Zero Hour: Crisis in Time #1 (September 1994)

In this issue: Superman gets punched! The real villain is revealed! And, oh yeah, EVERYONE DIES.

We open with Supergirl, Steel, Alternate Timeline Batgirl, and a distraught Guy Gardner coming out of a big hole in reality in what used to be Coast City. Guy is muttering something about how he "just saw the woman I loved die" (which, if you're following @greenlantern94to04, you also just saw in the latest post about Guy Gardner: Warrior #24). More of these "entropy fissures" pop up all around and one of them gobbles up Steel, despite Guy's efforts. It's been a humbling day for the once obnoxiously arrogant Guyster.

While Guy curses Extant for causing all this, Extant is like "The hell is causing all this?" Turns out he's not the one opening all those fissures. That's when the mysterious glowing green figure from the end of last issue shows up and demonstrates that Extant isn't the top dog here (although you could still use a word for "canine" to describe him in this page). The Actual Big Bad chastises Extant for "forgetting who's in charge here" and acting like he's the villain of this comic just because he's all over the covers, ads, preview blurbs, and, you know, the comic itself. Until now, anyway.

The mystery villain's next stop is the 30th century, or at least the tiny Pocket (Earth) of it that still survives. The Time Trapper has stashed a few Legion of Super-Heroes members (including his own past selves, Cosmic Boy and Cosmic... Man?) in there to prevent them from being eaten by entropy, but they end up fading into nothingness anyway. Then, TTT is easily taken down by the mystery character again -- yep, it was him who did that at the start of ZH #4 (the first issue), not Extant. In fact, TTT even does the exact same pose while being blasted just to make it clear that it's by the same guy.

(And also because Dan Jurgens drew six books this month and deserved a little break here.)

Back in the 20th century, everyone born in the past or future starts disappearing as their eras of origin are deleted from history. That means Impulse (30th century), Booster Gold (25th), and the old folks at the Justice Society (early 20th). Before being wiped out, however, Jay "First And Apparently Only Surviving Flash" Garrick manages to convince his old friend The Spectre that they've finally reached the part of the crossover where he decides to get involved. (I only said decides, though; he'll actually do it next issue.)

As time gets erased, Metron takes Superman and a few others outside of it: meaning, to Vanishing Point. The heroes need someone who can easily ride the waves of time, so it's too bad that Waverider died last issue. Luckily, they still have his alternate human version Matthew Ryder, so they just turn him all Waverider-y using convenient comic book science. (It's kinda funny that no one asks for Matthew's opinion on this; he's just like "Oooh, I don't know about thi-- whelp, guess I'm Waverider now!")

In the present, the rapidly declining number of surviving heroes (Batman, RIP... ped apart by a time hole) fight Extant with the help of Waverider 2... and NO help from Wonder Woman, since she's busy delivering Power Girl's baby. At one point, Extant tries to de-age The Atom into primordial goop, but Waverider 2 stops that process when Atom is merely at 18 years old (ironic, considering The Other Atom died from being aged into bones back in ZH #3 (the second issue)).

Just when the heroes are about to defeat Extant, someone punches Superman himself into the ground. Everyone looks in shock as we learn that it's none other than...

Freakin' Psi-- I mean, Hal Jordan! Wait, isn't Hal a good guy? Nice, he can help bring down the mystery villain! The day is saved!

Wait, no. Hal is the mystery villain. He's taken the name Parallax and decided that the universe needs to be restarted from zero to correct injustices like the destruction of Coast City. Oliver Queen / Green Arrow can't believe that his old friend Hal is the one who just wiped away 99.999999...% of all of humanity across history, but Hal says that yep, it's him alright -- and proves it by wiping out the rest now. Everything fades to white.

As he fades away too, Hal says: "Who knows? Maybe one universe... one world -- won't be enough." But right now, there's no universe and no worlds. Just nothing. THE END. OF EVERYTHING.

Except this post, because there's more from Don Sparrow!

SECOND TRIANGLE ERA OMNIBUS ANNOUNCED! DOUBLE HOT DANG!

Looks like the first of these volumes sold well enough to warrant another one, which I'm attributing entirely to our 28-note Tumblr post about it. You're welcome, everyone! Let's look at what's in this big boy (and what isn't):

What it includes:

What it doesn't include:

If it has the same number of pages, the next volume should cover from "Reign of the Supermen" to "Bizarro's World," but who knows. I'm still hoping for a volume 0 with all the uncollected stuff between the first one and the "Exile" omnibus, so, you know, keep buying these! Let's get this post to 29 notes!

Adventures of Superman Alpha Centurion #516 (September 1994)

The effects of Zero Hour get crazier as our hero meets a strange visitor from another reality: some long-haired dude called "Super-Man" who dresses in garish blue tights and, worst of all, has the hots for Lois. How will Alpha and the gang deal with this weirdo?!

We open with this new character flying into Metropolis when he's hit by a lightning bolt, which he just shrugs off (overpowered much?). As he approaches Metropolis, The Superman seems surprised to realize that the city isn't in ruins -- which suggests that he isn't a very good superhero, since he apparently allowed Metropolis to be destroyed by some supervillain in his own reality.

Confused, he decides to investigate by infiltrating the Daily Planet offices wearing a hilariously flimsy "regular person" disguise consisting of: 1) an office worker suit, 2) a pair of glasses, and 3) a ponytail. When he sees Lois Lane, "Clark" (as he calls himself while wearing the glasses, kinda like how Batman calls himself "Patches" when he has an eye-patch on) just walks up to her and kisses her on the mouth. We can add "sexual harassment" to this guy's seemingly interminable list of powers. She slaps the shit out of him, of course.

Embarrassed, "Clark" changes back into his blue tights in a supply closet (looks like they haven't invented the concept of changing rooms in his reality) and flies off to deal with an emergency that his Superman-Senses detected -- only to find that good ol' Alpha Centurion is already handling it. About time the actual protagonist of this comic showed up! Alpha recognizes Superman from the crowd scenes in Zero Hour #3 and cordially invites him to team up against Bloody Mary and her robots, to which Superman initially reacts by just standing (well, floating) there looking confused.

The fight leads them to Centurion Park (home to the Alpha statue from "Death of Alpha Centurion"), where Mary's jetpack seems to malfunction and Alpha has to save her. They almost have a tender moment, but then Mary reacts to Alpha turning down her advances for the 516th time by stabbing him in the gut with her animetal hand, also for the 516th time. Yes, we've been keeping track.

Superman finally makes himself useful by stopping Mary as she's trying to escape, but Maggie Sawyer from Metropolis' The 100 police force understandably assumes this ridiculously-dressed flying being must be another villain and tries to arrest him. Alpha quickly clears up the misunderstanding, and then Superman returns the favor by taking him to Alpha Tower for healing. This scene re-confirms that Superman's an inferior superhero, since his reaction makes it clear that he doesn't have a big building shaped like the first letter of his name or an awesome swimming pool where he heals himself.

(Not to mention a cool Moe Howard haircut under that wig.)

As Alpha heals, he retells his origin for Superman's benefit (and because they needed to fill two pages with stuff we've heard a million times, I guess). You know the drill: he was a Roman Centurion, he was taken to another planet to study with aliens for 10 years, he came back to Earth 2000 years later because quantum physics, he saved a space shuttle, and a "tenacious reporter" gave him his superhero name (as seen in 1986's The Centurion of Alpha #1 by Junius Byrne).

Just then, that same reporter stops by and immediately starts making out with him Alpha, this time with both parties' full consent. Superman doesn't take the smooching well, and that's when he explains his awkwardness around Lois: in his reality, not only is he the hero of Metropolis but he's also her boyfriend! (Really, alternate reality Lois? Him?)

Superman says he has to go back to the Zero Hour series to "straighten out" the screwed up timelines. Alpha announces that he's coming along too, despite Superman warning him that this might "erase him from existence" (as if DC would just delete their biggest cash cow, and right when Lois and Marcus: The New Adventures of Alpha Centurion was in the air). Superman and Alpha depart together, meaning this will be CONTINUED IN ZERO HOUR!

Character-Watch:

The character debuting in this issue (after that brief Zero Hour cameo) would go on to make a ton more appearances throughout the '90s, though in a somewhat more irritating form than the reasonable chap we see in this issue. Why, he'll even get his own Superman Special! According to the DC wiki, though, he hasn't appeared since a 2007 issue of Alpha Centurion/Batman. I'm actually surprised Geoff Johns or James Robinson didn't using him as cannon fodder in some crossover in the '00s.

