Episode 109 - The Return of Superman with Zach Herring

Each of the pretenders left an impression, but none could truly live up to the real deal. Zach Herring joins us again to conclude the comic storyline of Superman’s journey back to the land of the living.

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Transcription

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00:00
Zach Herring
When he's. When he's. When he's cutting these, editing these five hour podcasts.

00:06
Case
His immediate response when I sent him the email with the last one was a cry emoji.

00:12
Zach Herring
Oh, no.

00:14
Case
I was like, I'm sorry, Matt.

00:18
Zach Herring
Oh, my God.

00:43
Case
Hey, everyone, and welcome back to the Men of Steel podcast. I'm case Aiken, and as always, I am joined by my co host, J. Mike Paulson. Hello, everybody. Welcome back. Today's gonna be a great one. I'm excited, yes, because we are continuing our conversation about the death and return of Superman, this time actually talking about the return of the real Superman. And to continue that conversation, we are joined yet again by Zach herring.

01:08
Zach Herring
Hello, everybody. Stoked to be back again. And for those of you looking forward to a break, sorry, you're going to have to wait another week. I'm sorry. One more week, and then you'll be rid of me for another six months.

01:21
Case
Well, we've got way more material coming up, but in the meantime, we want to keep the conversation going about the comics part about the return of Superman. This is a shift in storytelling that I think it makes sense that it is now collected in two separate trades, whereas the version that I have from back in the day is just one giant, like, super thick watchmen thickness level trade. Although actually, now that I think about it's more issues than watchmen by a considerable. So that all makes sense because whereas the first chunk that we looked at last time was each of the respective Superman books that were running at the time, doing their own thing with these imposter supermen, this is where the issues now start to flow together as one continuous story, just with four different creative teams working on it each week.

02:15
Case
And you can really tell that, because the opening thing that happens when we pick up with action Comics 689 is the Hobbsneck Bridge, their Brooklyn Bridge equivalent for Metropolis being blown up at the end of the Adventures of Superman issue that we concluded last time with. Does this make sense, given some of the books that we have in here to start the trade? That is debatable.

02:36
Zach Herring
I thought I was missing an issue. I literally thought I was missing an issue more.

02:43
Case
I'm thinking of the bloodline annuals that pop up.

02:46
Zach Herring
Those make sense in this context.

02:48
Case
Yeah. So this issue is, however, a direct continuation of that adventures of Superman issue wherein Superboy, because we're just going to call him Superboy now. I'm sorry. There's no way. And Supergirl were fighting Stinger, the Spider man knockoff assassin that was sent to kill him as a publicity stunt. And when he escaped, he blew up the bridge. And so we open with the two heroes actively trying to save people who had fallen off the bridge into the water. And so we're getting a bit more of Tana Moon responding to things. And frankly, this is, I think, probably the first time Tana Moon is being drawn by someone who isn't Tom Grummett, because she's a character that first appeared in Adventures of Superman. So we're starting to see more bleed between the different books.

03:33
Zach Herring
Yeah, that's what I loved particularly about this. This one is that you get to see a whole bunch of the characters that you grew to love in the previous giant omnibus and then get to see them rendered by other people, like my man Boggs getting to draw eradicator and stuff like that. It's just really cool. And this was kind of the start of it. And I was like, oh, my God, this is awesome.

03:58
Case
Yeah, I mean, Superman. Pardon me. Superboy showed up in Superman the Man of Steel last time, and that was the only real crossover that we got. And even that one was the one that made sense. It was the two that weren't really pretending to be the original Superman, so there was no friction from that. And it was two different vibes. One is like Superman in powers, but not in terms of personality or memories. And the other one was Superman in spirit. And that team up worked very well. And spoiler alert, they will continue to keep teaming up over the course of many decades of comics. Spoilers. But not everyone on these pretenders would join that particular team. Is it really? Spoiler? It's been like 30 years at this point, I think I know. Well, then again, people haven't watched a lot of the movies.

04:46
Case
So we see Superboy and Supergirl jump into saving things. We have a spot where Supergirl uses her telekinesis to actually prevent a truck from going off the edge. And aside from Superboy's extremely misogynistic dialogue that they're writing for this where he's like, nice work, super babe. And hitting on her suspect, he's like, actively doing that while there are people, like, buried in the water, people literally dying.

05:12
Zach Herring
And he's like, super babe.

05:15
Case
Amazing. Yeah, there's a lot of spots where they're trying to be like, this is a 90s kind of thing. Like, whoa. Demolition city. And then like, wow. Still kicking after a little tumble like that. Something like this must sure make you a believer in airbags.

05:30
Zach Herring
Whoa.

05:30
Case
Because you can't help but kind of do specifically this superboy dialogue that way. And I feel like it's, especially when it's not Carl Keesel writing it, where it goes really into 90s isms because he's poochie to a certain degree, where it's like, how can we make Superman cool or Superboy cool? But meanwhile, we're getting this news report and it cuts over to the fortress and we're just going to get right into it. That kryptonian healing matrix that they kept referring to explodes outwards and from it emerges a black clad, very clearly Superman figure. The only question is this yet another pretender or is it the original? But he seems to be on point pretty fast. Like, the issues start. They do this thing where they lower the light. His eyes might be too weak and you think, oh, could this be eradicator?

06:21
Case
But I thought it was. Nothing's happened to the eradicator at this point or nothing's happened to the last son of Krypton at this point. So he's out there still. So this emergence of a character is fine, but there's no real deception at play. Even though there's some beats that feel like they're trying to deceive us into thinking it's still the same last son of Krypton character because there's nothing for the.

06:45
Zach Herring
Like, they kind of heavily shadow his eyes on a couple of have they have like a photocopy of eradicator and Clark Kent to show that they're exactly the same person or at least like the same know.

07:00
Case
Yeah. When he gets the rundown on all the different Supermen, they do the last son of Krypton and then they show him looking up at the screen and their faces are in the same perspective and it's like, yep, that's the exact same face. Which. Yeah, I mean, like, that's the thing. We have to emphasize that, especially the eradicator and the Cyborg Superman, but especially the eradicator had Superman's exact face. He just kind of looked like a Kryptonian or was a different actor playing the part, but it was the same Superman type. He had Superman's exact face, at least at this point, which is why it was so confusing for people, because it wasn't just kind of similar. It was. No, that's a person that we know.

07:42
Zach Herring
Yeah.

07:42
Case
Literally exactly like it.

07:44
Zach Herring
And if you think about it, right, like in a reign of Superman, Lois had questions. She recognized him as Clark. And the reason why she didn't verify him as the real Superman is because he basically said like, yeah, I remember you used to be important to me, but not anymore. And then he flew. So we knew, even tracing back to that first issue of Reign of Superman, that he looked like Clark Kent, even if he wasn't necessarily exactly Clark Kent. And I really liked kind of, like, repeating a lot of those motifs here to kind of like. Yeah. And honestly making use of the photocopier so that it's not even leaving enough to chance that the artist can draw the same face exactly the same. Right. They just photocopies it to really drive that home, I think is really good storytelling on this.

08:34
Case
Yeah. The shading is exact between the two. Every line of detail is the exact same. Even there are lines on his exposed neck that match the lines on the blue fabric of the eradicator.

08:46
Zach Herring
Exactly. Just perfect. Absolutely perfect. Really? He just kind of like shoehorns in some glasses. And then he calls it good on the eradicator side.

08:55
Case
Right. And this outfit that we're seeing, it's a variation on the kryptonian outfits that we had seen in the past. It is the undersuit that they wear under normally, like, the longer robes. And then when Superman had been possessed by the eradicator, he wore a version of that then with the red body stripe, like, kind of attached to it already. But this is just like that base outfit without any of the extra stuff on top. So it's the equivalent of the outfit that Zod wears or, honestly, the superman uniform in man of Steel. The movie, in terms of it being like, oh, this is our base kryptonian outfit.

09:29
Zach Herring
It's got some really nice frills on the shoulders.

09:33
Case
Yeah. That's like a part of just kryptonian design, according to John Byrne. I really wasn't sure if that was part of the costume or part of him being in the healing matrix. No, it's in all the kryptonian outfits of the Byrne School of Design.

09:48
Zach Herring
And you think about the Christopher Reeves movie. Right? Like, they had that almost, like, almost, like, crinkly fabric to it, which is what this reminds me of. It feels definitely burn influenced, but also feels very much influenced by the Superman movie of that.

10:05
Case
Well, and Byrne was influenced by that movie, but he wasn't allowed to legally use the exact things from that movie when he was doing the man of Steel relaunch. So he tried to invoke them without having it be a thing that the Falcon brothers could or the Falcon family could sue him for. So they couldn't quite do that. So Superman gets up to speed, this is Superman. We're just not his personality. While he's confused and disoriented, he has both an inquisitiveness about the world, a general sense of morality. He comes off very much more like Superman from the get go. Like everything about the way he holds himself, plays the way you would expect Superman to at this time in the comics.

10:51
Case
But he gets up to speed on all of the things that have been going on, like the cults that have been forming, worshipping Superman. The fact that there are multiple duplicates, the fact that they've been involved in all these fucked up, or rather fuck ups in terms of trying to save lives that end in major landmarks being destroyed and people dying. And if they really wanted to try to tie into shit, they could have talked about how there's a homeless, a problem with homeless people being murdered in metropolis right now. But no one wants to remember that unless you're actually in the annual itself.

11:20
Zach Herring
Right?

11:20
Case
So moving on, it cuts back over to the bridge. And this is why I say it's really picking up in terms of being one story across multiple issues. Because plot threat like this scene that happens next, you would expect to happen over in Adventures of Superman, but that's going to be three issues from now. So they don't have time to still deal with those old lingering issues. Everything immediately gets picked up in the next issue after the next issue in the story keeps on going. This is one giant story. So Superboy has to reveal to Supergirl that he got swindled into signing a contract with Rex Leach instead of Lex Luthor. And Lex is not plea at all.

11:58
Zach Herring
Which is great. Yeah, which is great. That's one of my favorite ongoing subplots in this is the agent woes of Superboy. And I really appreciate it. Every time it pops up in any of these issues is fantastic.

12:15
Case
I still love the fact that he's got that whole head and shoulders hair Maybelline. I like that. Lex is like, I'm going to sue him to oblivion. He's technically a minor because he's a clone. He can't have signed any contracts that were legally binding.

12:31
Zach Herring
That's also just a wonderful idea for just a wonderful plot point, right? Lexus probably spent millions, if not billions of dollars cloning Superboy. And then suddenly to lose out all the rights of his multi billion dollar investment is kind of, I mean, that.

12:48
Case
Part is a retcon to a certain, like, while he had financial ties to Cadmus, he did not know that they were doing this project.

12:56
Zach Herring
Oh, really?

12:57
Case
Yeah, that's a retcon. That happens later, because at this point, Superboy is actually not kryptonian. They will reveal that very shortly after. It's like the next issue of Adventures of Superman, after this trade collects where he is human, modified to resemble kryptonian because the rules were they weren't allowed to have other kryptonians. That's why Supergirl is a protoplasmic entity. That's why the closest we get is technically the cyborg. And that's still like, oh, well, it's a mad guy with spoilers. Kryptonian intelligence.

13:29
Zach Herring
Oh, my God.

13:30
Case
Even the eradicator isn't allowed to actually use kryptonian.

13:34
Zach Herring
Yeah, and it's all kryptonian technology, too. It's not like actual biology. I think he was simulating some of the biology, but most of it was just the technology that they were using to fool the White House.

13:48
Case
Yeah. So in this scenario, Lex Luthor, while he put money towards it, the superboy that was created is actually based at this time on Paul Westfield, the director of Cadmus. And his DNA is modified to present traits that look like Superman and then emulate the force field that Superman creates that has been modified to being strictly telekinetic, which we will develop over time. We jump over to mon pa kent, mad about how Superboy fucked up stuff, and is also kind of mad that Matrix is also kind of a fuck up. Now that she's under Lex Luthor's influence, and this is all appropriate, it makes sense that they would be really upset that their son's name is being tarnished so terribly by not one, not two, but four pretenders.

14:28
Zach Herring
Four pretenders. Yeah.

14:30
Case
Paul was like, maybe I suck at raising girls. I'd never raised a girl before. I was like, dang, man.

14:37
Zach Herring
Yeah, that was pretty heartbreaking. Absolutely.

14:41
Case
I mean, look at the way, like, Supergirl is acting when she's around Superboy, and then the next page when she's around Lex. And in both cases, she's, like, fawning all over both of them. And it seems like, yeah, pa, you kind of fucked up raising your daughter.

14:55
Zach Herring
Yeah. Fawning one over seems ten years younger, and then the other seems at least ten years older. It's very interesting, actually, the age disparities between the love interests here.

15:07
Case
Anyway, so they cry. And then we cut over to the man of steel, dealing with gang violence, because that's Kazam's beat. I'm going to keep saying that every time, but at this point also, this is another, again, we're just jumping right into a different Superman being drawn by a different artist than what we'd been seeing so far. And this is when the eradicator shows up. And the eradicator kills someone who was going to shoot at the man of steel, but the man of steel is like, why did you fucking murder him? I'm in a suit of armor, you douchebag. Superman shouldn't kill. And I'm wearing this in tribute to him. And you're just murdering people while wearing his face. And that seems kind of not the way Superman would want it to be.

15:50
Case
And the eradicator has no chill and just immediately puts him through a wall.

15:55
Zach Herring
Yep. And calls a totally normal dude in a suit of armor a freak for some reason.

16:03
Case
We cut over to Lois and Jimmy having a catch up, and they're just kind of generally going over the various angst that Lois is feeling while then all of a sudden there's commotion and they run outside and they find out that the two supermen are fighting. This is interesting, or I found this interesting. This being action comics, this is technically the last son of Krypton's book. So in this book, it feels like he has the upper hand. And the second we switch over, it feels like Steele takes the lead, which.

16:32
Zach Herring
I was thinking about that each of them, it was really fun to see each of the artists draw the different Superman. But you could definitely tell I love how they saved the most heroic poses for the leads in the book, which totally makes sense. Right? It's very aligned. And even if you look at, like, I feel like Geiss is almost drawing, like, you can kind of see the Bachdenoff influence of steel in kind of the Geist drawings here, like, how he's handling the cross hatching and everything. And, yeah, I love kind of like, how power dynamics shift as soon as it jumps to another title. It was really interesting.

