SUPERMAN #1

“HEART OF STONE”
Story & Pencils: John Byrne | Guest Inker: Terry Austin
Letterer: John Costanza | Colorist: Tom Ziuko | Editor: Andrew Helfer

The Plot: Superman has tracked his missing rocket ship to an isolated lab occupied by only a corpse and a great deal of data on the Man of Steel. He removes the lab from Earth, storing it at the Lagrange Point in space for later study, then returns to Metropolis to change into Clark Kent for a jog with Lois Lane. But their run is interrupted by the villainous Metallo, robbing a bank to get Superman’s attention. Metallo introduces Superman to Kryptonite, but before he can finish off his enemy, he’s grabbed from above by a large black shape, leaving a confused Superman behind.

Sub-Plots & Continuity Notes: Superman notes that he’s been searching for the rocket since he discovered it missing three months earlier, meaning that much time has passed since THE MAN OF STEEL concluded.

Our hero also says that his search for the rocket has been interrupted by “various and sundry super-villains,” though none are named explicitly. While this doesn’t outright contradict anything in THE MAN OF STEEL, it does make the reader feel as if they missed something, since up to now the only super-powered creature we’ve seen our hero up against was Bizarro.

As he explores the lab, Superman also reflects on his alien heritage and notes that aliens are nothing new on Earth, citing Hawkman and Green Lantern’s power ring both as being of extraterrestrial origin. Again, while not going against THE MAN OF STEEL, this doesn’t fit the feel of that prior series’ narrative, which really seemed to imply that Batman was the only other hero Superman had met up to this point.

SUPERMAN #1 features Metallo’s post-CRISIS debut. The crippled survivor of an auto accident, he was rebuilt as a cyborg by a paranoid scientist who had been studying Superman for years and had discovered Kryptonite (and, as it turns out, the lab Superman investigates as the issue opens is where Metallo was created; the corpse he finds is that of the scientist who rebuilt him). This plotline was teased three times in THE MAN OF STEEL, first when a mysterious figure watched Jonathan Kent reveal the spaceship to Clark in issue 1, then when Superman was photographed outside Metropolis General Hospital in issue 4, and finally when the rocket went missing in issue 6.

(By the way, I’m gratified to have those clues explained after all these years! As noted previously, I’ve owned the trade paperback of THE MAN OF STEEL since I was about ten or so, and I’ve always wondered what those little bits were about.)

During their fight, Metallo blabs about Superman’s alien origins, his words picked up by local TV reporters. The broadcast also reveals the existence of Kryptonite to the world, prompting Lex Luthor to (presumably) kidnap Metallo.

My Thoughts: Okay, let’s quickly stop to wonder why SUPERMAN #1, the first ongoing issue in the retooled Man of Steel’s saga, has a “Guest Inker”. Not that I object to seeing Terry Austin ink John Byrne; far from it! The art in this issue is lovely. And from a publicity perspective, reuniting Byrne & Austin for this big launch probably makes sense. But still, you’d think DC would’ve wanted the full, permanent creative team in place for the series' first issue!

(The actual reason is that SUPERMAN’s real inker, Karl Kesel, is currently inking Byrne on the LEGENDS mini-series -- which we'll examine in a few weeks -- and will eventually jump over to SUPERMAN when it concludes — but still! Austin “guest” inks the first three issues of the series!)

With that nit out of the way, I really like SUPERMAN #1 overall. Byrne was brought over to DC to reinvigorate the Man of Steel, and it naturally follows that, having worked at Marvel for a decade by this point, he would bring some Marvel sensibilities along for the ride. I must confess that I know little of what Superman was like prior to this reboot, but something about Byrne’s approach just feels more “Marvel” to me than most of the pre-CRISIS DC stuff I actually have read, even including the pretty clearly Marvel-influenced NEW TEEN TITANS.

Though I should note that some of the sub-plotting comes off a bit odd in that we're five years into Superman's career and Clark has worked at the Daily Planet for pretty much that entire time. He's just now trying to get Lois to notice him, though -- which I suppose I can buy; it's possible for a person to pine for somebody for years before acting, though Byrne's self-assured Clark Kent feels less likely to be one of those people -- but more than that, Lois will barely give Clark the time of day, even still calling him "Kent" after all this time... because he beat her to the Planet's first exclusive story on Superman five years ago. That's a heck of a long time to carry a grudge and not warm up to somebody in the slightest. It almost reads as if... hmmm. as if Byrne had wanted to tell Superman's story from the beginning but was told he couldn't, so he put some of the sub-plots that should have belonged to Clark's early years on ice for half a decade of comic time before starting them back up at a point where, realistically, they probably should've been long since resolved!

In other news, this issue features the debut of Byrne’s theory that Superman possesses some sort of unconscious telekinetic power, explaining why he’s able to lift things that should crumble apart due to their own mass—basically he holds them together through force of will as he carries them:

Now, I get that at Marvel, this was the sort of thing editors like Jim Shooter and Mark Gruenwald felt had to be explained in order to maintain some semblance of “realism” (or at least verisimilitude) in the universe, but I find it hard to believe anyone was clamoring for a reason for this stuff, aside from Byrne. As a child, I didn’t care. As an adult, I still don’t care. Indeed, until I read people complaining about Byrne’s revision here some years back, it never occurred to me that this was an issue! I was probably in my twenties when angry comics fans on message boards made me realize that no, you can’t just pick up a building or a luxury liner or whatever else from underneath and have it not fall apart. I mean, obviously if I gave the subject any thought, common sense would have told me it wasn't possible, but the entire concept was just not anything I gave a whit of consideration to, and I find it odd that it’s something Byrne cares about.

Lastly, a quick comment on Metallo: what is he wearing?! He shows up in Metropolis in a pair of tight pants with a metal belt and boots, and some sort of weird vest/cape thing. I Googled the character and I can’t find that ever looked like this in the Silver Age, so apparently this is a pure Byrne design — and it. Is. Weird. Though, bizarre costume aside, this is totally the Metallo I know from SUPERMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES, so that, at least, is pretty cool.

Next Week: Hey, we only covered one issue this week! But we'll make up for it next time, though, with the Teen Titans and Lex Luthor in ACTION COMICS #584 and SUPERMAN #2.