Probably not out of character, though.

Action Comics #677 (May 1992)




"...In Love and War!"

Script: Roger Stern
Pencils: Butch Guice
Inks: Denis Rodier
Colors: Glenn Whitmore
Letters: Bill Oakley

Grade: A-

I'd expected that I'd spend most of this review discussing the revelations about how Luthor II is controlling Supergirl, but that actually gets answered with surprising ease:




Instead, I think we need to talk about Butch Guice's artwork, which (for better and worse) has become the centerpiece of this book.

There's no denying that, at this point, DC is fighting a losing battle for sales against Marvel, and Image just hit the scene with their release of Youngblood #1 as well. In both cases, much of what DC is losing to is creative marketing and an emphasis on art. It will take a few more months before this office attempts to tackle creative marketing, but this issue seems hyper aware of the need to meet Marvel and Image at their art game. Heck, if Art Thibert's work on the cover doesn't immediately remind you of Rob Liefeld (note Supergirl's face, as well as Thibert's stylized signature), then maybe this will look familiar to you:



We're not seeing it in the other titles for some reason, but Action is absolutely trying to attract impressionable fans of the hot artists of the era, and I have to assume that's what's going on with Guice's increasingly stylized internal art. I'm a writer first and foremost; I usually have to push myself to notice the artwork in a story unless its truly exceptional(ly good or bad), but Guice's art was most of what was capturing my attention in this issue.

Sure, his attempt at realism occasionally results in some awkward facial expressions:




But, generally, the face isn't the primary focus of most of his Supergirl panels anyway:



I'd surmised in my review of Action #676 that Guice was using photo references (if that's so, then what magazines was he looking at??), but if that's the case, then why does he draw breasts as perfect circles? I mean, he makes them the primary focus of this panel, and then draws them so...wrong:



Look, this is not the kind of thing I ever expected to discuss in a review. Cheesecake art and cheesecake comics are not really my thing, but that's what's screaming for attention in panel after panel of this issue.

And I'm not knocking it. Once we see some other women in this issue, it becomes more obvious what Guice is up to. Check out how Lois is introduced later in the story:



While I don't accept for even a moment that the Post-Crisis Lois Lane who was wearing innovative new fashion and hairstyles right off of the runway at the start of this franchise is suddenly using her vast income as one of Metropolis' top journalists to scour Goodwill shops without some acknowledegment about her change in perspective, I value the visual contrast Guice is drawing between Supergirl and Lois. Matrix/Supergirl is a shape-shifter. She is choosing to look like an impossible sexy playmate for Lex II, while Lois can come off just as beautiful and even sexy wearing a frumpy nightshirt and with her hair a mess:



Guice is definitely depicting a range of outward appearances for women in this book, and while Supergirl's is the most overtly sexy, each has its own dignity and charm:



But then what the hell happened with Superman here?




Beyond that, we get a confrontation between Superman and Matrix (do I start calling her "Supergirl" at this point?) that feels believable and earned:



and Lex II's means of taking control of the situation is smooth as hell:



even if it ultimately leads Superman to once again suspect that he is not what he seems.

Speaking of which, I absolutely love how this office is teasing us with Lex II. Take this exchange between him and Matrix:



Confusing himself with his father seems like a dead giveaway...but then he doesn't seem to understand his father and assures Supergirl (and the reader) once again that "he is no longer here." I truly hope the payoff on this mystery isn't as simple and disappointing as the one about how he was controlling Matrix at the start of this issue. If he really is just Lex's son, I'm going to be plenty disappointed.

Of course, Lex II's comment about "duplicating" in this issue raises some questions:



Heck, maybe his efforts to duplicate Matrix will result in the creation of the Connor Kent Superboy, or maybe Lex II and Connor Kent were both clones created by Lex I (as usual, no spoilers please!)


Oh yeah, we're still pushing Ron Troupe in this issue, and this time Stern proves you can have your cake and eat it too as we're finally getting an obligatory Black character in this franchise while being told how progressive both the Daily Planet and Perry White have always been about race:



Oh, and the protesters arguing for minority inclusion are just dead wrong. No subtlety in how it's handled at all.


Finally, Sam Fosworth is getting fired, and I somehow actually feel bad for the guy:



especially as his firing seems due more to a bureacratic merger than a personnel decision:





Important Details:

1. I was irate last issue when associate editor Dan Thorsland indicated in the letters page that Clark and Lois had been engaged for "about six months" when the usual time progression for this office (one month in our time equals approximately one week in theirs) should have had Clark and Lois engaged for only about four months by this point. Well, it looks like Thorsland may have been wrong, after all:



"A few months" to me means three to five. Six months would be "half a year".


