Superman #236

It's always fun to open up an issue of Superman and find an unexpected Batman team-up, even if only for a couple of pages. So begins the tale of "Planet of the Angels."

By page two, Supes has bid Batman adieu, and he's on his way to the Fortress of Solitude. Since he doesn't need to sleep, and he's got nothing better to do, he's going to go fiddle about in his mancave until morning. He doesn't get much fiddling done before he seems to fall into a trance and trips out. When he gets his bearings back, he finds himself surround by fore and brimstone with demons on the attack.

The poor guy gets to finally nap and -BAM- Hell-dream!

The demons don't seem to harm Superman, so he pushes them back. As soon as he does, a bunch of guys wearing wings show up and introduce themselves as Angels. You've got your typical "Gabriel", "Raphael", and "Michael." Because, really, what other names would them use, right?

The Angels give Superman some song and dance about how he'll totally get into Heaven, if he proves himself by going into the fires of hell and opening a locked gate. To add to the pot, the Angels promise Superman all his pals, Lois, Jimmy, and heck even Batman will all get to go to Heaven too. So, Supes heads into the hellfire.

In the fires, Supes sees his pals and realizes they're just illusions. He gets to the gate and can't open it so he tunnels underneath, and then the other shoe drops. Of the "Demons" tells Superman the truth. The "Demons" are space cops, and the "Angels" are wanted space fugitives. Superman helps the space cops, and takes care of Ralph and Mike, but Gabe makes a run for it to Earth with a bomb.

Because of COURSE, he's going to make a run for it to Earth AND have a bomb.

Superman travels through the trippy time-warp thing and arrives in time to stop Gabe, by using his body to stop the bomb from hitting Earth. Supes pops Gabe and turns him over to the space police and once again he's saved the day.

As the sun comes up at the Fortress, Superman still hasn't slept but he's good. He had this messed up waking dream and he smiles.

And what about the Sandman Superman, you ask? Sandy is a no show. What a way to screw with us readers... last issue has Superman finally confronting Sandy. We wait a whole month to see the aftermath, and what do we get? Superman having a messed up hell-dream that turns into a space cops and robbers thing that wasn't really a dream, but might have been in some weird way.

And if that wasn't bad enough... we get slapped across the face with another World of Crap-ton story. But this time, they disguised it by having Superman, Green Arrow, and Black Canary having a picnic at the beginning... to lure you in.

Welcome to: The Doomsayer!

Green Arrow is being he usual hippy self getting worked up over the environment. Black Canary is fed up. And Superman... well, Superman is going to tell them, and us the story of  Mo-De.
Mo-De was a doctor on Krypton who predicted the destruction of Krypton 20 years before Jor-El (aka Bore-El.)

Mo-De lived in a city that had these weird singing flowers that calmed everyone. He, of course didn't listen to them and was a cracky dude who's all "The End is nigh!" He figures out that the flowers are brainwashing the populace, like some sort of drug, so he cuts down as many as he can. The people rebel, capture him and lock him in a warehouse full of these things. When he comes out, he's a Stepford Wife. Krypton still explodes. The moral of the story, if people had listened to the cracky doomsayer they would have had a 20 year head start to possibly prevent the destruction of Krypton and therefore rob the Universe of Superman!

Black Canary sees the light. Green Arrow's hippy anti-government anarchist ways ARE best.Yay.

Man, I hope Sandy shows up in the next issue. At least I got to see Batman in the first couple of pages. I'll focus on that.

Can't wait til next issue.

Superman #235

Issue #235 introduces us to the "Sinister Scream of the Devil's Harp."

In this fine story, Superman finds himself pitted against a musician. You didn't read that wrong. Superman's going to fight a guy who plays music... and almost lose. But let's start at the beginning.

It all starts with Clark Kent and Lois Lane going out on the town to the Metropolis Concert Bowl to cover the music of pianist, Ferlin Nyxly*. But don't worry, Clark. Even though these "highbrow sounds" aren't exactly hip slang using Lois Lane's "thing", she didn't have a date with Superman tonight, so you'll do.

Of course, during the course of this purely mundane work date, a bunch of assassins decide it's time to get to assassinating some bigwig from some middle eastern country I doubt anyone in Metropolis would be able to point out on a map. So STOP... it's SUPER time! Superman pops in and saves the day.

Our pal Ferlin gets upset that his concert was interrupted and no one is playing attention to his boring piano playing while Superman's there doing Superman-like things like stopping a bomb that was launched from a helicopter. Boo hoo, Ferlin. Sorry Superman just saved your butt.

I'm not being hard on Ferlin. The guy is a douche. Turns out that whiner can't even play the piano. He stole his musical abilities from a real musician using, you guessed it, The Devil's Harp. Why's it called that you might ask? Because it's red and it has the devil's face on it, that's why.

It looks like you make a wish, and strum it and you get what you want. Originally he wanted to be a musician, strummed it a bit and the world's best pianist became a lump, and this chump became good at playing chopsticks. So since that douche, Ferlin now wishes to have Superman's powers and strokes him magical wish granting Devil's Harp... he gets Superman's powers. He also gets himself a costume to parade around in, like everyone does when they get Superman's powers.

The douche dresses like Pan. And he's got a harp. With a Devil's face on it. That grants him wishes. You. Can. Not. Make. This. Up.

At that same time, he wishes to fly like Superman, Supes loses his flying powers over the ocean. Thanks harp douche. When he wants to invulnerability to, you know, rob an armored truck like anyone would in this situation, Superman loses HIS invulnerability.

What's noteworthy is that during this time, our old pal, Sand Superman looks to be shadowing Supes as he goes around doing his do. Every time Supes loses his powers, so does Sandy.

