#women-slaying space-alien clones

[superman86to99]

Superman: The Man of Steel #33 (May 1994)

An unfortunate series of events has turned Superman so grotesquely swole that he now looks like he’s, well, a character in a ‘90s superhero comic. Last issue, his rapidly growing powers simply made him slightly taller, but by now he's basically a head drowning in a mass of comically large muscles (I’m amazed his costume hasn’t burst yet; props to Ma Kent’s stitching abilities). Another unfortunate side effect of his ordeal is that he’s afraid to even breathe near Lois Lane because he thinks he might kill her.

Superman asks his friends at Project Cadmus to come up with a way to turn him back to normal and they oblige, despite having their hands kinda full with the army of sewer mutants currently trying to invade them (more on that in the plotlines section below). Their idea is to put Superman near the Parasite, the superpower-stealing supervillain, so that he’ll absorb Superman’s excess energy. Wouldn’t that make the Parasite super-strong and stuff? No, you see, because they’ll put him near some “siphoning coils” that will drain the excess energy from him.

Within a few seconds of the experiment starting, the siphoning coils fail to siphon the excess energy (you had one job, siphoning coils) and the Parasite becomes super-strong and stuff. He immediately breaks free and starts killing Cadmus people as Superman tries to stay away from him so he doesn’t become even more powerful. Then Superman realizes “Hey, wait a minute, I’m even more ridiculously overpowered!” and does this:

Superman pushed the Parasite into the ground so fast and with so much strength that the rock melted from the friction and crystalized, trapping him in a “glass prison,” just as Superman planned -- he may look like the Hulk now, but he’s no brute.

Since that plan to cure Superman failed, Cadmus decides to take a page from him and do what he does whenever he has a problem he doesn’t know how to solve: just chuck it into space. As in, they strap Super-Superman to a big-ass rocket and launch it to a space station orbiting the Earth’s dark side so that he won’t be able to absorb any more energy from the sun.

For once, I sympathize with Cadmus’ Director Westfield when he asks if all that expense was really necessary (couldn’t Superman have flown himself there?). Anyway, TO BE CONTINUED!

Plotline-Watch:

As mentioned, the Clone Plague storyline escalates dramatically when the sick and dying Underworlders invade Cadmus en masse and actually manage to break in before they’re shot down by soldiers. We then see the dramatic death of Rambeau, the ram-headed Underworlder we met at the start of the “Doomsday!” storyline, who dies right in front of the (also sick) Newsboy Legion kids after warning them that they’re next. We’ll miss you, Rambeau... or maybe not so much since, according to the “Death of Superman” video game, he’s got like 40 identical cousins.

Last issue, master hacker Lex Luthor Jr. hacked into Lois Lane’s computer to rewrite her exposé on him so that no one would believe her ever again, and now we see what he came up with: a front-page article accusing Luthor of being a “SPACE-ALIEN CLONE” who “WILL SLAY EARTH’S WOMEN.” He also bribed (and later murdered) the Daily Planet’s night editor so he’d let the article through. Everyone from Director Westfield to a random traffic cop makes fun of Lois for her story, but Don Sparrow points out: “In a world where every major American city is guarded by super-powered off-worlders, is Lois Lane’s ‘alien clone’ headline that laughable?” Yeah, perhaps the most incredible part here is that this wouldn’t really be front-page news if true.

Luthor’s revenge on Lois doesn’t end there: throughout the issue we see that he went full Kingpin on her, ruining her credit cards, emptying her bank account, bribing that traffic officer so she’d fail a breathalyzer test, and making it look like she’s having a nervous breakdown. The credit thing is the worst part, because it embarrasses Lois as she’s paying for a meal with Mayor Berkowitz in a fancy restaurant. Don again: “I know that it’s to set up her online financial problems, but was Lois really picking up the cheque while dining with the Mayor? Or were they going Dutch?”