Plotline-Watch:

Shout Outs-Watch:

A hundred shout outs to Alpha Centurion LXXXVI to XCIX (AD)'s supporters, Aaron, Chris “Ace” Hendrix, britneyspearsatemyshorts, Patrick D. Ryall, Mark Syp, Ryan Bush, Raphael Fischer, Kit, Dave Shevlin, and Dave Blosser! Join them (and get extra Alpha Centurion-related articles) via Patreon or our newsletter’s "pay what you want" mode! Both of those also have free tiers, if you just wanna get posts like this one in your inbox.

And now, more from the great Donelius Sparrow!

Zero Hour: Crisis in Time #2 (September 1994)

Zero Hour continues! The action ramps up as a central character dies, the Team Titans go bad, and everyone else is like "No, it's spelled Teen Titans. What? That's a different comic? Okay, I don't know who they are. Bummer, though."

As seen at the end of last issue, Superman and the heroes he gathered in New York have run into a little problem: a whole-ass future city just materialized over NY and is about to cause the equivalent of several 9/11s. It doesn't help that they have to put up with The Ray, who's kind of a turd in this comic -- I'm just glad Superboy isn't the most insufferable teenage character for once (though he does make an effort later on, when he hits on Anima and says the words "Babe alert!").

The heroes solve the crashing cities conundrum by creating a Boom Tube portal and shooting lasers at it until it's big enough to suck up an entire city. Hooray for science!

But the celebration doesn't last long, because this is when they find out that their friends at the Justice Society are now older or dead, having been artificially aged (or de-artificially de-aged?) by the villainous Extant. The only JSAer who was spared from the geriatric effect was Alan Scott, the Golden Age Green Lantern, but he decides to quit superheroing anyway and gives his ring to Kyle Rayner, the Current Age Green Lantern. Jay Garrick, the original Flash, calls it quits too and dramatically tears the lightning bolt logo from his chest (but doesn't give it to Impulse, even though he's right there).

The rest of the heroes decide to split up to handle the "time's eating itself" issue from both ends: Superman, Metron, and one group go to the 30th century to try to stop the entropy wave there, and Waverider and another group go do the same thing in the distant past. In both cases, their efforts are hindered by members of the Team Titans, who were introduced a few years ago as a large group of superpowered resistance fighters from the futuristic year 2001. However, their already convoluted origin gets even more confusing when Extant reveals he secretly formed the team and placed them in the present as sleeper agents, waiting for this moment. (Side note: Is this the only DC crossover where ALL the villains are heroes turned bad?)

While delivering all that exposition, the ever-efficient Extant also tries to kill Donna "Suddenly A Darkstar" Troy with a chronal blast. Kyle Rayner gets in the way and saves her (classic Kyle), in the process dropping and completely forgetting that GL ring Alan Scott entrusted him with a few pages ago (also classic Kyle).

Kyle survives this scene, but not everyone else does. Since Waverider is made out of chronal energy, Extant manages to "absorb" all of him and gain his powers, killing him in the process. And that's why Extant had Waverider's golden skin and firey hair last issue, you see: from his perspective, he'd already killed him and stolen his powers/look, and then he traveled in time and used those powers to punk the JSA. That's exactly the sort of twist I like to see in a time travel story.

Meanwhile, Superman and the other heroes currently visiting the 30th century have defeated or captured the mind-controlled Titan Teamsters. According to the narration, Extant's masterful years-long gambit bought him less than two hours of distraction.

With those little rascals out of the way, Metron figures out a way to close the hole that's eating reality: throwing his Mobius chair at it and having Captain Atom blow it up with his quantum energy. This works, because comics. Oh, and then Guy Gardner grows a gun out of his arm, to his shock (and also the shock of Guy Gardner: Warrior writer Beau Smith, since Guy was only supposed to be able to morph ancient weapons). COMICS!!!

Unfortunately, there's only one Mobius chair and two entropy waves. Not only is the one in the distant past still going strong, but the issue ends with a mystery character single-handedly restarting the 30th century wave and saying something about how this universe will soon stop existing. Also, he has glowing green energy and seems very interested in that GL ring Kyle misplaced... until he isn't.

Huh. Who could that possibly be?

NEXT ISSUE: THE END OF EVERYTHING! (Except this series, which still has one more issue left after that.)

Newsletter-Watch:

What's that, you didn't know we're up to Zero Hour #2 (the third issue) because you missed our other recent posts? That won't happen again if you sign up for the Superman '86 to '99 newsletter, which is free! (Unless you don't want it to be.) Click the link for that.

And if you just love clicking things, click "Keep reading" to see Don Sparrow's commentary for this issue:

Zero Hour: Crisis in Time #3 (September 1994)

Our eternal September continues as we reach Zero Hour #3 (the second issue), a.k.a. "The One With All The Elder Abuse." Putting Old Flash crying over Old Hourman's body on the cover was not false advertisement -- any '90s kids who bought this issue hoping to see some grandpas getting their asses kicked absolutely got their money's worth.

As seen in ZH #4 (the first issue), Superman has asked every spandex wearer in the DC Universe to gather outside the United Nations building so they can tackle the ongoing time crisis, but he's running late because he stopped to see his parents (all four of them) in Superman #93. Superman is further delayed when he hears screams coming from Keystone City, which turn out to come from a super-fast, video game-addicted child from the future fighting time-displaced dinosaurs.

Superman recruits "Don't Call Me Kid Flash!" here (a.k.a. Impulse) and reaches New York to meet the gathered heroes, including but not limited to: the Justice Leagues (including everyone's favorite founding member, Triumph), the Super-Family, the Bat-Family (including an able-bodied Batgirl), the New Teen Titans, the Team Titans, a few time-lost Legion of Super-Heroes members, the new Green Lantern (Kyle Rayner), the new Darkstar (Donna Troy), a newly armored Guy Gardner, a newly unkempt and one-handed Aquaman, our old pal Agent Liberty (who's probably very thankful to be invited), and, of course, the protector of Metropolis: Alpha Centurion! (The rando with the orange helmet on the far left, who we'll learn more about in the next issue of Adventures.)

Oh, and that lady in the purple dress is Power Girl, who suddenly went from dressing like a sex goddess to wearing grandma clothes when her magical pregnant belly started showing.

The heroes quickly decide Superman should be their leader (even though Guy volunteered first), and he proposes trying to figure out where this mess even started. It turns out someone's way ahead of them: the Justice Society of America has already traveled to the time crisis' point of origin, Vanishing Point, aided by Waverider, the loose cannon among the DCU's time cops. Problem is, Waverider and the JSA's Hawkman and Hawkwoman got lost on their way to Vanishing Point and ended up in the latest issue of Hawkman, where all the various Hawkpeople get hit by "cosmic energy" and condensed into a single Hawkperson (a sequence I'm sharing mostly because it reminds me of Superman and the Eradicator getting hit by the kryptonite beam in "Reign of the Supermen").

Meanwhile, at Vanishing Point, the JSA meets the guy who seems to be behind the time crisis: Hank Hall, a former C-list hero who recently got a massive power upgrade and became the A-list villain known as Extant (well, "A-list for a single month in 1994," anyway). Extant has time-based powers, which is unfortunate for the JSA, who have been cheating time by looking young when they should all be in their 80s, considering they're old enough to have punched Hitler. Extant corrects that by turning all of them super old, instantly killing the Golden Age Atom in the process. Only the Golden Age Green Lantern is spared thanks to his power ring and remarkable blondness.

(No you're not, Hourman. You also die one page later.)

Anyway, RIP the JSA. Thank you for your service; off you go into "elderly supporting character" status for several years. Back in New York, the time anomalies are getting more chaotic and threaten to destroy entire cities. Speaking of destroyed cities, one interesting moment is when the heroes learn that a young, non-crazy Hal Jordan seemingly died last issue and Guy Gardner wonders if that means present-day, yes-crazy Hal is dead too, and whether they could use the time anomalies to save Coast City and prevent Hal's downfall. That's... a pretty good idea, actually. Maybe Guy should have been the leader instead of Superman after all.

Waverider eventually remembers he left the old geezers back at Vanishing Point and goes to check in on them, but he's too late to save them from getting Extant'd. The issue ends with Extant pulling out his mask to reveal that he's... another Waverider?! How?! Why?! I legitimately don't remember anything about that plotline, so we'll have to find out together next issue. TO BE CONTINUED IN ZERO HOUR #2 (THE THIRD ISSUE)!

But first: a word from resident art expert Don Sparrow! Several words, actually...

Superman #93 (September 1994)

ZERO HOUR CROSSOVER! Due to the time-related shenanigans going on around the DC Universe, Superman meets his Kryptonian parents again -- and this time, his mom doesn't want to puke when she sees him! In fact, she even gives him a motherly kiss. Aww.

