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superman86to99 · 7 years

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Superman: The Man of Steel #23 (July 1993)

REIGN OF THE SUPERMEN! In this issue: Steel vs. Superboy! I mean, "Superman” vs. “Superman”. The Man of Steel is battling some hoodlums armed with hi-tech killer weapons when the Metropolis Kid decides to butt in and "save him" in front of the cameras that follow him 24/7. (Side note: Was Superboy the first '90s reality TV star?) The Kid draws all the firepower to himself... accidentally causing the bad guys to shoot down a Daily Planet helicopter containing Lois Lane. The chopper blows up, signaling the death of a classic and beloved DC Comics character: Frank the helicopter pilot. RIP.

Lois, meanwhile, manages to jump out of the exploding chopper in time (probably out of pure muscle memory) and is rescued by Steel in a rather familiar-looking scene.

Lois tries to turn the tragic situation into an exclusive interview with Steel, but Steel has something more important to do: chewing Superboy's butt for scaring off those criminals he was trying to interrogate (and, you know, causing a man's death). The Kid is like "I'm da real Superman, yo!" and bails... but as he flies away, he actually starts questioning his half-assed approach to superheroics. I'm sure Frank's wife and 12 children would find great comfort in that.

Meanwhile, Steel is approached by Lex Luthor Jr., who wants to offer him a job as one of his armored security guards (because having one S-shielded superhero in his pocket isn't enough for him). To butter Steel up, Lex offers him the location of the White Rabbit -- aka, the lady distributing all those highly advanced weapons to street gangs. Steel thanks Lex for the tip and immediately ditches him, making it clear that his services aren’t for sale.

Steel drops by the White Rabbit’s penthouse, and she turns out to be an old flame from his time as a weapons designer for the military. Things almost get steamy for a second in there, until Steel remembers that this lady has made him indirectly responsible for countless deaths (all those weapons are his design). Once she takes the hint that Steel won’t work for her (either), White Rabbit just shoots him point blank with one of those big-ass guns, launching him off the building and into a convenient tanker parked outside.

Superboy (who was following Steel to apologize for being a dick) flies in just in time to pull Steel’s body from the resulting tanker explosion:

By the time Superboy and Steel return to White Rabbit’s penthouse, the place is already empty. The two Supermen then bond over that whole “we’ve both caused innocent people to die today” thing and part amicably. Awww!

Plotline-Watch:

Ponytailed scumbag Jeb Friedman, having given Lois Lane WEEKS to recover from her fiance’s supposed death, urges her to “forget Clark” and go to Cairo with him. Don Sparrow says: “I hesitate to even mention that the hated Jeb Friedman appears here, and even Jimmy doesn’t want Lois rebounding with him. Serious question, though: are we supposed to hate Jeb? Or is it just happenstance?” If we weren’t supposed to hate Jeb, would they have given him a ponytail, Don?

After meeting Steel, Lois reflects on the fact that the other Supermen may look like Clark, but Steel is the only one who acts like him. Obviously she doesn’t think Clark’s already been reincarnated as an adult black man, but she does seriously wonder if ghostly possession is a real thing.

I love how efficiently Steel’s backstory is presented in this issue. As he and White Rabbit are about to lock lips, we see a handful of black-and-white panels showing the two working together for the military, hooking up, finding out his weapons were being used against innocents in Qurac, and then a flashback-within-the-flashback of Steel’s grandparents having just become victims of gang violence. It’s only half a page but it tells you everything you need to know about this dude and his motivation.

Superboy burns his hands while rescuing Steel, even though a clone of Superman should be equally invulnerable. Hmm. Hmmmm. Hmmmmmm.

The issue ends with Supergirl telling Lex she’s going off to look for Superboy, which leads to the next issue of Adventures.

And this leads to the end of my section! For more commentary, Easter eggs, and gratuitous images of White Rabbit, check out Don Sparrow’s section after the jump:

Art-Watch (by @donsparrow):

Maybe it’s just me, but I feel like none of the other four Superman titles seems as swayed by the importance of the storyline as SMOS. What do I mean? I mean that when it’s a big storyline, like Panic in the Sky, or Doomsday, the art on the title really seems to rise to the occasion, and there’s some standout stuff being produced. But in the meantime, when a story doesn’t feel as important, the quality seems to dip a little. To me, this is one of those issues. We begin with the cover, and it’s not one of Bogdanove’s best. Sure, his artwork could be called cartoony at the best of times, but this one really took on a loose, loony tunes sketchiness, particularly in Superboy’s “ain’t I a stinker?” expression and giant wall of teeth. He looks less like a 16 year old than he resembles Rex Leech, a character we’ll come to know better in time.

