Adventures of Superman #463



"Speed Kills!"

writer/pencils: Dan Jurgens
imks: Art Thibert
letters: Albert Deguzman
colors: Glenn Whitmore
assoc. editor: Jon Peterson
editor: Mike Carlin

grade: A-


When I was an adolescent, first getting into comics in 1989, Superman wasn't on my radar. Batman was hot at the time and, while I'd grown up adoring Superman from the movies, I think DKR had done too good a job of both persuading the masses that Batman was cool/edgy and that Superman was the total opposite to a fault. I mention all of this because, as a kid growing up in this time period, I distinctly recall that this was the first Superman comic to ever make it on to my radar. I remember kids in my Sunday school class discussing the race with tremendous anticipation, but (to my frustration) they would not reveal who won! They knew a lot for ten year olds. They were aware, for example, that this was the second time Superman and The Flash had raced, though I doubt they understood that this cover and issue were an homage to that one:



(and, to be honest, I still don't know who won that first time!)

but I don't think any of us understood the idea that Superman had been "rebooted" at this point. I recently wrote about how the Superman franchise I started reading a few months after this felt like a continuation of the classic/iconic Superman I'd grown up with, and I believe there was an explicit effort on the parts of Carlin, Perez, Stern, Jurgens, and Ordway to get it back to that place. In fact, that's what much of this issue is about, with the homage cover and concept, and even with Jurgens finding a way to reintroduce Red Kryptonite to the Post Crisis Superman continuity in this story:




But there is one circumstance in this story where I feel that push to reintegrate the current character/continuity with the more Iconic Pre-Crisis version goes too far:



One area of Post-Crisis continuity that remains incredibly hazy is the Crisis itself -- it clearly still happened. Clark recalls Lori Lemaris dying during the Crisis in Superman #12, and Barry Allen clearly still died in it even if there never was a Supergirl now, but would Clark have gotten to know Barry well enough during the Crisis to be able to speak this way about him (or even to know his name)? According to the Post Crisis Superman Timeline I've established based upon timeline references made in the comics I've read here, Clark became Superman sometime in 1984, and the Crisis occurred sometime in 1985, so that didn't leave Clark and Barry many other opportunities to get to know each other on so deep a level.

And recall that DC killed Neil Gaiman's story for Action Comics Weekly because they felt too many heroes already knew Clark's secret identity (even though it had already been established in the Post-Crisis that Hal did too), so it's odd to retroactively apply this kind of closeness between Clark and Barry.


Now, as fun as this story was, generally speaking, when one character crosses over into another's book, one of them is trying to help boost sales for the other. I'd therefore always assumed that The Flash was being brought in to help ailing Superman sales. All this time, I've been working under the assumption that the Superman books were not selling well at this point. After all, Byrne was brought in to help boost sales for the franchise, but many fans left during his controversial run, and the franchise hadn't really found its direction until recently -- nearly four years since the reboot first occurred. That plus the "still only 75 cents!" advertisements we'll start to see on the books in a few more months while every other title is selling for $1 right now had me convinced Superman book sales were low, but I actually checked the numbers tonight.

Action Comics #649 just did its most recent Statement of Ownership and Circulation. The numbers were as follows.

Average no. copies each issue during the preceding 12 months: 79,215
Actual no. copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 216,875

I decided the fairest basis of comparison to see if sales were ailing was to go back to the Statement of Ownership and Circulation for Action Comics #587. It's the same title, it's only five months into Byrne's run when expectations were still high and he hadn't turned many folks away yet, and that 12 month average included low selling issues from before the reboot, just as the Action #649 12 month average includes issues from the poorly selling Action Comics Weekly.

Anyway, here's the Statement of Ownership and Circulation for Action Comics #587 (three years earlier).

Average no. copies each issue during the preceding 12 months: 187,509
Actual no. copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 99,554

That's right. The most recent issue of Action Comics outsold an issue from the prime of Byrne's run by more than 200%.

Meanwhile, The Flash's hit television series was still nine months away, so I guess Wally is the one who needed the cross promotion.



Okay, we're this far into the review and I haven't even discussed the story yet. Let me correct that by saying that, of the three creative teams right now, Jurgens is clearly taking the lead. His work as writer/penciler on this title has been thoroughly engaging, and this has to be his best output yet. I truly didn't expect to care about this race, but Jurgens changed my mind with panels like these:






Plus you've got Lois finally starting to fall for Clark in a major way:



I've got to wonder, though -- if his leaving is what made her realize how much she appreciates him, how the heck did she not arrive at this realization when he was supposed to have been murdered (as repercussion for gutsy journalism, nonetheless!)?