We start with Supergirl fighting some 68th century aliens who found themselves transported to present-day Earth and apparently figured they might as well invade it. Superman drops by and deals with the aliens via his usual approach to problem-solving: he just chucks their ship back into space.

As the heroes land back in Metropolis, Lois Lane hands Superman her cellular telephone because he has a call from Ma Kent, who sounds pretty panicked. The call abruptly cuts off, and there's a dramatic moment where Superman wonders if he can really leave the whole "the universe is in danger" thing aside for a while...

...before deciding that, yes, his mom is more important, obviously.

So, Superman flies to Smallville to check on his parents, only to find two surprise characters in their home: freaking' Psi-Phon and Dreadnaught. Wait, no, it's his other parents, Jor-El and Lara, just standing in the Kent's kitchen. Jor-El explains that, after sending little baby Kal-El's rocket to Earth all those years ago, they realized Krypton wasn't exploding after all, whoops. A scientist called Jen-Em had figured out how to stall the explosion, and then, after years of work, they managed to cure Krypton of its explosive tendencies for good.

Superman quickly figures out that this must be the result of the weirdness caused by Zero Hour (after all, he's been to Krypton and saw that there's nothing but a big ball of green gas there), but he agrees to put on a Cyclops-esque visor that will show him Jor-El's story in more detail.

Through the futuristic Viewmaster, Superman learns that in this timeline, Krypton's near-death experience caused the Kryptonians to re-evaluate their priorities and abandon their cold, emotionless ways (hence this Lara not being repulsed by her son). In fact, Lara became the first modern Kryptonian to get pregnant and have a child the old fashioned way -- meaning that, yes, Superman has a brother, Zan-El. Zan not only grew up to become "prefect over the entire planet" (so, world president) but, more importantly, he also brought back the shorter togas and fashionable headbands of Krypton's ancient, Mike Mignola-designed past.

Meanwhile, Jor-El had spent all those decades working on a cure to the genetic defect that kills Kryptonians if they try to leave the planet. He finally came up with a serum that temporarily allowed him and Lara to visit Earth, but it's already wearing off. So, Superman has to decide quickly: will he go live in alternate, non-exploded Krypton with his biological family? Or will he stay with his adoptive one that actually raised him and made him who he is?

Superman agonizes over the choice for a moment, but then he's like "hey, wait a minute, I can just go visit!" He informs the Els of his decision and they're overjoyed -- until a poorly-timed thunderbolt full of chronal energy strikes their spaceship and erases them from reality.

"The last son of Krypton is orphaned once again." Damn, Jurgens.

Metron of the New Gods comes to remind the grieving Superman that all the other superheroes are waiting for him at Zero Hour #3 (now on sale!), but Superman says they can wait a little longer because he has something important to do: hug his Earth parents and tell them he loves them.

CONTINUED IN ZERO HOUR!

Plotline-Watch:

Metropolis Mailbag:

Imagine our delight (and our embarrassment) when we opened the newsletter archive page for Man of Steel #37 last week and saw there was a comment there from Mr. Jon Bogdanove himself, which had been sitting there unanswered for over a month! Agh! Here it is in full:

And my shamefully late response (gonna go ahead and blame the time disturbances for it):

(I now check the newsletter archive pages for comments 75 times a day, unless I forget.)

Shout Outs-Watch:

Time-displaced shout outs to our SUPporters, Aaron, Chris “Ace” Hendrix, britneyspearsatemyshorts, Patrick D. Ryall, Mark Syp, Ryan Bush, Raphael Fischer, Kit, Dave Shevlin, and Dave Blosser! Join them (and get extra non-continuity articles; the latest one was about Superman fighting a guy called BONECHILL in the 1989 cartoon) via Patreon or our newsletter’s “pay what you want” mode!

And now: more from Don Sparrow, who sent me his section weeks ago but it also got lost in time (actually, I decided to cover Zero Hour #4 first). Keep reading:

Zero Hour: Crisis in Time #4 (September 1994)

It's... CRISIS TIME! Listen, we're not in the habit of covering every issue of every crossover event Superman appears in, but we're making an exception for this one because: 1) Superman plays a prominent role (as do the characters in my other blog), 2) it's by two of the most iconic creators from this era, Dan Jurgens and Jerry Ordway, and 3) we just like this comic a whole lot. Still, we'll do our best to keep these posts shorter than usual so we don't spend forever in September 1994.

Fittingly for a series that begins at #4 and counts backwards, this issue starts at very end -- as in the literal end of time, when all that exists is the entropy crushing the universe (and Doomsday, but looks like he was too busy being crushed by entropy to appear in this comic). We see The Time Trapper, a hugely powerful villain with a control over time, being easily taken down by a mystery character who says he's going to "make things right."

(That's what you get for being an old villain in a comic where a new one needs to be established as a badass, TTT.)

Next, we see weird time-related things happening all over the DCU: Batgirl shows up in Gotham City with her spine intact, Dick Grayson is back to wearing green undies, Hawkman is now multiple Hawkmen, Flash is suddenly in the far future (historically, not a very good time for a Flash to be during a crisis), etc.

Superman's frenemies the Linear Men, the time police, notice that something is erasing time, starting at the end and moving backwards, as if God had said "screw it, let's start over" and was holding the backspace key on the universe. Linear Men Waverider and Hunter are sent to the 64th century to find out what's going on and, once there, they run into Flash -- and also a big wave of entropy eating the universe. Flash attempts to stop the wave of mutilation by just running really fast at it (which is how he solves most of his problems in his own comic), but the wave just eats him too.

A Flash died? Oh, now it's a real crisis.

The Linear Men's next stop is 58th century Star City, whose hero is a time-displaced younger version of Green Lantern Hal Jordan (we know he's younger because he doesn't have greying hair, and also he isn't homicidally insane). Before he and Young Hal are eaten up by the entropy wave, Hunter yells at Waverider to look up the word "crisis" in their archives. Back at Vanishing Point, the Linear Men's HQ outside of time, Waverider basically reads the Wikipedia article for Crisis on Infinite Earths and becomes one of the few people in the current DCU to learn the forbidden knowledge that there used to be a multiverse that got wiped out, leaving a single existing universe. The "existing" part might not last much longer, though...

While all this Linear Men stuff happens, we see a repeat of the scene from Man of Steel #37 when Metron of the New Gods comes to see Superman about the time crisis. Together they go off into Green Lantern #55 to ask for new Green Lantern Kyle Rayner's help in producing a hologram of Superman that Metron can forward to the DCU's other heroes. Green Hologram Superman gives everyone a little speech and asks them to come together to figure out what to do about the whole "time is literally ending" issue.

Metron personally visits The Spectre to ask for his help, since he's one of the most powerful beings in the DCU (and did come in pretty handy during the previous crisis), but Speccy is only interested in fighting evil, not "natural disasters" -- even universe-ending ones.

Meanwhile, Waverider learns that time is also being erased from the beginning, not just the end, and goes to warn the geezers at the Justice Society about it, I guess since they're so old and at risk of being erased any moment. Plus, they have a Flash in their team, so he's probably the most endangered being in the DCU right now.

As Waverider shows the old Flash what happened to his young namesake (he doesn't take it well), we see that someone has invaded Vanishing Point: this comic's villain, Hal... I mean, Hall, Hank! That is, Hank Hall, formerly Hawk of Hawk & Dove and Monarch of Armageddon 2001, and currently known as Extant.

And he's totally working alone, with no more dramatic revelations about heroes-turned-villains to come, nope. TO BE CONTINUED!

Poll-Watch:

The results for our Zero Hour Batmen art poll are just in (okay, they were in a few weeks ago, but we hadn't made a post since then), and the winner by a pretty decisive margin is: Neal Adams Batman! Don Sparrow will get working on that artwork -- which reminds me we have a winner for Don's original Maxima art giveaway, too: our old pal Chris "Ace" Hendrix! Congrats to Chris and whichever wall in his home is about to be blessed with a Maxima! To take part in future giveaways (including the Neal Adams bat-art), you can become a SUPporter via Patreon or our newsletter's "pay what you want" mode.

And speaking of Don, obviously he wasn't gonna miss the chance to gush about the art in this issue, so keep reading for that:

Zero Hour Promotional Poster by Jon Bogdanove and Dennis Janke

A promo poster inverting the Superman/Batman proportion in the classic cover for Superman: The Man of Steel #37 (which we covered the other day, if you missed it!). Can you help us identify the tributed artists? Here are the ones my ignorant "only read like 20 Pre-Crisis issues" ass can recognize, counter-clockwise:

Joe Shuster (multiple Joe Shusters?), Wayne Boring, Curt Swan, Kurt Schaffenberger, Jack Kirby, Neal Adams, José Luis García-López, John Byrne, Jerry Ordway, Jon Bogdanove, Jackson Guice, Tom Grummett, Barry Kitson, and Dan Jurgens. I notice an alarming lack of George Pérez, Kerry Gammill (or at least George Pérez/Kerry Gammill), and Bob McLeod, but I can't really complain because it's pretty crowded in there and few artists could pull this off like Bog.

