Adventures of Superman 0, 517 - 531, 578, 582 - 583

There’s a scene in Adventures of Superman #583 where Batman, having been killed (again) by The Joker, revives and claws his way out of the grave Superman dug for him. It’s a splash page with two inset panels. The two panels show Batman’s gloved hand breaking out of the surface, in true horror movie fashion. The splash page itself shows a Batman, free from the waist up, continuing to claw his way out. His face is mostly in shadow, and with the pointed “ears” of his cowl, along with the agape mouth, he looks feral, driven by instinct as much as madness. The panel is both awesome and terrifying. At the same time, it took me out of the story completely because it reminded of a very similar scene, one written by the same man who wrote #583, J.M. DeMatteis. That other scene was written 13 years earlier, and was a Spider-Man story. That story, like this one, featured the apparent death of a hero, Spider-Man, who of course wasn’t really dead and who also had to claw his way out from his own grave while the rain pours down. Here are the two images, for comparison’s sake:
 

Of course, context is everything. The stories that surround these two scenes are vastly different, and the images themselves are as different in mood and implication as they are similar in layout. There’s a thematic similarity between these deaths and resurrections, what causes them and what they say about the nature of each character. Also, both occur as a dramatic plot-point that is really part of a larger story, as compared to, say, “The Death of Superman” where Superman’s death was the story. (This probably explains why the resurrections shown above succeed in their emotional impact whereas Superman’s death was a cold calculation. But I digress.)

We’ll be getting to Spider-Man’s story,  “Kraven’s Last Hunt,” in a few weeks. I’ve been really looking forward to it seeing how it’s one of the stories that made me fall in love with comicbooks. I’ll get more into it at that time, but suffice to say that story has been so important to me that I’ve forever given J.M DeMatteis a life-long pass as a comicbook writer, even when what he writes is far below the greatness of “Kraven’s Last Hunt.” Like, say, when he wrote for Adventures of Superman.

To be fair, two of the three Adventures of Superman issues that he wrote that I own aren’t really bad. But DeMatteis’s first Adventures issue, 578, was very disappointing, due to the fact that DeMatteis shoe-horns in his spiritual philosophy into a story that doesn’t really need it. Mind you, Dematteis shoe-horned his spiritual outlook in just about everything he wrote, so you need to take that with a grain of salt. But alien winged centaurs that radiate New Age-style peace and harmony stand out like a sore thumb when the issue should be focusing more on Clark trying to save his marriage to Lois.¹ In fact, after reading that issue I hadn’t planned on reading any more. But, like I said, this is the man who wrote “Kraven’s Last Hunt,” so: life-long pass invoked.

I came back for, literally, a couple issues, because they were part of the “Superman Arkham”/Emperor Joker” storyline.² I found that DeMatteis’s use of spirituality was more natural fit given the “world gone mad” plot that comprises these issues and how belief plays an important role in bringing the world back to normal. It also helps that DeMatteis balances out the gravitas with a healthy dose of absurdist humor. Sure, Superman may be locked up in Arkham Asylum, driven mad after killing Lex Luthor, but when Bizarro is the world’s greatest hero and Supergirl is a novice at The Temple of the Beatific Amazingly Wonderful Divine Holiness, Etc., Etc., Etc. Yada Yada Yada, you know not to take things too seriously. (Also, having an exorcism performed by a man in a “Fat Elvis” jumpsuit wearing an Alfred E. Newman mask was a particularly inspired bit of absurdity.) It also helps that DeMatteis writes the Joker with just the right mix of vaudeville humor and psychopathy, which makes the whole “Joker gains godlike power” plot much easier to accept.

You may notice I’m focusing here on the tail end of my run of Adventures of Superman comics. This is because the bulk of the issues I read here, issues 0³, 517 – 531 we’re far less enjoyable than the issues I’ve been talking about. Even when I was collecting the Superman titles in 1995, fatigue was creeping in. I remember being thoroughly disappointed with the whole “Death of Clark Kent” storyline. I wrote about that when I reached the Action Comics issues that were a part of that storyline but, in brief: what bothered me so much was that for all of DC's hype about how this story would change Superman’s world forever, but by the conclusion of the story nothing had changed; the characters remain exactly as they were when the story started, as if it never happened.

And that was the problem with Superman in the 1990’s. The titles couldn’t go more than three months without some sort of gimmicky storyline meant to boost sales where, despite whatever upheaval occurred by the middle of the story, by the end of the story the characters were right back where they started. In issues 517 – 531 you had: 

•  “Dead Again,” where a corpse of Superman is discovered, and evidence points to it being the real body of Superman. Naturally, this makes the Superman who had “returned” the year before begin doubting his own existence and go slightly mad when he’s unable to prove that he is the real thing. But in the end, it’s all revealed to be a plot by Braniac, and our mulletted man of steel is vindicated for being the real thing. (Sadly, still with the mullet.)

• “The Death of Clark Kent,” where Conduit, alias Kenny Braverman, alias Clark’s old childhood friend, finds out Superman and Clark Kent are one and the same, and so he begins trying to kill everyone Clark knows and loves. No one actually dies—well, a few bystanders do, but all of Superman’s supporting cast (Lois, Ma and Pa Kent, Jimmy, etc) are just fine. And though the experience shakes Superman to the point that he decides to give up being Clark Kent because he doesn’t want to risk his loved ones like that again, that decision lasts all of one issue before Clark is back. (There’s a joke to be made here, involving a reference to Monty Python’s “Dead Parrot” sketch, but it eludes me for the moment.) 