And, actually, when has Clark been there for Lois? We rarely ever even see him at The Planet, we know he was recently absent for an entire week with no questions asked, and let's not forget that when Lois' mother was in the hospital dying, that's when Clark was at The Planet, flirting with Cat Grant.

But ultimately, let's be honest -- this is nothing more than fan service to all those awkward male readers permanently stuck in "The Friend Zone." I'm going to need a more convincing sell in order to buy Lois' new feelings for Clark. She's always been flirty with him, but what's pushing her over the edge for him now beyond the absurd explanations offered here that he was always there for her (wrong) and that absence has made the heart grow fonder (he's been dead before -- he's just down the street now. REALLY. A panel in Superman #40 that I didn't bother to scan shows just how close the Newstime building is to The Daily Planet).



Really, my only significant problem with the story, though, is what poor use it makes of Myxlplyx's previous visit and the anxiety we were left with at the end as Luthor's assistant warned:

Luthor had figured out that Myxlplyx always kept his word (his one weakness) because he didn't understand the concept of lying; so, when Luthor lies in order to beat Myxlplyx, wouldn't that undo Superman's only means of getting him to go away?

Jurgens works the lying into the story, but largely as an afterthought, lacking any actual consequences:





Important Details:

- Wally West is faster than the Post-Crisis Superman, but only barely, and only while constantly being offered food and through overwhelming will power.

- It has been 90 days since Superman #31 (nine months ago).



Before that, Mxyzptlk appeared 13 months earlier in Adventures of Superman #441, and then seven months before that in Superman #11. So, if Mxyzptlk visits every 90 days, then the timeline has been anything but consistent. Let's just go simpler and say that his first visit was in 1987, and he's visited four more times since then, so 320 days have passed, meaning we're still in 1988. Yeah, comic book timelines are a messy business.



Minor Details:

- Hearing that Mxyzptlk will leave if Superman wins, and that Flash will just get "a very special prize" if he wins, shouldn't Wally have instantly decided to throw the race??? Sure, Mxyzptlk might have ended up calling him out on this, but the thought never even crosses Wally's mind.


- Okay, so every 90 days, Superman is going to drop everything to humor Mxyzptlk because



How is this a sustainable solution? Why isn't Supes out looking for solutions in between these intervals? Doesn't Prof. Hamilton or Star Labs have any ideas on how to stop someone who might conceivably scorch the planet to a cinder with no real concern for the consequences any given time he returns? Millions of people across the Earth appear to be watching Superman cater to this inter-dimensional menace too. What sort of message is that sending them?


- Problems with Clark's new job.



I'm sure Clark will end up producing a brilliant piece about the race, but he's not a reporter anymore; he's a managing editor. Perhaps he's finally going to learn that he can't make being Superman his first priority while also being a manager. It still blows my mind that Clark thought this was a good/workable idea. And, speaking of which, are we ever getting back to his suspicious behavior leading up to this big decision in Superman #39, where he kept referring to his decisions as being "logical"?


- This is our first glimpse of Lucy Lane since waaaay back in World of Metropolis #2:



I still want to know if she and Jimmy are still dating (as seen waaaay back in Superman #4).


- Why did Mxyzptlk begin this issue by defacing Mount Rushmore (and, by the way, was that undone when he departed at the end??). He doesn't seem like he was specifically trying to attract Superman or Luthor's attention, and he certainly doesn't seem as though he was looking for/waiting for The Flash.



GREAT story with only a few nagging problems to detract from all the fun. If the goal was to attract more readers to The Flash, I'm not sure Supes telling him Barry would be proud of him and having Wally win the race were enough to accomplish that -- the fun of this story was the struggle between the two, not Wally himself -- but it succeeded as a fantastic Superman story all the same.



plot synopsis: Wally responds to a report of terrorists at Mount Rushmore only to meet Mxyzptlk there instead, adding his own face to the monument. He then gets the idea to have The Flash race Superman, promising that he'll go away if Superman wins. Both heroes end up feeling like their egos are on the line, and Mxyzptlk continuously adds new challenges to the course as the entire world watches. Meanwhile, Thornton begins to grow concern with Clark's absence during such a story, and Mxyzptlk makes a detour to hassle Luthor and inadvertently(?) creates and abandons a chunk of Red Kryptonite in the process. Ultimately, Flash barely manages to win, and Mxyzptlk reveals that, inspired by his last encounter with Luthor, he lied; he was only going to leave if Superman lost, and so now he has to.