NOTE

Monday, June 18, 2018

SUPERMAN #10

“THE SUPER MENACE OF METROPOLIS”
Story & Pencils: John Byrne | Inks: Karl Kesel
Coloring: Tom Ziuko | Lettering: John Costanza | Editing: Michael Carlin

The Plot: At the Daily Planet, Clark Kent’s X-Ray vision acts up, followed by his heat vision. He hurries out of the building and into the sky, where he’s attacked by a being calling itself Klaash. Superman battles Klaash, but his malfunctioning powers lay waste to Metropolis in the process.

Finally, when he realizes that Klaash isn’t visible to anyone other than him, Superman deduces that Lex Luthor has been using a satellite to make his powers act up. He disables the satellite and returns to Luthor, than brings Luthor to Maggie Sawyer for questioning—but when Luthor’s attorney reveals that the satellite and Klaash project were manufactured legally as part of a government contract, and when Luthor accepts partial responsibility for the incident and promises to repair all damages, Maggie has no choice but to let him go.

Sub-Plots & Continuity Notes: Clark recalls that his battle with Rampage was ten days ago, and wonders if all the excess energy he absorbed from her is the cause of his power fluctuations.

For those keeping track of time passage, recall that three days passed at the end of the Rampage issue, during which the “Pocket Universe Saga” took place. Which means that in the past seven days, Superman has (at least according to the story order presented in the MAN OF STEEL trade paperbacks) fought the Fearsome Five, teamed up with the Metal Men, battled Doctor Stratos, fought the Joker, been involved with Luthor's plot to turn troubled teens into a criminal army, and been captured by Sleez. But of course, a week passed during the Fearsome Five story, which presumably means all this other stuff took place in between the cracks of that story, even though none of it was mentioned (since it hadn't happened yet).


(Yes, as John Byrne noted with his glowing review of my blog a few weeks ago, not all stories take place in the order they were published. But unless something explicitly can't take place that way due to continuity issues, it's generally safe to assume that publication order does equal story order -- otherwise unbridled chronological chaos would rule the day!)

Byrne acknowledges Marv Wolfman’s sub-plots by having Cat drop by with her son, Adam — though since the custody battle was just beginning a couple issues back in ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN, I’m not sure she should legally be able to do that yet.

Also, Clark totally sees most of the Planet staff nekkid when his X-Ray vision malfunctions.


At one point, when Superman’s super-hearing goes out of control, he picks up “every sound on Earth”—and, according to a story I read some time ago on Comic Book Legends Revealed, John Byrne actually had random word balloons from a bunch of that month’s other DC comics pasted into the panel, which strikes me as a really creative idea.


We learn that Maggie Sawyer has an ex-husband named Jim and a nine year-old daughter named Jamie. Later, Maggie threatens Lex Luthor, leading Luthor to declare that he will “crush her.”


My Thoughts: So the plot about Superman’s powers acting up first appeared in issue 8 — just two issues back! But since reading that one, we’ve looked at three issues of ACTION COMICS, two issues of ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN, and one issue of WONDER WOMAN, not to mention SUPERMAN #9. And I obviously brought this partially on myself due to the way I’m reading these things, but nonetheless — with seven issues between the sub-plot’s debut and its resolution, it feels like it’s been going on forever!

And because of all that artificially manufactured build-up, the resolution is a bit of a let-down. It’s Luthor again! And he’s using a satellite that beams solar radiation all over the Earth and allows him to toggle Superman’s powers, whichever ones he chooses, on and off at will. This feels like something that should work on, like, Cyborg or Red Tornado or some other partially/fully mechanical being — but not a full-blooded Kryptonian like Superman.


However, this issue also brings with it what feels like the most advancement of sub-plots and such that we’ve seen in a very long time. We have development for Maggie Sawyer, both in her personal life and in her professional as she becomes the new target of Luthor’s vindictiveness, plus we get an admittedly not-quite-right check-in with Marv Wolfman’s Cat Grant storyline from ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN — and, as usual (though I’m not sure I’ve mentioned it lately or even at all), SUPERMAN sets the standard for artwork across the line, with the work of Byrne and Kesel looking as polished and exciting as can be.

Next Week: Wonder Woman battles the Cheetah in WONDER WOMAN #9.