2. I'd just recently noted (as per the discussion amongst badwolf, zaku, and lordyam concerning Superman #22) that the Superman Office seems to have avoided mentioning Superman killing the rogue Kryptonians over the past two years, even while taking great pains to reference pretty much every other aspect of Post-Crisis Superman continuity. Here, it becomes even more obvious that this is being intentionally omitted:



We get a pretty accurate retelling of the events of the Pocket Universe story arc, and yet the crucial climax of that story is strategically omitted. Zaku also mentioned that (at some point) DC felt the need to remove the Time Trapper from that storyline, and that already seems to have happened as of this retelling:




3. Lex II is "barely 21". I assumed he was a little older.




Minor Details:

1. For the second issue in a row, we have a moment where Stern's words clearly don't match what Guice was drawing.



Heck, the changes to the dialogue were likely made after the inking had already been done, as the inks in that last panel are the strongest giveaway that Matrix was originally supposed to be pissed and not repentent. I wonder why this keeps happening.


2. Yup. Lex does have his own television network. WLEX gets referenced twice in this issue.


3. Cat Grant is back after a considerable absence. She and Jose Delgado keep falling off of the proverbial map and then randomly reappearing in this franchise.


4. Did we know Supergirl could turn invisible prior to this story?


5. When Clark was six years old, he got into a shoving match with Steve Davis. Somehow, I repeatedly misread this as "Steve Dallas," but I guess that was a different story:



Honestly, the cover made it out to be a lot more sensational than it was:





In the end, this issue actually managed to accomplish quite a bit, placing Supergirl's loyalty in Lex II's hands, making the relationship between Superman and Supergirl refreshingly complex, raising more questions about Lex II for Superman as well as the reader, making us feel something for the once detestable Sam Foswell, and enthralling us with some (mostly) masterful artwork that truly took center stage, here. I think the Supergirl mystery from last issue was teased to be bigger than it was, and I guess I can't blame Stern for the way this entire office is awkwardly handling the introduction of its first major Black character, but otherwise I was darn pleased by this outing.

Not sure why I am being tagged above (what a hideous feature) but it seems like a natural way for Supergirl to describe events. There simply isn't any reason to recount every detail.

It was apropos of your comments on Superman #22 and the killing of the Rogue Kryptonians.

If you prefer not to be tagged in the future, it is noted.

The pocket universe and killing the criminals are referenced numerous times (even into the early 2000's), but no, Superboy is not mentioned most of the time. As you noted, they constantly go to great pains to refer to post-crisis continuity, but the story in question is an open reference to PRE-crisis continuity, which is what they've spent years of time and effort getting away from, so they don't want to bring it up. At least with a "pocket universe with a parallel Krypton created by a mysterious cosmic entity," but ignoring Superboy (and by association, the Legion), there's a little wiggle room without having to mention anything published before 1986.

But there's more to it than that. As noted, there was all the runaround with the Time Trapper, who was indeed removed from continuity - literally, on camera - in the "5 Years Later" Legion comic which was being published at the time this issue came out.








Start here with Legion #4 Recollections by Tom Bierbaum, Then follow that with The Restructuring of the Timeline. In short, the Superman office told the Legion office they could not use anything Superman-related at all, not even the name "Mon-El," so they came up with a storyline where Mon-El was instead called Valor and he took the place of Superboy in Legion continuity, with Time Trapper being the macguffin that got it all done.

That restructuring started in 1989 and was finished by 1990. Why the Superman office mentions Superboy here in 1992, two full years after all of that lengthy re-engineering to NOT have Superboy, I have no idea.





It looks like Stern is not making things clear enough in the plot, or else Guice just isn't picking up what Stern is putting down. I don't know how loose or how detailed the plot was when it was sent to Guice, but that's twice in a row you've pointed to incongruities between art and dialogue. Of course, for all I know, Stern sent a full script and Guice didn't follow it, or Carlin changed things along the line. But from here it looks like another Marvel Method Miscommunication.




She did it in her very first appearance. Or I guess dis-appearance. See Superman #21 and Action Comics #644.

No, no they weren't. Not even close.

That was L.E.G.I.O.N. '90, a comic that appeared for the first time in 1988 with its own premise and cast of characters, many who were newly created just for that series. It had ties to the previous Legion comics, but the series was entirely new and had no history before its first issue. That office was writer Alan Grant and editor Art Young.

I am referring to Legion of Super-Heroes, a completely different comic by Keith Giffen, Tom & Mary Bierbaum, and edited by Mark Waid (and then Michael Eury when Waid was fired from DC shortly after the series started). True, Giffen was involved in the other series but didn't stay with it long.

Although if THE L.E.G.I.O.N. office did as you say, it does add a little light as to why the Superman office might have been gun shy about working with anyone else, especially the Legion.

This is the very, very last retelling of the Pocket Universe events that I could find. (Action Comics 797 - 2003)

Of course, SPOILER!