Speaking of Lois, this issue includes another variation of the cute scene where Superman wakes her up by lightly tapping on her window, only this one isn’t so cute because he’s so strong that his “light” taps break the window and Lois cuts her feet.

Superman asks the Cadmus folks to meet him at the tree city of Habitat, which has been in ruins since Doomsday rampaged through it, because at least he can’t do any more damage there. I wonder if they ever explained how it went back to normal in future issues. Did the Hairies rebuild it? Did it just grow back? Zatanna?

The Parasite had been captured in S.T.A.R. Labs since way back in October 1991. In this issue we’re told that Westfield “acquired” him from S.T.A.R., and of course the first thing he does is pump him full of super-energy and let him kill an employee. He almost kills Big Words of the Newsadult Legion, too (it would have been pretty funny if he had and then suddenly started using big words).

One thing that bugs me about this issue is how casually Lois reveals to Superman that, oh yeah, Lex Luthor Jr. is a clone of Lex Luthor Sr., meaning that his greatest enemy isn’t really dead and had been pretending to be a friend for years. That’s a big deal! Superman’s like “sorry, I’m too swole to care about this right now.” I’m also iffy about the part where she says she implicated Luthor in his trainer’s attempted murder; he DID murder her, but then aliens brought her back to life. Is “attempted” the correct legal term in that case?

What I do like is how the creative teams have handled Lex’s slow transition from smooth Australian philanthropist to full-on supervillain as his body and mind deteriorate due to the Clone Plague. The issue ends with a frail Lex (in some sort of medical gown that looks like his Pre-Crisis mad scientist suit) meeting with Clawster of the Underworlders to give him bombs and weapons to use not just in Cadmus, but in all of Metropolis, because if he's dying from the Plague then he wants to take it with him. It’s fitting that just as he’s starting to look like the classic Lex, he suddenly has an excuse to behave like him too.

Patreon-Watch:

This appropriately swole post was made possible (and partly previewed) by Superman ‘86 to ‘99′s Pals, Aaron, Chris “Ace” Hendrix, britneyspearsatemyshorts, Patrick D. Ryall, Bheki Latha, Mark Syp, Ryan Bush, Raphael Fischer, Kit, Sam, and Bol. Join them here if you wish: https://www.patreon.com/superman86to99

And now, more from Don after the jump!

Art-Watch (by @donsparrow​):

We start with the cover, and it’s an interesting one.  A common complaint about Jon Bogdanove’s style is that the superheroic bodies have impossibly huge muscles, with tiny little pin heads. So it’s on some level a little “meta” that we see this hulking, veiny version of Superman from this artist with a rep for exaggerated physiques.  There was also something about the pose (and slatted office window) that reminded me of Jerry Ordway’s incredible cover to an early Adventures issue, though I think the similarities are unintentional.

Once we get into the issue, we are thrown into a shooting war between Cadmus and its own creations, and no one seems to draw the  misbegotten Underworlders with as much panache as Bogdanove.  There’s an interesting thatching sort of ink technique we see on Guardian in that first page, which had previously been used only on Steel, to indicate a metallic chrome finish.  But clearly, Janke enjoys this inking style, so we see it a little more often now.

Page 2 and 3 we’re treated to a large splash page, featuring our gargantuan Superman outside Lois’ terrace door.  Though this particular spread has a lack of comparative context for Superman’s size, apart from his swollen musculature, the pose indicates discomfort and monstrosity.  Bogdanove also excels at a very cute Lois in a Margot Tenenbaum-style nightdress. The next few pages, Superman’s bizarre physicality is even more flaring, as his limbs really do appear as though they’re inflated.

As we return to Guardian battling it out with the Underworlders, the “Thing”-like texture of Clawster’s face is well-drawn.  Then later, while Superman is himself at Cadmus, he cuts a very Conan-like figure (and in case anyone was wondering, it appears it isn’t just his limbs that have swollen—yipes!). [Max: It’s true, his neck does look pretty swollen too.] A page later, the shine on Parasite’s transparent cage is a nice touch.  A little later, as the energy transfer begins, we get some nice Kirby-crackles. 