Speaking of daring artists, it's time for another...

SPECIAL BONUS ARTWORK BATPOLL!

Having delivered on the Maxima from Superman/Doomsday: Hunter/Prey art that won our last poll (last call for comments if you'd like to be part of the giveaway, by the way!), Don is itching to draw something else and we request your assistance in deciding what:

Don says: "My idea is to draw those (or whichever era you pick) specific costumes in my own style, which will be a fine line, since such a big part of those costumes' distinctiveness was also the drawing style, but I think it can be a fun challenge."

You can vote here or on Patreon, and once again we'll be giving away the original art to a supporter. TO THE BATPOLLS, CHUMS! (Yes, you can write-in the Adam West Batman if you want.)

Superman: The Man of Steel #37 (September 1994)

Zero Hour is here, and so is Batman! And Batman, and Batman, and Batman, and, yes, even Batman! Clark Kent and Lois Lane are strolling down beautiful, half-destroyed Metropolis when Clark sees a Morse code message coming from a rooftop. It turns out to be Batman, who's looking rather... Neal Adams-ish. Superman should have realized something was off when Batman called him "old friend," even though these two have only been able to stand each other for (in DCU time) about a year at most.

Not only does Batman not recognize Superman's post-resurrection mullet hippie hair, but he seems confused when Superman mentions that little incident where he had his back broken by a 'roided-out wrestler, which suggests that he hasn't experienced the '90s at all. If Superman was truly Batman's friend, he'd rush him to the nearest arcade to play Super Street Fighter II Turbo right away.

Anyway, Batman dropped by Metropolis to warn Superman that there's some sort of "time anomaly" going on that's making "people from the past" show up in the present. You don't say.

Meanwhile, the big "concert to rebuild Metropolis" that's been teased in recent issues is about to get started. The organizer, Lois Lane's douchey ponytail-wearing ex-boyfriend Jeb Friedman, is jumped by some guys who look a whole lot like the Mutant gang from Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, who hate Jeb because they don't want Metropolis to be rebuilt (as opposed to any of the other 99,999 valid reasons for hating Jeb). Tragically, Jeb's life is saved by the grittiest, most violent Batman of all: yes, Ben Affleck.

(Just kidding. I know that's actually Adam West.)

After saving Jeb, this Batman runs into Superman and says he came to warn him about the time anomalies, but it's pretty obvious he already knew about them, considering he's hanging out with two separate Batmen and all. The Batmen barely have any time to get acquainted before a third Batman drops by, this one looking like he came straight from 1939's Detective Comics #27. Oh, and then the Neal Adams Batman suddenly turns into a different, much more pointy-eared Batman in the middle of a sentence.

(The DC wiki claims it's Kelley Jones Batman, but our resident art expert Don Sparrow says it could be Marshall Rogers Batman.)

Since Superman's all-purpose science guy isn't in his lab right now, he decides to bring the Batmen to the benefit concert in case the Mutants cause any more trouble -- especially since the music is so loud, it's "interfering with [Superman's] super-hearing." We just discovered another Superman vulnerability aside from Kryptonite and magic: '90s death metal.

As predicted, the Mutants do strike during the concert, and somehow even bring a whole tank into it (today, you can't even bring in a water bottle). Luckily, the music was so loud that most of the crowd didn't even notice it took one Superman, three Batmen, and some anti-tank explosives courtesy of DKR Batman to save them.

Superman finally finds Professor Hamilton, who was at the concert with some girlfriends, and asks him look into the mystery of the many Batmen. Hamilton employs his usual approach to scientific investigation: just put people inside a big glass ball (the isolation chamber first seen in Adventures #458).

Hamilton's instruments determine that "something very odd is happening to time," which Superman probably could have figured out without the need of a big glass ball -- especially since the Batmen are now rapidly turning into other Batmen and fading out of existence. Hamilton's conclusion is that Superman should probably look up the real Batman from this timeline. Just then, Superman hears a high-pitched noise: it's that precise Batman, who just arrived in Metropolis and used a gizmo to call his attention.

'90s Batman says the same thing as the others: weird time-related things are happening in Gotham... and Metropolis too, as is pretty clear by now. Just then, Metron of the New Gods shows up in his funky time-and-space-traveling chair to say that this isn't a mere "time anomaly" -- it's a CRISIS™!

TO BE CONTINUED IN ZERO HOUR!

Plotline-Watch:

Shout Outs-Watch:

Bat-shout outs to our Bat- I mean Super-supporters, Aaron, Chris “Ace” Hendrix, britneyspearsatemyshorts, Patrick D. Ryall, Bheki Latha, Mark Syp, Ryan Bush, Raphael Fischer, Kit, Sam, Dave Shevlin, and Dave Blosser! We're currently giving away some original Maxima art to one supporter and have another cool art poll/giveaway coming up! Join them (and get extra non-continuity articles, plus the giveaways) via Patreon or our newsletter’s “pay what you want” mode!

The great Don Sparrow had a LOT to say about the art in this issue this issue, starting with trying to identify all the Batmen on the cover, so buckle up and keep reading:

Maxima by Don Sparrow (and GIVEAWAY!)

BEHOLD, @donsparrow's finished art for the winning choice of our Superman/Doomsday: Hunter/Prey bonus artwork poll! (If patrons are feeling some deja vu, that's not a temporal anomaly; it's because you'd previously seen the black and white artwork.) And, as promised, we're giving the original art away to one supporter, whether you're pitching in via Patreon or the newsletter's "pay what you want" mode. If you're in that group and wanna enter the draw, just leave a comment and our advanced AI system will take care of the rest. (Meaning I'll copy and paste your name into a notepad file and then look up "random number generator" to pick a winner.)

PS: In case you missed it, we had a post about Action Comics #702 last week, featuring Superman and Ron Troupe ruining a Nazi's day and Cat Grant in a bathing suit...

Action Comics #702 (August 1994)

Bloodsport (not the black one, the anti-black one) returns, which means this is gonna be another distressingly violent issue, but hey, at least we get to see Superman hit a Nazi! Right off the bat, we start with Bloodsport mowing down a nice black family because he wants to, as he puts it, "Keep Metropolis Clean." After the "Fall of Metropolis" storyline, the place is pretty messy, so I guess what he actually wants to do is Make It Clean Again, but I digress.

Meanwhile, Ron Troupe, who helped get rid of Bloodsport the last time he popped up, is working on an article in Lois Lane's borrowed laptop, which is apparently the only working computer in Metropolis right now. When they hear about Bloodsport shooting people up on a bridge, Lois and Ron rush there and arrive right in time to watch Superman get owned by pink goo. Racist pink goo.

(New writer David Michelinie sure loves covering guys in goo, huh?)

Bloodsport recognizes Ron (so he can tell black people apart), who once again has a chance to shoot him but can't bring himself to do it. Bloodsport is like "thanks, now I'll kill you anyway" and shoots at Ron but ends up killing a police officer instead. She looked Latina, though, so I guess that's still a win for him.

By the time Superman has freed himself from The Nazi Goo™, Bloodsport has left for "the largest African-American neighborhood in Metropolis," and not precisely to experience the rich culture and cuisine. Once Superman gets there, Bloodsport teleports a bunch of automated guns all around him, which don't look terribly intimidating to someone with bulletproof skin... until Bloodsport points them outwards, targeting random people in the neighborhood to keep Supes distracted while he goes off to do more hate crimes. I regret to inform you that this makes this racist asshole smarter than 90% of criminals Superman has fought.

While Superman deals with that, Ron, feeling guilty because that cop lady died due to his inability shoot guns, decides to fight Bloodsport through something he's actually good at: journalism. And also by logging into Lois' notebook without permission, but I'm pretty sure she'd understand (you'd think she would have gotten stronger passwords after Lex Luthor hacked her, though). Ron uses his own reporting and the dirt Lois recently dug up on Luthor to find out that all those guns Bloodsport can teleport on demand are currently being stored at the LexCorp tower. Luckily, it's much easier to sneak in there since half the place got blown to shit.

The next time Bloodsport tries to teleport a gun to his hand, he gets something else: a handful of molten metal, courtesy of Ron. Turns out Ron can't pull a trigger, but he's perfectly capable of pulling the pin on a grenade.

Without his teleporting guns, Bloodsport is just a regular bigot in a silly costume. Superman doesn't even deign himself to punch this worthless scum with his whole hand, since a finger will do.