8 comments:

  1. This is the last issue of the Byrne run that I got where I still felt the enthusiasm I got a year earlier imagining the possibility of a star like Byrne tackling DC's main character. I found the story fun, creative and satisfying. Over the next six months or so I kept buying, but was starting to drift away from mainstream books, finding DC's "Mature Readers" titles and indie publishers like Eclipse, First, and Dark Horse more compelling.

    But back to this issue. That naked Planet panel sure got my attention back in the day, especially Ms. Grant. I'd been becoming more and more of a fan of Byrne-females since some issues of his Alpha Flight run that kept checking in on an Aurora sub-plot where she wasn't wearing a stitch in 3 consecutive appearances. So yes, the Planet scene kept that appreciation going.

    Love the "eavesdropping" using actual quotes from other comics...I wasn't reading enough DC at the time to spot the references, but if that'd been done in the Marvel Universe circa 1985 or so, I probably would've not only recognized many voices, I may have picked up one or two books that month just to find the quotes.

    Overall, this was a Luthor plot to my liking, and a fun outing with a throw-away one-off robot villain to boot. (maybe it helped that reading it in real-time, the 2-issue subplot seemed sufficiently paid off here in proportion to the investment of time and attention).

    One last note on the nude scene (which is apparently still holding my attention): in light of some of the grittiness of this series with violence and "adult" plot developments, it's nice that the Planet fiasco reaffirms some traditional superhero values on Clark's part. His shock and embarrassment at the x-ray malfunction shows that in his time at the Planet he's never succumbed to the temptation to peek at any co-workers up to this point. Now THAT'S a Superman!

    -david p.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Don't get me wrong; I do think this is a fun story as well. I just find the idea of Luthor toggling Superman's various powers on and off to be a little odd. If he was just sort of turning on or off everything at once, it would make more sense to me. But in any case, I like the fight and I always enjoy Superman using his head to figure things out.

      And I agree; Clark is such a noble/pure guy that he'd never use his X-ray vision that way. It's that morality, probably even more than his powers, that makes him such a great superhero.

      Delete
  2. This has been a really good issue I've read. Great artwork from John Byrne with Karl Kesel.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Maybe it's just the way I'm wired, but if I was doing this story I wouldn't have gone for the obvious "x-ray vision malfunctions, Clark sees naked people" gag, but instead I'd actually use it as x-ray vision and suddenly Clark is surrounded by skeletons. I mean, that was an awful selective usage of his power there-and if it was really x-ray vision, then shouldn't the outlines of their clothes still be visible?

    It's almost as if someone who wrote a story correcting a notion about how x-ray vision works doesn't care how it works when his story needs it.

    John Byrne: being John Byrne since the 70s.

    And the glaring flaw in this story: if Luthor understands Superman's powers well enough that he can turn them up to max on demand...he could easily kill him.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Actually, the skeleton thing does happen on the story's first page. It's a pretty funny splash panel as Clark gets on an elevator at the Planet to be greeted by three skeletons speaking to him with the voices of Lois, Jimmy, and Perry. I suppose Luthor is able to fine-tune the power, just as Superman can do, to see things and varying levels.

      I agree, now that you mention it -- if Luthor has total and complete control over Superman's powers, he could probably do a lot more than just screw around with him. I wonder if he can't turn off anything Clark couldn't himself, though -- i.e., Superman can't choose to not be invulnerable at will; so it seems likely Luthor couldn't do that either.

      I was going to make a comment about how Luthor could also have probably found a way to use this gizmo to "unmask" Superman, such as turn his flight on suddenly, sending him abruptly soaring into the sky from wherever he happened to be standing in his civilian clothes, but then I remembered that Byrne's Luthor (and, indeed, the general civilian populace) has no reason to believe Superman has a secret identity in the first place.

      (That's an idea I really like, by the way -- no one should be making the connection between Clark and Superman if everyone assumes he's Superman 24/7. It's a really simple and plausible explanation.)

      Delete
    2. That's what I get for commenting on a story that at best I read second hand from one friend who kept reading the Byrne run after the rest of us stopped!

      Delete
  4. "Yes, as John Byrne noted with his glowing review of my blog a few weeks ago"

    Wait, what? What was that about?

    ReplyDelete