17:17
Case
Yeah. Because the eradicator is, while his powers are slightly different than normal Superman, it's a caliber above what a person in the suit can live up to. Even as impressive a work as the steel suit is, it's just not going to live up to a kryptonian. It's just not. So eradicator is not having too hard of a. Like, he's smacking steel around. Steele is like putting up a fight, but not doing too much. And that's when Lois runs in and is like, what the fuck are you guys doing? And feels like shit. You're right. Like, I didn't throw the first punch, but you're right. I shouldn't have thrown a punch at all because I should be living up to the lessons of Superman. But the eradicator is also kind of getting through as well.

18:05
Case
And we've seen that the eradicator, or not getting through, she's getting through to the eradicator. We have seen that he realizes when things go too far. As we talked about last time when Guy Gardner was like, you have my support. He was like, what the fuck have I done? Oh, my God. Am I the baddie?

18:21
Zach Herring
Yeah, the wrong people. Like, there's like, this plays later into it, and I'm going to save it for later. But the eradicator is almost like slow motion. Redemption is actually one of my favorite things about the previous series and this series. It's really interesting. Yeah.

18:42
Case
Because he actually does have all of Superman's memories, more or less. He's psychically linked to Superman and previously was possessing he. His first actual body he manifested was just Clark's and he had just possessed Clark. And that's a whole arc. So him slowly starting to understand how those memories play out and having them give him emotional responses to things is a part of him learning to be not exactly an organic being. Because in this case, he's still a construct to a certain degree, but he's less of a construct than when he was like that energy form Krypton, man. So he is starting to be a thing. On that note, though, I would like to point out that we do have a John Henry facing off against an artificial creation that is supposed to replace him at this point. And that becomes.

19:32
Case
They go hard on it once he fights the cyborg, who is the same deal. But this is a foreshadowing of that relationship, of the folklore that is tying into the fantasy, like the superheroic fantasy that is steel. And I find that kind of cool that we're getting a subtle moment for that here.

19:50
Zach Herring
Yeah, that's a really good. I didn't even caught that. That's a really good.

19:55
Case
Again, there's super explicit later with the cyborg stuff, but here it is actually still in play with the eradicator being a fake Superman and him being. I'm trying to live up to Superman with my hammer. It's really there. But then additional tie in stuff. Superboy's lawyer shows up or to serve them papers for cease and desist or be sued for infringement on the Superman trademark. And that pisses off the eradicator. He does not care for someone being like, you're not Superman legally. He's like, what do you mean I'm not legally. And he sets the papers on fire, and he's about to kill the guy. And that's when Steele jumps in, being like, what the fuck are you doing? Again, this whole book is like people telling the eradicator, what the fuck are you doing?

20:40
Case
Every time the eradicator shows up, it's usually to be like, to have people tell him, what the fuck are you doing? This is a terrible plan. So Steele grabs them, and they fly up into the atmosphere. And while they're flying, the eradicator decides to speed them up. And so they go from what is technically Delaware, and they go across the country to California. Meanwhile, we get a little interlude where we see that alien warship that they teased at the end of the adventures of Superman issue. I knew who he was before I read this issue. So there's no spoiler in terms of who the character. I thought it was somebody else.

21:18
Zach Herring
I thought it was dark side.

21:19
Case
Me too. Yeah, it's the face that's the dime store dark side.

21:28
Zach Herring
Dark side. The way he's standing in front of Earth, he's got his hands behind his back.

21:31
Case
Exactly.

21:32
Zach Herring
Everything I saw, he kind of has, like, the. I can't remember the dude's name in Star wars, but he has kind of, like a weird thing around his forehead.

21:42
Case
Oh, yeah, the guy from Cloud City.

21:43
Zach Herring
Yes, the guy from Cloud City. He's kind of got that thing going. He's like, well, I guess it's not dark side, but it looks like the color and everything's dark side. So, yeah. I totally thought it was the only.

21:51
Case
Thing that made me question it was the ship. I was like, I've never seen dark side.

21:58
Zach Herring
Doesn't look apocalyptian.

22:01
Case
It looks like a different type of space bearing civilization, right?

22:05
Zach Herring
Yeah.

22:05
Case
I mean, there is the yellow coloring. So if you're particularly familiar with all these characters, that part would pop out at you. But it's yellow and purple, so it is the right colors for the character when you get the little bit of it, but it is fairly well shaded. And if you had no idea going in. And it's been a couple years since Mongol showed up last in these books. He showed up in the initial story that led to Superman's exile. After he killed the Kryptonian Zod and crew from the pocket universe, he went into exile in space because he felt that Superman shouldn't kill, and so he left Earth.

22:43
Case
And during that time, it's when he became a prisoner of Mongol that he got the eradicator in the first, so, but that's been a while because that story happened well before the eradicator tried to take over Earth and well before the eradicator came back. And all of that was like, at this point several years. So Mongol has not been really seen since then. And he's a villain that is a lesser known Superman villain up until more recently because he's huge arc recently with Mongol. But most people know him at this point from the extremely famous Superman annual that Alan Moore wrote for the man who has everything, wherein he took on the Silver Age Superman, which is pretty impressive from a physical proof standpoint. But currently there's the war world rising arc that just ended that Philip Kennedy Johnson did, which was fantastic.

23:33
Case
And Mongol remained a player in the DC world after this arc because he all of a sudden became a villain for a different superhero by the end of the story.

23:41
Zach Herring
Right. Yeah.

23:43
Case
Good for. So we know that alien ship is coming.

23:45
Zach Herring
Yeah. Great foreshadowing from previous. That's it. And just kind of this, I feel like, is where it transitions or really the previous issues, where it transitions from each one being kind of like a separate story or a separate series to each one leading directly into the others. And it just kind of creates this amazing driving momentum as you build to Superman's resurrection.

24:07
Case
Yeah, I mean, the boy meets girl issue of Adventures of Superman because that cliffhanger leads directly into this one. You could argue that issue should go here. But this is the issue also where Superman actually properly comes, which I feel like people don't really bring this issue up specifically because it's like, well, yeah, Superman is reborn in this issue, but it's kind of like it's still a little bit of a mystery. It's still like we're not quite sure what's going on. Right. Even though it's fairly explicit. They've all been fairly explicit at this point, but. So the two crash land now in coast City, California, and that's where the issue ends with giant crater. No one could have survived that except a Superman. Is it la or is it San Diego?

24:54
Case
So I'm not entirely sure what it's directly supposed to because it's the Green Lantern city. So there is a vibe of it being kind of an LA type city, but it's also supposed to be famous for airstrips being nearby because he's a test pilot. I don't know. It's not, as far as I know, the center of the movie industry. So I'm not sure because the thing is, like, I just joked about metropolis technically, being in Delaware, there is also New York, right? Yeah. So I don't know. Or is it San Francisco? I'm not actually sure. But either way, it's a city on the coast called coast city. That is in California. And we jump over to Superman, the Man of steel. Like I said, the fight goes just immediately 180s in terms of who's got the upper hand, because steel no sells.

25:50
Case
One of the blasts from the last one of Krypton walks up, punches him in the face and knocks off his glasses. And then just like with him disoriented because he can't see, just lays into him. And it's like. It's just an instant change in terms of who's the person winning this fight.

26:06
Zach Herring
Yeah. And this is also one of the best double plate page spreads in the entire series. This just looks so good. From the energy blast in the first panel all the way down, you've just got this fantastic shot of steel just crushing, basically just taking a pounding to eradicator. It's so good.

26:31
Case
Yeah. I mean, he punches them so hard that it breaks off like the arm gun with that first punch.

26:37
Zach Herring
And the next, you've got eradicator kind of, like, on his knees in front of steel as he's just continuing to punch his face. And it looks so good.

26:48
Case
It's just so abrupt because it went from being like, oh, yeah. Steele can't keep up with the last one of Krypton that he's so powerful, they're in space. And now the last one of Krypton is propelling them so fast that Steel can barely process what's going on. Crash land. Switch the book. Now Steele's winning.

27:05
Zach Herring
Yeah, no, it's fantastic. And then he flies away covering his eyes. Then you've got him making an escape.

27:17
Case
Yeah, but he's thinking, like, I'll stick around and protect around here for a little bit. Go back to Metropolis Steel. There must be more to being Superman again. The eradicator is starting to feel like he's starting to think that he should better, that his interaction with us just now was one step of that. Again, are we the baddies? Moment with Gary Gardner was another one of those. Exactly. And he does respect Steel, is the other part of it all. Now, the reason he respects Steel seems to be more because the book tells us he respects Steele rather than because we didn't see much beyond the fight itself. In the last issue, there was the moment of steel being upset because he threatened someone else.

28:02
Zach Herring
It's telling you via inner monologue. And I feel like this book has made a really solid case for me anyway, in terms of bringing back the thought balloon, because there was really some excellent moments here that I don't think would have worked with modern comic book storytelling. No thought balloons. Just said out loud and then captions to kind of COVID some of that up, telling it from the different person's perspective. I really liked how they were able to switch from different people's perspectives kind of simultaneously. And this was one of them, right, where you're kind of learning that he has this sort of, like, growing respect for steel.

28:36
Case
Yeah, it's interesting how they convey both for steel. And then when we get Superman, there's this flavor of character. There's, like, this charisma to them that make people really look up to them. Like Superboy, even though he has moments like, grinding up against steel in the earlier crossover, he still is like, no, steel just gave talking to me. Fuck.

28:59
Zach Herring
I have to listen to this guy.

29:00
Case
And it's like, well, why? Who is this guy you've never met? Like, he's not like an established superhero. He's a new guy on the street also. But at the same time, he just conveys this nobility that people look up to. And apparently that goes for the lassen of Krypton as well. Who? This is our chance to get John Bogdanov doing the lassen of Krypton here. And we get a couple shots of him getting his ass whooped. And the best full body is when he's, like, flying off, although he's, like, covering his face because his visor is broken.

29:32
Zach Herring
Right? Yeah. Again, just looks fantastic. I mean, he draws such incredibly dynamic figures. And in the previous, in the action comics where you saw Geiss, I feel like he was definitely emulating a bit of Bognov's style, but it's hard to replicate. Just kind of the dynamism here on the page with him, especially with the shapes. I love on this one where he's holding the capes on either corner, you get these amazing edges on his shoulder pads. Right? Like, that's kind of, like, coming off. It almost kind of has, like, a teenage mutant ninja Turtle shredder vibe, which you don't see in some of the other. You don't see whenever other people draw him. Sometimes you don't even see it. Whenever Bogdanov draws it, there's kind of, like, a little fluidity. Kind of, like, with the character sheets, I feel, like, a little bit.

30:24
Zach Herring
But, man, it looks so good.

30:27
Case
Yeah. So he leaves, we cut over, back to Metropolis team Luther breaks in on White Rabbit and they agree to parlay.

30:36
Zach Herring
Do a parlay. More or less. Yeah, do a loved. I think one of my favorite shots in here was the shot of Supergirl on Lex's desk. Yes, that one.

30:50
Case
I see a lot when you do a search for the Matrix era supergirl. Like that particular her sitting on the desk with her legs crossed.

30:57
Zach Herring
Right. Because he basically blacks out the entire panel at the bottom. So you're given like this all white shot up above for the sky. You have all blacked down for the panel to kind of like ground to give us a base, sort of like visual base. And you've got Lex's luscious locks, head and shoulders. He's just a mane. He looks like a mane of hair. Like he was a lion. And it just all looks so good.

31:27
Case
Yeah.

31:28
Zach Herring
She actually really reminds me, again, I think I said this in the previous episode, but specifically how she is kind of, like, positioned her shoulders and kind of like, her arms really reminds me not of Miller in Dark Knight Return or, sorry, DKR two, basically, where he got a lot more expressionistic. It was like post Sin city stuff. And he's trying to convey kind of like, the characters in as few lines as possible. Really reminds me of some of the stuff he did with Supergirl in that book as well. So it's really interesting to see.

32:00
Case
So Supergirl flies in on the back half of the conversation where Lex is basically setting up both the man of Steel to think he owes Lex a favor, but not realize that he owes Lex a favor directly by way of keeping it kind of his direct involvement out of it being official, while at the same time being able to guarantee exactly where the man of steel will be at a specific point, which is by way of flying him, like, paying for him to get flown cross country on a cargo jet, but lying about who said it was okay, which is fun. Check back in with Lois. Every time she sees someone in a fedora, she just thinks it's Clark. And that is, I think, an understandable response in the real world. But it is weird in a comic.

32:44
Case
But I also get it in this case, it's literally someone sitting at Clark's desk.

32:50
Zach Herring
I was half expecting him to say, like, oh, I found this in a drawer with the tape that says spare.

32:59
Case
Again, we're getting, like, the plot threads are starting to interweave. So Ron, who was the lead character in that issue, the prove it issue from last time, is now he's the new staff reporter. That was Clark's slot. And so he's got his desk and all that again. Pieces are being pulled away from Clark. And then jeb shows up. This fucking guy smelling her hair like a creeper. Immediately into it. Or like, immediately he was like, oh, Clark Kenstead. I'm going to see what I can do about getting in there. Sweet. And I will admit, in the man of steel issues, I care less about it. It feels like a non plot, but it doesn't quite push over the edge into full on creeper territory.

33:39
Case
At least for me, it changes later, but at this point, yeah, he's getting a little bit too close, a little bit too handsy. But I was about to say, she's not saying no, that's not true. She's accepting the dinner invitations. It's not just that he's a shoulder.

33:58
Zach Herring
He's a shoulder to cry on. Clearly has annoying shoulder. He's annoying shoulder to cry on. He has expectations that go probably beyond that. There's an imbalance. There is what I'm picking up on.

34:16
Case
So cut back to man of steel being flown from Co city on this cargo vessel. I enjoy him just, like, sprawled out in his armored form. And I get it. His armor is probably kind of fucked up. Their hydraulics are probably damaged. He has some issues standing up. All makes sense. That's fine. Then directly below that, we have swashbuckler.

34:35
Zach Herring
Lex Luthor wearing the puffy sleeve shirts from Seinfeld.

34:39
Case
The puffiest fucking shirt.

34:42
Zach Herring
There's another instance of that in this, which I'm a huge fan of and I think needs to be brought back immediately. But I'm going to keep that tucked in as well. But, yeah, no, he looks like he's a pirate.