Later, Clark compliments Ron on his bravery, but Ron says the real hero is everyone who goes through their day not being a racist asshole. Pretty low bar, Ron, but a nice sentiment.

NEXT: Zero Hour! Finally!

Creator-Watch:

As mentioned, this is the first issue written by Roger Stern's replacement, David Michelinie, fresh off his long run in Spider-Man comics where, among other things, he co-created Venom, the character who still keeps him infrequently employed at Marvel. This is a bit more violent and darker than I like my Superman comics to be (not surprising from the guy who introduced Iron Man's alcoholism and killed Aquaman's Aquababy) -- I'm not sure I like Clark smiling at the end when so many people died in the issue, including a little girl. At least he didn't wink this time!

But, other than that, I think this is a solid done-in-one story and I appreciate having Ron actually contribute to the plot in a meaningful way. Michelinie clearly did his homework in regards to the continuity and seems to have a good handle on the characters, particularly Lois and Clark. Their interaction in this issue is kinda hokey, but come on, it's Lois and Clark. They're allowed to be hokey.

However, I do remember having one serious complaint about Michelinie's run the first time I read it: an almost complete lack of Bibbo, which is unforgivable. We'll see how accurate that impression is.

Plotline-Watch:

Plug-Watch:

On the subject of Superman punching Nazis, I fully recommend our old pal Patrick Ryall's "Superman vs. Bigots" column at The Avocado, where he goes over instances of Superman Family characters facing bigots across the ages, from the time Supes arrested Hitler in the '40s to the "Perry White vs. the Ku Klux Klan" issue from this era (which we haven't covered yet, so spoilers). Good stuff!

Now a self-plug: as mentioned in our post for the time-displaced Action #642, I've been putting together a sort of Superman '86 to '99 reading guide at my fav'rit current social media site (sorry, BlueSky), League of Comic Geeks, where I'm writing a short blurb about every issue from this era mentioning what's special, noteworthy, or weird/funny about it. At first I was just copying a paragraph or two from our old posts and throwing in a "read more" link, hoping to drive more readers to the newsletter, but I've started rewriting them to be more like something you'd see in an episode guide or a book about the '86-'99 period... which is an intriguing idea. Anyway, here's that reading guide link again, because this paragraph doesn't have enough clickable words in it already: https://leagueofcomicgeeks.com/profile/mrmxy/lists/58097/superman-86-to-99-checklist-wip

Shouts Outs-Watch:

Nazi-punching shout outs to our supporters, Aaron, Chris “Ace” Hendrix, britneyspearsatemyshorts, Patrick D. Ryall, Bheki Latha, Mark Syp, Ryan Bush, Raphael Fischer, Kit, Sam, Bol, Dave Shevlin, and Dave Blosser! Join them (and get extra non-continuity articles; we've got some cartoon-related ones lined up) via Patreon or our newsletter's "pay what you want" mode!

To see more of Don's take on this issue, including his thoughts on Jimmy's physique, keep reading!

Action Comics Weekly #642 (March 1989)

Superman gets offered a job as a Green Lant-- hey, wait a minute, why are we back in 1989?! Is Zero Hour already messing with the timestream? Nah, it's because, while making a Superman '86 to '99 reading guide at League of Comic Geeks, I noticed we never covered this issue -- we have a post about the Superman serial in Action Comics Weekly #601-641, and one about the classic Action Comics (Non-Weekly) #643, but this one sorta fell through the cracks since it wasn't technically part of the serial but not really a monthly issue either. So, with present-day Action Comics going weekly again this month, it seems like a good time to right another long-time wrong and plug this tiny hole in the '86-'99 continuity.

Anyway, the issue starts with a flashback to the day Green Lantern Abin Sur crashed down on Earth and, in his dying moments, instructed his ring to select and bring over a successor, who ends up being... Clark Kent?

Yep, this issue reveals that Clark was Abin's first choice for Earth's Green Lantern -- and no, this doesn't take place in some alternate timeline, like that annual where Superman becomes GL and President of the USA. However, the ring soon determines that Clark doesn't qualify for the gig because he's from a species "not native" to this planet, even though Man of Steel #1 established that he was born on Earth. Still, I guess it wouldn't be good for his GL authority to be undermined by any potential birther movements. Before having his memory of the incident wiped by the ring, Clark sees a projection of the other GL candidates, which include Robin, someone who looks like Pope John Paul II, and a test pilot Clark remembers interviewing called Hal Jordan. (Oh, and no women, leading Clark to correctly deduce that Abin's bosses have "an attitude problem.")

Clark recommends Hal for the job because he's "the straightest arrow I ever met" and will surely never go insane and kill a bunch of his buddies. Great call, Clark.

Meanwhile, in the present (well, 1989's present), Hal Jordan returns to that same desert where he first became Green Lantern to investigate a bunch of stolen nuclear materials someone's been piling up here. Some military types start shooting at Hal, which wouldn't normally be a problem for a Green Lantern, except that Hal is feeling so insecure lately that his ring malfunctions and lets the bullets hit him. When an army major shows up and starts barking orders, Hal just lets the guy arrest him and ends up getting shot in the chest by him. Again: great call, Clark.

As Hal lays dying in the desert, his ring is like "whelp, here we go again" and goes looking for potential Green Lantern candidates from all over the planet. They are: a union leader at an Eastern European factory, a priest in South Africa, an old Native American guy who fights mountain lions, a hostage negotiator in Beirut, Nightwing (so Robin again, but all grown up), Deadman (currently possessing some criminal), and Guy Gardner. Doesn't Guy already have a GL ring? Nope, because he just gave it to some very confused arms dealer who looks like G. Gordon Liddy to make a fight more interesting.

Oh, and Clark Kent again. Wasn't Clark already disqualified from the job? You'd think the ring would keep track of stuff like that.

As Hal's ring-projected ghost looks over his potential replacements, who are frozen in time at the desert, Deadman is able to talk to him (being a ghost too) and tries to convince him to just let himself die and go to heaven, where he can chill with Abe Lincoln, Ghandi, MLK, Robin Hood, and some unicorns. Clark unfreezes himself in time and tells Hal he should continue living, his main argument being "What if you miss out on the exciting space exploration that's definitely happening in the next decades?" (which is kind of a weird thing to say to a guy who can fly through space on his own).

Clark and Deadman get so caught up in their argument that they don't even notice an AI version of Abin Sur coming out of the ring and joining their little ghost party. "Abin" tells Hal that all of these other candidates are "lesser wills" compared to him, which surprises Hal (wonder if he heard "lesser willies"). Apparently that's what gives Hal the confidence to go back to his body, instantly heal himself, go kick those military dudes' butts, and convince a judge to prosecute them. While Hal's doing all that, we see that every one of the potential candidates took some GL energy with them as they got transported back to their countries and unknowingly used it to deal with the sticky situations they were in, from "convincing a factory boss to hire an old man back" to "declawing and defanging a mountain lion."

As for Deadman, he possesses the body of a kid from Clark's building just to continue his life/death argument with him. Clark tries to ignore him as he walks through Metropolis, but Deadman keeps jumping from body to body (a doorman, an old lady walking a dog, the dog) to pester him. Clark refuses to take the bait...

...until Deadman goes away, proving that Superman's will may not be as big as Hal's, but at least it's bigger than this guy's.

Creator-Watch:

Unless you count the Kingdom Come novelization, this was the only Post-Crisis Superman story written by prolific Pre-Crisis writer Elliot S! Maggin, who wrote over a hundred Action, Superman, and Superman Family issues in the '70s and early '80s. This is also, not coincidentally, the only Post-Crisis Superman story that ends with this Clark offering his once-customary last panel wink at the reader, though nothing we've seen so far suggested that fourth wall-breaking winks was in his power set. Maybe he just saw Bibbo across the street?

Plotline-Watch:

Shout Outs-Watch:

Speaking of which, massive Hal Jordan's willforce-sized shout outs to our supporters, Aaron, Chris “Ace” Hendrix, britneyspearsatemyshorts, Patrick D. Ryall, Bheki Latha, Mark Syp, Ryan Bush, Raphael Fischer, Kit, Sam, Bol, Dave Shevlin, and Dave Blosser! You can join them at those links above, because we feel self-conscious enough about plugging them once already.

And now, Don's take on this issue, plus more art from the stacked roster of artists (including Steve Ditko and Kevin Nowlan)!

