Superman (vol.2) #164 (January, 2001)
"Tales from the Bizarro World"
Writer - Jeph Loeb
Pencillers - Ed McGuinness & Carlo Barberi
Inkers - Cam Smith & Juan Vlasco
Letterer - Richard Starkings
Colorists - Tonya & Richard Horie
Assistant Editor - Tom Palmer Jr.
Editor - Eddie Berganza
Cover Price: $2.25
It's Election Day in Metropolis, what could possibly go wrong? I think it's also Election Day somewhere in the real world as well... and it doesn't seem like anything can go right! That's about as political as this post will get, hopefully. I'm really not much of a political animal anymore. At one point in my life, perhaps... but I just kinda got "over it".
If you ask me, DC did a great job in 2000 by ignoring the actual election and just throwing ol' Lex in office. Again... if you ask me, this is the way politics should be handled in comics. I don't read comics to get bombarded with political opinions or talking points... gimme a fictional Commander in Chief any day over a current sitting President either acting as a super-villain or fist-bumping with Spider-Man.
Annnnnnnnnnnyhoo, let's check in with the Super-gang as they prepare for a potential life under Lex.
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We open up with Jimmy Olsen hanging precariously from a helicopter with hopes of snapping some pics of a Navy submarine that is running on LexCorp's (now) proprietary B13 viral tech. Jimmy being Jimmy... he leans just a bit too far outside the chopper... and falls out. Lucky for him, Superman Bizarro #1 is there to catch him before he falls too far.
All during the flight, Jimmy thinks it's Superman that's pulled his fat skin and bones out of the fire drink. He flies him past the Daily Planet building and winds up dropping him into... an open grave. That's not too morbid, right? The tombstone reveals the grave to be the secret entrance for Jimmy Olsen... Gravedigger Lad! Beats the hell out of Turtle Boy!
We then cut to Lois and Clark's apartment... and an unwelcome shift in art. Normally I really dig Carlo Barberi's style... really liked his work on Impulse, but... c'mon, we just had Ed McGuinness. Anyhoo, Lois and Clark are visited upon by Batman... who is concerned about the pending Presidential Election. Brainiac's B13 virus wiped away all records concerning Lex Luthor's criminal activity... and to the layman, he's nothing more than a successful businessman and a model citizen. Batman suggests digging up some dirt on the man, but Superman ain't feeling it. He doesn't believe that it is their place to get involved with the democratic process. He still believes that the American people will do what's right in the end. 'fraid I got some bad news, pal.
We rejoin Jimmy who is hanging out with a couple of his pals. They're about to take in a movie, and as they walk they discuss the election and whether or not it's important to vote. Before they can go inside, a gravely voice calls to Jimmy from an alley... why it's Bizarro again. This time, he's got a golden shovel that he tosses to his sidekick/pal Gravedigger Lad. He then scoops the boy up and prepares to take him to the JLA Headquarters on the Moon.
Speaking of the JLA HQ... Superman is there watching several video screens, all predicting a decent outcome for Lex Luthor in the election. Martian Manhunter briefly pops his head in, and cracks Superman up with a comment about Luthor's really having the best interests of the people in mind.
Back with Jimbo, he doesn't quite get into orbit as Supergirl arrives on the scene and saves his bacon. For some sick reason, Supergirl decides to swap spit with Superman's pal... ay yai yai. Thankfully Bizarro is there to stop the madness!
A battle rages on over the next several pages. Supergirl and Bizarro exchange blows... and Jimmy smacks the ground with his golden shovel... which does bugger all.
Suddenly Superman arrives on the scene... and man, he is not the man to mess with today. He sternly tells Bizarro to stand down. It's clear that this is a very different Superman... not one who will be reasoned with... Jimmy even comments that he feared Superman might actually kill Bizarro if he sticks around.
Without throwing a single punch, he causes Bizarro to leave... and run right into a big fella promising that the Great Darkness is on it's way.
We wrap up as the polls are closing. Our regular cast is hanging about at the Daily Planet... looking at the two potential front pages for the following morning.
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This was a pretty decent issue. Not great or anything... but I suppose I enjoyed my time with it. It's probably been... hmm, 15 years since I last read this, and I'd totally forgotten the Bizarro bits to this issue. I really expected it to be completely Lex-lection centric... and I gotta say, I'm disappointed that it wasn't. Not really sure what Bizarro added to all of this... though, perhaps they were just filling pages in order to get to the Superman: Lex 2000 Special where we find out the news. Maybe they just wanted Jimmy to notice that Superman might've killed Bizarro had he not left. I dunno...
