent people and wants to add the Man of Steel’s to his collection, but he is stymied by his opponent with the help of Gregory Reed, who plays Superman on TV. Intellex appeared again, but he was not likely to rival Brainiac for any super-villain sweepstakes. Superman 397 introduces The Kryptonite Man (not to be confused with Superboy’s foe the Kryptonite Kid from the silver age) who is the last survivor of his race, who had occupied Krypton eons before Kal-El’s race populated the planet. Irradiated with kryptonite – although this doesn’t seem to affect the Man of Steel as adversely as it should have – this alien hates Superman because he illogically blames him for the destruction of his race; the story was continued in Supergirl 21.

As for older villains, there were disappointing stories with the Parasite and Terra-Man, but a notable re-appearance by Lex Luthor in Superman 401 [Bates/Swan/Oksner]. In this Lex is able to imprison the Man of Steel in the snazzy War Suit he created at the end of the bronze age. Superman finds that when he tries to remove the suit, red sun radiation pours out and nearly kills him. Worse, the suit displays an image of Luthor’s face instead of Superman’s so that no one will believe who is really inside the armor. With Supergirl’s help Superman is able to use Luthor’s ego into freeing him from the suit – the kind of tricks you used to see in the silver age – but Luthor has the last laugh. While Superman was inside the suit the Kryptonian was being analyzed right down to every molecule for future reference – and future attacks. In Action 578 the Parasite is able to steal away Superman’s popularity and has the citizens of Metropolis turning against him.

During the bronze age DC had made some attempts to mature the Man of Steel with more adult stories, but in 1984 there was a concerted effort to make both Superman and Action more juvenile than ever. Kurt Shaffenberger was brought back to do the art, and while he was a gifted penciler, his work smacked far too much of the silver age. The series began running back-up stories instead of full-length tales. Silly characters like the Yellow Peri, a blonde woman with magical powers who appeared in Superboy years before, were brought back, and there were appearances by the idiotic character Ambush Bug. Next issue blurbs would promise three fun-filled stories!, one of which was entitled Jimmy Olsen, Blob. Children made frequent appearances in the stories, which sometimes reminded readers of those silly old stories with DC’s Captain Marvel.

Admittedly there were some genuinely amusing tales, such as one in which Jimmy Olsen supposedly becomes a perfect matchmaker only it turns out that these dream dates aren’t real, and another in which aliens make a movie about Superman and choose an actor who looks absolutely nothing like the Man of Steel, explaining that to their senses he is the spitting image of the hero. The Mystery of the Super-Batman (Superman 405) has Superman wearing a Batman-type outfit after a magic lyre gives him the horns of Pan atop his head, and wondering why he doesn’t scare anyone the way Batman does.

The Master Jailer returns in a story in Action 564 in which he somehow manages to create a completely new identity for Superman in order to get him out of his hair; Superman himself has no idea he is really the Man of Steel. This interesting concept would have played out over several issues in a Marvel comic but here it is dispatched with in only a few pages. The supporting cast never wonder where Clark or Superman is, and anyone who expects explanations is left high and dry.

Superman 408 has two interesting stories that deal with Superman deciding whether or not to rid the world of nuclear weapons, and stopping a war inside a planet-sized spaceship whose inhabitants are looking for a new home. The issue is also notable because of the art. Curt Swan was the penciler, as usual, and his work is good, but the first story also has a certain richness due to the inks of Al Williamson. In the second story inker Josef Rubinstein makes Superman look especially handsome and realistic in a panel on the bottom of page six.

Although Lois Lane appears in some of the Superman stories, she is no longer Superman’s girlfriend, and wants nothing to do with him, although she remains friends and colleagues with Clark. In Action 569 she takes centerstage when she is transformed into a demon due to the innocent dreams of a teenage girl who is subjected to cruel jokes. Superman and Lois embrace and their feelings are temporarily rekindled – Superman forgets about poor Lana pretty quickly – until Lois reminds him that for their relationship to work they would have to stop being the people they truly are. Superman is clearly not over his feelings for Lois.

