The Final Night

Ten years have now passed since the 1986 Man of Steel reboot.  This month is also DC's annual crossover event, the Final Night.  Following DC's crossover model of the 90's, the Final Night was a 4-issue weekly series that every ongoing series at the time tied into for one month.  Although these crossovers tended to interrupt the stories going on in each book, they did help to make the universe seem more cohesive and interconnected.  These crossovers were a chance for most readers who didn't follow the entire DC line to check in with what was going on in other corners of the universe.  In my opinion, the Final Night was the most successful of these annual events in uniting the universe with an event that connected easily with every type of hero from Batman to the Legion of Superheroes.

In the Final Night, the cosmic threat known as the Sun Eater is reintroduced into the present DC universe.  When this mindless cloud of living gas appears and starts to devour Earth's sun, the heroes of the DC universe unite to save their world.  Superman, who gets his powers from the sun, is particularly affected, gradually losing his powers more and more each week.

Superman #117

When Superman brought the Bottle City of Kandor to the Fortress of Solitude, he was surprised to discover his robots have been rebuilding it.  Unfortunately, they no longer recognize their Kryptonian master and nearly kill him.  He successfully deactivates the robots and he and Professor Hamilton are able to stabilize the bottle city with the Fortresses' Kryptonian technology.  It doesn't really make sense why they brought the bottle city here if they didn't even know that the Fortress was rebuilt at the time, except I guess that Kandor had always been kept there in pre-Crisis continuity.  Professor Hamilton builds a system around the city to imitate the outside sun's cycle, but when it suddenly goes dark they discover something is actually wrong with the sun itself.

In Metropolis, Lori Lemaris is hounded by reporter Steve Lombard inquiring about her ocean salvaging.  To get away from him, she jumps off a bridge.  She doesn't drown because she's a mermaid, but the observers on the surface don't know this.

Perry White has a heated argument with the paper's publisher over right-wing firebrand Dirk Armstrong's column.  We get a serious discussion that's just as relevant today about the risks of trying to present both sides vs irresponsible journalism.

Adventures of Superman #540

A new hero named Ferro is introduced with a contrived origin story in which he was the rejected child of a famous actress.  Ferro is a re-working of Ferro Lad, a member of the Legion of Superheroes who sacrificed himself to defeat the Sun Eater in pre-Crisis continuity.  On the cover and in the Final Night mini-series he wears his traditional mask and costume, but for unexplained reasons he wears street clothes and what resembles a garbage pail for a helmet in the interior of this issue.

Perry White is back at the Daily Planet and determined not to let the paper miss an issue, despite the cold, the darkness and a citywide power outage.  Lori Lemaris goes to the Planet for Clark's advice, but he decides the city needs her now as a theater critic.

Action Comics #727

With reduced powers now closer to the levels of his early appearances in the 30's, the Man of Steel helps the city by leaping tall buildings and stopping looters.  In the chaos, some battle suits are stolen from the Metropolis Special Crimes Unit, but Superman has to take over one of the rogue battle suits just to stop the others.

Both Superman and a down-on-his-luck businessman find renewed hope at seeing Superman's memorial statue, each without realizing the other is doing the same.  The sappy moment is reminiscent of the "Somewhere out There" song from An American Tail.

Superman: The Man of Steel #62

Left behind at the Fortress of Solitude to watch the bottle city of Kandor while Superman saves the world, Professor Hamilton watches holograms of the last days of Krypton and finds many striking parallels to Earth's present crisis.  The Professor calculates that if the Sun Eater is not stopped, the Earth will not die freezing but instead will be consumed in a supernova.

Meanwhile, Perry White's staff huddles in winter coats by lantern light on manual typewriters to keep the presses rolling.

The conclusion of the Final Night would have lasting ramifications for years to come.  The reintroduction of Ferro turned out to be misdirection to the readers who expected a repeat of the pre-Crisis noble sacrifice.  Although the young hero does valiantly try to throw himself into the sun to save the Earth, his place is taken by Hal Jordan instead.  The disgraced former Green Lantern was seen as a nearly irredeemable character at this point, after going insane in Emerald Twilight and then nearly ending all of time in Zero Hour two years before this.  Heroic suicide was seen as the only possible redemption for such a fallen hero.  Hal Jordan's arc of fall and rise would haunt the crossovers of the 90's, and in two years he would be brought back from the dead with a shot at atonement as the new Spectre.