A Wrong Righted! (A Baldy Award Tale)

by Don Sparrow

We don't often talk about the letter columns on the blog, but a feature of the letter columns from 1990 to 2001 was that one letter per issue that was deemed interesting, or who brought up a good point, or answered a trivia question correctly would be "awarded" a Baldy award.  In the DC universe narrative, the Baldy award was a nickname for Zenith Awards Banquet for Integrity in Journalism, which is hosted by noted bald headed man, Lex Luthor (as Max noted in his write up for Superman #44) but in the letter columns, it was similar to Marvel's "no-prize" prize, just kind of a neat little shout out you got for having a good letter. Or so I thought, until I started reading this blog.  I had always thought it was just a phantom shout out, for bragging rights only, at least as a kid.

There weren't a lot of rules regarding the Baldy award, but the big one I noticed over the years is that you couldn't get one if you asked for it--it had to be given unbidden.

Over the years as I'd read Superman comics cover to cover, I would pore over the letter columns, wishing that someday I'd earn a Baldy award.  This was a tough feat, as my collecting was piecemeal, and I'd often get the latest issue months after it was released, so even if I got it together to send a letter, it was well beyond the four issue gap they seemed to have.

It wasn't until college that reaching out to the Super titles became a little easier--in one issue they revealed the e-mail to which you could send fan letters, or sometimes they'd even publish comments directly from the DC Comics Message Boards.  I found that if you commented early enough, or wrote them right on release day, your chances were pretty good of getting published.  

The first letter I ever got published in a Superman comic came in Action Comics #770, in the year 2000, which was part of the "Emperor Joker" storyline.  Four issues previously, in Action Comics #766, the letter column asked what was the last time that Santa Claus appeared on a cover.  I quickly went to my long boxes to find the issue where Bibbo appeared as Santa Claus, Adventures of Superman #487.  (In that review, we actually tell a version of this story again, but now it has an ending!) and said so in my e-mailed fan letter.  When I bought my copy of Action Comics #770, I was shocked to find my own name in print, and even more shocked to have been awarded a Baldy for my Superman trivia knowledge.  I was thrilled to have the issue, fully believing that the Baldy Award was like the Marvel no-prize, and that being in print was "reward" enough. It wasn't until years later, reading this very blog that I realized that other winners had been sent a real physical postcard, bearing Eric Peterson's stunning (and Trumpian by design) portrait of Lex Luthor from his in-universe biography (and DC one shot).  While I would have cherished such a memento, I didn't feel too upset about it since it was all so many years ago, and, as discussed on the other post, the letter column was answered in-character by the Joker, so perhaps it was even intentional that they didn't send one out, as a Joker like prank (in fact, it's probably a lot safe for the Joker to not have my home address to send stuff to!).  

Cut to a few weeks ago, when I received a strange e-mail, asking if I was the Don Sparrow from Saskatoon who won a Baldy in 2000 (which I was!), inviting me to a private Facebook group, made up only of Baldy Award winners.  I joined the group, and was astonished to see they had a post with my name on it commemorating my Baldy win.  I made a comment on the page thanking them for my inclusion, adding that I didn't know back in 2000 that they even gave out physical awards, but that I was thrilled all the same to have won a Baldy.  There was some indignation on my behalf (again--I really didn't mind, not really knowing at the time what I had missed!), and someone on the thread tagged Mike Carlin, the legendary editor, jokingly or not-so-jokingly demanding to know why he had neglected to send mine (and a few others who had missed out) the award. I expressed again that I hadn't minded that I didn't win a postcard, but all the same, the wonderful Mike Carlin, architect of my favourite era of storytelling of my favourite fictional character, sent me a private message asking for my home address, which I gave him promptly.  Did I dare dream what this meant?  

Sure enough, only a week or so later, landing in my mailbox like a rocket in a farmer's field was a Baldy Award.  Beautiful, handwritten, and only 24 years late, but in my hands, as it was always intended to be. 

I messaged Mike to thank him, and am proud to share that you can consider this 24 year old wrong righted! 

[Max: I am insanely jealous, but also impressed that Mr. Carlin still has a stack of Baldys to give out in these occasions. Unrelated: ICYMI, we posted about the final chapters of the "Worlds Collide" crossover the other day!]

Worlds Collide: The Milestone Side, Month 2 (August 1994)

The conclusion to our somewhat messy coverage of this crossover, but to be fair, it was kind of a messy crossover to begin with. RECAP: Worlds are colliding! Fred is getting upset! As in Fred Bentson, the seemingly omnipotent mailman who can travel between the DC Universe and Milestone's Dakotaverse and thinks he's dreaming one or both of those worlds. After being tortured by unscrupulous assholes who were trying to exploit his power, Fred turned himself into a big ugly being called Rift and threw a tantrum, with dire consequences for our heroes (and our villains)...

Hardware #18

At last, the tale of why John Henry Irons was wearing nothing but boxer shorts in Man of Steel #36 can be told! After digging themselves out of the destruction caused by Rift's little temper tantrum, Hardware and his boss/nemesis Edwin Alva (one of the assholes mentioned above) decide to contact their enemy on the DC side, Hazard (the other asshole), so they can work together to save both their worlds. After all, that's where they keep all their stuff.

Hazard suggests recruiting "an inventor of his acquaintance," meaning John/Steel, the guy his lackeys have been trying to kill in the Steel series. Steel agrees to the awkward team up. Meanwhile, Hardware recruits an enemy of his own, some teleporting lady called Transit. In other words, everyone in this comic hates each other.

Thanks to Transit, the gang is able to create an "interdimensional space between the worlds" (don't call it a Pocket Universe). Steel and Hardware get to work on a machine that can contain Rift, and after a while, John tells his lab partner that he's "absolutely brilliant" and he's learned a lot from him. Hardware is like "yes."

That's when Steel notices that Hardware is adding something to the machine that will actually kill Rift instead of just trapping him. Steel isn't willing to do that, but he is willing to kick Hardware's ass to prevent it. Unfortunately, Hardware has the advantage of being a sneaky bastard who plays dirty, so he ends up beating Steel by throwing a "nano acid" at him that eats all of the metal in John's armor. There's no metal in John's undies, though. Hence: boxers.

Despite being powerless, Steel still won't back down and says the whole reason he's a superhero is to prevent his inventions from killing people (even giant, universe-destroying ones). He eventually wears Hardware down and they agree to build a non-lethal trap for Rift... after they make John some new (metal) pants, that is.

Icon #16

After the events of Man of Steel #36, in which Rift tried to force Superman and Icon to fight in Metropolis to determine which one gets to exist in his new continuity, he transports both of them to Dakota and gives them a new deal: if Superman defeats Icon, Rift will undo Lex Luthor's actions from Action #700 and un-destroy Metropolis. He even transports Lex to Dakota for a couple of panels, just to show off his powers. I'm not clear on whether this is an illusion by Rift or if he really gave Lex his hair and body mobility back for a moment, for some reason.

And if Icon wins, Rift will un-destroy his city. Wait, when something happen to Dakota? Right after Rift said that, since he unfreezes that tsunami he'd stopped in Superboy #7 and lets it hit the city.

Now that both heroes are properly motivated, the actual fight begins (with each one thinking they'll help the other once they win). Icon knows that Superman has the upper hand, since he's more powerful and also literally Superman, so he uses the one thing he has to his advantage: his giant Image Comics-style cape.

At one point, Icon says that "Lacking either a supply of kryptonite or the raw power of Jessica Fletcher, I'm forced to resort to other means to deal with you." Is Murder, She Wrote about some sort of powerful lady warrior in the Dakotaverse? Is she still played by Angela Lansbury? I kinda wanna see that version.

Superman and Icon seem pretty even, until Rift stops the fight and says he's realized that perhaps he doesn't have to choose between one world or the other. That sounds pretty good, until we see him grabbing both planets and crashing (or, you know, colliding) them into each other. The cataclysmic results are shown in Steel #7, which is followed by...

Blood Syndicate #17

What with all the cities crashing into each other and the mass casualties and stuff, everyone forgot about the Blood Syndicate, including Rift. So, when he's musing about streamlining his new combined world's continuity and they attack him (having just learned he drowned all of their friends and families), Rift retcons that rowdy bunch into a group of obedient little boys and girls sitting in a classroom. The "obedient" part doesn't last too long, though...

Since they didn't like that corny revamp, Rift turns them into something more EXTREME: the Underappreciated Ex-Gang, a group of muscular superheroes with various ethnic accents who have sworn to protect a world that hates and underappreciates them.

The funniest part is Aquamaria, who seemingly died in Superboy #7, reappearing as a phoenix made of water and giving a dramatic speech until she remembers she doesn't speak English and says "¿Pero qué carajo estoy haciendo aquí?"

The Ex-Blood Syndicate rebels against their retcon once again, so Rift decides there's just no place for them in his continuity and turns them into metal statues, just like the ones the Legion of Super-Heroes has for dead heroes. That similarity is no coincidence, as we'll see in the next issue...