I like Lois’ sophisticated driving look as she’s pulled over for yet more “The Net” style persecution by Luthor.  Speaking of, his twisted and sickly pose on the last page is a really good bit of gesture, as he’s looking even rougher than the last time we saw him.

STRAY OBSERVATIONS:

I must admit, even with how familiar I am with these stories, I find myself straining to remember just why Superman’s power level is surging like this.  I remember having a theory as a kid that the black and silver recovery suit from the Return of Superman storyline was to blame.  That it was designed to funnel as much solar energy as possible in order to restore its wearer to full strength, and it kept doing so despite Supergirl’s molecular reassembly of the suit?  Am I close?  Why is this happening? [Max: I kinda like the explanation from last issue blaming that big blast of Eradicator-filtered kryptonite at the end of ‘Reign,’ mainly because it’s such a cool moment and I like that it had consequences.]

Perry White is awfully chill about such an insane headline adorning his beloved newspaper.  I might have thought he’d be the one “apoplectic” rather than the publisher.  It does feel a little bit unlikely that the paper could get so widely printed and distributed with no one along the line raising an eyebrow at the intentionally goofy headline.

I feel like the state trooper’s assertion that Lois had been “driven to drink by people’s reactions to the article (she) wrote about Mr. Luthor” is a reach.  And a mouthful.

It’s helpful that we are reminded that Lois has an inside informant about Luthor, which will come to matter in the issues ahead. [Max: I think this might be the first mention of Lois’ current informant, which makes sense since she knows her previous one got thrown off a bridge by superpowered hitmen, so she has to be careful about this stuff.]

[tessatechaitea]

Grendel: Devil’s Odyssey #1

Is this like Jason X: 2001?

Is this where I'd pop a big boner if I were a Grendel fanboy?

The flying head declared she likes to be referred to by female pronouns. I bet that pissed off a lot of comic book nerd boys. "Not you too, Grendel!" But then the head also wants to be known as "Siggy" and Grendel insists on calling it "Drone" or "Seven." So that probably sated the nerd boy rage around the issue. "Yeah, Grendel! Rebel against politeness, you bad ass motherfucker! Stick it to people by being purposefully rude!" Was this part of Grendel's appeal? He (or she?) was an anti-hero? I bet Grendel was really just a knock-off Batman! Grendel experiences a flashback so the reader can understand what's going on. Earth has been ravaged by war and the Grendel-Khan line is on its last legs. Grendel has been tasked with carrying the DNA of the original Grendel-Khan, his two sisters, and his two wives into space to find a new planet to call home. A planet where he can clone the humans and begin again, peacefully. Although I already see a flaw in the "peacefully" department. One man and four women, two of whom are the man's sisters? That's not enough dick to go around! Back to the new planet Grendel has landed on, Grendel discovers signs of intelligent and probably aggressive life. He's not supposed to attack any other species they find but he can defend himself. So he promptly strides right past their totem warnings swinging his great big two-pronged dick. "Just out for a stroll! Not being aggressive at all!" he probably would say if I were writing the dialogue.

Whew! I'm glad Grendel was attacked. I thought this book was going to be a big uneventful dud.

After Grendel slays the gigantic bug, an alien creature comes to greet him. Thanks to Siggy's translation ability, Grendel understands the alien when it asks if he's a God. Grendel doesn't answer at the end of this issue but if he's seen Ghostbusters, he knows what he's supposed to answer. Grendel: Devil's Odyssey #1 Rating: If Matt Wagner was Cullen Bunn and Matt Wagner had been hired by DC to write Aquaman, he would probably have just used this story and replaced Grendel with Aquaman. If you read Bunn's Aquaman, you know what I'm talking about. Also, I don't rate comic books anymore. Maybe I should change "Rating" to "Synopsis" or "Final Thoughts" next time!