A back-up story in Superman 409 explains why the Man of Steel is reluctant to shed his Clark Kent identity even though it greatly impinges on his time and on his relationship with Lana, who loves him only as Clark. Even the simplest act as Superman seems to have more significance than anything he can do as Kent, but a crusty old-timer in the newsroom tells him that he is one of the best in the business, someone who gives the audience hope in dark times, and Superman realizes his normal identity still has real value. Therefore it is ironic that the very next issue begins a storyline entitled Clark Kent – Fired! After Superman deals with a falling satellite and saves Honolulu from disaster, he gives the details of the story to Clark, who writes the front page story about it. Unfortunately it turns out not to be true, but only an hallucination. Superman is faced with the dilemma of destroying his alter ego’s credibility or the public’s trust in the Man of Steel and chooses the former. Superman doesn’t back up Clark’s story and Kent is disgraced and fired.

Lex Luthor is manipulating Superman’s mind from afar, creating vivid hallucinations – in one Superman actually kills Luthor by plunging his hand into his chest – that leave the Man of Steel wondering what’s real and what’s fantasy. Caught in Luthor’s mental manipulations he imagines that all of his friends are fading out, then that Metropolis has been destroyed and then the entire Earth. But Superman also picks up words and thoughts from a testimonial dinner to Clark Kent, and these strong feelings imbue him with the extra strength to shrug off Luthor’s false imagery. Superman explains that Clark was only acting on his orders and that he filed a fake story in order to help capture Luthor (who actually escapes – again). The story was by Cary Bates, with art by Swan and Williamson.

Lex Luthor also figures in an interesting story in Superman 416 which explores different aspects of the villain’s character, such as his genuine hero worship of Albert Einstein, although a scene when he allows himself to be captured by stopping to save a boy from drowning is out of character for Luthor. A back-up story reveals that this boy later becomes a psychiatrist who cures Luthor of his criminal tendencies. These stories were written by Elliott S. Maggin.

More Action

Action Comics descended mostly into drek, with some awful and wretchedly-drawn stories by Keith Giffin, but Action 580 had a brief, sobering note in a flashback tale in which Superman remembers when he had to make a heart-wrenching decision: rescue six people, including kids, whose van fell off a collapsing bridge, or keep the toppling bridge from possibly killing hundreds. He makes the latter choice. Superman is haunted by the six faces of those who died, who even show up to guide him when he needs to save the lives of every single person during a fire at an amusement park. It was a good story by Robert Loren Fleming but Kurt Shaffenburger’s art was simply the wrong style for it.

Action 582 also had a better-than-usual story with an interesting premise. Superman learns that before he was rocketed off to earth his father Jor-El deposited his and his wife Lara’s mental essence into Kal-El’s brain. After consulting with experts throughout the galaxy, Superman is able to recreate clone-like bodies for his parents into which their mental essences are placed. Superman is overjoyed to have his parents back, delighted to introduce them to his colleagues and friends, but they turn out to be imposters and it’s all another far-fetched evil plot. The parents that Clark introduces to everyone are never mentioned again. Craig Boldman was the scripter. He did a number of silver age-type stories for the series as well as work for Archie Comics.

Superman 418 has our hero travelling light years away to help out a friendly race who are facing extinction so these well-meaning people send a substitute to guard Earth in his absence. This silent character, christened Superman-X, does too good a job combating crime in Metropolis, and even goes so far as to heal all of the sick and dying in the hospital. This results in hundreds of ill people turning up in the city, causing havoc, until Lois and Jimmy take steps to remedy the situation. Criminals in Metropolis turn themselves in, bringing their ill-gotten loot along with them, and elderly people are given power boosters so they can fight off nogoodniks who want their social security checks. Lois and Jimmy explain that Superman always avoided turning Metropolis into some kind of paradise because it would be impossible for him to do the same for every place on earth. This was one of Cary Bates’ best latter-day Superman tales, although it’s strange that no one ever seems to notice Clark Kent’s absence.

Superman 421 features the fifth-dimensional imp Mr. Mxyzptlk, but for once it’s not him but his older, lookalike cousin who’s causing trouble for both him and Superman. Once Superman has taken care of the elder imp, Mr. M confesses that he now understands how it feels to have his life made miserable the way he has always made Superman’s life miserable. The two fellows shake hands, with Superman hoping that his long-time nemesis has finally reformed. It was a very silly story, however, and Bates’ last for Superman.

