Superman #45



"Native Sons"

artist/writer: Jerry Ordway
inks: Dennis Janke
colors: Glenn Whitmore
letters: John Costanza
assoc. editor: Jon Peterson
editor: Mike Carlin

grade: B


You've just launched an ambitious event to attract new readers to the three Superman titles. Now that you have their attention, what do you do next?

...a full month of filler stories and uninteresting covers, apparently.

Don't get me wrong; there's a lot to love about this issue, but with all the exciting threads and developments weaving throughout the Superman franchise right now, stories about Native American social justice and (gasp!) Lana Lang's feelings probably aren't the best way to sell this franchise to new readers.

Still, the one aspect of this issue that positively shines is the time Ordway gives to The Kents. The concept behind the Superman relaunch all along was supposed to be that Superman was an ordinary farm boy from Kansas, and that his inherent goodness came from the qualities instilled upon him there. Yet, outside of their origin in World of Smallville, the Kents never had a true presence in this franchise up to this point, serving as little more than uni-dimensional cheerleaders that worried appropriately when something was wrong with Clark.

But, here, Ordway takes the time to give this family a SOUL, and Janke's inks are there right along with him, helping to paint some of the warmest, life-like images we've yet seen in these pages. These people end up feeling thoroughly real, and you can't help loving them as a result:







There's some subtlety at play too. I like that Ordway gives Ma Kent a feminist slant that breaks from the default homemaker tradition:



And there's even a playful (if not creepy) reminder that this Pa Kent hasn't died in the way that the Pre-Crisis and movie one did:



Foreshadowing?


However, though Ordway and Janke are positively on fire throughout most of this issue, they do have their misses. We get a couple of truly weird looking faces from time to time that really kill the momentum of an otherwise powerful story:




As for the central conflict of this issue, it's impressive to see both Superman and this book concerned with the plight of Native Americans:



and I give extra credit for the level of complexity Ordway gives to this piece. It's not a simple lecture about how the White man has wronged the Red man. Careful attention is given to portray multiple voices and interests within a Native American community, each with their own perspectives and concerns.

Of course, Ordway just has to give us an actual fight and a super-powered stranger



but if tribal elders could really project astral fire monsters, levitate on air, heal bullet wounds, and pass bullets through them, the Native Americans probably wouldn't have to worry about the white man to begin with.

Superman always requires a certain level of disbelief, but somehow expecting us to believe that real-world Native Americans could possess the ability to do these things (and, therefore, simply allowed what occurred to their people, only now taking action over a much smaller matter for some reason) just maxed out that disbelief for me.

Really though, the entire purpose of that altercation is to reintroduce us to Pete Ross



who we have not seen since Adventures of Superman #436. His handling of the situation shows us that he is a Superman in his own rite, more successful here, in fact, than the super-powered original with his bravery, selflessness, and knack for diplomacy. There's a clear implication that Lana Lang will now be moving on to Pete Ross and will be happy with him.

So maybe...just maybe we're done with sad-sack Lana Lang now?





Important Details:

- The 8 page insert (Jimmy Olsen's Diary) provides an actual date for Superman's first public appearance: June 15, 1985. I'll be updating The Post-Crisis Superman Timeline to reflect this.



Minor Details:

- Lois gets a page to randomly reflect on her progressing relationship with Clark. It seems included just to remind us this is still happening, but it doesn't go anywhere interesting.




- Jimmy Olsen's mom has gone into shock as a result of her experiences with The Evil Factory and learning of her husband's death:




- Any previous attempt to mature Jerry White and make him into a sympathetic character is now out the window as Ordway begins setting him up for his final fate:





Plot synopsis: Clark returns home to the Kents, now fully free of self-doubt in the wake of The Eradicator storyline. Conveniently enough, a hostage situation breaks out in Smallville at exactly this time, desperate Native Americans feeling they have not been treated fairly by the mining company looking to acquire their land, and taking Pete Ross hostage as a result. A tribal elder shows up to try to save the day, as does Superman, but it soon becomes evident that different tribal members have very different views on this land purchase, most willing to sell in exchange for jobs and fair compensation. Meanwhile, Superman makes it clear to Lana that they will never be romantically involved.

They were always such a turn-off to me. They don't look like comics.

More than "healthy", actually. According to the most recent Statement of Ownership, the Superman titles (or at least Action Comics -- I haven't seen a statement in Superman or Adventures for quite a while now) were outperforming the height of Byrne's run:

Action Comics #649's statement of ownership:

Average no. copies each issue during the preceding 12 months: 79,215 (note: this includes Action Comics Weekly; thus the low number)
Actual no. copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 216,875


Action Comics #587's statement of ownership (height of Byrne's run):

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

So Action Comics #649 outsold an issue from the prime of Byrne's run by more than 200%.

And early Byrne's run was the most successful the Superman office had been in at least two decades, if I'm not mistaken. But they clearly wanted more -- they wanted to make Superman #1 again.

Of course, Superman's sales won't stay high. The very trend Eury is lamenting is going to grow further and further out of control with the release of X-Force #1 and X-Men #1, as well as all that followed. I charted comic sales during this era in my Guide to Wizard: The Guide to Comics review thread, and its staggering how dramatically DC's sales plummeted as Marvel kept experimenting with how to profit from hype. In another year, Batman will pretty much be their only profitable property, and a year after that, they'll be desperate enough to kill off Superman...

I definitely got caught up in the Marvel madness and, in fact, dropped Superman in mid 1991 because I was dumb enough to believe it just wasn't as exciting as yet another X crossover.

To be fair, I was 11, and I had zero sensible comic book mentors in my life. Everyone around me was just as stupid as I was.

One of these days, I'm going to go back and re-read the six hundred X-Men and X-men related comics in my collection that I generally haven't touched since I was 22. I'm very much afraid I won't enjoy them as much as I did back when I knew less.