ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN #439 & ACTION COMICS #599

“TIN SOLDIERS”
Writer/Co-Plotters/Penciler: John Byrne & Jerry Ordway | Inker: John Beatty
Letterer: Albert de Guzman | Colorist: Tony Tollin | Editor: Mike Carlin

The Plot: Jimmy’s car breaks down as he is driving Cat and her son, Adam, to New York. They see something which prompts Jimmy to use his signal watch. Later, Superman falls from the sky and lands underground. Perry White receives a call and heads to the hospital, where he meets Inspector Henderson and Lois. The trio meets with Superman, who reveals that he’s been turned into a robot.

Meanwhile, Clark arrives at the Daily Planet and learns “Superman” is at the hospital. He heads over there as well, and soon departs with Lois and the Man of Steel to find Jimmy and the others. The group reaches a paramilitary complex, where their friends are being interrogated by the head of a private militia. “Superman” is destroyed as he fights against the troops, who ultimately surrender when their commander is killed in an explosion.

Later, Superman reveals to Lois and the local sheriff that the robot was his, created to respond to Jimmy’s signal whenever he might be out of range. But thanks to its malfunction, the Man of Steel realizes that there can be only one of him.

Sub-Plots & Continuity Notes: Jimmy is driving Cat and Adam to New York while Cat’s car is in the shop.

Morgan Edge appears on television again, editorializing against Superman, much to Perry’s irritation. On the same page, when we first catch up with Lois, she’s visiting Jose Delgado at the hospital.

Clark receives a letter from Professor Emil Hamilton, who he describes as a “fairly harmless” mad scientist with whom he’s kept up a correspondence at Superman’s request. This seems to fly pretty blatantly in the face of Hamilton’s debut story, where he threatened to kill a hooker if Superman couldn’t pass his “gauntlet”. Also, when last we saw the professor, he was in prison — no word here on whether he’s writing Clark from the pen.

Superman cryptically says that the robot “got built,” but offers no more than this in his explanation.

My Thoughts: This is kind of a weird one. I suppose it’s Byrne and Ordway giving their opinion/justification for why Post-CRISIS Superman will not have robot duplicates of himself like the Pre-CRISIS version. Byrne keeping the robot’s origin a mystery feels odd here, though — I’m all in favor of simmering background mysteries in comics, but this one feels sort of unnecessary. I don’t need Superman to keep a secret from me, the reader. That’s something supporting cast members and villains do, but the series’ protagonist should, in my opinion, generally have most or all their cards on the table for the audience.

And I should clarify, I’m not speaking in terms of mysterious backgrounds and stuff like that. I love that for most of his existence, Wolverine’s past was unknown to the fans, with bits dripped out here and there (until the nineties went way overboard with the idea). But Superman keeping the origin of his robot a secret from both Lois and the readers just isn’t tantalizing enough to be worth anyone’s time.

Now, if Byrne goes ahead and reveals the robot’s origin within the next issue or two, I’ll mention it and I won’t think of it as such a big deal. But right now, assuming it’s the start of something meant to last a while, I don’t love it.

(Yeah, this is an odd bit to fixate on in this issue, but I really don’t have anything else to say about it -- other than that the Ordway/Beatty team is really picking up steam at this point, turning in a really nice-looking issue!)

“ELEMENT 126”
Story & Figure Inks: John Byrne | Background Inks: Keith Williams
Coloring: Petra Scotese | Lettering: John Costanza | Editor: Michael Carlin
Special Guest Penciler: Ross Andru

The Plot: The Metal men break into a mysterious complex, where they find that Doctor Tinker, who they hired to repair their fallen comrade Tin, has rebuilt him into a large green robot. Lex Luthor then shows up and destroys the Metal Men.

Soon after, Superman is lured into a LexCorp building, where the green robot, which Luthor has dubbed the Kryptonoid, attacks him. But, as Luthor explains that the robot was created from the Metal Men, Superman realizes that while the radiation it gives off feels like Kryptonite radiation, it actually isn’t — and Superman can overcome the radiation if he tries. Superman defeats the Kryptonoid while Luthor escapes, and Doctor Tinker dies thanks to Luthor’s control over his pacemaker.

Sub-Plots & Continuity Notes: The Metal Men’s creator, Will Magnus, is still behaving strangely and even threatens to melt them down in the story’s final pages, until Superman convinces him not to. The reason for Magnus’s attitude remans unrevealed.

My Thoughts: I still like the Metal Men, and it’s cool to see their co-creator, Ross Andru, draw them here (even if the reproduction in the MAN OF STEEL trade paperback collection is pretty ugly), but this issue also marks a return to fairly inconsequential filler for ACTION COMICS. Another team-up, another one-off plot by Luthor (falling into his pre-CRISIS “mad scientist” role more overtly than ever before in this continuity), and that’s it.

Plus, Will Magnus is still acting mysterious with no explanation. I again assume this was a plot meant to be followed up in a METAL MEN series or mini-series or something, and Byrne is just stringing it along until that story comes to be, but I somehow feel like I’m missing a piece of the puzzle. Did readers of the time know where this was intended to be tied up? I.e., had there been some announcement? Or is this just Byrne playing with the characters in hopes he can wrap up the story himself (perhaps in another future issue of ACTION COMICS)?

Sometimes reading stuff thirty years after the fact, without the benefit of letter pages and the fan press of the era (and especially with an inherent unfamiliarity with the characters and much of the universe), can be a little confounding!

Next Week: Let's check in on Wonder Woman again in issue 14 and 15 of her series!