Static #14

This oversized issue serves as the climax for the crossover. Right away, we find out that Rift didn't just revamp the Blood Syndicate: he revamped the entire combined DC/Milestone universe into a futuristic utopia protected by a large group of teenage superheroes. Static (or "Static Lad" as he's called now), being a huge nerd, instantly recognizes the reference: it's all based on the classic League of Superteens comics from the '50s, of course.

(Yes, superheroes in the '90s were very concerned with their hair.)

Static, Rocket ("Rocket Gal"), and Superboy ("Fabulous Boy") don't know where the other heroes are, so Static uses his genre-saviness to find them by consulting the LoST's Mission Monitor, which shows where every member is at any moment. My favorites on the long list are "Mall Hair Girl (on patrol)," "Dough Boy III (ret-conned)," and "Procrastination Lad (late)."

The superteens are able to find everyone except Superman and Icon, because they ended up stuck in the interdimensional void with the anti-Rift trap that Steel and Hardware made. While Rift is distracted forcing the superteens to fight the statues that used to be the Blood Syndicate, the armored geniuses are able to stretch a little portal made by Transit so that Superman, Icon, and the big trap machine can come through, which looks... painful.

Superman and Icon fly the trap towards Rift, and from his perspective it looks just like the freaky nightmare monster that had been haunting him since the start of the crossover (which is a nice bit of foreshadowing). The only problem is that the trap's battery is sort of busted due to the rough trip out of the interdimensional void -- and that's where Static comes in, because this is his comic and he deserves to get the big heroic moment. Static shoots a big burst of electricity into the trap as it catches Rift, and...

We see Superman, Superboy, and Steel back in Metropolis, and everything is back to normal (meaning Metropolis is still destroyed, but at least Superboy's fade cut is back). They lament the fact that their friends in the other universe were obviously not real, while in Dakota, the Milestone heroes think the same thing about them. So, the crossover ends with every single thing that happened in it being undone... except for Rocket kissing Static, since she does it again.

The last page shows Fred Bentson floating in a black void in his pajamas, doing the one thing he wanted to do all those years: sleeping in peace.

According to the DC wiki, Fred has reappeared exactly three times since this crossover: first in Justice League of America #34 (2009) and Milestone Forever #2 (2010), which explain that a mystical dude called Dharma found Rift napping outside of reality and used his powers to stitch the Dakotaverse into the DC Universe and prevent the former's destruction. More recently, in Milestone 30th Anniversary Special (2023), a younger version of Fred appears in the current Milestone earth and causes its heroes to meet their counterparts from the original Dakotaverse, until everything is sorted out thanks to Dharma, the Statics, and the power of group therapy.

This is a weird-ass crossover, mainly due to the "big bad" being a dweeb who seems to change his motivation with every other chapter (from "just leave me alone" to "I wanna be a superhero" to "destroy one universe" to "clean up the continuity"). However, the entire point was to introduce more readers to the Milestone characters and I think it does that pretty well: you get a good sense of who everyone is and what their comic is about. If I'd had the chance as a kid I probably would have continued checking out Static and maybe Blood Syndicate, just because that "Ex-Gang" gag was pretty funny.

Anyway, hope you're not fed up with crossovers starring dozens of characters and multiple realities, because we've got a biggie coming up...

Missed an issue? Looking for an old storyline? Check out our new chronological issue index!

Super Titles Round-Up (August 1994)

This month: Superboy gets wet! Steel gets a new armor! The Eradicator gets sad!

Superboy #7

"Worlds Collide" continues, but pretty soon it's gonna be more like "Waves Collide" because of the two tsunamis about to hit the inter-dimensionally connected cities of Metropolis and Dakota. While Superman and the Blood Syndicate team up to stop the wave on the Metropolis side, Superboy, Static, and Rocket try to do the same in the Dakota one, but none of their powers are really suited for stopping massive amounts of city-destroying water.

(At least we get some excellent sound effects out of their failed attempts.)

In Metropolis, the Blood Syndicate's Aquamaria (whose powers, as the name implies, are "being made out of water" and "Spanish") turns into a smaller tsunami herself to try to counteract the wave. Meanwhile, Superboy and his Amazing Friends decide to change strategy and try to fool the god-like being causing all of this, Rift ("the world's most powerful disgruntled postal worker," as Superboy calls him), into stopping the wave. Instead, they anger him so much that he turns both tsunamis into a wave of fire -- just as Aquamaria was about to crash into it. RIP, Aquamaria (or "Steamaria" now, I guess).

In Dakota, Rift does end up turning the wave back into water and freezing it in time, just to show off. Superboy, Static, and Rocket manage to work together to knock Rift down, but he easily gets up again and freezes them too by trapping them inside a giant headstone. They'll stay stuck there until breaking out in Man of Steel #36, which leads to...

Steel #7

Sorry, this isn't the issue where we find out why Steel was wearing nothing but boxers in MoS #36 (you'll have to wait for the "Milestone Side" post for that). What's important is that Steel is working with his former rival Hardware and current enemy Hazard on a plan to stop their even bigger common enemy Rift. Part of that plan involves getting himself a new armor with Hardware's tech, hence him not being in his undies anymore. Other than that, the plan doesn't seem to be going too well, considering Rift carelessly squashes Metropolis and Dakota together into one city on the second page.

Rift announces that now that he's merged the cities, he's gonna sort out the "continuity problems" by getting rid of all the redundant elements, like the two evil labs/sleep clinics where he was experimented on when he was a regular mailman. The heroes don't want Rift to destroy the lab because it contains the weapon Steel and Hardware created to depower him, so they join forces to distract him while Superman, Icon, and Hazard go retrieve the anti-Rift device.

By the way, while all the heroes fight Rift, there's a coloring error that suddenly turns Rocket into Superboy -- further evidence that Superboy's Milestone Universe counterpart is a pregnant girl.

Superman and Icon get the weapon out right before Rift remembers what he was doing and destroys the labs and everyone in them --including Hazard, apparently, which leaves Steel with some conflicted emotions. The guy seemingly died saving two worlds, sure, but he did also try to kill most of Steel's family. Rift teleports away at the end of the issue (he's gonna go mess with the Blood Syndicate in their own series) and the heroes fly off to see what they can do with that weapon. TO BE CONCLUDED IN ANOTHER POST! Here's some cool Humberto Ramos art to tide you over until then:

Outsiders #10

After helping the Outsiders break out of jail, the Eradicator joins them on a trip to "the underworld nation of Abyssia" to look for their teammate Looker, who has been turned into a vampire by the Dracula wannabe ruling that place. While down there, everyone suddenly starts experiencing visions related to tragic moments in their lives. In the Eradicator's case, he remembers he had two kids as Dr. David Connors and sees them calling him a freak.

Did that really happen? Because that's grounds for getting disowned, young men (though I guess they're getting their inheritance anyway since everyone thinks Dr. Dave is already dead). Anyway, you might think the vampire lord is causing these visions, but nope, he's getting them too and no one has any idea what's going on. The Outsiders find Looker, who betrays them, but then it turns out she was only pretending to betray them... and then it turns out she was only pretending to be pretending to betray them. So, yeah, she's evil. CONTINUED!

The Spectre #21

Superman is part of a truly random assortment of DC characters appearing in this issue, including most of the Justice Society, Lucien from Sandman, Nightshade from Suicide Squad, and Naiad from Firestorm (who, coincidentally, is also a lady made of water, like Aquamaria). Oh, and Adolf Hitler and Bill Clinton appear too. Jesus, who isn't in this issue? Not Jesus, he's also in here. Seriously!

President Clinton has tasked a guy named Professor Hazzard (another coincidence! Worlds ARE Colliding!) with finding a way to kill the Spectre if that ever becomes necessary. Hazzard travels into the Dreaming (read: takes a nap) and, with Lucien's help, learns about the Spear of Destiny: a spear that once struck Jesus, which eventually ended up in Hitler's hands and was used to keep all of the Justice Society, including the Spectre, out of Germany during World War II.

The Spear is now in a Raiders of the Lost Ark-esque warehouse, but Clinton orders they take it out once he learns that the Spectre has apparently flooded part of Tokyo and killed hundreds of people. Of course, that wasn't the Spectre, it was Naiad the Water Elemental, who went crazy and decided to kill everyone working in the Japanese oil company that caused the incident that gave her her powers. But Clinton doesn't know that, so he needs someone to wield the Spear and use it against the Spectre. Guess who he drafts for the job?

But that's not gonna happen until next issue. CONTINUED, TOO!

