Dead Again! Again.
Who's buried in Superman's tomb? The mystery of the Superman corpse found in his tomb continues, but first a very special issue of Man of Steel.
Dead Again! part 5
The questions about the corpse almost take a back seat in this issue. Superman does go to S.T.A.R. Labs to verify that Lex Luthor is still a vegetable and turns his suspicion towards Braniac, but most of this issue takes a different turn.
No longer an orphan, Keith's mother returns to see him, but their reunion is short-lived. It turns out his mother has been away because she's dying of AIDS. She didn't want the stigma of her disease to hurt her son's chances of finding a home, but unfortunately her being alive has also kept him ineligible for adoption. Alice and Perry White agree to adopt Keith when she dies, so in the same day he truly becomes an orphan he gets a new home.
Meanwhile, the Man of Steel helps everyday people in scenes that resemble Golden Age comic book covers. Only a few pages of this issue have anything to do with the "Dead Again!" story line, so you almost wouldn't know this was part of a larger story if read by itself. While some of the dialogue seems taken from AIDS education pamphlets of the time, this issue hasn't lost its emotional impact from the period.
Dead Again! part 6
Special guest star: the Atom. I guess the New Gods also on the cover are not-so-special guest stars.
Superman asks Professor Hamilton to fix a Mother Box (that he used in his re-match with Doomsday in Superman/Doomsday: Hunter/Prey which I haven't covered here yet). The Professor gets it to work again so Superman can open a Boom Tube to New Genesis, but the Atom secretly tags along. Superman calls the Boom Tube a star gate, which was also the name of a big movie in 1994. He checks on the villain Braniac, who like Luthor is also currently a vegetable and being kept under observation by the New Gods ever since Panic in the Sky.
The Atom, who recently reverted to a teenager in Zero Hour: Crisis in Time, wants to hijack Metron's Mobius Chair to go back in time and restore his age to normal but of course that doesn't work out like he planned. The New Gods send the Atom back to Earth, but Superman asks them to send him to Apokalips. With Braniac off the suspect list, he turns to Darkseid.
Dead Again! part 7
Superman arrives on Apokalips where Granny Goodness happens to be in the middle of a training session, so he naturally has to fight through Darkseid's army of parademons and the Female Furies. Darkseid watches the battle from a distance, willing to sacrifice any number of innocent lives to stop the Man of Steel. The oppressed residents of Armagetto still remember the last time Superman nearly liberated them (back in Adventures of Superman #426, 1987). After casually tossing Darkseid's personal assassin, Kanto, into the fire pits, Superman finally gets his desired audience with the evil god, their first meeting since the events of Superman/Doomsday: Hunter/Prey. Darkseid denies any involvement with the Superman corpse, although he does hide the fact that he knows who's behind it. Angered that Superman refers to Apokalips as "god-forsaken", Darkseid abruptly sends the Man of Steel back to Earth with his omega beams. "There is no place more god-fearing," says Darkseid. Suddenly back on Earth, Superman ponders the clues Darkseid gave him and jumps to the conclusion that the mystery villain must be Mr. Mxyzptlk.
Superman's behavior is starting to get erratic. First, he breaks into S.T.A.R. Labs to steal the Superman body so he can analyze it himself. He gives a paranoid TV interview accusing Mr. Mxyzptlk and demanding the 5th dimensional imp show himself. Using new battle suits built out of technology from Superman's wrecked Kryptonian battle suit, the Metropolis Special Crimes Unit confronts Superman to get the stolen body back. Totally convinced it's all a trick by Mr. Mxyzptlk and that everything will be restored to normal once the imp his defeated, he nearly kills Maggie Sawyer. Mxyzptlk appears just in time to inform Superman that he couldn't have planted the body because he still stuck in the 5th dimension until now.
Elsewhere in Metropolis, a telemarketer returns to her apartment after work but she is murdered in the hallway by a man who really hates deceivers and will become the villain named Saviour.
Back on New Genesis, the New Gods discover Braniac is very much awake and he's been playing mind games with the Man of Steel all along!
Superman: The Man of Steel #39
The questions about the corpse almost take a back seat in this issue. Superman does go to S.T.A.R. Labs to verify that Lex Luthor is still a vegetable and turns his suspicion towards Braniac, but most of this issue takes a different turn.
No longer an orphan, Keith's mother returns to see him, but their reunion is short-lived. It turns out his mother has been away because she's dying of AIDS. She didn't want the stigma of her disease to hurt her son's chances of finding a home, but unfortunately her being alive has also kept him ineligible for adoption. Alice and Perry White agree to adopt Keith when she dies, so in the same day he truly becomes an orphan he gets a new home.
Meanwhile, the Man of Steel helps everyday people in scenes that resemble Golden Age comic book covers. Only a few pages of this issue have anything to do with the "Dead Again!" story line, so you almost wouldn't know this was part of a larger story if read by itself. While some of the dialogue seems taken from AIDS education pamphlets of the time, this issue hasn't lost its emotional impact from the period.
Superman #95
Special guest star: the Atom. I guess the New Gods also on the cover are not-so-special guest stars.
Superman asks Professor Hamilton to fix a Mother Box (that he used in his re-match with Doomsday in Superman/Doomsday: Hunter/Prey which I haven't covered here yet). The Professor gets it to work again so Superman can open a Boom Tube to New Genesis, but the Atom secretly tags along. Superman calls the Boom Tube a star gate, which was also the name of a big movie in 1994. He checks on the villain Braniac, who like Luthor is also currently a vegetable and being kept under observation by the New Gods ever since Panic in the Sky.
The Atom, who recently reverted to a teenager in Zero Hour: Crisis in Time, wants to hijack Metron's Mobius Chair to go back in time and restore his age to normal but of course that doesn't work out like he planned. The New Gods send the Atom back to Earth, but Superman asks them to send him to Apokalips. With Braniac off the suspect list, he turns to Darkseid.
Adventures of Superman #518
Superman arrives on Apokalips where Granny Goodness happens to be in the middle of a training session, so he naturally has to fight through Darkseid's army of parademons and the Female Furies. Darkseid watches the battle from a distance, willing to sacrifice any number of innocent lives to stop the Man of Steel. The oppressed residents of Armagetto still remember the last time Superman nearly liberated them (back in Adventures of Superman #426, 1987). After casually tossing Darkseid's personal assassin, Kanto, into the fire pits, Superman finally gets his desired audience with the evil god, their first meeting since the events of Superman/Doomsday: Hunter/Prey. Darkseid denies any involvement with the Superman corpse, although he does hide the fact that he knows who's behind it. Angered that Superman refers to Apokalips as "god-forsaken", Darkseid abruptly sends the Man of Steel back to Earth with his omega beams. "There is no place more god-fearing," says Darkseid. Suddenly back on Earth, Superman ponders the clues Darkseid gave him and jumps to the conclusion that the mystery villain must be Mr. Mxyzptlk.
Action Comics #705
Dead Again! part 8
Elsewhere in Metropolis, a telemarketer returns to her apartment after work but she is murdered in the hallway by a man who really hates deceivers and will become the villain named Saviour.
Back on New Genesis, the New Gods discover Braniac is very much awake and he's been playing mind games with the Man of Steel all along!
Comments
Post a Comment