The very next issue, Superman 422, almost looked like a completely different series. First there was a superb, mostly black and white, exquisitely-drawn cover by Brian Bolland. Then the inside features a superior Marv Wolfman story (with art by Swan) concerning an apparent werewolf that Superman chases and investigates, sensing that there is more to this creature than meets the eye. This turns out to be true. The exciting climax reveals that the werewolf’s colleagues are the true bad guys, wolfmen all, who committed crimes in their unnatural forms and wanted to kill the only one among them with a conscience.

Superman 423 was the final issue of the first volume of the series. It presents the first half of a imaginary story, scripted by Alan Moore, entitled Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? and features an art job by Curt Swan and George Perez. It begins in the future, when a reporter interviews Lois Lane some time after Superman’s disappearance, and she recounts what she knows of his final years. After Pete Ross is murdered by the Toyman and the Prankster, who want him to tell them Superman’s secret identity, which he does under torture, the duo show up at the Daily Planet and expose Clark Kent’s big secret, shocking everyone. Lex Luthor and Brainiac team up in an unusual fashion, with the android’s disembodied head taking over Luthor’s mind and melding with his face and brain. When the Planet staff, including Lois, Lana and Perry, are attacked by duplicates of Metallo, Superman is afraid that all of his friends will be endangered and takes them to the Fortress of Solitude. Krypto shows up, as well as some members of the Legion of Super-Heroes, including Supergirl, who was on a trip to the future from her past. This is distinctly unnerving for Superman as the present-day Supergirl had just been killed in the Crisis on Infinite Earths maxi-series (see chapter 21).

The second half of the story, drawn by Swan and Kurt Schaffenberger, appears in Action 583 in which the Brainiac-Luthor combo, with the Kryptonite Man along for good measure, as well as some members of the Legion of Super-Villains, try to storm the Fortress of Solitude. They erect a force field which is able to keep out members of the Justice League and other heroes. Inside the fortress, Lana Lang and Jimmy Olsen use souvenirs of their past adventures as heroes to temporarily gain super-powers and attack the villains outside. Lana overhears Superman telling Perry White how much Lana means to him but that his One True Love will always be Lois. Luthor, who’s been reduced to simply being a body to carry Brainiac around on, begs Lana to kill him and she complies. But Brainiac still lives even if attached to a corpse and both Lana and Jimmy are killed. Krypto attacks the Kryptonite Man and the dog succumbs to his deadly radiation after dispatching him.

Superman learns that the architect of all this is Mr. Mxyzptlk, who is actually much more fearsome in appearance than the little man in a derby he’d always appeared to be. He is bored and wants to try being evil instead of mischievous, resulting in the deaths of people Superman truly cares about. He deliberately sends Mxyzptlk to the Phantom Zone just as the imp is returning to his home dimension, tearing him in two and killing him. Superman atones for this by using gold kryptonite to lose all of his powers. The world figures that the Man of Steel walked out into the Arctic and froze to death, but Lois alone knows that her current husband, a normal man named Elliot who goes to work at a normal job, is actually the former Clark Kent.

Elliot seems perfectly satisfied with his life with Lois and their baby son, who can turn coal into diamonds with his little fists, but it’s hard to believe that Kal-el wouldn’t miss his power and his ability to literally fly to the stars. Moore’s excellent script intelligently uses many of the elements of the Superman mythos – and may have influenced certain facets of John Byrne’s reboot of the character – but the ending is earthbound and a little depressing.

Two Superman annuals are of note during this period. In Superman Annual 11 [Moore/Gibbons] Batman and Robin/Jason Todd, along with Wonder Woman, arrive at the Fortress of Solitude to give Superman his birthday presents, only to find that an unexpected visitor, Mongul, has already given the Man of Steel an unwelcome gift. This is a flower whose tentacles burrow deep into the Man of Steel’s flesh and put him into a trance, giving him the mental illusion of his heart’s desire: a life and family on long-dead Krypton. Batman manages to get the flower off of Superman while Wonder Woman and Mongul trade powerful blows, then Superman exchanges places with the Amazin’ Amazon. When Batman succumbs to the flower, Robin manages to remove it and drop it right on Mongul’s chest during his free-for-all with his intended victim. As the heroes continue their birthday celebration, Mongul is lost in frozen fantasies of universal conquest.

In Superman Annual 12 [Bates/Saviuk/Marcos] Luthor has his war suit stolen by an energy form that wears it and threatens to destroy the entire earth. Luthor is forced to join forces with his hated opponent to prevent disaster.