Inside, the story gets off to a slow start, as we’re abruptly thrown into a video of wannabe gangsters, moving in on where they think they’ll find John Henry Irons. The double page splash revealing his location is an exciting one, and Dennis Janke does some interesting things with his hatching to indicate the shine of the metal, leaving certain areas unhatched to show a glimmer.

Bog’s depictions of The White Rabbit continue to push the envelope for how much skin a comic code approved book can show, both on page 7, and then later in the book. [Max: This next sequence of panels burned itself into my young mind. Because of the cool panel layout, I mean.]

[December 2018 edit: White Rabbit’s body has been covered with Mike Carlin’s face so that Tumblr doesn’t delete this post. Sorry.]

Page 8 brings us a long sought after in-comics cameo. If you’ll recall, back on one of my first reviews on this site, I interviewed the great Tom Grummett and asked him if there were any Easter Eggs that we should look out for while we were reading. He answered that "My personal favorite moment was when Jon Bogdanove drew me in a scene with Jimmy Olsen in one issue of Man of Steel. I’m the one with the moose on his shirt. Happy hunting.” Well, we need hunt no more, as a certain fellow pops up, arguing with Jimmy Olsen, and what’s that on his shirt? A moose?! Found you! [Max: Are we the first on the internet to point out this cameo? I don’t have time to look it up, so let’s go with “Yes”.]

I also love the little gag in the lettering, where the first part of “Saskatchewan” (Tom’s home province) is shown as “Saskatch” and then below that Bog has written “W-1”, phonetically completing the phrase. It’s also a very Neal Adams-y couple of panels when Jimmy and Tom start to get heated debating who the real Superman is. [Max: I wonder if the Neal Adams-esque panels above are homaging a specific Adams comic, or just his “intense argument” poses in general...] Then a page later, there’s an unmistakable rendering of another Super-Teamster, none other than group editor Mike Carlin, scanning the police radio for scoops.

As the story progresses, there’s a great shot of the Metropolis Kid (who they refer to as Superboy on this page, without a rebuttal from the Kid) showboating and holding one hand behind his back. But, on the page that follows, a pretty heavy end for Daily Planet chopper pilot “Frank”, made all the more sickening by the lack of concern from the Kid leading up to this point.

Some great visual callback on page 12, as the mob scene when the Man of Steel rescues Lois Lane recalls the meet-cute at the shuttle disaster wayyyy back in MOS #1.

The scene were John Henry confronts the Kid about his carelessness is well-done, even if it gives way to another mention of the preposterous ‘spirit-walk-in’ idea, which even these characters seem to find tenuous.

The flashback with White Rabbit does a good job of filling in the gaps of John Henry’s history (interesting how similar Irons’ motivation is to that of Tony Stark’s, at least in the movies) but it’s an odd scene—not just because of the aforementioned vamping from White Rabbit, but also Irons’ inaction in the scene—he went there to capture her, but mostly just stands around and then lets her stroll back over to the bed, where a weapon is clearly visible from where he’s standing. [Max: Can’t imagine what else he could be looking at.]

As The Metropolis Kid rescues The Man of Steel, we get more looney tunes-style comedy, when the Kid comedically blows on his burning hands, trying to cool them. They seem to be working hard to establish how different his powers are from Kal-El’s, though they eventually go back on almost all of this stuff.

Moving on, we get a really nice look at Lois at a rainy window, once again musing on how the Man of Steel, while physically the most removed from Kal-El, seems to embody his “soul” more than the rest.

STRAY OBSERVATIONS:

Is the cameraman gangster supposed to be a riff on Spike Lee? The glasses seem pretty similar to ones Spike wore at the time.

How is it that we never noticed such a giant, futuristic tower on the Metropolis skyline before?

Jimmy Olsen wearing a Spin Doctors t-shirt is a little too meta for my head, since one of their biggest hits was “Jimmy Olsen’s Blues”. What does the DC Universe Jimmy think when he hears a song about himself, lusting after Lois Lane? They were also one of my favourite bands when this issue came out, so my mind was doubly blown.

What is it with Lex hanging onto VHS tapes? Thank God he never got his hands on that one of Big Barda! [Max: Dammit, I’d JUST managed to erase that from my mind, Don.]