34:52
Case
Yeah. Going to meet up with the white rabbit. And the two are very flirty, but they're both thinking, can't wait to fuck this person over, and maybe we'll have sex before that. Awesome. But they definitely know how to appeal to each other. They're both showing up as sexy as possible and as mischievous as possible. And so Lex tells the white rabbit that Steele will be landing at this airport or on this specific jet at this time so that she can ambush him, which is good, because we needed to have some kind of conclusion to this plot thread because it's coming to an end real fast.

35:29
Zach Herring
Yeah. And also just kind of like a fight conclusion to the big fight. We sort of had a non ending there at the beginning with the eradicator. So this was helpful.

35:41
Case
Yeah. So steel saves the pilot, which is good, because that pilot knew nothing as far as he knew, was just a guy being a good guy. He was like, oh, yeah, the jet gets destroyed. We see the digit is not that much of a fighter. But then other fucking Graham. So I mentioned he was going to come back. He's like such a weird little fucker. But by little, I mean not little, because he's at his base form like a fairly heavyset guy, but apparently he's like the fucking blob or something. He turns into a giant pile of.

36:13
Zach Herring
Goo who eats toxic waste, and you get an amazing shot of steel using his steel boosters to boost him off and everything. But, yeah. Bizarre. Very. I don't remember them explaining that power. I think this is a surprise to everyone, and it really is just absolutely bizarre, which you got to love 90s comics where everybody might have a super, like, one out of five people probably have a superpower in this world.

36:42
Case
Exactly. Yeah. As far as I know, this character is original to this, and I don't think ever shows up again.

36:47
Zach Herring
Maybe he does. His hair grows long too. Everything grows. That's really interesting, actually, about his power, because if you look at it, he's got kind of like a shortcut hairdo that as the rest of his body increases in mass, his hair goes from really long, almost like a wolverine looking thing.

37:06
Case
Yeah, I mean, he kind of looks like Mojo x Men, except like caucasian and a ginger. Yeah. And I mean, I guess you could say, well, hey, Simonson maybe, but Mojo also wasn't known for squishing people with all that. And his personality is totally different. But he's so obese that he can destroy vehicles with his girth. And then when he gets burned by steel, and I do love that he has, like, a burn spot on his stomach. When Steel uses his boots to rock him off, that he starts grabbing, like, oil or whatever that shit is. Or you said toxic waste. It might be. It might be oil, whatever it is. I don't know what his goal is, but he just starts chugging it, and then that's it. Steel flies away with white rabbit. We don't see.

37:52
Zach Herring
I'm looking at the layover. It's a vegetable oil, which is at an airport for some reason, and he's chugging it.

37:59
Case
The cargo had possibly provisioned.

38:03
Zach Herring
It's like a freight. Maybe it says freight in the as cool.

38:07
Case
Yeah, I mean, it makes enough sense. Whatever. Anyway, so white rabbit takes steel to.

38:11
Zach Herring
Like, amazing machinery to a bogdov draws here is so cool.

38:15
Case
Yeah, very detailed there, which, I mean, he's definitely drawing that from reference at that point. But yeah, to a press. It turns out it's an older factory that she's going to get rid of anyway for the toastbusters. But in the meantime, it's a perfect trap. So she leads him in, thinking so that he thinks it's where she's making all the guns it used to be, but it's not really the main one anymore. And she decides to use all the presses to try to destroy steel. And he's got a good spider man moment where he's being crushed down and he's like, no, I won't allow my work. And he lifts it up and does, like a big supermanly. Again, there's a lot of golden age Superman stuff going on in the man of Steel book. Bogdanov really has that kind of vibe.

38:59
Case
And steel being a human in an armor, there are moments of like, can you get over the fact that he has the will and the force to fight through this physical obstacle? And so he does, and doing so crushes her because the ceiling collapses on her and the whole place explodes. So this issue wraps up like a big story very quickly.

39:21
Zach Herring
Yes, she's dead. It's exploding.

39:26
Case
Steele thinks about how the toastmasters are still out there. Those guns are going to be replicated. And immediately we cut to Lex Luthor being like, yep, I actually bought some. And now we're reverse engineering them, and we're going to keep the gang warfare going because I am the best.

39:39
Zach Herring
I love that he named a gang after a club that's supposed to help you get better at public speaking.

39:45
Case
And then we get more of the hinting of the ship coming foreshadowing. All right, so then we jump over to Bloodline.

39:52
Zach Herring
I didn't even bother making notes about this.

39:55
Case
So I have three notes about this one to be. First up, it shouldn't be collected here because at this point now, every single issue flows together, and you are pretty familiar with every character's whereabouts. This issue flat out does not make sense where it's coming in because he's in Metropolis and he very explicitly is in coast City for the whole stretch, which is kind of like, well, whatever it was, the annual, it didn't really come out in any particular order. It was just supposed to be. Here's a side story with the last son of Krypton. Second note, Liz Cannon is one of those characters who actually has shown up. I did reference him last time. He actually probably shows up more than any of the others aside from Hitman, because he is very much a DC version of the Hulk.

40:39
Case
Except he's a fucking cop. And I say that in a very specific way. He keeps on being like, cops are the real heroes and is Elise Cannon. And I realize, like, oh, he's probably supposed to be, like, a dirty Harry type who got crippled. Like, he is a paraplegic from an accident that he caused. And then while he's investigating the homicides because he was on a desk job, and they're like, look, we have a very dark scene with this character where he is about to commit suicide.

41:13
Zach Herring
Yeah.

41:14
Case
And it's fucking dark. Not expecting lots of focus on the gun. It's like three pages of him loading the revolver and getting ready for it. And then there's, like, thinking back on memories, and then phone calls happen, and then he gets a call and is, like, just staring at the gun while he's talking to Maggie Sawyer. And like, fuck, that is. And I'm giggling because I am uncomfortable right now because, like, fuck, it's dark. Anyway, so he gets put on a homicide.

41:43
Zach Herring
Brave decision to continue to live. And then promptly a supervillain nearly tries to basically kills him. And then he's resurrected because he has the latent gene, right?

41:53
Case
Yeah. So he goes off to interview people about what's killing all these homeless people. He's on the homeless, right. So he talks to this one, who I wasn't sure if they were implying that he thinks she's a hooker. The way the line reads, kind of could be. It's like, aren't you a little uptown to be working this far downtown? And the working part makes it sound that way. And I thought he was almost going to take her up on it. It sounds like he was. Yeah. But then one of the other ones comes in, Glanth, who I think is also the one who actually bit hitman. He's notoriously like, the glutton of this group is the one who bites him. And they all kind of gather together and wander off, and we get some more super crime going on.

42:39
Case
There's all these gangsters with, like, yellow powered armors in metropolis, apparently. But the redhead, who has, like, butterfly wings in her transform form, is really adamant she wants to eat Superman. And I have to ask, why did she think she could? Because we even know that steel was too much for an easy kill. So why is she going after someone who's probably way more powerful and isn't, like, an unknown?

43:04
Zach Herring
They've heard of Superman.

43:06
Case
Superman. Exactly.

43:07
Zach Herring
Is known throughout the think. Why would she think even this oddly changed Superman would be easy prey? Yeah, no, this is it makes no sense.

43:17
Case
Yeah, but she tries to attack Superman. She tries to attack him with their weird parasitic tongue thing, and it's impossible. No man can do that. I am not any man. I am Superman. And it's that real aggressive Superman style that we get with the last son. But he tosses her off a building. She crash lands next to what is now this big, blue, hulking figure that is loose cannon. And he actually goes by that name. So, yeah, it's loose cannon. Superman steps in, but loose Cannon's memory is white. So he's like, I think she's connected with why I'm here. I don't think I was always 7ft tall and blue and with long blonde hair. Like, very long, glowing blonde hair. And the guy is a brunette. He's got, like, brown hair in his human form. So I'm like, I don't get it.

44:03
Zach Herring
And he's blue, and then he turns purple and he looks like the beast, honestly.

44:07
Case
Yeah, I'm going to keep whispering that.

44:10
Zach Herring
Beast.

44:12
Case
You're saying beast because of the fact that he's blue. But the thing is, he also changes color based on his emotions. And they keep on saying, like, you're the mood ring of the superset. And not only that exact line is used verbatim in multiple appearances for him, but he's the fucking Hulk is the thing. The Hulk originally transformed at night, and he has had emotional relations. His emotional state has impacted the color that he is. He's also in that same sort of, like, you get me angry, I get stronger type character.

44:43
Zach Herring
In our defense, his hair also looks a lot like the beast. He has some amazing mutton chops. Really solid mutton chops, and then the hair itself. Yeah.

44:52
Case
It's something about this entire comic series that has this luscious locks on everybody.

44:59
Zach Herring
Between the blob that we saw the previous one and then this one, it does feel like the bloodlines. And DC was basically trying to inject some of the marvel's analogues into their universe to try to get some of that into their universe and their storytelling.

45:14
Case
Anyway, so Superman punches him away, and he's like, oh, holy shit. I survived getting punched into a bus. That's pretty weird. And someone starts honking at him, and it's like, what? You never seen a seven foot tall, naked blue man? Oh, man, I am naked. So he goes and he finds a Terminator display and steals the clothes from a Terminator two mannequin, I'm guessing, because that's what's there when he goes to knock on the window. And I find it kind of cute that he tries to gently tap on the glass and it just shatters. That's fine. He immediately is able to jump up high enough to deck Superman and then grab him and then toss him into a bridge. Another reason why this shouldn't be after the bridge was already destroyed, because it is the same bridge, the Hosnik bridge.

46:01
Case
We can't catch a break.

46:04
Zach Herring
We just rebuilt it.

46:05
Case
Yeah. Supergirl and Lex are watching and they're like, oh, man, they're having a fight. And it seems a lot like doomsday, because, to be fair, Luz Cannon has a lot of doomsday esque things going for him. He's a giant, long haired individual with a weird, like, he's missing the spikes. But if you didn't know any better, you might think like, oh, it's just a new incarnation of doomsday, because there are a lot of physiological similarities between the two. So Lex is, well, you know, we'll send you the second. It looks like it's urgent, which is exactly what happened last time. And Supergirl falls for it.

46:41
Zach Herring
I also want to point out they're hanging out. This is clearly like the Netflix. Like, this is kind of like the night, the stay in night, where they're just going to chill out. Lex doesn't have any pants on. He's got all robe going. And Supergirl, however, completely still dressed to the nine, still ready to go.

47:01
Case
In terms of, like, keep in mind that Supergirl is technically always wearing clothes and never wearing clothes because the clothes are part of her body.

47:09
Zach Herring
I see. I didn't know that.

47:10
Case
Well, she's a shapeshifting entity. Gotcha. It's the odo from Star Trek D space nine situation.

47:15
Zach Herring
So she's got a bucket. She might have a bucket, actually. I would be so into this character and would demand that she come back if she had.

47:25
Case
I honestly think that the Matrix take on Supergirl is underrated overall. When she merged with a human in the Peter David series, that kind of became her default interpretation for the character. And when people talk about her, that's so much of her actual publication history of her having that human spirit and losing the shape shifting part that I think people focus a lot on that side. And I think that this Supergirl, if she was introduced today, would be a much more interesting character to discuss because they go through this whole process of her deciding how she identifies, because for a period, she thinks she's Lana Lang, and then she thinks that she should just be a non binary, non humanoid entity. That is a protoplasmic thing, but isn't taking the form of a person. She briefly has a non binary human form.

48:21
Case
She, for a while, pretends to be Clark Kent while he's in exile. And then she decides that the supergirl form feels right for her, specifically. And I think that's kind of a cool. That would be an interesting trans conversation that 1993 was not going to have, but 2023 could have, and that would be kind of cool. That said, should Supergirl be a protoplasmic entity that is based off the DNA of Lana Lang from a different dimension, sent through to our time hundreds of years ago and frozen in ice until Superman released?

48:50
Zach Herring
Absolutely.

48:50
Case
No, it should be the cousin of Superman. That is the way easier way to do it.

48:54
Zach Herring
Way easier. Yeah. But, yeah, really interesting stuff. I hadn't realized that's a good context for this.

49:01
Case
Also, we know she's wearing a skirt, but we don't know she's underwear. So she may have just been sitting on his lap a minute ago.

49:06
Zach Herring
That's true. All right.

49:09
Case
But anyway, so Maggie Sawyer shows up to see what's going on, and this Superman without. I feel like this is not the right characterization. This Superman is callous about human life, but he's too smart just to pick up a truck or a police van that has people still in it. That just doesn't seem like his vibe.

49:29
Zach Herring
And again, I'm really frustrated with this entire issue because the characterizations are weird. The art isn't even that good, just in terms of. It starts out really solid. But the further you get, the more it starts to feel like a rush job. Like, with all the proportions and everything being off. I flipped through this one. I'm going to be honest, I did not really read this one.

49:54
Case
Well, long story short, seeing Maggie awaken some memories in loose cannon, and he's like, oh, wait, shit, never mind, this is all wrong. And we see him turn red to fight when he gets really angrier to fight the guys, because, again, he's just the fucking hulk. Except he's like, again, a fucking co op and color coded versus the Hulk. In the fight, Luz Cannon gets tossed against an oil truck, and while they're fighting, he throws one of the aliens into it. And then Superman decides to energy blast it, and that creates this huge, burning inferno that sets the bridge on fire. Again, this bridge has been destroyed twice that we have seen in this book alone. But they decide to team up to save everyone.

50:34
Case
And loose cannon is like, no, saving people is more important than just, like, going after the bad guys, which. Okay, cool. I mean, like, that's. That is true, but it's, like, weird. That loose cannon is the one teaching that lesson to the eradicator. I'm not sure, but they team up. It's fine. We get some more about the eradicator having issues with touching people. And I feel like that works with the sort of, like, he's kind of data or, like, evil data, learning to be human here. I guess maybe he's lore in that scenario. Sorry for all the Star Trek references, but I'm not sorry for all the Star Trek references. He responds touch as being an interesting thing, and he's, like, learning to be human here. And these are real moments of that, as opposed to him being like, I've dissolved my humanity.

51:22
Case
And when he's like, maybe it is time, friend. If you took the glasses away, that actually looks pretty supermanish. The character was growing and is still growing, but that was a good moment for that. Anyway, so loose cannon jumps away and is like, I'm just a loose cannon. He goes home and he's like, I'm not going to kill myself. I've got superpowers now. Then the sun comes up, and he transforms back into a paraplegic human because that's going to be his status quo again. It's just like, well, what if we had the Hulk, but his human personality was just a douchebag cop.