DC Comics Presents

DC Comics Presents continued into the copper age, teaming Superman with a variety of guest-stars. He worked with Jack Kirby’s creation Etrigan the Demon (and his alter ego, demonologist Jason Blood) in a story penciled by Joe Kubert. Kirby himself penciled DCCP 84, featuring the Challengers of the Unknown, but his work is rushed and poorly inked and the story is badly plotted. Superman teams with Hawkman and Hawkwoman in a story that has him re-encountering his grandfather from Krypton, who dies before he can really get to know him, something which should have been much more emotional for the Man of Steel. Superman does show emotion in DC Presents 82 when he and Adam Strange team up against a succubus who had tried to bedevil Krypton and now wants to destroy Rann so she can capture its millions of souls. Superman discovers that the souls of his dead race are somehow watching over him in the void left after the planet exploded and is moved to tears. DCCP 85 presents a strange, stupid Alan Moore story in which Superman, catching a fatal illness from the fungus on a meteor, makes no attempt to get help from Batman or others, but simply drives to Florida to die, where the Swamp Thing nurses him back to health.

DC Comics Presents 79 [Kupperberg/Swan/Williamson] presents one of the best and most unusual team ups in the series with Superman working with none other than Clark Kent to find out how the two have been physically separated. This situation is confusing for both of them – people tell them they are doing things that they don’t remember doing – and culminates in a great scene when both are utterly shocked to see the other appear in the newsroom in front of Lana Lang. Another startling scene has the mild-mannered Clark Kent thrusting out a paw to squeeze the neck of an alien and threatening to strangle him if he doesn’t tell him how this splitting feat was accomplished. Of course Clark is bluffing, but even Superman is a little nervous during this exhibition.

Superman was featured in several crossover issues of the Crisis on Infinite Earths mini-series. In DC Comics Presents 86 Superman and Supergirl team up to take on the Girl of Steel’s bronze age foe Blackstarr, blaming her for the odd things happening to the universe which are actually due to the Crisis. At one point Blackstarr has Superman and Supergirl coming to blows as they argue over the right way to deal with the villainess. In DCP 87 we learn the origin of the Superboy of Earth-Prime, a completely unnecessary character who was shot to earth from this dimension’s dying Krypton and lands in a world in which Superman is merely a comic book character. Preoccupied by his grief for Supergirl, killed in the Crisis, Superman is thrust into this dimension by hostile aliens, where he encounters a young Clark Kent, whose powers don’t manifest themselves until just before he encounters the Man of Steel. This Superboy eventually participated in the Crisis on Infinite Earths.

DC Comics Presents 84 presents a very interesting story which guest-stars three major characters from Crisis on Infinite Earths: Harbinger, Lady Quark, and Pariah. These three help Superman in a battle against Eric Courtney, a TV producer who wants to rule the world and calls himself the Volt Lord. He manages to hold off Superman with a near-killing blast when he steals some equipment. As Eric, he dates Lady Quark, who is reminded of her late husband. She figures out who he is during his latest attack and she nearly goes over to his side, until she realizes that he is nothing like the heroic man whom she was married to. The compelling script was by Barbara Randell and Bob Greenburger, with art by Tom Mandrake and Don Heck.

World’s Finest

World’s Finest, teaming the Man of Steel with the Batman, continued during the copper age, but not for long. WF 303 has an excellent story in which Bruce Wayne cancels an outing on a yacht, then as Batman discovers – in the dark and macabre opening sequence – that everyone on the ship has been turned into a skeleton. Superman learns that the cause of death is a virus laced with kryptonite so that it can even affect him. An expert virologist agrees to help the duo when the citizens of Metropolis are threatened with complete extinction but it develops that this man is the one who developed the virus. The story was by David Anthony Kraft. WF 314 re-introduces a lady hit man called the Executrix, a former foe for Green Arrow, who murders a Planet reporter and also tries to snuff his source, a man who knows that his firm is using inferior steel that will ultimately cause buildings and bridges to collapse, killing people, all in the name of profit. Batman is satisfied to see the lady apparently drown at the end, a fitting end for her, but Superman, of course, saves her life, seeing all life as being precious. Joey Cavalieri was the scripter.