#superman #louise simonson #jon bogdanove #dennis janke #steel #superboy #sydney happersen #white rabbit #ron troupe #tom grummett #mike carlin #jeb friedman #spin doctors #supergirl #possibly spike lee #rip frank chopperson #reign of the supermen

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ascensionstories-blog · 7 years

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Menace #37: Sunny Days

It was an almost unbelievably beautiful day. The sun shone high over New Monmouth City, and a comfortable breeze ran by as kids played in the town square, and people socialized up and down Main Street. Couples crowded the outdoor courtyards of restaurants to watch the busy city streets as they ate, conversing with a passerby whenever the situation arose. It felt, to most, like a day before the villains had shown, when New Monmouth City was pristine and safe. The city had a hectic air, but with a soothing undertone; it was just warm enough for the day to fade into a memory of another lazy-dog day.

Nate noticed this as he walked with Courtney towards City Hall. They were stopped — more than once — by old women speaking about how nice they looked, or couples reaching out for polite conversation. They were heroes, after all, and secret identities were a thing of the past for most, so they were almost like celebrities, in a way. The popularity was often Nate’s least favorite part of the job, but Courtney seemed to be eating it up, and he, unable to control himself, got swept up in her excitement at being recognized. The air got warmer as people stopped them on the street and, for the first time, Nate couldn’t tell whether it was Courtney or himself that was causing it. Even though he was already smiling, the thought made him smile. When they finally walked from the populated streets, she laughed loudly, a sound that seemed to come straight from her stomach.

He and she climbed the steps to City Hall, walking through the large wooden doorways beneath the cement frame, and entered into the third door on the left of the grand hallway, a wooden door with the black name card Jeremy Rhodes hanging on the front. He knocked twice before opening the door, then stepped inside, to see Mr. Rhodes at his desk, covered in papers, sitting across from a scholarly looking African American gentleman, who was wearing a brown-tweed jacket over a blue and white striped shirt. The gentleman looked to be in his early to mid thirties, Nate thought, but Nate was terrible at judging age. Courtney would have pegged the age at around forty, but she, for all she was, was no better at discerning age than Nate. Dr. Anstorm, the gentleman in question, was twenty-five, receiving a doctorate in fine arts at the age of twenty-three; he was considered one of the greatest minds of the generation.

“Oh, I’m so sorry Mr. Rhodes,” Nate apologized, “I’ll wait outside until you’re done.”

“Nonsense, we were just finishing up. Come in, come in,” Mr. Rhodes beckoned him in, filling the room with an uncomfortable air, as the room could only really hold four people, and the fifth entity it held, a monstrous amount of trash and paperwork, was a very imposing presence. “I was just speaking with Dr. Anstorm here about receiving his own Heroic license.”

“Oh?” Nate asked. “Congratulations, Doc. Welcome to the roster,” Nate said, awkwardly stretching out a hand (in the tiny space allotted) for the doctor to take.

“Thank you,” the doctor said, shaking Nate’s hand. “I look forward to working along-side you. I’ve heard a small bit about the Menace of New Monmouth City, you’ve made some headlines down in Amice. And you must be his side-kick?” He said, turning to the White Witch.

“Sure,” Courtney said with a half-fake grin as she pinched Nate on the side of his ribs, a little tradition she had implemented overtime someone referred to her as a side-kick. He made a small noise of pain, but kept on smiling at the man. “Glad to meet you. Have you decided on a hero name?”

“I was thinking of something like: Dreamscape,” Dr. Anstorm answered. “In any event, I really must be going; it was a pleasure meeting you.” The doctor stood, grabbing a briefcase that had rested at his feet, and hurried from the crowded room.

“Why don’t you have a cool hero name?” Courtney asked, turning to Nate.

“What, you don’t like Menace?” Nate replied. “It’s kind of dull, a little boring. Doesn’t really say anything about your powers.”

“Well, what would you prefer my name be? ‘Guy who is able to augment his strength and senses in increments after a set period of time?’”

“But now you could make it something awesome, like Firestarter or, or something like that,” Courtney argued.

“I think I’m going to stick with Menace, at least for a bit. At the very least it’s brand recognition, don’t you think?”

“A dumb brand,” Courtney muttered under her breath.

“Anyway!” Nate said, turning to Mr. Rhodes who had been watching with mild amusement. “I am here to give an update on my abilities.”

Nate walked alone down the winding road to the Chambers, a prison held underground used to contain villains who had proven, in some way or another, to be capable of super villainy, whether through magic, science, or other means. He heard his feet echo along the ground as he showed his identification to the front guard, allowing him to enter the first floor of the prison. There were a series of cells, mostly iron-bar, with despondent looking men and women recoiling from the walking hero. He walked slowly, examining every inmate, until he came upon what he was looking for, a face he recognized.

“Hi, Liam,” he said, sitting down outside the cell of the former Forge.

