Or maybe editors are afraid to critique writers like Alan Moore.

Superman Annual #11 “For the Man Who Has Everything” (August 1985)



Creative Team: Alan Moore writing, Dave Gibbons art.

Frame Story Part 1: It’s February 29, Superman’s birthday! When Wonder Woman, Batman, and Robin (Jason Todd) come to the Fortress of Solitude to celebrate, they find Superman entranced, with some alien plant glued to his chest. Mongul steps from the shadows to gloat over the success of his attack with “Black Mercy,” which grants its victims an unending fantasy of their happiness. Mongul wants to know which hero would be politest to kill first; Wonder Woman volunteers to be his sparring partner.



Superman’s Fantasy: Kal-El lives on Krypton with his actress wife Lyla and his kids Van and Orna. It’s his birthday! His father Jor-El, who became a laughingstock after his prediction of Krypton’s demise failed to come to pass, is a political reactionary seeking allies for his “Old Krypton" movement which seeks to ban immigration and take a hard line on drug trafficking.



Kal’s cousin Kara is hospitalized by a politically motivated assault, part of a protest against the use of the Phantom Zone as a prison. Jor-El invented the Phantom Zone projector, and his family feels unsafe with these attacks. As Kal works to protect his family, he realizes it doesn’t matter, because they don’t exist; this is all a dream.



Frame Story Part 2: Superman rejects the dream, and the Black Mercy parasite falls off his chest… right onto Batman, who is sucked into a fantasy in which his parents survived, and he married Kathy Kane. The awakened Superman confronts Mongul in a battle that rages across the Fortess of Solitude, with neither gaining the upper hand. Robin uses Mongul’s huge protective gauntlets (which he discarded before his punching match with Wonder Woman) to remove Black Mercy from Batman’s chest. Bagging the parasite in his cape, he follows the trail of carnage until he’s able to drop Black Mercy onto Mongul, who instantly is enthralled in a fantasy of conquering the universe with his Warworld. Superman stores Mongul’s inert body in a corner of the Fortress. Battle won!



Epilogue: Batman apologetically gives Superman his birthday present, a unique rose named “Krypton” which has been smooshed during all the fighting. Wonder Woman gives him a gemstone replica of Kandor, thinking that the real Kandor is no longer bottled in the Fortress. This is apparently false, but Superman doesn’t tell her so; he just accepts the gift graciously.

My Two Cents: It’s an early effort by Moore for DC but already bears some of his hallmarks. The scene transitions between the “real world” and Superman’s fantasy are marked by parallel dialogue and/or panel layouts. Moore takes a couple of opportunities to wax poetic in the captions describing the wonders within Superman’s man-cave.



Mongul was a relatively new evil toughie, having debuted in DC Comics Presents #27 (1980, Len Wein and Jim Starlin). He recurred in issues #28, 36, and 43 and then went silent until this story. His frequent association with a weaponized planetoid, Warworld, makes me think of Joss Whedon’s similar character Ord of the Breakworld, a space gladiator in Astonishing X-Men.



Superman's February 29 birthday is a little joke "explaining" why he's still so young fifty years after he first appeared. As with Frederic in The Pirates of Penzance, he only has a birthday every four years.

The overall theme of the story is encapsulated in the title: What gift could anyone give Superman? Sentimental items probably, tokens of friendship rather than items of intrinsic worth. But what are we to make of Mongul’s “gift”? Black Mercy was supposed to give Superman his heart’s delight, which we would think might involve marriage to Lois, peace on Earth, etc. Instead, he has a pretty horrific vision of Krypton on the verge of violent revolution, a disappointed and disappointing father, an endangered family, and himself just a helpless pawn in social forces beyond his control or understanding. I really wonder what Moore is trying to tell us about Superman here. 



However, having determined that Superman’s fondest dream is life on a dystopian Krypton, Moore runs with it. Superman’s actress wife Lyla Lerrol first appeared in Superman #141 (1960, Jerry Siegel), in which Superman traveled through time and space back to intact Krypton and romanced Lyla until duty called him back to present-day Earth.



Also, Moore pulls us out of the dream just when things are getting interesting. Jor-El has thrown in his lot with violent jingoists. Kal’s family has been threatened by militants stirring a “no Phantom Zone” pot. What will our hero do? How can an archeologist fight back? Dunno. There’s no payoff; the dream simply ends. This would have been better as a fully-fledged imaginary story, divorced from the frame of Mongul immobilizing Superman with a dream of his heart’s desire. Then the pages used for Mongul punching Superman and Wonder Woman could have been used to bring the Kryptonian story to a satisfactory conclusion instead of just turning it off with “and then I woke up. Crazy dream!” We've seen this "hugging the imaginary family member as the dream sequence ends" scene in lots of other stories.

In the first 3 appearances of Mongul, he was superior in strength to Superman, beating him easily. That panel with Wonder Woman hurting her hand on Monguls face is quite the exaggeration , though.

I have my doubts that the editors were afraid of correcting "Casualty" to "Emergency" in the art in a story just because Alan Moore wrote it.

This was the issue where it was restored.

I don't like most Earth-One Superman stories. "For the Man Who Has Everything" is one of the exceptions.

I love the scene where Diana kisses Ka-El happy birthday, and when he asks "why don't we do this more often?" she replies "Too predictable". What a great and succinct way to establish their relationship!