Legionnaires #17 and Valor #22

I wanna mention these issues since they make reference to the Pocket Earth Superboy, even though his role in the Legion of Super-Heroes' origin had been erased some years earlier (at this point, Valor was the young hero who inspired the Legion, not Superboy). The Legion's continuity is a complete mess, which is nothing new, but suddenly they're aware of it and that's causing troubles. For once, the Legionnaires are as baffled as the readers.

In fact, it's such a mess that their entire world is falling apart and they start looking for a new one to settle on. That's when one of them remembers there's an empty planet just sitting there: Superboy and Supergirl's Pocket Earth, which has been deserted since Superman killed its last three non-synthetic inhabitants in Superman #22. The plan is to literally haul the planet out of the Pocket Universe and put it where the old Earth used to be. Easy! The only problem is that once they bring the Pocket Earth over to the non-Pocket DC Universe, its core inverts or whatever and it turns into a time bomb. Whoops! ALSO TO BE CONTINUED, BELIEVE IT OR NOT!

Showcase '94 #9

The Dan Jurgens-written Waverider/Monarch story that started last issue concludes here (finally, something without a "CONTINUED" at the end). Monarch, who was always a bit of a knucklehead when he was a superhero called Hawk, has somehow invented a device that captured Waverider and his fellow Linear Man, Hunter, and forced them to ping-pong through time. Waverider finally breaks free and attacks Monarch -- but that was all part of his plan.

Monarch uses Waverider's chronal energy to look into his own past and find out why he's so smart now: it's because when he killed his former partner Dove at the end of Armageddon 2001, her "powers, reason and intelligence" merged into Hawk's dumb meathead body and turned him into a superior being. This warrants a name (and costume) change, so from now on, he's calling himself "Extant."

Extant dies fighting Waverider and Hunter... or that's what should have happened according to Hunter's temporal research. Instead, Extant completely owns both of them and steals Waverider's time-traveling wrist-cuff, which means he now has the powers and smarts to change history as he pleases. This also means I LIED! TO BE CONTINUED IN ZERO HOUR! 0:

Missed an issue? Looking for an old storyline? Check out our new chronological issue index!

Adventures of Superman #515 (August 1994)

Massacre in Metropolis, Part 2: the ice cream heist turns fatal! As seen last week, Massacre and his wormy little sidekick, Skimmer, have come to Earth to steal ice cream for a space mobster, but Skimmer ends up doing all the work while Massacre goes straight to punching Superman. In fact, Massacre cares so little about completing the mission that he punches Superman right into the spaceship carrying all the ice cream, causing it to come crashing down and explode. Superman, Massacre, and Skimmer survive the explosion but the ice cream, sadly, does not.

Massacre gleefully pummels Superman, who's having trouble punching him back -- Massacre always seems to know exactly what his next move will be and act accordingly. After deducing that Massacre doesn't have psychic powers (otherwise he'd be taunting him with stuff like "I bet Lois is making out with Jeb Friedman right about now!"), Superman figures out that he's predicting his moves by "sensing nerve signals," whatever that means.

What's important is that Superman deliberately misses Massacre with his heat vision in order to drop a wall on him from behind by surprise, and then just starts beating the crap out of him while Massacre is too distracted to sense any nerves or whatever. The massacrer has become the massacred!

Meanwhile, Superman's own wormy little sidekick, Jimmy Olsen, is taking photos of the fight from a rather flimsy-looking half-destroyed bridge, as a worried Lois looks on. Skimmer, who is also worried about his guy losing (and ending up stranded on Earth), sneaks up on Lois and takes her hostage. Lois, however, is pretty used to being kidnapped by "meta-weirdos" by now, so she quickly frees herself...

...at which point the entire bridge starts collapsing due to a blast shot by Massacre. Superman is able to save Lois and Jimmy, but Skimmer is buried by the rubble and it looks like he's about to go the big Ben & Jerry's in the sky. Supes wants to take him to a hospital (it's Metropolis; they probably have a whole unit for aliens crushed by debris during fights), but a weirdly emotional Massacre says no. He says Skimmer may be a bug but he's his bug, so he wants to transport him to a "xeno-med" instantly, which is his only chance of surviving. Superman agrees, and as Massacre disappears with Skimmer, he says something about having "learned his lesson well."

On the final page, we see that, after leaving Skimmer at the space hospital, Massacre retired from punching and now works a normal office job at a space insurance comp-- wait, no. He actually just let Skimmer die while he sat on an asteroid, thinking about how he's glad his little pal is dead now, because that means his rivalry with Superman is now personal.

(No, he's not cheekily winking at the camera, he just got a swollen eye from the fight.)

Creator-Watch:

As with Massacre's first appearance, artist Barry Kitson is credited as plotter in this issue, with regular writer Karl Kesel handling dialogue. You can sort of tell they're working Marvel style (art goes first, then the writer figures out what the characters are saying) because the narrative style is WAY more action-driven than your average Kesel comic, and some of the dialogue has a distinct "OK, what do I make them say in this one?" vibe to it.

This might explain why parts of the fight feel repetitive, as Don Sparrow points out (but I'll let him talk about it in his section below!).

Plotline-Watch:

Plug-Watch:

SPARROW ALERT! Don will be appearing at SaskAssemble AND Sask Expo Regina in September, so if you're from those parts, go there and confront him about his shameless Jimmy Olsen apologism.

If you're using League of Comic Geeks (sort of a Letterboxd for comics), I've started an account where I'm slowly posting blurbs from our older blog entries in the corresponding Superman '86 to '99 era issues, so feel free to follow along! I'll also be (briefly) commenting on the non-Superman comics I do read from time to time, including the '90s DC stuff I scour for Superman references for the Super Titles Round-Up posts. Be warned that you might suddenly see like 40 Zero Hour crossover issues show up in your feed...

Shout Outs-Watch:

Riot Grrrl-loud shout outs to our supporters, Aaron, Chris “Ace” Hendrix, britneyspearsatemyshorts, Patrick D. Ryall, Bheki Latha, Mark Syp, Ryan Bush, Raphael Fischer, Kit, Sam, Bol, Dave Shevlin, and Dave Blosser! Join them (and get extra non-continuity articles) via Patreon or our newsletter’s “pay what you want” mode!

Oh yeah, Don is also appearing RIGHT HERE AND NOW:

Superman #92 (August 1992)

Massacre, a big red alien who goes around the universe punching people, comes to Earth to steal some ice cream... and punch Superman, while at it. The ice cream thing isn't a joke, by the way. The issue starts with a space mobster called Chadda telling Massacre that he owes him for punching too many people to death "from his direction," so he has a mission for him. Massacre is ready to punch him to death too, until Chadda mentions that the mission involves going to Earth.

Earth, as you might know, is where Superman lives. Massacre feels like he owes Superman some punches from the last time they met, so he agrees to take the mission as a flimsy excuse to do that. He turns himself into energy and lands in some island in the Southern Hemisphere, where he instantly yells out for Superman to "reveal himself," but the only people around are some confused locals.

Massacre draws an honestly pretty good rendition of Superman's symbol on the sand (has Massacre been drawing the S-shield on his notebooks for months? omg he's just like me) and the islanders point him in the general direction of the USA. Of course, the USA is actually pretty big, so Massacre ends up asking directions from a random cowboy, who tells him he's "gots to go" to Metropolis to find Superman. And so, Massacre goes to Metropolis... Illinois.

Meanwhile, in the correct Metropolis, Superman is hard at work rebuilding the city's water purification plant after it was destroyed by Lex Luthor's missiles (along with most of the rest of the city), probably because he just wants Lois Lane to take a damn shower for the first time in a week. Unfortunately for the increasingly stinky people of Metropolis, Massacre finally finds his way to the city and distracts Superman from his job with, you guessed it, punching.

While Massacre keeps Superman occupied by burying him in cement, the little "Skimmer" alien who follows him around completes Chadda's mission: filling up a spaceship with an exotic substance that only seems to be produced on Earth called "ice cream." Superman breaks free from the cement, but Massacre throws him towards the ice cream-filled spaceship, causing it to come crashing down and explode. Did the little alien guy survive? Did the ice cream? Will Lois ever shower?! You'll have to wait to find out, because this is the part where I say TO BE CONTINUED!

Plotline-Watch:

Shout Outs-Watch:

Ice cream-flavored shout outs to our supporters, Aaron, Chris “Ace” Hendrix, britneyspearsatemyshorts, Patrick D. Ryall, Bheki Latha, Mark Syp, Ryan Bush, Raphael Fischer, Kit, Sam, Bol, Dave Shevlin, and Dave Blosser! Join them (and get extra non-continuity articles; we just finished covering all of the 1994 Superman Elseworlds annuals) via Patreon or our newsletter’s “pay what you want” mode!

And now, more from Don!