51:54
Zach Herring
Yeah, it's just, man. I'm also really impatient because this next issue is my favorite issue of the entire series.

52:01
Case
I can see that.

52:02
Zach Herring
Incredible.

52:03
Case
Well, this is where shit gets.

52:05
Zach Herring
Look at the COVID This is the best cover of, I would say, everything in the top ten covers of all time. This is incredible looking.

52:14
Case
It's certainly up there. It's very detailed. It's very graphic. I'm shocked that they would be that cool with that being a cover in general and knowing that what's behind them. So you see Cosetti being destroyed, and you see the Cyborg Superman blowing up the eradicator. Now, that said, going into this issue, you don't know for a fact that the Cyborg Superman's bad, right? It could be the eradicator who has been doing war crimes might be the bad guy.

52:38
Zach Herring
But I will say this. They drew the eradicator sympathetically, right? So I feel like they kind of tip, and maybe it wasn't on purpose, but they kind of tip their hand in that. The eradicator, his hair is kind of, like, even falling out, and he's got kind of, like, aged lines so it looks like he's destinationated.

52:56
Case
His body is gone with the way it's being destroyed.

52:59
Zach Herring
And it is a very ominous look for Cyborg Superman without having previously kind of tipped their hand that he is a bad guy. This issue is. This is where this kicked into 11th gear. It was amazing.

53:13
Case
So we get yet another like, oh, there's another news report about all the four superman. Which one is the real Superman? And Lex Luthor is watching it. And that's when he gets word that a ship is showing up in orbit. And, oh, fuck, this is not great. But they realize that it's coming towards coast city. And the eradicator is there who is acting very Superman like. He's now. Like, he got new glasses, which is good without going home, I should add. Because if he went home to the fortress, he would have seen like, hey, someone woke up. So he got new glasses. He's stopping fires. The firemen are like, thankful. And he's like, yeah, no, it's cool. And when he's like, oh, well, there's aliens coming. Let them come. If they're looking for peace, fine.

53:55
Case
If not, they'll regret the day, you know Metropolis, I love Dan Juergen's drawing, the eradicator. I think that he looks so much like Superman here in an updated way that I think looks really good.

54:08
Zach Herring
Yeah, I think in the previous episode I said Juergens was the artist who worked the least for me by far. He grew. I love all of them now. I don't think there's no one that I don't like at this point. This issue by him is a tour de force. It's incredible. I think there's, like, elements that still don't work in what he's trying to do, in my opinion. Just like, personally. But this is an incredible issue. He's such a good artist.

54:33
Case
Yeah. So we cut over to the cyborg Superman being alerted by the White House that there is an alien ship. And he's like, well, yeah, fuck it. I'll go fly over and check it out. Still keeping the guys here. Ship shows up in orbit and starts just dropping off, like, balls.

54:48
Zach Herring
Carnage globes, which is a great band name.

54:50
Case
They're called carnage.

54:51
Zach Herring
This is a great band name.

54:52
Case
And they're huge. We see them land and they are bigger than cars. They're, like, crushing buildings as they fall. And they're like, so many are falling. That Superman is like, or rather the last son of Krypton eradicator is like, flying through them all and being like. And it looks like, they're floating, but they're actually just, like, all falling. And we see that they are falling pretty fast because they're doing a lot of hitting.

55:14
Zach Herring
They're crushing towers and that sort of thing. Yeah.

55:16
Case
Meanwhile, we do actually have a phone call that is kind of important, setting up that Carol Ferriss is not in co city at this exact moment. And that's probably good for fans of comic books, particularly Green Lantern comic books, because it's good for us to be aware of where one of the main supporting cast members is when what is about to happens. But the eradicator is flying to see what's going on, and then all of a sudden, the cyborg Superman's like, imposter, what are you doing here? You've caused this thing. He's actually being pretty rational. And he's like, no, I'm going to go deal with the threat. And by turning around, that's when the cyborg Superman fucking just blasts into him.

55:51
Zach Herring
Yeah. Shoots him in the back and in the face, which is amazing.

55:55
Case
Yeah. Messes him up terribly and shoots him in horrific ways that if he was not a construct, would be completely fatal and would be a lot of blood. And this is, again, why I'm saying I don't think he's actually a real flesh and blood. A. He is a golem in the form. Yeah. Of. That's what I thought. Because I think was the last time he took part of the stone slab that Superman. The casket was on. I think they get it. Yeah, they reveal that later. They reveal that in this book, but, yeah, that's where he gets the mask from. I was like, oh, so he's like you said, I got him literally powered by.

56:37
Zach Herring
I mean, spoilers, but being powered by Superman's body, which is such a cool idea. Like, such a cool concept.

56:43
Case
But then those carnage globes go off and we get a mushroom cloud in a major american city. Regardless of which city it's supposed to be analog for, it's a major american. It happens.

56:52
Zach Herring
It's 7 million people. Yeah, they say 7 million dead. It's an incredible two page spread of the carnage globes going off. And this is when I turned this. It just kind of blew me away, literally. This is such a great. This is such a great page.

57:09
Case
And then they start releasing more globes. And these globes are seed pods that grow machines. And they distinctly have the same style as the cyborg Superman, although you might argue that's just Dan Juergen's style. Either way, it's the same basic thing going on here. It starts growing. A city of machinery. The entity of the eradicator flees for the fortress. And so the cyborg Superman gets contacted by the White House. And he's much. There's such a dense fog of debris and whatnot, I can't see anything. Which, you know what? Fair totally works.

57:43
Zach Herring
An atomic bomb just went off in LA, essentially, and so there's no visibility. And I loved how they interspersed basically, like, the outright lies that cyborg Superman was telling with what? The truth on the ground, right? Like, you see the city being built, he's like, it's nothing but a crater. And you see these giant towers rising out of the ground. It's awesome. It's such a good episode. It's such a good issue.

58:07
Case
I mean, we cut back to the fortress and someone is thinking like, all right, I've got a suit that I can wear to get out of here. I'll be good. And it's the giant kryptonian warsuits that we've seen before. So it's Superman leaving in a warsuit. And Cyborg's continuing to lie about what he's seeing. There's nothing like, oh, my God, maybe they escaped into space. And he touches down. And that's where the person who was piloting the ship or commanding the ship, I should say, rises up to meet him and kneels for him. And we get Mongol kneeling for the Cyborg Superman. And that's a pretty big deal because that's a fairly big, at least in terms of power level Superman villain kneeling for a character like that, who we still don't actually know that much about.

58:50
Case
Like, we just know, like, oh, he's evil. And he apparently has all the powers of Superman plus tech powers. So that's pretty fucked up. The next issue doesn't really mince words. It's the adventures of Superman. It's Superboy. And he's being choked out by the cyborg Superman. So we're pretty clear what's going on at this point. But the issue itself, though, leads off with him being like, oh, there's all the smoke. And we're not getting the lies at this point because it's like, further away from the epicenter. And he's like, oh, it's all lifeless. Oh, wait, maybe I saw something. And then he's like, hang on, I'll check on this. And it's survivors who were in like, an overpass. And he's like, man, one of those, the rogue supermen did this to everyone. It's behind you. And they all like, where?

59:28
Case
And he's like, I said, it's behind you because they turned. Yeah.

59:32
Zach Herring
He says the enemy is behind you. They turn. And then you're like, where? I don't see him. And he's like, I said, he's behind you. And then he blasts. Fantastic moment and beautiful destruction drawn by grommet. That's just everything about this looks fantastic.

59:47
Case
Yeah, man. You see the skeletons burned away.

59:51
Zach Herring
Oh, man.

59:51
Case
And then he calls the White House better. Or he calls the White House back. And he's like, it was just some wounded animals. I put them out of their misery. So dark, so cold, so dark.

59:59
Zach Herring
This blew. This is so gnarly. Yeah.

01:00:03
Case
And they're like, we're going to send the Justice League. And he's like, no, don't send the Justice League. Send Superboy. Let's use that. That makes more sense. Cat Grant's covering the story. We check with the news team. They're all talking about it all. We cut over to the video game the death of Superman, which cracks me up. It's so funny that it exists. It's so funny that Superboy is bad at it and that Roxy is just a better player at it because she's playing especially funny. Well, it's so funny that in the annual, we find out that Rex Leach is the person who got the video game greenlit and made. It's just truly incredible.

01:00:41
Zach Herring
So tasteless.

01:00:42
Case
But so Superboy gets yanked out of like, of hanging out with Roxy and Rex by Tana, who then explains to him, hey, this shit happened while you were playing video games and you got to fly out to California. And I'm not following. And the real reason is because she is being phased out by Vinny edge. But she is saying that. It's like, oh, I just couldn't keep up. You can fly faster than a helicopter or a plane. Head on over to cocity and the team out there will meet you and report on you, which is also good for us because she is part of his supporting cast. And if she was with him, she'd be dead, as we'll see. Get some. So Superboy heads out for California. We get some more of this armored warsuit.

01:01:31
Case
Just like walking across a glacier, then dropping into the ocean and then just walking on the ocean floor. Who could this be? We all know.

01:01:39
Zach Herring
Oh, yeah. We literally saw him two issues ago. And he looks exactly like Clark.

01:01:44
Case
You're not supposed to say it until he pops out this suit.

01:01:48
Zach Herring
Play the game.

01:01:50
Case
So we get an interview with the cyborg Superman and Superboy. And I do like this detail where Superboy's cockiness leads the cyborg as a line to be like, I wish I had this much faith in my power or this much confidence in my powers when I was your age. And that's the tip off for Lois, that it's not just that he has fractured memories, it's that he literally just lied right there because Superman didn't have those powers at that time in this continuity. And I think that's a cool beat right there. It is a lot to hang a suspicion on, but it makes sense. So they fly in to the smoldering crater, and as they're getting in there, Cyborg Superman, just like, we're under attack. And Superboy's like, I'll jam the comms.

01:02:31
Case
And then he turns and sees that Cyborg Superman has just destroyed the helicopter with his heat vision. And that is when Cyborg Superman goes to attack Superboy. And Superboy does not have a chance.

01:02:39
Zach Herring
No. Just starts beating the mess out of Superboy just ruthlessly as we saw him take out eradicator in the previous issue. Fantastic comics are for superhero fight scenes, and you get nothing. But this is essentially like eight issues of just, like, superhero fight scenes. It's fantastic.

01:03:00
Case
Yeah. And this sets up a couple of things. We get a reminder that Superboy is not invulnerable to fire. He gets hit by a flame. Like, eradicator picks up a flaming log, and Superboy has to take off his jacket because it catches fire and it's burning him.

01:03:12
Zach Herring
I love how he deconstructs his hand as another really awesome tell on that. The telekinesis piece is so cool.

01:03:21
Case
Yeah. And there was a good moment where, like, can't see through a wall. He's like, if only I could figure out how to turn on my x ray vision. But cyborg Superman can. So he's able to easily navigate around him and see him in all the, but, yeah. Like, while he's being pinned down, Superboy blows up the cyborg's arm. And that's my secret. I have no idea what I just did. It's such a good moment there.

01:03:42
Zach Herring
Again, font balloons would not have worked otherwise. It's really good. I love this style of storytelling.

01:03:49
Case
Yeah. So Mongol decides not to intervene on this whole situation and thinks back on his own encounters with Superman. Superboy is like, I gotta be his clone. Right? Because he's dealing with his own identity as well as everything else. When he gets hit by a giant boulder by cyborg Superman and goes down because he's not going to win.

01:04:13
Zach Herring
And you get a fantastic final page where you don't know if he killed him like he killed the eradicator previously, or at least badly wounded to the point of where we're not sure if he's going to survive. And then with this one, he punches him. You don't see Superboy. It's like the classic off panel punch where you can't see his head. So did he smash the head? There's blood.

01:04:31
Case
Well, and there's a blood splatter right behind that panel.

01:04:34
Zach Herring
There's blood splatter behind him. And then there's blood dripping, a black blood dripping on the page, very reminiscent of the death of Superman covers that. You just, it's so great.

01:04:46
Case
All right, so back to action comics. We have a fight between the different Superman cults. Things are getting out of hand. Maggie Sawyer has her work cut out for her. She breaks them up, but violence is going to rise up because now people think the eradicator, or the last one of Krypton the visor Superman is to blame. So the cyborg Superman cultists are like, you guys are so terrible. You worship someone who's destroyed a major american city because that's what the Cyborg Superman has told everyone.

01:05:13
Zach Herring
Great detail from guys, them painting their faces to look like the cyborg Superman. Fantastic stuff there. You get the sense that it's like football rivalries almost, but, like, way deadly serious.

01:05:24
Case
Yeah. We find out what happened to Superboy. He's now imprisoned in a fairly elaborate device that's like kind of pinning him. And Mongol kind of shows up also to sort of taunt the boy a little bit. And we get a confirmation that probably didn't mean to kill the eradicator. That was more just like, well, shit was going like were about to set off a nuclear bomb. I kind of just needed to take him out right then and there. But it would have been nice to examine him. We also get, Superboy finds out quite a bit about the plan at this point because Mongol and Cyborg are talking right in front of.

01:05:57
Zach Herring
Yep, it's just a ton of if you. Jackson. Jackson Geiss, who goes by Butch Geiss now, right, is just one of those consummate storytellers who's actually gotten better as he's gotten older. The stuff that he does with Tom King now is incredible. But even, like, even back then, look at his stuff. He's such a good storyteller with lots.

01:06:20
Case
Of details, especially on faces and stuff.

01:06:22
Zach Herring
A ton. Yeah, I mean, he doesn't skimp on the backgrounds is what drives me crazy. Like, he's sitting in this massive fortress. You get a ton of all these little circuit tree details all over them. Then you've got it in perspective, even. Like, he's drawing hallways that you don't even know where they go, but it just gives a fully routed sense of dimension of where they're standing, which is just incredible to me.

01:06:45
Case
Yeah. But in the interest of keeping moving, we get the eradicator coming back, finding out that the eradicator is in bad shape. He's alive, but he's in bad shape. His hair is burned off, his face is fucked up, his costume is ripped up. Radiation poisoning, almost. And the regeneration chamber is gone. Like, it's destroyed. And he's like, oh, fuck. God damn it. What could have happened? And then we cut to the armored suit, and we just confirmed that the eradicator isn't in the suit, which is the only. Like, there was just enough of a gap in panels that I guess it could have been the eradicator, but nope, confirmation is definitely superman in that suit. Maggie Sawyer talks to Lois, who's know, it's weird that he said about powers back in the day. Oh, and this is the page where we get.