I appreciate seeing Superman being really on edge here... while at the same time, maintaining his faith in the American people making the "right choice". There's something deeper here as well... Superman knows that it isn't his place to sway the hearts and minds of the voters... he's not running for (nor is he eligible to hold) office. It would be imprudent for him to stump for any political candidate. That's another thing I really dig about this era. While he knows what Lex is all about... knows how dangerous he can be... he still allows the democratic process to commence.
Looking back at this... it's interesting how tightly plotted this whole storyline was. I mean, we start in No Man's Land... and go through Our World's At War... and ultimately conclude during the opening arc of Superman/Batman. I know the "Berganza" era sometimes gets a bad wrap, but this was good stuff... if you ask me. This (and Ed McGuinness' art) was what ultimately brought me back into the Super-books.
I'm guessing by now most folks know what the outcome of the DCU's 2000 Election was... and hell, time travelers will know the outcome of the 2016 United States Election by now. Lex wins... I dig it... not sure if I'm going to cover the Lex 2000 special at this point. We'll see...
For more electoral fun, check out one'a my best bloggy buddies and fellow Super Blogger Mike Carlyle's piece today where he covers Prez #1. Mike's site is always a good time, do give him a peek!
Morning Edit: Great (or addled) minds think alike. Another one'a my best bloggy pals Walt Kneeland covered this same issue of Superman this morning. Give it a gander!
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Superman #345 (March, 1980)
"When Time Ran Backward!"
Writer - Gerry Conway
Penciller - Curt Swan
Inker - Frank Chiaramonte
Letterer - Ben Oda
Colorist - Gene D'Angelo
Editor - Julius Schwartz
Cover Price: $0.40
I've come to the conclusion that if you were to pick up a random DC Comic dating between 1975 and 1985, you've got about a 95% chance that it was written by Gerry Conway. That's not a bad thing at all... I mean, I knew he was prolific... just didn't know he was quite this prolific!
Based on today's subject matter, I was considering writing this entire piece backwards. Luckily for me and anyone reading, I quickly dismissed that thought as... well, stupid.
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We open with Superman stopping a flaming satellite from reentering the atmosphere. It is the NEWS-I Satellite... the first orbiter set to actually control the weather. Superman catches it and intends to return it to S.T.A.R. Labs so they can diagnose just what went wrong with their ridiculous device.
Upon landing, Superman gets a crazy case of the chills. There's a purple haze around everything... and suddenly, just as the cover promised... time appears to go in reverse! We watch as Superman returns the satellite into orbit, and flies backwards to his news anchor position at WGBS.
Time continues moving backward as Clark relives his day in reverse. It isn't until he gets outside his building... before a work day he finished long before, if you follow. He realizes that time isn't behaving normally, and wills himself to think forward again. He believes that whatever is going on with the time stream has less of an effect on him due to his propensity to travel through time, both now and when he was a child due to his affiliation with the Legion of Super Heroes.
Upon realization... and mental refocusing, the Metropolitan landscape appears to change. Suddenly Clark finds himself standing on barren land... which immediately causes him to realize that the "chronal layers" have been peeled away from Earth. Must be some of that Super-Intellect at play here... because I'm all sortsa confuzzled.
Now, this is where I get even more mixed up. Somehow, Superman is able to return to Metropolis... however, now we're in the early 1960's. He tries to consider just who his foe will be, and comes up with Chronos... before quickly dismissing the thought. This, is far out of that sap's league. Luckily for Superman he finds himself right in front of a spacecraft armed with several vacuum-looking bits that are "stealing time". Oy.
What's a man of steel to do in such a situation? If you said crash through the wall of the spacecraft, give yourself a pat on the back. Inside we meet a bearded alien and his big green pincer-bot... that we're not supposed to realize is a robot at this point. The beardo ensures Superman that they have come in peace (famous last words) and that they are whatever the time equivalent to astronauts are... chrononauts? Anyhoo, they were struck out of space-time by some cthulhu-beast and had to siphon time away from Earth for their very survival. Superman's all "Get your own time!" before thinking that he may be able to help his new pals.
The beardo has his (shhh) robot, Koman-Ta show Superman the damage that had been done to their craft. While investigating the wreckage, Superman notes the presence of on board gun-turrets. This makes him question the "peaceful" nature of these strange visitors. At this point, Superman has decided he's had just about enough of the chrononaut's B.S., and just chucks the time vacuums into space. Attaboy!
