Superman #423 and Action Comics #583 “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?” (September 1986)



Superman Creative Team: Alan Moore writing. Curt Swan pencils, George Perez ink.

Action Comics Creative Team: Alan Moore writing. Curt Swan pencils. Kurt Schaffenberger ink.

The Story: Ten years in the future, Lois Elliot tells a Daily Planet reporter about the last days of Superman, when a parade of Silver Age villains turned vicious. First, Bizarro destroyed a crowded department store and then committed suicide. Then Toyman and Prankster torture Pete Ross to death to learn Superman’s identity, then expose Superman at the Daily Planet.



After a hundred Metallos attack the Daily Planet building, Superman brings his closest friends to the Fortress of Solitude for protection. Krypto’s arrival is welcome. More puzzling is a visit from the Silver Age Legion of Super-Heroes, who have brought Supergirl with them. They present Superman with a trophy and won’t tell him why they chose this particular moment for the visit. After they depart, Superman mourns Supergirl, who is dead in this timeline; she had recently died in the main DC timeline as well, so readers mourn along with him.



Braniac’s head becomes a helmet which takes control of the mind of Lex Luthor, then recruits the Kryptonite Man. The original trio version of the Legion of Super-Villains want to join too. They all besiege the Fortress of Solitude, leaving Superman’s super-allies trapped outside a force field.



Bodies pile up outside. Lana and Jimmy use the contents of the Fortress to resume their identities as Elastic Lad and Super-Lana. Lana kills Luthor but is killed by Lightning Lord. Braniac animates Luthor’s stiffening corpse and shoots Jimmy Olson dead before shutting down forever himself. Krypto and Kryptonite Man kill each other. Superman’s rage frightens the Legion of Super-Villains enough that they flee back to the future.



Finally the villain mastermind appears: Mr. Mxyzptlk now looks like a rock star gone to middle-aged seed, all stringy hair and goth eyeliner. He has decided to “graduate” from mischief to pure evil. Superman zaps him with the Phantom Zone projector just as Mxyzptlk tries to teleport back to the Fifth Dimension; the evil imp is torn between two worlds and killed. Superman feels guilty about intending this fatal result and exposes himself to gold kryptonite, permanently removing his powers. Lois tells everyone that he wandered into the Arctic tundra to die, but in the “ten years later” flash-forward, we realize that he’s living still as Lois’ husband Jordan Elliot (Jor-El, see?), and their baby Jonathan (after Pa Kent) can squeeze coal to diamonds.



My Two Cents: In retrospect, we can see this story as an early salvo in the “grim and gritty” non-heroic era of the late 80s and early 90s. Villains play for keeps. Beloved supporting characters die. Superman kills and feels obliged to lose his powers forever. The underlying premise “Mr. Mxyzptlk got bored and uncharacteristically decided to force a bunch of other villains to act uncharacteristically nasty” seems poorly motivated all around, and I can’t imagine that the fifth dimensional imp was at the top of any fan’s list of “Whom should Superman face in his final conflict?”

Superman’s act of sacrifice is simultaneously too much and not enough. OK, he broke his oath never to kill. Does the Earth no longer need defending? He’s not off the “great power, great responsibility” hook; he’s just making it worse by shirking his duty. But if he has done something really terrible, would he respond by disappearing into the woodwork to make the happy life with Lois that he always wanted?



The villains of the world would not even know that Superman is supposed to be dead. Or, having heard the rumor but not seen the body (indeed, nobody has seen the body; his death is just speculation on Lois’ part), they wouldn’t believe it. They’d go on attacking Lois (and her new boyfriend!) and all of Clark Kent’s associates, trying to flush Superman out of hiding. Anybody seen Superman 2?