01:07:27
Case
It's weird that the stone slab that the coffin was on is now 3ft shorter. So that's nice to have that explanation there. Cool. We see a bunch of footage of the eradicator destroying the city because it turns out that the cyborg superman is creating it all. And so he actually feeds this to the Justice League. And this is our way of being like, well, why didn't the Justice League step in? It's because the Cyborg Superman told them, hey, the eradicator destroyed everything. You should go off there. And he's also creating a deep fake of Superboy to keep the story going. And that's pretty cool.

01:07:58
Zach Herring
It's really cool. It's really cool. And I love just having the JLA full page spread. You have guy Gardner just kind of, like, looking kind of sour off to the corner. You even thought, balloon. You have them totally buying it, saying, like, how can we help? You have Gardner kind of like sour puss in the corner going, I don't believe any of this. It was just fantastic.

01:08:22
Case
And that's a pretty good roster. Superman, like the Cyborg, should have been afraid of this group if they actually weren't to interfere. Because on this page is Captain Marvel, Powergirl, the Rey, Dr. Fate, guy Gardner with a yellow power ring, Wonder Woman, Maxima Martian Manhunter, Jade and Alan Scott as Green Lantern. Every single one of them actually could do. Some could hold their own in a fight against Shazam. Could probably take OG Superman.

01:08:46
Zach Herring
Yeah. Seriously.

01:08:46
Case
Shazam.

01:08:47
Zach Herring
Just a lightning bolt to the face and probably would have taken care of him. Yeah.

01:08:52
Case
All of them are like Martian Manhunter, two Wonder Woman, Max. All of them have. Exactly. It is a group that they needed to get out of the way. And it's cool to set up that deception about how he did it. It's kind of lame where it's like, oh, go off into space to these coordinates and you guys go, we'll stay here. It's fine, we swear. And they all just go, I swear. He totally did it. Trust me, bro. I would never lie about this. Yeah, I do like the cyborg using his deepfake of Superboy to tease Mongol, like, through the view screens when we cut back to them, the view screen. Superboy is like making fun of Mongol right there.

01:09:29
Zach Herring
He makes fun of guy Gardner too. He's got an attitude. It's neat that they can replicate all of him like, his attitude as well.

01:09:37
Case
Yeah. But then we cut back to Superboy actually tied up and being like, this is like, I need to get out of here because this is an awful situation. Jump over to the eradicator being healed, and this is where we get the actual full breakdown of what happened. So it's like, if you don't know who the eradicator, it was this kryptonian intelligence that Superman found in space when he was dealing with Mongol, but who then tried to take over Superman's mind to take over Earth and then created a new body for himself wearing a uniform that looks very similar to what the last son of Krypton was wearing as Superman. And we see all that and it's like, oh, don't you remember?

01:10:11
Case
You went to his body to get his body, and then you stole the mass of that to create a body for yourself and you brought him here to be an energy source for you. And it's like, oh, fuck, I didn't I? Oh, my God. I'm not actually Superman. Exactly. Yes, dingus, we've been telling you that all of his droids have been trying to be like, no, you're the eradicator. We've been trying to tell you this whole time. Every time you've been here, we've been like, don't you want to put on your clothes as the eradicator? Come on, put on your eradicator uniform.

01:10:36
Zach Herring
I also really like the goodness of Superman is making eradicator good, right? That's like, a common trope in comics. It actually reminds me of all star Superman. Like, when Lex gets Superman's powers and then just realize we're all together, we're all connected, and we're all alone, like that sort of thing. Superman is so good and so pure that even when a villain takes over his body or his powers, he becomes, at the very least, a little bit more good. And I love that. That's such a wonderful detail in this. And I love the redemption arc for Eradicator in this.

01:11:08
Case
Yeah, it kind of makes me think of this man, this monster story from Fantasy Four, where someone takes the form of the thing and ends up sacrificing himself because he's inherited the nobility of the thing. All very cool. We see the power suit going through, and we get confirmation that Superman can't see what's outside. He just keeps on destroying anything that's in his way, which I got to say is probably a dangerous thing in a world where there are full cities on the ocean floor, but it is what it is. And he has an internal monologue of, like, well, the real Superman's coming. Anyway. Smash cut to Superman, the Man of Steel, Superboy, is still tied up, and he's, like, thinking about his whole, like, why can't I do certain things? But I have other powers besides what Superman had. I'm his clone, right?

01:11:48
Case
We're still dealing with all these fake news stories about the eradicator being the one to destroy everything. And we check in with Steel, continuing his fight against gang warfare and not really progressing the plot because that story is over. It's just like, oh, what is Steel's beat? Oh, he deals with gang warfare.

01:12:04
Zach Herring
Okay, cool shot of the city that they're building over. Coastal city, too.

01:12:12
Case
This is so, yeah, really intricate machine work for it all. A nice part about having John Bogdanov as one of the artists on this is he makes Mongol look so fucking big every time he's on screen. He's just truly massive. Superboy is able to escape by still not understanding how his powers work, but he's like, oh, I did it. Great. Let me get the fuck out of here.

01:12:37
Zach Herring
Calling his power panicky power blasts, which.

01:12:40
Case
I think is, yeah, he's making up as he goes mean. That is what he does. Lois is on a date with Jeb, and she keeps thinking about. So he tries to get in or be like, hey, can I come in for a nightcap? And she's like, no, but they do kiss, and that seems kind of like her choice, but she regrets it later.

01:13:02
Zach Herring
But, yes, instantly.

01:13:03
Case
Immediately.

01:13:03
Zach Herring
She regrets it immediately, yes. But still very awkward. Next page is one of the other things I was saying. She's in full rocketeer cosplay, and it's amazing.

01:13:14
Case
Yeah.

01:13:14
Zach Herring
Yes.

01:13:16
Case
I forget the term for it, but there's, like, big chodpers, like the big thick leg or not thick, like the wide hipped pants of that style, right?

01:13:25
Zach Herring
Yeah, basically you have them, the folds coming out on the hips or on the thighs, and it's fantastic.

01:13:34
Case
Supergirl checks in with Lex, and when she's like, I should go to engine city, right? Or to cocity, and the creator of cocity, and he's like, a giant. Like, don't try to dissuade me. Like, no, there's actually a giant robot coming for Metropolis right now, and it's destroying shit. So this is a spot where a submarine that is observing and tries to drop a depth charge on the robot, and it ends up destroying itself, but at the same time, well, that sucks. I feel like Superman would have wanted to not have them die, but that still happens. Lois is hitching a ride on a plane to coast city. Steel shows up to also hitch a ride, and they're chill because Steele's a good guy, and everyone's like, yeah, no, still can come. He's cool.

01:14:14
Case
And that's when the robot shows up and Supergirl shows up, and also Superboy shows up, and Lex shows up, and everyone's there just in time for the.

01:14:20
Zach Herring
Robot to be so convenient.

01:14:23
Case
Yeah, the robot suit takes a big hit from Steel, and he has an extendo hammer, apparently, and it is a big hit that sends the armor flying backwards, which is something to say for Steel's ability to make a dope armor. Like, he's apparently able to make something really that can hold up against kryptonian technology. That's really cool. They're like, man, we can't let anything destroy metropolis. And that's when the figure emerges from this giant armored suit and it's metropolis over my dead body. And that's when we get, finally, the reveal of Superman in the black suit with the silver accents and the long hair, which we actually hadn't seen up until this point because, like, a couple of pages before, his hair was short. And I was laughing.

01:15:03
Case
I was like, man, that regeneration thing actually helped his hair grow out to that full mold again, right? Yeah, it was short when he first popped out in action comics. And then I guess the time to get here was enough. But it doesn't work. It's just they wanted his hair to be longer. They got to this point because then we go to the issue of Superman. That is the next issue, and he's got short hair on the COVID So I think they weren't sure if they were doing the long hair or not, but in the issues they were. So we switch gears to now a team up of steel. Superboy, Lois, Lex and Supergirl's also there. And now Superman is standing against them in this black suit. Again, black suit with silver accents for the shield, for armbands, and then his big toes.

01:15:47
Zach Herring
Big toes for some reason.

01:15:48
Case
Yeah.

01:15:50
Zach Herring
Amazing shot, though. Love the team shot of them. Fantastic look at is again, Juergens really grew on me reading through this. This is so nice looking.

01:16:02
Case
Yeah. So he tries to appeal to Lois and she's acting confused. And then Steele tries to grab his shoulder and he's like, wow, you're squeezing me really tight. It's like, well, if that's squeezing you tight, then you're not like Superman power wise. It's like, I died, dude. I am coming back right now. And this brings up one thing that I am curious about regarding how they handled the Superman. So he's fairly human level, but with minor bumps. Like he can see a little bit through walls and he can jump a little bit further. I kind of wish they went with just like the golden age Superman power set. That would have been like, if it was like full on, 8th of a mile kind of jumping, that would have been really neat.

01:16:38
Case
But I don't know if that conversation was one they were going to have in 1993. Like that nostalgia for the golden age, maybe, I'm not sure.

01:16:45
Zach Herring
But it also was pre Internet. Not pre Internet, but like pre modern access to Internet. So it's like one of those things where how many people were really familiar with the golden age and were able to read them in the reprints and that sort of thing. So I wonder if it was like one of those things too.

01:17:02
Case
Nerds would have gotten it.

01:17:04
Zach Herring
Yeah.

01:17:04
Case
Would the general audience have gotten it? I think the goal was to raise the stakes by having him be as depowered as they can for this stretch. Anyway, so actual Superman talks to Lois. He drops enough Clark Kent things that she's like, oh, wait, shit. You're actually know. He references his favorite movie, of course. And then Mockingbird Superboy is like, hey, whether or not you're soups, we actually have a bigger issue, which is that co city is gone and that a pretender to your throne, who is very powerful, has replaced it with a giant engine with some aliens, including Mongol, who is pretty bad. And they talk about how the goal is to make Warworld reborn.

01:17:47
Case
So Warworld is a moving planet that Mongol previously had access to that is covered with weapons, and the plan is to turn Earth into a new version of that, which is a pretty bad fate for everything involved. And if anyone read the recent Warworld Rising story in action comics, they can see just how terrible Warworld is to be a living creature on. So not good.

01:18:11
Zach Herring
Yeah. You also have some fantastic cyborg shoots Mongol to put him in his place. I think these issues, they switch in between awesome, skull shattering action and 40 years of comics continuity, summed up by two characters talking to each other.

01:18:30
Case
Yeah. So this is where we get the explanation. Just like in the last issue we had. Like, here's the whole explanation for the eradicator. Here's the whole explanation for the Cyborg Superman. And this is why I have to point out that the Cyborg Superman is technically a version of which the robot.

01:18:45
Zach Herring
That he goes into looks a lot like Herbie from the Fantastic Four cartoon show. Yeah, exactly. Which was a really funny detail for them to include as well.

01:18:53
Case
Yeah. So Hank Heinshaw was this established character from this spoof that they did of Fantastic Four, where they all got powers, except it was all cancerous. And in his case, he was able to possession electronics and kind of reshape them, which is the stretchy power, but it's a little bit more abstract. The other ones were a bit more one to one for it all. And Hank Henshaw was supposed to be Reed Richards. Yes. So when he dies, because of cancer, because of radiation, he is able to transfer his mind into this robot that, like you said, looks like the Fantastic Four cartoon Herbie. And then he transfers his mind into the orbiting vessel of the kryptonian birthing matrix that at this point, I guess, was in space, like as a satellite, probably to prevent people from getting access to it.

01:19:39
Case
And so he's able to get into it, and he makes a rocket out of that he then leaves the solar system for. So it flies off, finds where Mongol has sort of settled on when it takes over one of the inhabitants, it's a really creepy looking process of digging into the flesh and replacing part of it that's actually really cool. And then I love that creature doesn't have legs, and then the cyborg version of it does.

01:20:00
Zach Herring
Yeah. Does have legs and replaces half of its face. So it's like continuously replacing the faces.

01:20:05
Case
Yeah, just like eating his whole body.

01:20:07
Zach Herring
Yeah, it's really neat.

01:20:10
Case
And then to convince Mongol after Mongol is initially rejecting it, this is Juergens really playing with storytelling by way of not just like in the prove, like of having images and then text boxes, but not having it all be like word balloons and so forth. He turns Mongol's ship into a robot dragon to threaten him. And Mongol's like, no, fuck you. And he's like, all right, how would I burn you? And Mongol eventually is like, okay, you've burned me enough. I will submit. And so that's when Mongol starts submitting to the cyborg Superman. And then it's like, is it not clear enough to you? And then they do, like a one page just in case that wasn't like a nod.

01:20:45
Zach Herring
20 pages telling you who this is. Here's one page to summarize the 20 pages I just told you about.

01:20:51
Case
Right? Really simple. Leader. Once a human named Hank Henshaw. Astronaut friends dead mate to now too advanced. Live on Earth. Leader blamed Superman, hated Superman. How could revenge Superman dead too? He had Superman's genetic code, could assume Superman's identity and have him blamed by the universe for destroying Earth and seen. So we find out that the eradicator is being treated by the kryptonian drones in the fortress. And Lois and Superman have more of a chat with each other. They kiss the least sexy mouth close, right?

01:21:27
Zach Herring
That was one of my notes.

01:21:28
Case
Superman walks over to one of the Lex guards and give me your rocket boots. And he's like, no. Lex is like, just fucking take him. I don't know why they thought that. Okay, well, now we should just fly off on our rocket boots because how much fuel can they possibly have? Steel was not going to fly to California initially. And then it's like, oh, our plan is now to fly there. I guess we'll fly there. But they take off and apparently it's steel, Superman, and Superboy. And that's a cool shot. I do like that. They call it the Superman revenge squad for the next issue, which is another classic reference for stuff. We get some beautiful Tom grummet art of them flying. That's really cool. I love the panel of steel is like thinking through this whole thing and it's like, but Superman died.

01:22:12
Case
Wonder what the kid thinks. And it cuts to Superboy.

01:22:14
Zach Herring
Man, I could go for again, another shot in the thought balloon column. This was fit. That was such a good moment that you couldn't get without thought balloons.

01:22:23
Case
And to be fair, the next page elaborates on it, and you're like, oh, he hasn't eaten since a day before. And he was imprisoned previously. He just flew across country. Now he's flying back, and you're like, okay, I get it.