Koman-Ta doesn't take too kindly to this affront, and pounces on Superman. This is yet another one of those Superman images I dig because it kind of looks like he's dancing with a bad guy. Anyhoo, the bot blasts him with a burst of glowing energy... and our main man gets kayoed.
Some time (?) later, Superman wakes up laying on the streets of Metropolis. He finds that things are rather peculiar, ever since he tossed the time-vacuums into space... rather than time returning to normal, it just stopped flat. Speaking of flat... well, Superman is now a being in 2D space. Koman-Ta's blast was of chronal energy... which somehow trapped Superman in a cross-section of Earth's time line... ooookay.
He decides to track down the baddies... which, I gotta say... is probably a good start. He breaks the time-barrier and travels to the when and where the craft is currently hanging out. He (literally) slips inside. Beardo commands Koman-Ta to blast Superman again... which is a much harder task with his newly flattened form. Superman then... punches Koman-Ta's head clean off its body. Hey, guess what guys and gals... it was a robot... the. whole. time.
The bearded buddy decides now is as good a time as any to spill the beans about his real purpose. His people along with a rival-time race have been at war for ages. His ship was damaged in a battle, not by a shoggoth beast. Superman takes pity on the poor fool, and offers something of a compromise. First however, the Bad Beard's gotta set Earth time right.
Superman uses the time-accelerator to set things right, and then throws our alien buddy "sideways" through time so that he can warn his people about what's to come. We end just as we started... with Superman holding the NEWS-I Satellite atop the S.T.A.R. Labs building.
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The cover of this issue promises a "mind-shattering story", and I'll be damned if they didn't deliver. What a whack out little story this was.
While I was prepared for some time shenanigans from the cover copy, I really wasn't expecting Superman to be taken out of 3D space. I'm gonna have to research to see if the concept of the 2D Superman was ever revisited. Sounds like something right up Grant Morrison's alley.
If I were handed this comic book during my youth, I'd have used it a the reason why I avoided DC and stuck with Marvel. I know I've mentioned this before, but I just could never get into the bad guys that the DC heroes fought. I mean, why would I get invested in random aliens #1000 and 1001, when I could read about the X-Men battling Magneto or Apocalypse?
In my more mature (heh!) state, I can see the appeal of these one-off disposable stories. They can be as fantastical as they needed to be, and ramifications did not necessarily need to be followed up on. In my bloggy-reviewer state, I can absolutely appreciate these one-off tales... they are so much easier to just pop in on and write about than their interwoven brethren.
You may have noticed by now that I'm not really talking about the book... there's a reason for that... there's really not a whole lot to say. I had a great time reading it, and though parts of it made my head hurt, thought it was a heck of a fun little story. The writing and art were both what we've come to expect from late pre-Crisis Superman. Not exceptional, but good comfortable comics.
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Kobra #5 (November-December, 1975)
"The Eye of the Serpent"
Story - Martin Pasko
Penciller - Rich Buckler
Inker - Frank McLaughlin
Colorist - Carl Gafford
Lettering - Ben Oda
Cover Price: $0.30
This is a book I'd been wanting to take a peek at for quite some time now. My introduction to the character of Kobra... the Deadliest Man Alive came in the pages of Superman, which we discussed a couple months back. There, he came off as a pretty goofy (and gimmicky) fella... and the very idea that DC saw fit to give him his own series a few years earlier completely boggled my mind. How could a villain... one as ssstrange and odd as Kobra carry his own ongoing? Well, we're about to find out... I guess.
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We open on a neat bit where we learn that the issue we'd been expecting has been cancelled, and we'll be getting the story that follows instead. Kobra is burning his way through what would've been the cover of Kobra #5. The issue proper starts in an invisible aircraft hovering over San Francisco. Inside, Kobra is watching some surveillance footage of his twin brother, Jason Burr. Burr is recounting how Kobra has potentially cost him someone dear to him... and he's putting his fist through plate glass to vent off his frustration. There is a turbaned man with him tending to his wounds. We learn that in order for Kobra to become "Lord of Earth" the link between he and Jason must be severed... because, why not?
We shift scenes to hard-boiled detective Jonny Double as he poses as a cabbie outside the office of a woman he calls "Li'l Miss Manslaughter". He goes down her rap sheet for us, and proceeds to watch as she and a potential victim leave. He prepares to tail them, however, a shadowy man approaches in dire need of a cab ride. Not wanting to blow his cover, Jonny takes the fare.