“Nate, I was beginning to think you’d forgotten about me,” he said, tritely, as his back remained against the back of his cell, sitting as far from the light as possible. “Don’t you think shoving me in here was a little extreme?”

“You killed a man,” Nate reminded him. “In front of his daughters.”

“It was retribution, his children attacked me.”

“They were little girls, Liam.”

“They laughed at me, Nate. They all did. I can’t hold a sword anymore. My superpower went from being able to create any weapon I needed, to being able to have two hands again. The bad ones, they take without remorse, why shouldn’t we?”

“Liam… no one was laughing.”

“Pity, then. Looking at me with pity.” “Do you know why I’m here now?”

“From the first portion of your visit, I can only assume it’s to lecture me. So continue, oh wise hero. Instruct me about the moral guidelines put in place by our betters. Dictate to me the ethics of myself having not been given a trial. Explain to me, in your infinite wisdom, why you’re allowed to beat me to the brink of death in the streets and escape with impunity, but I took it one step further and I’m here for life. Tell me, Nate, why the line is set where it is. Tell me, Nate, why some are allowed to cross the line — now and then — but I am not. Tell me, Nate, I’d like to know. Or don’t. It makes no difference to me; for the rest of my life I shall be what I am to you in this very moment. A fool in a cage, singing hymns to the deaf.”

“Well, I was going to come to lecture you, at first. But then I figured, what good would that do? Either way you’re still stuck in here. So I thought I’d bring you something, instead.” Nate reached into his pocket and tossed the former Forge a soda. “I wondered what you might be missing most from the outside, this was the first thing that came to mind.” The Forge began to laugh.

“Hero to the core, aren’t you?” He asked. “Where was this before, Nate? When I was practically screaming for help, and all you wanted to focus on was the little bitch-”

“Watch yourself,” Nate commanded, his eyes holding a powerful audacity.

“All you wanted to focus on was the little bitch and your missing sex-toy. Never mind a friend who lost his arm, his source of livelihood, his happiness. Why should you? Your twelve-year old might have stubbed her toe. Never mind an associate teetering on the brink of suicide. Why should you? It’s not like you can have sex with me if you save me. How heroic. How mind-numbingly, stupendously heroic. Go ahead, write them off as acts of love. Go ahead, do it. No one could blame you. But we both know what happens when you open your eyes and see the truth. It looks a lot like me.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way,” Nate told him. “I had another gift for you,” he grabbed from his pocket a small, metal sphere that he had taken from the Forge the night he had brought him in. “I’m sure you remember the Forge of Creation.” The metal sphere moved around in his hand, melding into a series of random shapes against his palm. “I thought you might enjoy that second hand back.” Liam looked at Nate, staring straight into his eyes. “I thought our talk might have gone differently. I’m sorry, Liam.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Who do you think the new guy is?” Beatrice Rivera asked her sister as they peeked over the roof of the New Monmouth candy shop. They had been staring down at the man who had emerged from City Hall, an African American man in a tweed jacket. He was walking almost carelessly, with a wide grin on his face.

“I don’t know,” Ruby replied. “Don’t you wanna get back to mom? She must be really worried.”

“She said we could stay out till 6 and it’s only 5:30, Rue,” she reminded her sister.

“Wait, who’s that?” Ruby asked as a man appeared — seemingly from nowhere — in front of the man who had emerged from City Hall. He had long hair and a small beard, with a small sports coat covering a black T-shirt and pants. The two men spoke for a short bit, the man in the tweed jacket apparently getting very angry, before the long haired man put a hand on his shoulder, and tweed-jacket-man began to scream.

“We gotta help him, Rue!” Beatrice shouted, then, in a blink, had vanished from the top of the roof onto the ground next to the man. “Get away from him!” She shouted to the long haired villain, who, looking disgruntled at the girl suddenly appearing, took a swing at her, landing a punch on the young girl’s face, and knocking her down, crying. Ruby flew down from the building to grab her away from the villain, but he had mysteriously disappeared. The tweed-jacket-man’s screaming was getting worse, and, as he screamed, waves seemed to pulse from his mind, shooting out into the sky and towards buildings, each one appeared to tear apart the air around it. Small rifts began to appear all around him, all with a strange image of purple waterfalls or flying lions or others. As one began to open over the girls, they felt a large gust of wind shuffle them away as a young girl, dressed entirely in white, landed across from the screaming man. Courtney ran to the man trying to talk to him, to soothe him, and as she did, a rift opened atop her. She was gone.

#menace #writers #writing #fiction #sci-fi #superheroes #superhero #read #reading #fantasy

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