01:22:34
Zach Herring
But it's a good bit. It's a really good bit that then they're a really funny panel if they then sort of fold into an actual motivation.

01:22:42
Case
So they're flying in approach, and Mongol and all of his forces are like, guys, the fucking supermen are flying this way. Can we do something about this? And so they open fire and, yeah, immediately. Because. Why did you think your plan was just like, we're going to just fly straight at this alien city that we know is covered with sophisticated alien technology. No one's going to spot us as we fly closer. So steel ends up tanking the shots, which is, like, cool. And then they dive in and start fighting their way.

01:23:10
Zach Herring
If you think about how much Superman's been depowered, it's really fun to almost think of it in the way that Superman, his approach would have been just going straightforward through it. He's still getting used to this fact that he's basically not, like, a slightly overpowered human versus actual Superman. That totally makes sense to me on that side.

01:23:28
Case
Yeah, I guess that part makes sense. But it does seem weird that no one was like, hey, should we do not. This seems like, not a very effective.

01:23:35
Zach Herring
Fair. Fair. Especially since he's, like, looking like Frank Castle here in a couple of pages. Yeah, he's like, clearly getting guns out. He's like, I can't fight him with my fist. So I'm just going to go full Frank Castle, full punisher.

01:23:49
Case
Yeah. We start seeing that things keep going wrong. Like, the shot that a robot has at Superman doesn't hit right. It's like, wait. He was perfectly in my line of sight. Why did this not work? And it destroys. The only thing it does is it destroys the boots that Superman was wearing, so he can't fly anymore. So basically, flight was just like travel time in a d d game. Like, it's like, oh, well, yeah, you were able to make that distance in that time because we needed you to for montage purposes. But with all these aliens down that they took out when they first arrived, Superman's like, well, they always called me a Boy scout. But you know what the scout's motto is? Always be prepared and have this shot of him covered with, like, gun belts and stuff. And Superboy goes slamming.

01:24:28
Case
Time to earn some merit badges.

01:24:31
Zach Herring
So good.

01:24:33
Case
It's so ninety s. I remember being very excited by that panel when I was like twelve. And now I'm like, man, I know what they're doing here. But it's so funny where none of the deeper layers meant anything to me. When I was like a young child reading comics, it was just like, oh.

01:24:50
Zach Herring
This is a great panel.

01:24:55
Case
Yeah, cool. He's in a black suit with guns. So we see Lois wrapped up in a blanket, kind of just like watching the news about all the Superman stuff, which I get. She's across the country, she can't do anything. And they're in California, so it's earlier in the day for them. They could be fighting. It's time for bed for her.

01:25:12
Zach Herring
And she's recovering from that kiss that she deeply regrets.

01:25:16
Case
Well, both a kiss she deeply regrets and a kiss that was like, unprompted. But she's like, oh, maybe it's him.

01:25:21
Zach Herring
Yeah.

01:25:22
Case
And then Superman and co find a rocket that's about to fly off and do the same thing to Metropolis that happened to co city. It's a pretty efficient missile. You would think they would just do that in the first place. But, yeah, onto all of them. They're trying to figure out how to stop it and Superboy ends up catching onto it while the others are locked out. And we got the kid riding on the missile, like, trying to destroy it all. And this is a pretty cool scene for the character. One thing I think this does really well is establishes why the pretenders who stayed and became their own things are actually heroes. So Superboy, and we know that explosions can hurt him. We know that he's not that invulnerable at this point.

01:26:02
Case
Even if you don't know why all of it works the way it does, you're like, well, he's also 16, physically speaking, and he just isn't as powerful as Superman, but he's trying his damnedest to stop this rocket. And the others are going to hop down the silo that the rocket came from and see where it leads. And I love the shot of Superboy on the front of the missile. And we eventually get to the point where he's like, fully trying to turn it away. And that's such a good superhero moment for him. And he turns it away. People are up on roofs looking at it, and he succeeds. He just barely gets it to not hit the daily planet. And Tana's like, oh, my God, he did it. This is fucking amazing. And then it explodes and no one sees anything.

01:26:44
Case
Like, no one sees what happens to anybody or anything. It's just like this nuclear explosion. Goes off, presuming it's the same as the one from cocity, like in their upper atmosphere. And she breaks down crying. And I love that moment right there, especially the cynical, like, the cameraman being like, you get in this back of the station, those ratings will go through the roof. Real good moments there, because the relationship with Tana is, she's always older than the kid, but they have real feelings for each other, both romantic, but also just as people who really care about each other. So I like that moment there. We didn't get as much of closing out the arc that was the adventures of Superman, the way we did for the man of steel stuff where like, oh, yeah, the white rabbit story.

01:27:26
Case
That's done now, Superboy's story is still developing at this point, like him with Tana and all of that. And so that's a big deviation right there. Then we cut back over to action. Yes, we cut back over to action comics, and they are coming down. Superman apparently slows down as he lands. And he's like, I'll tell you my secret when we have a minute. But there's stuff going on here, and the walls have eyes and ears. They get attacked by a bunch of mooks. And this is the point where I realize, oh, they're in a dungeon and they're playing D and d right now. All the minions are attacking them. And eventually we're going to get to the mini boss and then the real boss. But this entire thing is just laid out in DNd sort of, or video game logic.

01:28:11
Case
There's just a ton of guards that are coming at them non stop, and they're doing pretty good. He's got x ray vision, so he can see the robots that he can shoot and not worry about hurting them versus the ones who are actual people. And then every now and then, people just seem to fly away. And we don't know why at this point, but Superboy, or rather, pardon me, Superman, is whispering to someone at various points. We get a recap of the Superboy saving everything, and we see that he actually does survive. He crash lands and Lex comes over being like, where is Supergirl? And he's like, what the fuck are you talking about? I just got hit by a nuke.

01:28:44
Zach Herring
And then he falls.

01:28:46
Case
Yeah, and passes out. The cyborg is cavetching about the fact that Superman is back and all that and is like, oh, well, actually, this might even better for my vengeance. And just showing that how insane he is. And Mongol's like, man, this guy's fucking lost his mind, why did I pick this guy?

01:29:04
Zach Herring
I might have hitched my horse to the wrong wagon.

01:29:08
Case
Wagon to the wrong horse.

01:29:10
Zach Herring
This might not work out for me.

01:29:12
Case
Yeah. We cut back to the eradicator, who goes through this whole process and a really elaborate sequence of panels of him drawing on energy from the fortress and apparently kind of destroying the fortress. Like, all the droids go down, all the tech seems to fail. He pulls all the power to reconstitute his body and fly off, saying, the cyborg shall fall. By the power of Krypton, vengeance shall be mine. Because he actually has a lot of emotion now, but he's still a violent motherfucker.

01:29:43
Zach Herring
He's still a weapon system put inside of a body. Yes, absolutely. And it's really fun, too, where he talks about how, like, I didn't even know what passion was until I was in a human body, and now I'm super into vengeance.

01:29:56
Case
Right. And I don't want to gloss over the scene too much because it is, like, beautiful artwork for this whole thing.

01:30:04
Zach Herring
Yeah.

01:30:06
Case
We also just can't have this be too long.

01:30:08
Zach Herring
But the double page spread is awesome. You listening at home? Look at this. This is really cool.

01:30:12
Case
Yeah, great. We check back in with Superman and Steel, and he's, like, shooting out cameras. And after knocking out one more guard, it's like, all right, time to show the secret weapon. And they've had Supergirl with them the entire time, which makes sense enough. She is able to talk to Superman and find out that he's the real deal because she knows way more about him than anyone else. You know, that works. And they're like, yeah, we like you, Steele. We trust you now. So this is where they all become, like, a proper team as they go adventuring through this city that is now, like, shifting around it, because now the cyborg is actively trying to impede their progress.

01:30:53
Case
So he's moving machinery pieces around because he can control everything, which means that it is a dungeon that the Dungeon master is actively redrawing on the whiteboard map that you're using.

01:31:05
Zach Herring
Totally not fair.

01:31:06
Case
What's going on?

01:31:06
Zach Herring
Totally not fair. I need to bring this up with my dm as an idea for some of the stuff he's planning because that is a really cool concept for a dungeon.

01:31:14
Case
I kind of think I want to just run this as a DND session. Have everyone be not the cyborg or the eradicator and then just play this out. Because that Superboy issue, the first action or first adventures of Superman issue with Superboy, that was a level of a DND there's so much of this that could just be a d d game. I'm really tempted to just run that and have people play it out. Mongol talks about betraying Superman, and then it's like, oh, you know what'll be dope? Well, this whole place is powered by kryptonite. Dun dun.

01:31:47
Zach Herring
Let's see him stop us. And then a completely weird break to bloodline.

01:31:55
Case
Oh, look. Yeah, except it's not quite as weird because this is the only one that actually has a point in the story that matters, which is this issue happens right after Superboy stopped the rocket, and that's why he's in Metropolis explicitly. So I do like that it is tied into, it's explicit where it's supposed to happen in the story, and it's a side story for one of the characters. And we'll move quick on this one because weirdly, so sparks, actually, I had totally forgotten about, but is a character that shows up again. She actually is on a team with Superboy. Later, Superboy and the ravers. So she is a character that remains around for a little bit now. She clearly looks just like livewire from the tv show.

01:32:34
Case
And I have to imagine that she is the inspiration for that character because that character was created for the show and that was like a year after this. Gotcha. Maybe not exactly an inspiration, but clearly a prototype, at least in terms of the design.

01:32:47
Zach Herring
I thought. It looks like at first, she looks extremely similar to livewire and has the.

01:32:52
Case
Same type of powers. Her human form looks like Kitty pride, and she's from a family that all have the meta Gene. I looked into this because the way they talk about it makes it think that they're like, oh, this must be some established family or have a role beyond it. No, they show up here and then in Superboy and the ravers when we deal with her family. But everyone in her family has meta powers, and it feels kind of like the inhumans or like clandestine. She's with her uncle who can turn into a big werewolf, but they're like, oh, we just try to get anyone who's old enough into some kind of accident that will activate their meta gene. And apparently aliens are killing people and it's causing their metagenes to activate.

01:33:29
Case
So we're going to bring you to Metropolis, and you're going to walk by yourself at night and see if an alien attacks you was their plan, which is fucking insane. Even if you thought she would survive, it's like, why? That's the way you're going to go. But we do check. Like, loose cannon shows up in here and we find out a bit more. And we also see a unified plot as opposed to just the random aliens hunting people where they try to create a fake food bank and have homeless people come and they would all feast on them. So we're seeing more of a story here. Also, we get Superboy while he's in the hospital. They try to give him an injection and he's like, oh, I'm invulnerable. And it's like, well, we didn't have any problem putting the iv in you.

01:34:11
Case
And that's because he was unconscious at the time because he's actually stopping the syringe from going in subconsciously. But he has to be awake for his powers to work. And so that's more layers on the whole. He's telekinetic. He doesn't actually have other powers phase. Maggie Sawyer recruits him to go after this. And at one point, a reporter calls up Maggie Sawyer and calls her mags, which was explicitly the thing that she hates being called in, the loose cannon thing. And it reads like someone who didn't notice that specific thread. But aside from just like, well, we've got Superboy running around and like, oh, Superboy tries to sneak into Bibbo's bar to find out clues. And this is the first meeting of Superboy with Crypto. And crypto fucking hates him. And that always is the thing, I.

01:35:00
Zach Herring
Think that is worth calling out in this. That was a great detail.

01:35:04
Case
Crypto goes with Superboy to Hawaii when he gets his own series. And Crypto loves Double X, the DN alien from Cadmus that becomes Superboy's mentor. But he hates Superboy and just barks at him all the time and just fucking hates him. And it's so great that we're getting that set up here. And I should note this is actually written by Carl Kiesel, which not all, like Juergens wrote his, but I can't remember if the other ones were in. But either way, we know that in all the Superboy stuff, they are setting up the groundwork for things that will be part of the main Superboy book because it was very clear that this character was getting his own book after this.

01:35:40
Zach Herring
Even so, Grummet also co plotted with Keesel and then did thumbnails for they. I think this was the closest that you were going to get to the primary story and also really kind of speaks to how much of themselves they were putting into this, where they even tried to get this sort of like, random extra issue and sort of tie it into everything that they were doing on action or adventures of, yeah.

01:36:05
Case
Now, it's kind of weird that he would spend so much time investigating the murders that are going on when he knows that the world is about to be destroyed by aliens. But the world is also about to be destroyed by aliens here too. So it's a side quest. It feels like a weird amount of time for him to spend away from the main plot because this has to be like, at least like two or three days. But I get it. He's in Metropolis, he's recovering, and they put him on this thing. I do also like when he holds up a building, when they're like, are you crazy? Physics are going to prevent that from happening. And he's like, next thing you're telling me I can't fly. And he does successfully hold up the ceiling as it's collapsing.

01:36:41
Case
And he points out that the walls then collapse on the side. And again, playing into the whole, we're setting up, he's telekinetic and he's not actually super strong. I think that these are all worthwhile things that happen in this. And the fact that Sparks comes back as a supporting character in a Superboy spinoff book. Again, Superboy and the ravers. Even if people don't really remember that book, it is interesting that it happened.

01:37:03
Zach Herring
Gosh darn.

01:37:06
Case
I honestly forgot that book existed until I got to this spot because I was like, I remember that it happened after the missile. I remember him in the hospital getting the syringe, and I'm like, who was the character they introduced in this book? Oh, right. Fucking sparks. I forgot about her. Oh, my God. But like I said, she actually does show up later and we get a little bit more of the alien stuff. It doesn't fucking matter. No one cares about. I looked it up. All these characters are called the new blood. As new heroes that were introduced, sparks kind of matters. Hitman still is the only one that people actually care about and would pay attention to. And if you bring up any of the others, they'll be like, who? And even loose cannon. And sparks is like, who? Doesn't matter.

01:37:49
Case
Cut back to Superman. Steel running through the remains of coast city with guns. And that's when they come up on Mongol. And this is the point where it's like, oh, it's time for your mini boss fight. Yeah.

01:37:59
Zach Herring
Okay.

01:38:01
Case
Steel goes away to deal with the engine that's about to fire. And so he encounters Cyborg Superman, but not the physical body of Cyborg Superman. It's still a great looking shot, though. It's a great shot. And he has, like, all these, like, he keeps building new robot bodies for steel to fight. So this is actually a really tense battle that would be also great for a dungeon master to have their players fight. Oh, the evil warlord or wizard or whatever controlling this fortress is summoning constructs to battle you in the space that you have to shut down. Very cool fight.