The man enters, and suddenly the cabs meter goes all wonky. I guess this happens from time to time, as Jonny just rolls with it and quotes him a flat-rate. At the destination, the man exits... but leaves his briefcase behind. Now, we all know what people keep in briefcases that they leave in cabs, right? Yup, there's a bomb in there. Thankfully, this ain't Jonny's first run-in with a ticking valise... and so, he drives the cab off a nearby dock... just in the nick of time. A strip of fabric from the case floats to the surface, on it is the symbol of the Kobra.
Speaking of which, Kobra's got eyes all around the city... some of which on Jonny Double. They assumed he'd wriggle his way out of the ol' exploding car gag... so they follow him as he breaks into the office he'd been peeping earlier. Inside, he gets jumped by a trio or goons... who he takes out in as many panels.
He continues on into a computer room. He begins asking the computer questions... only to get cute answers in return. He digs a bit deeper and comes up with the name of CIA Agent Ricardo Perez. He snaps a few shots of the screen and heads back to his hard-boiled office of hard-boiledness.
He calls his contact, Harry... he is given the name of hitman Horst Buchner and is told to call "Big Louie" for further info. Louie tells him that he thinks Horst is dead... and the scuttlebutt points to "cobras". He's starting to put two and two together. A helpful footnote tells us that Buchner was in fact murdered by Kobra.
Hearing about Cobras makes Double call yet another contact... Mack. Mack is pretty freaked out that Jonny's had a run-in with Kobra and lived to tell the tale. He then refers him to... Jason Burr, Kobra's twin brother. After a brief chat, Burr accepts an invite west.
The next morning, Double goes about his daily commute. Special mind is paid to the workers all along the Golden Gate Bridge. That night, he visits a theater to rendezvous with his main man Mack... only to find he'd been shot. Suddenly more bullets ring out, narrowly missing our man. Elsewhere, Jason Burr has trouble getting a plane ticket... oh yeah, and he appears to be getting followed by yet another shadowy individual.
Back at the theater, Jonny Double is in the midst of a firefight with a pair of turbaned fellows. He makes relatively short work of them after a few rounds of tough-guy talk. He shoots them both dead (which he admits is "un-cool"), and hops a street car to get away.
Wouldn'tcha know it... he managed to board the one street car in town that Kobra was hanging out in... they proceed to have a bit of a back and forth, with Kobra quickly losing his patience. He uses his magical (?) gauntlet to destroy the tracks and break the street car loose... careening downhill to certain doom. Elsewhere, Jason finally catches a flight... however, there is a... get this, shadowy man on board as well!
Back in San Francisco, right as the street car is about to plow into a building, Double bails out. Kobra had 'ported a bit earlier. Double's alive... but just barely. Rather than just kill him there, Kobra instead takes him hostage. Back with Burr... his plane catches fire somewhere over Oregon... go figure, right?
Jonny wakes up to find himself strapped to the Golden Gate Bridge! Kobra now reveals his nefarious plot... the workers on the bridge earlier in the week were installing "quakers"... no not the people, or the oatmeal... things that make the Earth shake! The quakers were set to go from the bottom of the bridge straight through the Earth's crust. We close out on the promise that in 20 minutes, San Francisco will fall!
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Really wasn't expecting to dig this... but it wasn't half bad. Not necessarily something I would track down the rest of, but not something I'd think to leave behind in the cheap-o bins either.
Oddly, the character of Kobra didn't really get much face time here... least not as much as I'd imagined he would. Instead we spent most of our time with hard boiled private dick, Jonny Double. The name rang a bell, but I couldn't place him. After doing a bit of checking around, I found that he has since appeared... at least in name, in a late 1990's Vertigo miniseries. That must be where I remember him from. Anyhoo, his exploits were more interesting than I'd thought they were going to be.
Back to Kobra... I'm not sure if my brain is just drawing parallels here but, the whole time reading this he reminded me of Cobra Commander from G.I. Joe. From his lisssp, to his over the top reactions... even to the ridiculously overblown deathtrap. Gotta wonder if Larry Hama drew some inspiration from this fella.
The writing here, pot-boiler mystery bits aside, was pretty good... though perhaps a bit flowery for a story like this. The art was nice throughout, though when the coloring was off... it really hurt my character identification skills. Jonny Double with darker hair or a suit of a different shade could easily be confused for Kobra's twin brother Jason Burr. There were a small handful of panels that I had to give a second glance to see if there may have been a coloring error. Guess that's a problem when the characters don't differentiate in appearance all that much.
Overall... I guess I'd say if you see any issue of Kobra on the cheap, maybe give it a shot. You're likely not going to get anything that'll rock your socks or change your life... but you might just get a fun read.
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Letters Page: (the rumors of our cancellation have been greatly exaggerated edition)
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