The supporting cast for World’s Finest includes two girlfriends for Bruce Wayne, dark-haired club owner Liliane Stern and blond businesswoman Marissa, and a black ghetto hero named Sonik who seems like little more than a rip-off of Black Lightning. Sonik appeared for the second time in World’s Finest 318, wherein he becomes bodyguard for a reclusive black singing star modeled on Michael Jackson. Michael Marlon befriends a little white boy in a plastic bubble, who can’t go near anyone because of his complete lack of immunity to germs. When there seem to be attempts on the child’s life, Batman deduces that the lonely child is using his fingernails to puncture the bubble. Joey Cavaleri’s writing for this sequence, when Batman thinks about the desperate and sad situation the boy is in, is excellent, and the Jose Delbo/Alfredo Alcala depiction of the Caped Crusader on that page is grim and striking.

World’s Finest 321 brings back old Atom foe Chronos who sends our two heroes hurtling through time, Superman chasing bombs that could change history – one is headed for Enola Gay, but a tearful Superman must save the plane that carries the H-bomb – and Batman back to the night his parents were murdered. But Batman has no intention of saving them – he knows what happened that night cannot and should not be undone – he only wants his resolve against crime to be further strengthened. This was one of Chronos’ most interesting appearances [Cavalieri/Delbo/Alcala]. In the final issue of the series, World’s Finest 323, Batman chides Superman for rushing into a situation without using his super-brain first and succumbing to magical forces and nearly dying. He reminds Superman that he works better in the shadows. The implication is that this has caused a crack in their friendship, but that is unlikely, as the two men have disagreed more seriously than that before and have always mended fences.

Despite some of the more notable issues of the series mentioned above, World’s Finest was not a particularly memorable comic book in the copper age. Jose Delbo was one of the better artists, but many of the pencilers were amateurish. The villains also tended to be third-rate as well.

CHAPTER TWO: THE NEW SUPERMAN

In 1987 it was decided by the powers-that-be at DC Comics to completely revitalize their most famous character, Superman. John Byrne was stolen away from Marvel comics and given the plum assignment. He began by writing and drawing (with Dick Giordano on inks) a six-part mini-series entitled The Man of Steel. Byrne tweaked Superman’s origin story just a bit. Krypton had become a cold technological world where human emotions had been suppressed for thousands of years. Clark Kent had no career as Superboy and did not develop a costumed identity until he had moved to Metropolis and lived there for several years.

Clark was eighteen when his father told him that he fell out of the sky as a baby in a special ship. He had become a football hero despite knowing he had special abilities, disappointing Jonathan Kent, who knew his son had unfair advantages, but he decided to make up for this lapse. When Clark was twenty-five he had to reveal his abilities by flying into the air to save a plane that had crashed into another ship, but he was appalled at the way everyone began to pick at him and ask things of him afterward (but surely some of the people whose lives he saved would have been grateful?) Back with Ma and Pa Kent he discussed the situation with them and they came up with his new costume and his new look as Clark Kent: slicked back hair, an old pair of Pa’s specs, and a slightly stooped walk. He is not quite as powerful as the original Superman. He cannot travel through time and can’t just speed through space as easily as before.

Superman’s appearance excites the reportorial instincts of Lois Lane, who goes so far as to drive her car off a pier to interview him. Unfortunately she loses the scoop to new Daily Planet staffer Clark Kent, who impresses Perry White with his story on the Man of Steel. In the 3rd issue Superman goes to Gotham to check out reports on the vigilante Batman, whose methods he abhors. This Batman is a bit tougher than before, willing to beat and injure criminals for information. He shows Superman exactly why he has to resort to those methods when the two of them together stop a crime spree created by the psychotic woman, Magpie, who thinks nothing of putting sticks of dynamite in the mouths of henchmen who displease her and blowing their heads off. Superman has to admit that Gotham’s crime problem is different from Metropolis’.

Speaking of crime, Lex Luthor shows up in Man of Steel 4 wherein he invites Lois and Clark to a fabulous party on his equally-fabulous ocean liner. Luthor still has a fringe of red hair on his head, and Lois suggests that he looks like Fred Mertz after she discovers that his loaner of an expensive gown was meant to be a gift – another attempt to make her one of his mistresses. Luthor has his security team hang back when some terrorists get on board just so he can see what Superman can do – he offers him a check and says he will be his employee – but the Mayor is outraged that Luthor allowed everyone to be put in danger; he tells Superman as a special deputy to