Now, Ferlin the Harp Douche decides to challenge Superman to a death match. It happens in a packed stadium. This leads to assume that the folks of Metropolis are a bunch of jerks who'll drop everything in the middle of the workday to watch two guys duke it out in a fight to the DEATH.

Ferlin plays his harp and hand Superman his butt. Sandy shows up, Superman tells him to smash the harp, and then walks off totally ignoring Superman. If he would have spoken, I bet his word balloon would read something like, "THERE, now maybe I can get back to taking your powers myself. Geez!"

Sandy is creepy, but man does he know how to make an exit.

And the best part of this issue? No boring World of Crap-ton Jor-El snooze-fest!

Can't wait til the next issue

*If you have been reading the New 52 Superman, Ferlin Nyxly's name may ring as familiar. Mr. "Don't make me say my name backwards" Myxzptlk's son born in the New 52 Action Comics carries the name of Ferlin Nyxly. The plot thickens...

Superman #234

Issue #234 attempts to show us "How to Tame a Wild Tornado" (See what I did there?)
Actually, what it does is show us how much of a douche Morgan Edge can be. Clark Kent gets sent on assignment to the South Seas to cover a volcano erupting. That's a brilliant maneuver there, Morry. Send one of your so called best reporters to an island in the middle of nowhere to report on a volcano... doing what volcanoes normally do. This is "News?"

Anyway, the island this newsworthy volcano is on happens to be owned by a wealthy mover and shaker. I believe the term Tycoon is used. Jerk would have been a better term, as Superman discovers.

The volcano's about to blow, and the island's natives do as they tend to do in a situation like this. They run. They run for their lives. What does rich jerk do? He shoots at them.
Superman steps in and saves the day of course. He stops the volcano and JR Ewing from both killing innocent folks with molten lava and bullets.

Sounds cut and dry doesn't it? Superman saves the day, hooray! BUT... and it's a big BUT... Superman actually has trouble saving the day. The invincible Superman we've been used to reading about is no where to be found. His powers are still weakening just when he needs them most, and they're not coming back.

Meanwhile the Sandman Superman we met in the last issue... he's being his creepy self lurking in of all places, INSIDE THE VOLCANO! He's getting better at looking like Superman too. Hmmm...


Also in this issue is another boring Jor-El story, "Prison in the Sky."

In a nutshell: Some Kryptonian crook gets elected to the Science Council and wants to kill prisoners. Jor-El wants to put them to sleep and shoot them off into orbit. The crook tries to sabotage Jor-El's plan and ends up getting exposed. Jor-El ends up putting him to sleep and launching him off planet. Jor-El also manages to put me to sleep too.

Superman must have gotten his excitement gene from his mother's side.

Let's pretend we didn't have to trudge through this World of Crap-Ton story, and think back on the Sandman Superman and his always being around when Superman's powers crap out.

That's better. Can't wait til next issue.

Superman #233

What better way to start my blog than by starting at the beginning of the Bronze Age Superman!

Issue #233 began what is known by Superman fans all over as the Sandman Saga.

It's also known as THE game changer.

This issue starts with Superman helping some scientists out with some machine that uses Kryptonite. It doesn't work, and as usually happens in comics, it blows up. Superman, being Superman tries to contain the damage and ends up getting knocked out. One upside, this explosion caused some comic-related chemical reaction that pretty much made all Kryptonite inert.





So, there's the first big change for you... no more Kryptonite. No more Kryptonite to belittle the Man of Steel when a writer couldn't come up with an interesting idea. (And I would think, no more Metallo, since you know, his heart is made of newly inert Kryptonite.)

The next big change comes to Clark Kent and his co-workers.

We're introduced to Morgan Edge, whose first appearance was in Jimmy Olsen #133, by the King himself, Jack Kirby. Morgan Edge is the owner of WGBS, and new owner of the Daily Planet. So heads up Clark, you're now a television reporter.

Clark goes off to cover a breaking news story about a mailing rocket, and as usual finds saboteurs. When does Superman ever not find saboteurs when dealing with rockets, missiles, or any sort of experimental ship?

Superman jumps to the rescue, but whoops... his heat vision fails him. He's also a bit weaker since the Kryptonite explosion from the beginning of the issue. Oh well, he still saves the day and makes it back to the Planet/WGBS to file his report. Because he's SUPERMAN and that's how Superman rolls.

Then the epilogue kicks in:

Say hello to the Sandman Superman. Get comfortable with this fellow, since he'll be a thorn in Superman's life for the next year. That's right... the biggest change of them all, a year-long story arc. Gone are the days of "Done in One's"... where everything is reset before the next issue. Superman comics have finally grown up. Or at least they did for one year. But we'll get to that when we get to that.

This issue also features a back-up story featuring Jor-El and stuff he did on Krypton. To be honest, I usually just skip these stories. They bore me. But for this blog post I figure I could take one for the team... so here it goes:

Jor-El's Golden Folly:

Jor-El graduates Krypton's version of MIT and goes to work for that society's version of NASA. He builds antigravity drive to power a spaceship made of gold. But little does he know that astronaut, Lara Lor-Van has snuck onboard the ship and I guess her weight throws stuff off and the ship crashes on one of the moons. Jor-El sneaks onto another ship and rescues her a few days later.

Seriously, Superman's dad builds a motor for a gold ship. Then Superman's mom flies in it and crashes it. Then Superman's dad saves her. 

Now you see why I usually skip these. 

Let's go back to the Sandman Superman... isn't he creepy in that last page? Can't wait for the next issue!