The story is not a total loss, though. Braniac’s commandeering of Luthor provides an effectively chilling moment of body horror. Regardless of the circumstances, I like the character moments in the last half of the first issue, when Superman’s friends huddle in his Fortress and consider their various relationships. It was a “calm before the storm” moment similar to the several pages in X-Men #137 in which Jean Grey’s teammates separately think about her the night before a big trial-by-combat to defend her. Jimmy Olsen got neglected in this sequence; too bad. But the moments with Supergirl bring a lump to the throat. We can all imagine how bittersweet would be a few more minutes with someone who has passed on. 



The flash-forward conclusion with Superman living happily ever after under an assumed name is similar to the ending of Watchmen, and Moore’s run on Swamp Thing has a similar fairy tale conclusion; all three stories were published relatively close together.

The cover of Superman #423 homages the covers of the early 1960s Superman annuals, with panels depicting the various sub-stories within. The cover of Action Comics #583 depicts a throng of well-wishers which includes Julius Schwartz, Jenette Kahn, and Curt Swan.

My kids are re-watching Supergirl... and I must have missed this the last time around...



I guess the writers do at least a little research!

This story is where the accusation that Moore swiped from Superfolks carries the most weight. In the novel, Indigo's enemy, Pxysyzygy, who had been a prankster, turns out to be a far deadlier enemy, using the subtle method of introducing traces of Cronkite into everything, robbing Indigo of his powers and making him impotent. He's not the only villain though, as Indigo has to contend with the Demoniac, who is as powerful as he is.

Who are the two rightmost figures? I don't recognize them.

This could be a post-Crisis imaginary story since Supergirl is dead, and Captain Marvel is on Earth-1. But doesn't the appearance of the Silver Age legion (including Silver Age Supergirl) pose a problem with that? It may be better just to say that this imaginary story takes place on a world where there was never a Crisis, and Captain Marvel was always there, and Supergirl died for some other reason.

Tales of the Green Lantern Corps Annual #2 “Tygers” (December 1986)

Creative Team: Alan Moore writing. Kevin O’Neill art.

The Story: Green Lantern Abin Sur follows a distress beacon to Ysmault, a forbidden planet imprisoning demons who once ruled multiple galaxies. “Qull of the Five Inversions” is a soothsaying demon with a giant tongue for a head. He offers to answer any three questions for Abin; but will the answers be trustworthy? The first question (“Where is the crashed spaceship?”) is answered truly, and Abin rescues an injured child.



The second question (“What direct peril awaits me?”) is answered with a caution about Abin’s power ring failing unexpectedly, with a bonus comment that Abin’s successor, Hal Jordan, will be an awesome replacement. Abin subsequently resolves to use a spaceship regularly for travel, but this doesn’t avail him ten years later when his power ring and spaceship both fail him simultaneously, resulting in his death on Earth as described in Hal Jordan’s origin story many times.



Abin Sur’s third question “What is the most terrible catastrophe that the GL Corps will face?” leads to a prophecy about a consortium of villains (Weaponers of Qward, etc.) who will crush Oa at some point in the future.

My Two Cents: This story mainly exists to plug a continuity hole: Why did Abin Sur crash on Earth in a spaceship, when Green Lanterns routinely fly through space on their own steam?



However, its greatest significance is the prophecy about the future of the GL Corps. Mogo the planet-sized Lantern gets another mention; Hi, Mogo! But this is also the first time that we hear of the super-Lantern Sodam Yat, who is both a Green Lantern and a Daxamite, thus possessing the powers of Mon-El as well as a Lantern ring. This prophecy provides much grist for the “Blackest Night” event which DC ran in 2009. Sodam Yat also figured prominently in the Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds” miniseries. Alan Moore complained that these modern writers had the gall to treat his 80s Green Lantern stories as if they were a valid part of continuity to be further explored. This from the guy who dredged Lyla Lallor up from the early Silver Age.



The unusual spelling of “Tiger” seems like a nod to William Blake’s “Tyger Tyger burning bright” poem, but I’m not sure what Moore intends to evoke by using it here.

On one hand, I sympathize with Moore's view. On the other, the rank hypocrisy. What's a reader to do...?

And that rendering of Sodam Yat — great shades of Liefeld, it's hideous!