Previews

Like the guest writer month a few months ago, this month consisted of self-contained stories in between last month's Ending Battle and another 4-part story next month.  Most of these issues deal with the ramifications from Ending Battle, and each issue this month also included a bonus 4-page preview of an upcoming series on glossy paper.  

Superman #188

Superman goes on a bizarre crime-fighting rampage through Metropolis, making jokes as he recklessly destroys private property and casually tosses Barrage over skyscrapers into the river.  A vehicle owner complains to the Man of Steel about his totaled car and Superman burns an autograph into it so the owner can sell it on eBay.    It turns out Superman's strange behavior is just him coping with a child's death from cancer.  This story seems to be trying to capture the spirit of Superman's early Golden Age appearances in the 30's, when the Man of Steel would go on a rampage after a friend died in a car crash or something, but that behavior just seems odd and out of character today.

Chuck Austen gets a second chance to write Superman.  If his last issue seemed like a questionable audition, this one makes you wonder how he ever got the gig as a regular writer.  For some unknown reason, Austen was given free reign on all best-selling books during this decade, from Marvel's Avengers to X-Men.

This issue featured a preview of the new Aquaman #1, who had just returned this same month in JLA #75, after his apparent death during Our Worlds at War.  This preview is strangely the only one that's advertised on the cover.

Adventures of Superman #610

Like he did in the Golden Age, Clark Kent goes undercover to work in a mine to uncover corruption.  In this modern retelling, Clark is secretly infiltrating a LexCorp operation for Perry White to (literally) unearth dirt on Lex Luthor.  Like in the original story, a cave-in forces Superman to abandon his fake identity to save the miners.  

Perry White also gave Clark Superman's mail to deliver the next time he sees him, which Clark reads during his off-work time.  After the collapse, Superman goes to Guatemala to respond in person to the letter of a boy whose mother died.  Superman explains that even with all his powers he can't stop people from dying, but he knows what it's like to be orphaned and find a new family.

This issue featured a preview for DC's groundbreaking police procedural series, Gotham Central #1.

Superman: The Man of Steel #132

Metropolis is having a Superman day parade, but Lois (cosplaying as Power Girl) can't get her husband to participate.  Clark stays home, but then Mr. Mxyzptlk decides to return again to try to annoy the Man of Steel.  Mxyzptlk had tried to get into some mischief during Ending Battle, but Superman scared him back to the 5th dimension.  Clark still refuses to humor the imp, so Mxyzptlk goes to the parade and gives a Superman cosplayer powers instead.  The cosplayer tries to save the city from Mxyzptlk's magical dinosaurs and other threats, but reluctantly the real Superman arrives to save the people and send the imp back to where he came from.  Superman joins the parade, and in the background there's a cameo of Kara Zor-El.  The story of the two Supergirls, Linda Danvers and the recently returned Kara, takes place during these same events in Supergirl #76 this same month.  Unfortunately, this attempt to bring back Kara would not survive the cancellation of that series in a few months, and a very unpopular Supergirl would soon be introduced. 

This issue's preview was for Superman: Metropolis #1, a forgotten maxi-series by Chuck Austen which, despite Superman's name in the title, followed Jimmy Olsen through the B13 version of Metropolis.

Action Comics #797

Superman goes to see his therapist one last time to cope with the near-loss of his wife during Ending Battle, and she asks him a question that he struggles to answer: Who is Superman?  Their conversation is overlaid over a scene in homage to World's Finest Comics #208, in which Superman takes Stryker's Island Prison into space to keep the villains further away from Earth, 

Referring to Lois as "Jane", he opens up more about his personal life but still declines to let his therapist meet his significant other.  The first time talking about it to anybody else, he tells his therapist about killing the parallel universe version of Zod and his acolytes years ago in the Supergirl saga.  Like the other versions of Supergirl, the complicated backstory of these alternate versions of Zod would never be mentioned again once the real versions were reintroduced.  But at the time, this was an essential recap preceding an upcoming confrontation with the Pokolistanian Zod.

Clark visits his parents in Smallville, explaining that Pa Kent's recent memory losses were due to Manchester Black reading his mind. 

This issue has a preview of H-E-R-O #1, a forgotten reboot of Dial H for Hero with art by former Action Comics artist, Kano.