01:38:29
Zach Herring
It's also. I mean, it's steel. It's a machine versus machine. Right? Like, it's a man inside of a plate of armor versus all of these other machines that are being summoned to fight him. So, thematically. Well, totally.

01:38:43
Case
And even more explicit, it's John Henry.

01:38:45
Zach Herring
Yeah, it's John Henry fighting. Absolutely. Absolutely.

01:38:48
Case
Yeah. And, like, this is where we're really going into it. It was, like, hinted at before, but this is the real moment of John Henry being like, I'm more than just the machine suit that, like, I. I am mightier than your steam engine thing.

01:39:02
Zach Herring
Whatever.

01:39:02
Case
Cut over to the jeb subplot, because, fuck, we can't not deal with jeb, apparently. And he's like, man, Lois is really in love with Superman, not Clark Kent. And he actually says something to her in kind of a dick way. But again, this fucking story doesn't matter. We do get Green Lantern flying back to earth and being like, my God, what's that? Destruction. That's co City. And that would feel like a lot to a person who just saw their home destroyed. Supergirl intervenes in the fight against Mongol, and he figures it out. Fairly cunning. He's like, oh, there's something invisible. And pours oil on where she is. And the eradicator is getting closed now, so things are happening.

01:39:46
Case
Steel has a big fight with a bigger robot that the cyborg summons and uses it to actually destroy the force fields that are the magnetic fields that are allowing the earth to be protected from the rocket launch. But it's not enough by itself. Like, the rocket can still fire.

01:40:05
Zach Herring
It's shut down for the heroic. He stalled it.

01:40:08
Case
Yeah, no, it's a necessary step. But then we get the next issue, and I need.

01:40:14
Zach Herring
What the hell is this story? It was so confused after when I read this one.

01:40:21
Case
I think this one makes sense in its placement. But it's an issue of Green Lantern, and I can't not mention this part. It's written by Gerard Jones.

01:40:28
Zach Herring
I saw you talk about this on Twitter, and I have no context for.

01:40:30
Case
This, so Gerard Jones, I unfortunately found out after I wrote and did a whole video on prime, one of his characters that he created was a writer at DC. He did a bunch of amalgam stuff. We had to talk about that when we did the amalgam stuff. He was found guilty of possession of child pornography and is currently in prison. So a lot of people have been like, oh, I guess we're not going to talk about this issue. I think this issue still is important to bring up because it's Green Lantern's perspective on his home being destroyed.

01:41:02
Zach Herring
I had a question, and is that why they decided to. I guess it's less than it.

01:41:07
Case
I think it fits. We get, like, a recap in the next issue, but it's very clearly a recap of a fight that happened and not the actual fight.

01:41:15
Zach Herring
So I agree. It makes sense in the placement, although it was very confusing to me. Basically, it kind of stole the thunder for the next issue as well, because the next issue is the big fight. And then this issue ends with kind of the resolution of that big fight, which was kind of confusing to me, is the reason they brought this in, just because it's Green Lantern. It was his city that was destroyed, and they decided they needed to have that person, basically.

01:41:37
Case
And this is the start of the emerald. That's what I was going to. That then leads to Hal Jordan going crazy, killing the rest of the Green Lantern Corps, and then becoming shake, and that leads to Kyle Rayner becoming Green Lantern. So the big shakeups in DC start with the reign of Superman, with the death and return of Superman stuff, and then spin out from there. So this has big impact on the whole cosmic side of things with the Green Lantern Corps. And overall, I think the issue is fine. It's just Green Lantern being like, I'm so angry at this motherfucker. And I honestly forgot when I started reading this issue about the Green Lantern yellow weakness, because that's been gone for so long now, but was a big thing in it. They kept on being like, I can't hurt him because he's yellow.

01:42:25
Case
And I'm like, just keep doing what you're doing. Picking up shit with your ring and hitting him with, like, it's not that hard, man.

01:42:30
Zach Herring
Well, you get the amazing John Henry Green Lantern mashup where he picks up the hammer, which was dope. It was really cool. I did like that a lot. Yeah.

01:42:40
Case
And I like the art fine here. The fight with Mongol looks fine. It's a cool, big fight. And then he catches up with everyone else. Oh, shit. Oh, I see. So I'm looking at the digital right now, but I actually hadn't been looking at the digital for this. Read these panels. They don't have in the trade that I, oh, really like the trade that I had. Okay, so it ends with him beating. But then there are others is where the issue cuts off in the death and return in this trade. It goes straight from for the audience listening.

01:43:11
Zach Herring
I'm leaning into my camera right now. I'm about to look at the trade that cases.

01:43:16
Case
Yeah, so it goes straight from the, but then there are others and then into the next issue.

01:43:21
Zach Herring
Oh, wow, they totally spoil this in the digital reader.

01:43:25
Case
Yeah, totally. Okay, so that explains some of that because I was like, oh, I think the thing that sucks is the fact that it was written by a pedophile.

01:43:36
Zach Herring
Yeah, that does suck too. Now that I know it, I dislike this issue even more. But yeah, it totally stole the thunder of the climax of the book.

01:43:44
Case
Yeah, I think they had to tell the story because it was its own issue, but it's weird. Oh, and yeah, this whole thing that happens after I had never read. That's wild. Okay. I don't want to spend too much time on this issue. And I haven't read these like last couple of pages because I honestly, yeah, no, I didn't even realize they were there because again, they're just not in my trade. Anyway, cut over to Superman. Superman 82. And this is eradicator has arrived. He thinks back on the whole thing. Green Lantern, we see him doing the recap of him being like, okay, I'm going to build an armor so I can pick up this hammer and hit Mongol with it.

01:44:18
Case
Steel climbs out, having fixed everything, and he's like covered in greed smoke because of all the kryptonite shit that he doesn't even really know. And we get the confrontation between Superman and the cyborg. So cyborg baits them and sets more traps for them. They continue this whole chase. Cyborg finally is like, oh, why didn't I think about taking control of your armor before? I'm like, well, why didn't you, dude? It's because you're fucking dumb. You do get like his Superboy catches up finally.

01:44:45
Zach Herring
You see his face like popping up on the armor itself, which was really cool.

01:44:49
Case
There's some cool shot.

01:44:50
Zach Herring
Really interesting ideas with this last issue or this not last issue, but like.

01:44:55
Case
This issue, Superboy is finally getting enough control that he's able to cause Steel's armor to explode to save his life because he's being strangled by the cyborg. So that's a cool moment. The eradicator shows up and teams up with Superman and the cyborg baits them, growing his head and actually having the metal slide around, which I don't think looks like that much on the page. But if that was done in a movie, you could just hear the metal screeching sound of the head moving around and it would be so cool.

01:45:25
Zach Herring
I'm a big horror nerd. And this is Freddy Krueger. Kind of like surrealist horror all the way through, from the face popping up on Steele's stomach to this. This is really good horror stuff. That would be cinematically would be fantastic.

01:45:44
Case
Yeah. Now, meanwhile, Superman does not trust the eradicator. Like Superman is more aware than anyone else of all the shit the eradicator has done and how bad of an entity it has been. And so the eradicator is trying to plead that, no, he has actually changed, that he has learned a lot and that he's tried to follow his example. And if nothing else, his main goal is to make sure that Superman lives, because his goal is to keep the kryptonian life going. So we get some exchange about that. They kind of settle on a new look for the eradicator. He's got, like, a buz cut, and now his eyes don't seem to be phased by the light. So that was like a weakness he had as Superman, just so they could have a weakness for him and a reason for him to wear sunglasses.

01:46:23
Case
But now it's like it's moving on.

01:46:26
Zach Herring
I also think it might because they were connected on the battery, able to have. His powers are now derived from the energy that he sucked from the forces of solitude. Whereas previously, he couldn't absorb the sunlight directly, he had to absorb the sunlight through the Superman body that he was keeping in the battery.

01:46:47
Case
Maybe it just weird for him to lose that weakness and without any reference to it here, and then he'll wear glasses again when he's possessed by a human after this. So I don't know, I think they just didn't want to draw it. And he's got cool kirby dot eyes, so I don't hate the look. It's just a thing. Anyway, they confront the cyborg Superman, and he's in the chamber with the kryptonite that powers the whole building, rather, the whole city. And he breaks it open so that they can all be dying from kryptonite radiation. And we get the others steal Superboy and Supergirl catching up. And that green glow, it must be Green Lantern up ahead. And so bright. I can't see a thing through it. And Superman mentions that kryptonite would kill anyone, but it kills him faster.

01:47:36
Case
And so he shuts the door, and it's good because it gives us a chance to have it not affect Superboy before he would have entered the room, because Superboy, actually, at this time, canonically, is not affected by kryptonite because he's not a Kryptonian that gets retconned first in one of the who's who issues or the annuals that they would do information on. And then eventually, the Jeff Johns run fully reverse that. But at this point, they didn't want to confirm or deny his kryptonian connections. So it's going to be a fight between Superman, the eradicator, and the cyborg. And the cyborg immediately takes control over Superman's guns and causes them to all explode. And then the two of them all start fighting each other.

01:48:16
Case
We get a cool shot of the birthing matrix side by side with the eradicator in his original form and how similar they look in design, which I think is cool. It's a really complex panel, and I love the way that they color those parts to not have actual pin lines on it.

01:48:31
Zach Herring
They do color.

01:48:33
Case
Yeah, that was really cool. And I'd never seen, or not never, but I hadn't seen that very often at the time when it first came out. Comics, obviously, now are so digital in the way they're colored, but at the time, that was new, and it was cool to see. And then Cyborg decides to do a last ditch effort of firing a hose of kryptonite at Superman. And the eradicator steps in the way, and as it destroys his body, like, a rainbow of energy explodes out of him into Superman. And we get this whole bit about how much it hurts. And you can see it's sucking away all the kryptonite that was being stored in there, from this giant rock to this tiny thing now. And green Lantern finally busts down the door.

01:49:16
Case
They bust down the door, and there's all this smoke, and it's like, what, that radiation? And I'm like, do you think radiation is a fog? Is that what you think is going on there? But they put up a shield around them again, preventing Superboy from interacting with the kryptonite. So we don't deal with that. The eradicator appears to be dead. Cyborg is standing over it. And that's when Superman emerges in just shreds of clothing, like barely anything but fully powered, and a burned chest. And he easily takes down the cyborg, like, two punches. And he's got his arm in Cyborg's. He's got his arm in the cyborg's chest and he's like, well, if I vibrate really fast, I'll cause you to explode. And I'm like, that's pretty lethal.

01:49:56
Case
But he also knows that it's going to be hard to actually kill the cyborg because at this point, he knows that it's Henshaw we glossed over when he was being taunted by the cyborg earlier. It was like, you killed my wife. But now Hanks Henshaw will have its revenge.

01:50:11
Zach Herring
And he even says, right, like, if you come back, I'll be like. He knows that Henshaw is almost affected. I mean, pretty darn hard to kill, almost immortal. And so, yeah, I kind of give him a pass on that side. He's been so good at saving henchmen lives that I give him a pass on this part.

01:50:29
Case
Yeah. So then Supergirl reassembles his clothing to actually be in the Superman uniform. Green Lantern is kind of chill in all the panels right here. He's like, my ring doesn't locate him anywhere. That's weird. It's like, shouldn't you be angry? Right? Like, isn't everyone you know and loved, like, dead right now? But this is not the issue to focus on that particular emotional journey. And they're like, oh, we think the cyborg's gone. We think everything. Is everything good? Okay.

01:50:57
Zach Herring
Yeah.

01:50:57
Case
All right. Yeah, Superman. Yeah, he's Superman. And he flies off now with long.

01:51:01
Zach Herring
Hair and amazing two panel spread. Finally you see him in the blue suit. He looks fantastic. This is like kind of the payoff of the previous 300 pages.

01:51:13
Case
Yeah. And he flies on home all excited. And I'm seeing that. I'm not looking at how this differs from the trade. So the original trade right after this just jumps to the Lois opening the window to see Superman there. And they kiss. And that's actually the end of the trade.

01:51:33
Zach Herring
Oh, cool.

01:51:34
Case
But then that's a much better way.

01:51:36
Zach Herring
To end it than this because I.

01:51:37
Case
Thought this continues with them. There's a flirting audience.

01:51:40
Zach Herring
There's like eight issues after this. It's actually closer to three. And it completely, like, it kind of kills the momentum of what the rest of this book is. I think I actually want your trade that you have in your hands right now to replace this digital comic that I have from. It just keeps going, and there's like a weird occult thing where he hangs out and they kind of talk about all the mortality of Superman and stuff like that. I'm just like, oh, my gosh, this was so good up until this point. And then it just kind of sinks back into, like, 90s ridiculousness.

01:52:16
Case
Oh, yeah. No, we're not going to deal with any of this.

01:52:18
Zach Herring
No.

01:52:18
Case
I will say that the trade also had the bit from action comics where Superman recovers Clark Kent, quote unquote, and Clark Kent goes home with Lois. And then Superman catches up after having a verbal sparring match with Lex Luthor. And then Clark Kent reveals that it's actually matrix.

01:52:35
Zach Herring
It's Supergirl, which I didn't realize. So I wasn't familiar with Supergirl as Matrix. So this was the first time I saw her shapeshift, period. And I was like, what on earth is going on? Just more, it's just more like kind of insanity. But you kind of like giving that context of who she is. Totally makes sense in that case.

01:52:53
Case
Now, yeah, there is a lot of falling action that happens after that when we say the digital versus the trade. So I'm talking about the original, the return of Superman trade, which contained everything for the imposter Superman through, but doesn't have the full issues for these issues that happen after he comes back and has defeated the cyborg. So for one thing, I haven't read those. For another, most of this is like falling action to catch up the things that are going on with the characters in the different books. And I don't think we need to necessarily go through that just for this chunk of chunk.

01:53:27
Zach Herring
I will say the stuff that it sets up that I feel like is interesting. They rescue eradicator. So he's being saved and is coming back. They try to explain Superband's immortality. They basically, Lois asks, are you immortal? And they say, no, he should have died, yada. But, yeah, overall, this is not the most interesting. This is not the best way to end what I think to be 600 pages of fantastic comicking. This is not the best way to end it, in my opinion.

