FIRST ALL-NEW ISSUE!
I must confess: I didn't read these issues when they first came out. But I had already read them decades ago, long before I ever imagined the possibility of reading every post-Crisis Superman comic book. I think my experience with these issues was best described by a Batman line in The Kingdom: Planet Krypton one-shot (1999), "nostalgia that hasn't been experienced."
In the 80's DC had already experimented a few times with re-launching their most popular series with a new first issue. They had previously re-launched the New Teen Titans and the Legion of Super-heroes. Interestingly, both times they had decided to keep the original series ongoing and just changed the name (Tales of the New Teen Titans and Tales of the Legion of Super-heroes). Similarly, John Byrne was given a new Superman #1, but the original series continued on under the name Adventures of Superman. Action Comics continued as is.
The cover of Superman #1 doesn't look like the kind of first issue that modern readers are accustomed to. These days it's uncommon for any comic book cover to depict something that actually happens inside, let alone in a first issue. For several years, this would be the only series of the three that would retain the traditional Superman logo.
John Byrne opens the series by continuing a plot thread from the last issue of Man of Steel. Superman is still searching for his Kryptonian rocket that was stolen from his parents' farm. He finds a secret lab and a dead scientist, but no answers. After securing the crime scene, Superman tries to stop a bank robbery but is surprised by a new element that hadn't yet been seen in the post-Crisis era: Kryptonite! The villain reveals himself to be Metallo, a man injured in an accident and transformed by the recently deceased scientist into a cyborg powered by a radioactive fragment of Superman's home planet. Lex Luthor watches on TV as Superman is easily defeated by Metallo and vows that nobody but himself will have the satisfaction of killing the Man of Steel. Right before his triumph, Metallo is mysteriously abducted, but Superman has a guess as to who the culprit may have been.
Since this was a hard reboot, all of Superman's classic villains would have to be re-introduced in the coming years In my opinion, post-Crisis Metallo was an improvement over the previous model. His skeletal appearance was reminiscent of the re-design of Braniac that had appeared a few times before Crisis (As we'll see, Braniac's post-Crisis design would unfortunately not be so great, and that character wouldn't be cool again for many years). His robotic powers also made the new Metallo a more formidable enemy than just being a guy with a kryptonite heart.
This was one of the first back issues of Superman that I ever bought back in the 90's. I read it in isolation, outside of the context of Man of Steel or any of its companion series.
The "Premiere Issue" of newly re-named Adventures of Superman looks more like a first issue than any of the others. It features an eye-catching painted cover and shows Superman in a traditional pose with a bald eagle, a timeless image that could have printed at any time in Superman's history. That and the warped title font reminded me more of the Golden Age than the start of a new modern era.
Crisis on Infinite Earths writer Marv Wolfman kicks off the series with Lois Lane's family visiting her mother in the hospital after a mysterious accident at a chemical plant nearly killed her. We find out by the end of the issue that Lex Luthor intentionally caused the accident and could have developed a single-use serum but chose instead to make Lois humbly accept his help every month to save her mother. Clark Kent meets two new characters who would become definitive post-Crisis supporting cast members, gossip columnist Cat Grant and the inventor Professor Emil Hamilton. Superman fights terrorists from the fictional middle eastern country of Qurac who are attacking the city in high-tech vehicles that join to form a single robotic unit at the end of the issue.
The cover advertises "First All-New Issue", despite no change to the series name or numbering like the others. John Byrne writes and also illustrates this series, which replaces the cancelled DC Comics Presents as Superman's team-up book.
Superman seems to have gone mad as he suddenly starts destroying the city, apparently drunk with power. The Teen Titans try to stop him and find out that Superman has switched bodies with an amateur scientist in crutches. After they switch them back, the scientist laments the unfairness of being trapped in his crippled body and Superman gives him a wordy lecture about Helen Keller and FDR overcoming adversity. On the last page, we see Lex Luthor reading all about it in the Daily Planet, where he observes that Clark Kent seems to scoop Lois Lane on all the Superman stories and ponders what the connection could be.
This last story really doesn't add anything to the development of the post-Crisis era. It didn't introduce anything new or re-introduce anything familiar. In fact, it could have been published as a pre-Crisis story and you would never know the difference.
