World's Finest

All the Superman books feature a team-up this month, starting with the World's Finest team, Batman and Superman.  Lois and Clark's relationship naturally starts to get worse after Lois is nearly killed by the Joker.

Action Comics #719

Lois Lane is poisoned by the action figure the Joker gave her (in Action Comics #714), which Superman carelessly let her keep without thinking to scan with microscopic vision.  With just hours to spare before the poison kills Lois, Batman helps Superman find the Joker.  The Clown Prince of Crime offers the Man of Steel a cure, but the catch is Superman must inject it into the Joker's blood to produce it, which will in turn kill the Joker.  Batman persuades Superman to do what Lois would have wanted and not giving the Joker what he wants.  Back at the hospital, Superman watches in agony as Lois flatlines, but then has an unexpected full recovery a few seconds later.  It turned out the poison wasn't really deadly and the Joker's prank all along was to make Superman kill him when he didn't even have to.

Also, Ron Troupe works a late night at the Daily Planet and sees the ghost of Martin Luthor King Jr.

Fans were already expecting a publicized Lois and Clark break-up coming in the next issue, but this near-death experience came as a surprise.  At this same time, Kingdom Come set the expectation for the future of the DC Universe, a future in which the Joker had murdered Lois Lane.

Superman: The Man of Steel #54

Continuing from a story line in his own series, The Spectre, Jim Corrigan comes to Metropolis looking for fragments of a magical artifact called the American Talisman.  Recently the Daily Planet has witnessed the sightings of ghosts of Elvis and Martin Luthor King Jr., and now a magical Shaman turns the whole building into something resembling a Native American dreamcatcher.  The Shaman's power is inexplicably tied to Alpha Centurion's ship, the Pax Romana, which has been parked on top of the building.  The Shaman's powers seem to come from both magic and technology, and the Spectre defeats him by asking everybody in Metropolis to turn off their power while Superman asks the Alpha Centurion to move his ship.  After the villain is defeated, Superman helps the Spectre find the talisman buried in the Daily Planet's foundation.  While Jimmy and Lois compete to get an interview with the Man of Steel, Lori Lemaris runs up to Superman and hugs him in front of his fiance.  Lex Luthor and the Contessa watch the fight on TV from Luthor's yacht.

Superman #110

Plastic Man and his sidekick Woozy Winks come looking for the Man of Steel in Metropolis.  In a cartoony recap, they were hired as P.I.s by a femme fatal named Treasure Hunt, who says her brother is aiming to test an experimental weapon on Superman.  In a more serious scenario, Clark Kent meets in an empty parking garage with Tiger Hunt, who tells him that his sister Treasure is going to try to kill Superman with the same weapon.  It turns out there really was no secret weapon, Tiger and Treasure are both just easily bored and super competitive, so as a game they wanted to see which one could steal Superman's cape.  Treasure returns to her mansion with the cape and puts it in a display case, but after she leaves the room the cape changes shape into Plastic Man, who sneaks away.

Adventures of Superman #533

The villain Scavenger has left bombs around the world to go off at set times and Superman needs the help of a speedster to get to all the bombs in time.  Unfortunately for him, nobody else in the Flash family is available except for Impulse.  Along the way, Superman bumps into Ma and Pa Kent at an art show at the San Diego Convention Center.

Lori hangs out with Lois in her apartment, and finds out Clark never told Lois that he and Lori were once engaged.  When Superman passes by Lois' building that evening, he mistakenly thinks he sees Lois on the roof, but it's actually Lori borrowing Lois' clothes.  An undersea dweller with no natural fear of gravity and unaccustomed to walking in high heels, Lori accidentally falls off the roof but fortunately Superman is there to save her.  In a heart-breaking scene, Lois arrives at the top of the stairs to watch as Superman almost-romantically catches Lori.  Lois runs down the stairs before either of them can see her when they return.  Lori is embarrassed but Superman assures her they did nothing wrong and no one saw it anyway.

Superman: The Man of Tomorrow #4

Billy Batson and the wizard Shazam come to Metropolis and sense an evil presence.  Feeling detected, Colin Thornton unleashes some DMN drug addicts to throw the wizard off the trail of Lord Satanus.  Vulnerable to magic, Superman struggles against the DMN drug monsters, but Shazam is able to magically cure them of their addiction.  Shazam and Captain Marvel believe they have eliminated the source of the mystic presence, and Colin Thronton is relieved not to have been discovered.  But while they're in town, Captain Marvel has an arm-wrestling match with the Man of Steel for charity.

Back on his yacht in the Mediterranean, Lex Luthor wants to get his company back from the Contessa, but when she refuses to sell he proposed a merger.