01:53:56
Case
Yeah. So there's a lot of stuff that happens in issues around this of just like, Superman being like, no, I'm alive. And what is nice is I do see that they cover his reunion with that, you know, should be fairly pressing, especially because none of the fake Superman ever went to mon pa Kent, even the ones who knew that Clark Kent and Superman were the same person. But yeah, again, this is all the following action of, like, all right, well, we got to catch up with where everyone is. Superman talks to Batman, the as real Batman. Because that shit started at this time.

01:54:28
Zach Herring
Robot Batman, which blew my mind as well. Yeah, this is all over the map. It's fascinating.

01:54:34
Case
Yeah. The important part is that they figure out a way for Superman to put himself back into his life by way of Clark Kent being alive because he was in a fallout shelter and just barely survived for the last several months since the doomsday fight. And we get like little bits there. But the point is, Superman is back at the end of this all. He has saved the day from the cyborg Superman. He has done a lot of good, everything. And he can go back to being Superman while they'll have to deal with, like, all right, what happened to his apartment? He gets his apartment back from Superboy. It's a funny scene that happens because Superboy never finds out that he's Clark Kent. That whole thing is just an amusing bit. He gets the copyright back. He gets his job back eventually.

01:55:19
Case
Once Clark Kent's alive again, he has to reassemble those pieces of his life. But you knew that once Clark Kent was back and accepted as being back and that the way they did it, they cover, which is like, okay, yeah, fake fallout shelter. You knew he was going to be able to do like, it's kind of almost funny how much his life goes back right into being exactly what it was.

01:55:39
Zach Herring
Immediately recovers it all. Yeah. They even mentioned, they even talked how it's like, that was a weird couple of weeks. It's not a lot of time between when he dies and when he comes back.

01:55:49
Case
But, yeah, so that's the return of Superman. And it's so 90s in some regard, but it also feels like a commentary on the 90s in a lot of ways. And it's doing similar things to what's so funny about truth, justice and the american way kind of story of like, well, what's the point of Superman in this modern era of comics? And the fight with Doomsday was important to show what the choices you have to make when you're in the fight against an implacable threat. And then the stories of the reign shows like, well, what is special about Superman when you take away something from each of them? What are you losing out on? Like, Steele's not as able to deal with big threats because he's a guy in a suit.

01:56:29
Case
The eradicator doesn't have the emotional well being to properly be a superhero because he'll just be like, well, you bad. I'm going to break your arms. Superboy doesn't have the experience to be Superman that's just not there. And then the cyborg is actually a fucking murderer.

01:56:46
Zach Herring
He's the actual bad guy.

01:56:47
Case
Yeah, he's the actual bad guy. So it's nice that we get to reinforce, like, Superman is valuable and means something to people and means something to audience members reading it. And we missed him while he was gone. And it's cool and it's wonderful. And the reunion with Lois is fantastic, and I'm so happy for that. And this is right back to like, all right, let's get them married now, because they had been engaged and this is leading up to that whole thing. And meanwhile, Superboy and Steel are going to go off and have their own books, and Supergirl is going to have a mini immediately following this, and then she's going to go off and get her own book with Peter David.

01:57:24
Case
So lots of stuff is changing, and the Superman family finally is starting to be a thing again and actually be a thing in a way that it really wasn't even before because Supergirl and Crypto were a big part of Silver Age era and Superman had a big world, but it was never quite the Captain Marvel family or the Batman family kind of world. Although to be fair, Batman is just getting that family now as well in comics, because previously it was just Batman and Robin and then a different Robin, then a different Robin. So at this point, it's Robin number three. But Asriel has taken over as Batman for a little bit and then start building out that. So we're getting into the 90s having a lot of spin off characters, and so this is where Superman's starting to get it.

01:58:05
Case
But they feel organic to the story and the ones that remain proved that they were worthwhile. Entries to the family like Steel showed that he had the character. And even Superboy, for all of his goof offs and fuck ups, saved the day when it really mattered. And you root for these characters. So it's a cool, exciting moment as we enter 90s DC, even though this is 1993, so it's been a couple of years we're really going into. Now. Here's the new status quo for the super family for the next 15 years. Like mid 90s is when they start to reset stuff by way of bringing back cars or l and start building their way towards new 52, where they totally rip it up. But superboy sticks around and steel sticks around. They remain parts of it.

01:58:54
Zach Herring
They're enduring characters. And, yeah, the work that was done here, I don't know, it holds up. I've told multiple friends in reading this for this series. I've told multiple friends they need to check this out because it's surprisingly modern and especially, I think both are great. But especially the first 300 to 400 pages or 300 pages of this book are just fantastic. Like, some of the best comic book storytelling, like comic book superhero, comic book tights and capes. Storytelling that you'll see not just for the 90s, but in my opinion, like, I don't know, 70s plus. It's just really good work.

01:59:35
Case
The return part, where each issue leads into the next, is really impressive from a writing perspective because all four books had different writers. This wasn't like a sand and Jack back in the 60s where it was all the same people doing it. Editorial had to really map this out. They all had to have interlacing details. And unlike the rain portion, where it's their own stories, but with dropping hints at what was going on in other books, this is literally, you need to read every issue if you're going to follow what's going on. And it's a really expansive work in that regard. And so it's really impressive to look back at and be like, I can't imagine corralling a team of writers and artists and having it be at all consistent across the board and so little continuity differences.

02:00:19
Case
The way they draw the tomb between different artists or the way they draw a room that a character is in or anything like that. Not a big deal. The fact that Superboy is way more like 90s isms when he's not being written by Keesel is like, yeah, it's fine, because the story itself all still flows and feels cohesive.

02:00:36
Zach Herring
Yeah, no, it's quite an accomplishment, honestly. The level of coordination that went on between these different artists and writers, and it's a really special work. Honestly, I didn't really know what I was getting to whenever were kind of riffing on maybe covering this, but I'm really glad that I did this. This is going on my shelf, honestly. This is really good.

02:01:01
Case
Cool. Well, I'm really glad that were able to revisit this. Next time we're going to be talking about the animated adaptation, which after how floored I was at how much I liked the death of Superman animated feature, and I haven't watched the reign of the Superman one yet. I'm really excited for it. I can't wait to see how that is handled. I think I've seen it before, so I'm really looking forward to that. But Zach, thank you for coming on. Where can people find you? You've got stuff going on. You've got a Kickstarter coming up. Give your plugs.

02:01:30
Zach Herring
Yeah. So I would just recommend, folks. So I'm a comic artist and writer myself. The big one that we're doing that we've just finished up, I would say, like last year, we're kick starting the trade paperback for. So it's called completely done, 130 pages. It is like Cohen brothers meet stranger things. You can check it out over@abductedthecomic.com. That's going to redirect you over to the Kickstarter for now. And then I think once the Kickstarter is done, you can also check it out on comixology. So we have the issues digitally, but if you want, like the physical trade paperback, we're going to be kick starting that soon. Maybe don't know when this is released, but I think the 23rd is whenever the Kickstarter commits us. So that's when that happens.

02:02:13
Case
This episode will have dropped the previous one just dropped and shouted it out, but it'll be right after it goes live when this episode drops. Everyone go check that out.

02:02:24
Zach Herring
Thank you. Yeah, it's a passion project, work of love. I'm a huge comic book fan, everything from tights and capes to indie comic books. And I don't know, it's my favorite medium of all time. So if you're curious about the work I've done, give that a look. That's definitely the most cohesive and longest thing I've ever done in my life. It's 130 pages. That's a lot.

02:02:52
Case
Yeah. So everyone should go check that out. And then after they have backed you on Kickstarter, they should find J Mike. J Mike. Where can they find you?

02:03:00
Zach Herring
Oh, gosh.

02:03:00
Case
You can find me on Twitter at j Mike 101. Twitter are still on right now. Hopefully they still are by the time this drops.

02:03:10
Zach Herring
And if not, I'll be sending smoke signals. Yes.

02:03:16
Case
In binary code.

02:03:17
Zach Herring
It works.

02:03:20
Case
As for me, you can find me on Twitter for the moment at case Aiken or any of the other new places we're picking up. That'll be the handle. Except for Instagram, because I am holding on to my aim screen name from high school for dear life. So you can find me at Ketzel Coattle five because I've always been a legion of superhero nerd and aztec mythology nerd, because nerds. Yay. You can find men of steel on Twitter at men of steelpod. And you can find more episodes@certainpov.com where you can find tons of other great shows. I'm going to give a shout out right now to the United States of women. They are back from a brief hiatus. It is a show that goes through the history of important women in each state of the union, going in order that the state joined the union.

02:04:02
Case
So they started with Delaware, and they've been working their way through as each state had joined the United States. And so they're on Massachusetts at the moment, and we are getting cool women who operated behind the scenes and had important impact on our country or on the world at large. But history often overlooks know misogyny. So check it out. Elizabeth and Jess are doing a great job on that. So it's wonderful work. We're so glad to have them as part of the network. And then check out more episodes of our show, and we'll be back next time talking about the animated adaptation of the story. But until then, stay super man. Men of Steel is a certain pov production. Our hosts are J. Mike Folson and case Aiken. The show is edited by Matt Storm. Our logo is by Chris Batista.

02:04:53
Case
Episode art is by case Aiken. And our theme is by Jeff Moon. Hey, everyone, this is case coming in post to let you know that we are going to have a slightly larger gap for the next episode rather than our usual fortnightly schedule. Some stuff has come up, and Jmike will not be able to record in the next couple of weeks. And I would rather not conclude our coverage of the death and return of Superman without him, considering he's been here for so much of it. So I just wanted to let you all know, and we will be back soon. Just. It's gonna be a little bit more than one fortnight. Might be more like a month or maybe a month and a half. So apologies. But until then, stay scruffy. My nerf herders. Pardon me? That's the old sign off.

02:05:38
Case
I don't know why I did it, but my brain, it's because I'm.

02:05:42
Zach Herring
Dude, there's a lot.

02:05:46
Case
Okay. No, it's because I had to relisten to some old episodes recently. Wow. Oh, my God. Wait a second. I know. I was looking at some old stuff. And because this was a spin off of a Star wars show that we had that tagline for a while. Video games are a unique medium. They can tell stories, immerse us in strange, fantastic worlds, blur the very boundaries of our reality. But at the end of the day, video games are fun. Whatever fun is to you. I'm Jeff Moonan. And I am Matt aka Stormageddon. And on fun and games we talk about the history, trends, and community of video games. It's a celebration of all the games we play and all the fun we find within them.

02:06:31
Zach Herring
And there's so many more games out.

02:06:33
Case
There, so we hope you'll share in that conversation with us. Fun and games podcast with Matt and Jeff find us on certain or wherever you get your podcasts and happy gaming. Cpov certainpov.com our.

Overview:

●      The meeting first delved into the "Death and Return of Superman" storyline. Case Aiken, Jmike Folson, and guest Zach Herring discussed the transition from individual Superman titles to a cohesive narrative. They explored character developments like Loose Cannon's transformation and interactions between characters facing challenges from gang violence and alien threats. Intricate artwork by John Bogdanove showcased dynamic fight sequences and themes of redemption for complex characters.

●      The conversation progressed to pivotal moments in battles against supervillains like Cosetti, Cyborg Superman, and the Eradicator. The narrative unfolded with intense action sequences, ambiguous character motivations, unexpected twists, and detailed descriptions of destructive events. Themes of heroism, deception, and vengeance were highlighted as characters navigated through challenging situations. Notable highlights included Superboy's courageous act and insights into character dynamics such as Lois Lane's conflicted emotions and Lex Luthor's strategic decisions.

●      Further discussions explored the intertwining story arcs across different comic issues. The fusion of engaging storytelling with striking visuals created an immersive reading experience for fans. Artistic details by Dan Jurgens were praised for capturing dynamic fight scenes and emotional moments effectively, enhancing the storytelling experience. The meeting covered intricate relationships between heroes, villains, supporting characters, and their evolving roles within the narrative landscape, culminating in intense confrontations and unexpected alliances.

Outline:

●      Chapter 1: Transition to Continuous Storytelling (01:30 - 03:30)

●      01:30: Shift in storytelling to a continuous story with multiple creative teams.

●      02:30: Books start to blend together with increased continuity.

●      Chapter 2: Interweaving Plot Threads (26:31 - 30:57)

●      26:31: Perspectives switch seamlessly, interweaving plot threads.

●      30:57: Characters depicted with minimal lines, enhancing storytelling.

●      Chapter 3: Action-Packed Issues and Character Development (49:40 - 55:55)

●      49:40: Intense superhero fight scenes dominate the narrative.

●      55:55: Character emotions and development play a significant role.

●      Chapter 4: Strategic Storytelling Choices (1:06:17 - 1:13:14)

●      1:06:17: Attention to detail in storytelling, especially facial expressions.

●      1:13:14: Shifts in storytelling perspectives enhance the narrative flow.

●      Chapter 5: Coordinated Writing and Artistry (1:59:12 - 2:00:59)

●      1:59:12: Commendation for coordinated writing and artistry across different creative teams.

●      2:00:59: Acknowledgment of the exceptional level of coordination in the storytelling process.

Action items:

●      Case Aiken

●      Review the latest podcast episode edits (00:01)

●      Follow up with Matt regarding email response (00:06)

●      J, Mike Paulson

●      Continue conversation about the death and return of Superman (00:52)

●      Contribute to keeping the conversation going about comics part on the return of Superman (01:21)

●      Maggie Sawyer

●      Recruit Superboy to go after the loose cannon (1:34:28)

●      Investigate the fake food bank plot with homeless people as targets (1:34:01)

●      Superboy

●      Save Metropolis from a rocket missile threat and survive an explosion (multiple instances throughout transcript)

●      Catch onto a missile and divert it away from hitting Daily Planet, displaying heroism (1:27:19)

●      Subconsciously stop a syringe injection while unconscious due to telekinetic powers (1:34:21)

Notes:

●      📚 Discussion on Storytelling Techniques

●      Not using thought balloons, but inner monologue and captions

●      Detailed facial expressions and minimalistic character descriptions

●      Playing with storytelling methods to convey character emotions

●      🖼️ Visual Art and Layout

●      Incredible two-page spread of carnage globes

●      Use of images and text boxes instead of word balloons for storytelling

●      Efficient summarization within single pages

●      🚀 Setting up Future Storylines

●      Supergirl checking in with Lex

●      Mongol's initial rejection and subsequent agreement

●      Introduction of a character with a one-page summary

●      Falling action to catch up with characters in different books