Each premiere issue included a postcard stapled inside the book that could mailed in for a chance to win a limited edition Man of Steel one-volume collection. In today's trade paperback market, it seems quaint that a collected edition would have been limited to just 1,000 copies as an incentive to buy more single issues (presumably people would buy a 2nd copy of the book as it would be less valuable without the postcard). It was a new innovation that would be used to greater effect by Valiant comics in the 90's, but today it's a marketing gimmick of a bygone era (although Valiant resurrected the gimmick this year for Harbinger Wars 2 #0, purely out of nostalgia).
In the 80's DC had already experimented a few times with re-launching their most popular series with a new first issue. They had previously re-launched the New Teen Titans and the Legion of Super-heroes. Interestingly, both times they had decided to keep the original series ongoing and just changed the name (Tales of the New Teen Titans and Tales of the Legion of Super-heroes). Similarly, John Byrne was given a new Superman #1, but the original series continued on under the name Adventures of Superman. Action Comics continued as is.
Superman #1
John Byrne opens the series by continuing a plot thread from the last issue of Man of Steel. Superman is still searching for his Kryptonian rocket that was stolen from his parents' farm. He finds a secret lab and a dead scientist, but no answers. After securing the crime scene, Superman tries to stop a bank robbery but is surprised by a new element that hadn't yet been seen in the post-Crisis era: Kryptonite! The villain reveals himself to be Metallo, a man injured in an accident and transformed by the recently deceased scientist into a cyborg powered by a radioactive fragment of Superman's home planet. Lex Luthor watches on TV as Superman is easily defeated by Metallo and vows that nobody but himself will have the satisfaction of killing the Man of Steel. Right before his triumph, Metallo is mysteriously abducted, but Superman has a guess as to who the culprit may have been.
Since this was a hard reboot, all of Superman's classic villains would have to be re-introduced in the coming years In my opinion, post-Crisis Metallo was an improvement over the previous model. His skeletal appearance was reminiscent of the re-design of Braniac that had appeared a few times before Crisis (As we'll see, Braniac's post-Crisis design would unfortunately not be so great, and that character wouldn't be cool again for many years). His robotic powers also made the new Metallo a more formidable enemy than just being a guy with a kryptonite heart.
Adventures of Superman #424
The "Premiere Issue" of newly re-named Adventures of Superman looks more like a first issue than any of the others. It features an eye-catching painted cover and shows Superman in a traditional pose with a bald eagle, a timeless image that could have printed at any time in Superman's history. That and the warped title font reminded me more of the Golden Age than the start of a new modern era.
Crisis on Infinite Earths writer Marv Wolfman kicks off the series with Lois Lane's family visiting her mother in the hospital after a mysterious accident at a chemical plant nearly killed her. We find out by the end of the issue that Lex Luthor intentionally caused the accident and could have developed a single-use serum but chose instead to make Lois humbly accept his help every month to save her mother. Clark Kent meets two new characters who would become definitive post-Crisis supporting cast members, gossip columnist Cat Grant and the inventor Professor Emil Hamilton. Superman fights terrorists from the fictional middle eastern country of Qurac who are attacking the city in high-tech vehicles that join to form a single robotic unit at the end of the issue.
Action Comics #584
Superman seems to have gone mad as he suddenly starts destroying the city, apparently drunk with power. The Teen Titans try to stop him and find out that Superman has switched bodies with an amateur scientist in crutches. After they switch them back, the scientist laments the unfairness of being trapped in his crippled body and Superman gives him a wordy lecture about Helen Keller and FDR overcoming adversity. On the last page, we see Lex Luthor reading all about it in the Daily Planet, where he observes that Clark Kent seems to scoop Lois Lane on all the Superman stories and ponders what the connection could be.
This last story really doesn't add anything to the development of the post-Crisis era. It didn't introduce anything new or re-introduce anything familiar. In fact, it could have been published as a pre-Crisis story and you would never know the difference.
Each premiere issue included a postcard stapled inside the book that could mailed in for a chance to win a limited edition Man of Steel one-volume collection. In today's trade paperback market, it seems quaint that a collected edition would have been limited to just 1,000 copies as an incentive to buy more single issues (presumably people would buy a 2nd copy of the book as it would be less valuable without the postcard). It was a new innovation that would be used to greater effect by Valiant comics in the 90's, but today it's a marketing gimmick of a bygone era (although Valiant resurrected the gimmick this year for Harbinger Wars 2 #0, purely out of nostalgia).
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