Save the Planet

The saga of Dominus comes to a close, but we'll have to wait for his next appearance to find out anything about this new villain.

More importantly, after being put on the market last month the Daily Planet abruptly shuts down in a special issue that ushers in the end of an era and a new status quo for Lois, Clark and the rest of the supporting characters.  I don't recall this making the news at the time the way other events like his death and new powers had.  I think it's a shame that this story has been largely forgotten; all these years later, I still think this is one of the single best issues of Superman ever written.  In the years since this book first came out, I've experienced similar job losses so the anxiety and emotion that the characters express hits me even harder now.  Even though the Daily Planet would eventually come back, some of these characters wouldn't return.

Superman #139

Superman and the Linear Men battle Dominus, while Jerome Odetts reveals to Lois Lane that Kismet is in a floating green bubble in his farmhouse.  Superman bursts into the room and shouts at them to get away from her, but then he turns into Dominus and transports them both to his realm outside of reality.  The real Superman blasts Kismet with his heat vision, seemingly destroying her.  In reality, Waverider used the blast as a distraction to take Kismet's energy back in time to Clark's childhood in Smallville, and hides her in the body of a girl who would have otherwise died of a broken neck falling off a jungle gym.  Unable to locate Kismet, the defeated Dominus sends the Man of Steel back to Earth and promises that Superman's troubles are only beginning.

The Daily Planet's right-wing columnist Dirk Armstrong is upset that the paper's new health insurance provider doesn't cover his daughter's pre-existing condition.  He threatens to take his column elsewhere, but Perry White advises him if he has other options to take them.  It's ironic that in 1998 a voice of the far right would would be fighting to cover pre-existing conditions when today Republicans are hellbent on trying to take healthcare away from those people.

Superman: The Man of Tomorrow #11

Just like in Superman: The Man of Steel #77, dinosaurs, people and other things from different periods of time are ending up in modern day Metropolis.  A future Superman named Kaleb arrives to kill Lex Luthor for crimes against the galaxy he may commit someday.  Superman is forced into the unenviable position of having to save Luthor from this apparent rip-off of Marvel's Cable.  Kaleb disappears unexpectedly, but at the end we discover Luthor is holding him unconscious in a secret lab somewhere.  Lex Luthor gloats at the possibility of Kaleb's future coming to pass.

Lucy Lane leaves the women's clinic with some pamphlets and tries to call Ron from a pay phone.  She asks Ron to meet her for lunch, but he brings Jimmy along so she can't tell him the news.  Later, she accidentally drops her purse and when Ron tries to help her pick the contents off the ground he sees the pamphlets on pregnancy, adoption, and abortion.

At the Daily Planet, Dirk Armstrong is informed he won the Zenith award.  There are rumors that a secretive new buyer is interested in the paper as employees start to learn they're being let go.

Superman: Save the Planet #1 

Superman: Save the Planet was one of the special one-shots that were becoming more frequent during this period of Superman comics.  Like Superman Forever, the collector's edition featured an enhanced cover: a clear acetate cover of Superman over an interior page of the Daily Planet newspaper.  Acetate covers were a popular trend at this time, a cheaper alternative to the die-cut covers a few years earlier.  Like most cover enhancements, they would disappear completely for over a decade, but acetate covers made a come-back last year across DC's entire line one month during Year of the Villain.

The story doesn't even have any super villains, and almost doesn't even need the scenes of Superman either.  Superman is preoccupied in space protecting the planet from a shower of giant meteors.  But at the Daily Planet on the ground below, the end is near.  The story doesn't even have any super villains, and almost doesn't even need the scenes of Superman stopping meteors.Rumors circulate that publisher Franklin Stern has been fired by the paper's new owner, Lex Luthor.  

Lois gets evidence that ties Lexcorp to the attempted destruction of Odett's farm, however when she gets back to the office she discovers her paper won't publish a story that defames its new owner.  

Despite recently winning an award, Ron Troupe is shocked to be let go in the downsizing.  Ron doesn't want to hear the new Human Resources spin on outplacement as an opportunity and he makes a scene as he storms out of the office.  Jimmy doesn't understand why Ron is taking it so hard, so Ron angrily tells Jimmy that Lucy is pregnant.

Allie finds a list of employee names left on the copy machine by HR and she makes a copy of it before anybody sees.  She shares the list with a few trusted co-workers, but nobody knows if it's the fire list or the keep list.  Allie is tasked with calling everybody into the office one by one to be let go, and at the end of the day she's handed a termination letter too.

Lex Luthor makes a point to personally be in Perry's office for the firing of Carrie Alexrod, the photographer who scored the first pictures of his newborn daughter.  Not even letting her clean out her desk, security escorts her out of the building and advises her to leave town because she'll never work in Metropolis again.  Perry realizes that Luthor is destroying the entire business out of revenge, and he quits before he can be fired.

Returning from saving the world shortly after 5pm, Superman is surprised to find the door on the rooftop locked.  Inside, Clark finds an empty office and a termination letter on his desk.  He reunites with his former co-workers at Dooley's bar across the street and discovers that Lois, Jimmy, Dirk, and Simone haven't been let go for some reason.  Perry White raises his glass and asks his former staff to toast the Daily Planet.  The lights on the Daily Planet's globe turn off in the background.  The end.

Adventures of Superman #562

Luthor wastes no time dismantling the Daily Planet, removing the globe from the top of the building the next day.  The Smithsonian asks if they can add the globe to their permanent collection, but Luthor prefers to put it in a garbage dump.

Intergang lieutenants Torcher and Gunn break out of prison, but Gunn is mortally wounded and collapses dead just before they can get to Dabney Donavan's secret lab.  Rather than be apprehended, Torcher ignites a bomb to kill herself.  Comically, Dabney Donavan steps outside to see what the noise is and is easily captured by Superman and the S.C.U. 

Lucy and Ron finally get to talk at an outdoor restaurant, when Jimmy approaches them and Lucy learns Ron already told him she was pregnant.  She's angry that she hasn't even had the chance to tell her sister yet, but she's stopped mid-sentence when she realizes Lois just walked by and heard everything.

The four remaining Daily Planet employees get a mysterious call to meet in Hypersector at midnight to witness the lighting up the brand new LexCom building, where they'll be working from now on.