"I Know"

Our stories all wrap up this month to make way for the next big Superman event the next month, the Death of Clark Kent.  As build up, every book this month ends with somebody leaving a vague, two-word message for Clark.

Superman: The Man of Steel #43

Deathtrap continues to imprison the Man of Steel and Mr. Miracle in new traps every time they escape the previous one, until they end up in his ultimate trap, a Boom Tube connected in a loop.  Aided by Mother Box, Big Barda comes to Earth to search for her missing husband, Mr. Miracle.

Meanwhile, Carl Draper has a press conference for his security company in Hawaii, which is conveniently interrupted by a hologram of his alter-ego Deathtrap to tell the press he has "stolen" the technology to lock Superman in an inescapable prison.

Mother Box teleports Mr. Miracle and Superman out of the trap, but the unstable Boom Tube ignites the volcano that housed it.  The heroes save the members of the press (including Jimmy Olsen, who took the pass instead of Lois or Clark) from the erupting lava and Draper pretends to be as much a victim as they are.  Mr. Miracle decides to stay on Earth for the time being to help remove the Apokalypsian technology.  Superboy was too busy with events in his own series to have a crossover with the Man of Steel in his home state.

Back in Metropolis, Lois Lane and Perry White look out the Daily Planet window to see a cryptic message on the giant ad screen at Glenmorgan Square: "I know."

Superman #99

Lois and Clark happen to be at a totally different conference in Washington, D.C. now where terrorists are attacking reporters.  Lois Lane and Agent Liberty investigate the bombings and trace it back to a Gotham City gangster known as Arclight who was presumed dead in a nuclear power plant accident.

When Superman catches up to Lois and Agent Liberty, they confront the new villain Arclight, who now has heat powers and a supervillain costume.  It's not really clear why Arclight hired henchmen to use his signature gangster tactics when he probably could have done it himself.  Arclight vanishes to avoid defeat, but his story will resume after the Death of Clark Kent.

Clark plans to pay Steel a visit while they're staying in his city, but that will have to wait for the next issue of Steel because when Lois and Clark go back to their hotel room they find somebody has written "I Know" on the wall.

Adventures of Superman #522

Perry White writes an editorial to explain to confused Daily Planet readers how Metropolis was rebuilt so quickly after the Fall.  Obviously, this issue is an answer to Superman readers who complained about the inexplicable return to the status quo after Zero Hour.

After the destruction of the city when the Newsstime building was the only one left standing, a half-dozen heroes come to Metropolis to help Superman.  First they stop some monsters created by the new DMN drug that's poisoning the streets.  They start to rebuild some structures, but even with super speed there's only so much they can accomplish.  Suddenly Zatanna appears and with their combination of powers, Superman's photographic memory of the city, and Perry White (the heart and soul of the city), they magically restored Metropolis back to the way it was before.  Literally!  Metropolis suddenly being rebuilt after Zero Hour seemed like a lazy fix, but this attempt to explain it actually feels even lazier.  They probably should've just let readers assume it was something time-related from Zero Hour.  At least we finally got an in-story explanation for how the city was rebuilt so fast.

Looking down from the Newsstime building, Collin Thronton gloats that he invented the DMN drug just to lure the heroes to resurrect Metropolis.

Back in the present, Clark Kent gets a message on his computer screen: "I know" repeated over and over.

Action Comics #709

Guy Gardner's new Vuldarian powers are causing him to go berserk, which is just a reason for him to have fight Superman, who gets some assistance from an off-duty Dan Turpin of the SCU.

This is the third costume and power set we've seen of Guy Gardner since he got a Green Lantern ring during the Crisis on Infinite Earths.  But although his Vuldarian look would stay around for the rest of the 90's, I think it's his least memorable one.  Since Guy had his own popular series at this time, writers scrambled to find a new identity for him after Hal Jordan went insane and destroyed Sinestro, the power battery, and the Green Lantern Corps.  Guy's newly discovered alien heritage was a rushed fix to keep his own series going, although this period would be entirely forgotten when the Green Lantern Corps finally returned in 2005.  Guy's story continues in Guy Gardner: Warrior #30, but I'm not going to bother covering that here.

In Suicide Slum, police apprehend the serial killer who murdered a senator.  Back at his apartment building, Clark Kent checks the mail and it's full of postcards with nothing but "I Know!" written on them.