• “The Trial of Superman,” where Superman is “arrested” by an alien police force and put on trial for destroying Krypton and, consequently, causing the death of all Kryptonians. Only there really isn’t a trial and the story spends most of its time dealing with Superman doing time in the Interstellar Big House, escaping from said big house, and—surprise—showing how misguided his prosecutors (persecutors?) were to blame him. (Hell, we didn’t even get some sort of goofy alien version of Perry Mason.)

You get the picture.  The emphasis on death and violence was part for the course in mainstream comics in the mid-1990’s. “The Death of Superman” was both a result and a contributor to the conventional wisdom of the time that stories with lots of death and violence was what it took for comics to be taken seriously by an older audience (ie: adults, not children and adolescents). That idea was the lazy-man’s excuse for trying to emulate the very real and justly earned publicity of comics like Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns, Maus, and a handful of other late 1980’s comics that had literary merit beyond being a part of pop culture. But rather than ape the complex themes and morality of those comics, they just took the sensational aspects—the sex and the death and the violence—and figured that’d be enough to attract a crowd.

But let’s give it credit where credit is due: that type of story-telling did attract a crowd. Hell, DC killed off Superman just for the sales and I ended up buying four comicbook titles for three years because of it.  As I’ve read these stories now I find very little of what interested me at the time. Then again, I don’t think it interested me at the time, either.  I have a very vivid memory of learning about the then-upcoming “The Trial of Superman” story, finding myself completely uninterested in it, and deciding it would be the last Superman storyline I’d buy. But if I was already dissatisfied with the title, why bother buying the story at all? Because: when you collect comics, you collect comics. There’s enjoyment in the act of collecting, even if the actual item that you’re collecting isn’t particularly enjoyable. The comicbook geek in me had been conditioned to buy a storyline through its conclusion, just to see how it ends.  After all, maybe the story would turn out better than expected.

But “The Trial of Superman” ended exactly as I expected it to, which ended my own interest in reading about Superman. As an adult, I can appreciate Superman. In fact, it was just this past summer that I picked up the collected edition of All-Star Superman, which has become my favorite Superman story since Superman For All Seasons.⁴  A true icon, Superman embodies the best qualities in humanity—selflessness, determination, hopefulness. The stories I’ve read for this blog may have lost sight of that, but there are plenty of other Superman stories out there that haven’t.

It’s going to be a long time before I get to discuss Superman again, and it feels a bit of a shame to end on such a disappointing note. So rather than do that, let me end with one of the few, genuine moments that made me smile. It’s this cover:

I love this cover, drawn by then-current Adventures artist Stuart Immonen, inks by Jose Marzan.  Clark/Superman is standing tall, holding Lois confidently. Lois is taking off his glasses, implying she’s an active part of both Clark’s and Superman’s life, and comfortable with the dangers inherent with being a part of it. The image represents duality: the coupling of Lois and Clark, as well as the dual identity of Clark Kent and Superman. There’s a kind of tension as Clark begins his change into Superman, leaving the woman he loves to fight his never-ending battle, but confident enough to know that whatever threat he faces, he’ll always come home to Lois. The cover encapsulates their relationship, as iconic as the “S” insignia and the superhero it represents.

The irony about comicbook reading is that, over the decades, the onslaught of monthly issues turns the miraculous into the mundane. You end up forgetting that it’s not the monotony of issue after issue, story after story, and gimmick after gimmick, that makes these characters special.  It’s the moments, like this cover, that remind you that these characters resonate and have power.  Faster than a speeding bullet. More powerful than a locomotive. Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. Look, up in the sky. You know you want to.

Next Issue: Hey, look, it’s a superhero other than Superman! We reach our first Marvel Comic in my collection (alphabetically), Agent X, which means I have to talk about Japanese Manga. (It's not as much of a non sequitor as it seems.) Oh, and Alan Moore sings.

¹I discussed the storyline involving the apparent dissolution of Lois and Clark’s marriage in this blog entry.

²I talked about the “Superman Arkham/Emperor Joker” storyline in a little more detail in the same blog entry that I linked to above.  I think I enjoyed Adventures of Superman’s contribution to those storylines than I did Action Comics’s contribution, but it may also be due to the fact that I’m not reading the stories in order, as it was intended to be read.

³Yeah, there was an issue zero. It was a publicity gimmick that came out of DC’s big 1994 cross-over, Zero Hour, which, like Crisis on Infinite Earths, tried to clean up continuity problems. The idea behind the zero issue was that history was being recreated, so every DC title that was being published at the time could use the opportunity to re-establish the tone and purpose of each character/series. Needless to say, some titles succeeded better than others, and the Superman zero issues were not among the successes.

⁴It’s going to be a loooong time before I get to writing about Superman for All Seasons but I do want to say that it was an excellent story, one of my favorites, set early in Superman’s career. The stunning artwork by Time Sale and a gorgeous watercolor palette by Bjarne Hansen alone make it worth seeking this story out. I recommend you give it a look if you’re interesting in reading a good Superman comic (as opposed to most of what I’ve been writing about the last few months).