Superman: The Man of Steel #96

TITLE: Superman: The Man of Steel #96

PUBLISHER: DC

COVER DATE: January 2000

COVER PRICE: $1.99

22 pages


WHAT I REMEMBER...

Sometimes it really sucks being a Superman fan. When you look back on definitive runs through the ages, there hasn't been that many. There have been creators that have left their mark, that's for sure. But when you look at the total time that the character has been published and how many different titles he's had, I'd just expect a little bit more.

One of my personal favorite eras, and definitely one of the high points in the post-death of Superman time, was the Jeph Loeb and Joe Kelly era. They had some great storylines such as Our Worlds At War, Emperor Joker, Return to Krypton, President Lex, Ending Battle and Y2K. They also reintroduced some classic characters like Krypto and Bizarro #1.

All in all, it was an action packed five years plus worth of stories. Loeb and Kelly get most of the credit, as they were the driving forces behind the two major titles Superman and Action Comics. One of the unsung heroes of that era, however was Mark Schultz and Doug Mahnke's run on Superman: The Man of Steel.

Their run had a serious sci-fi bent to it, and focused more on the fantastic, science-based aspect of Superman's life. It's filled with beasts, robots, and mad scientists of all stripes, and there's no one better to draw them than Doug Mahnke. His style is bold, expressive, and larger than life without turning into a caricature of itself. He's a great storyteller, who's got a real clear sense of pacing and plot. It's no wonder that he ended up as one of the key talents in the Green Lantern universe these days, as that book is tailor-made to his strengths.

As good as he is now, he was just as good then. Let's sit back, read a good comic, and enjoy the show...

Home

• Writer: Mark Schultz
• Penciller: Doug Mahnke
• Inker: Tom Nguyen
• Colorist: Glenn Whitmore
• Separations: Wildstorm FX
• Letterer: Ken Lopez
• Associate Editor: Maureen McTigue
• Editor: Eddie Berganza

It's an average day for Clark Kent, as he goes about his average domestic duties before returning home after work.

It's encouraging to know that even Superman, with all of the powers at his disposal, can't pick out a perfect cantaloupe either

It's only after he gets to his home, that we realize how decidedly non-average Clark Kent truly is.

I love that the lamp has the same headress as Byrne's Lara-El

So if this is a decidedly non-average turn of events for Clark Kent, Superman's day actually started out quite normal by his standards...punching out gigantic robots!

This is the issue that brings John Henry Irons back into the fold of the Superman titles on a regular basis as an inventor and weapons engineer for the S.C.U., and later for himself with Ironworks. The robots were his creation, and Superman was helping him test the operation limits of their effectiveness in fighting superpowered beings.

Back to the present, and we catch up with Clark in his Kryptonized apartment. The image of the ancient Kryptonian scientist Kem-L appears before him, and it doesn't take Clark long to figure out that all of this is the Eradicator's doing. The Eradicator program is getting all Darth Vader on Clark, demanding that he join them as they rebuild the world in the image of Krypton.

We all know how this is going down, as Superman may be Kryptonian by birth but Earth is his home now and he's having no part in the subjugation of it's people.

Since the Eradicator is all about the preservation of Kryptonian technology, it chooses the ancient warrior art of Torquasm-Vo to settle their differences. I mentioned earlier how there were so many great ideas born from this era of Superman titles...this one? Eh, not so much.

How an ancient Kryptonian warrior art that uses a theta state mind control needs to be personified by giant robots is beyond me

So while Superman fights that particular battle, the Justice League is busy fighting another battle on his behalf. A picture had surfaced of Superman wearing a wedding ring, so the JLA holds a press conference where they all show off gold bands and declare that they are all married...to the Justice League! It's a little cheesy, but it's fun comic book dramatics.

Hey, look kids! It's the first appearance of the JLA here at the Random Longbox, and it only took 54 reviews!

The battle between the Eradicator and Superman rages on, with Superman barely holding his own when Lois returns home. While battling with a new found strength, now that he has to protect Lois from the Eradicator as well, they piece together that one of the Kryptonian artifacts they recently brought back from the Fortress of Solitude must be the cause of the Eradicator's return.

When Lois eventually finds the small statue, she tosses it to Superman who disintegrates it with his heat vision. With the idol destroyed, the illusion of Krypton that the Eradicator had created disperses with him.

SO, WHAT DID WE LEARN...

With all of the focus on New Krypton in the Superman titles these days, this version of Krypton seems downright alien. I started reading and collecting Superman in the post Byrne era, so this will always be the version of Krypton that comes to mind first, and it was cool seeing it in it's glory once again. The Eradicator just happens to be a perfect villain for this incarnation of Krypton, taking on a Venom-type role as antagonist.

This is a nifty little done-in-one tale that sets up a couple of future sub-plots, and ties up a couple of old ones. Mark Schultz had a great knack for serving the larger storyline that was ever-present in the days of the shield numbering, but he always managed to tell a complete story in it's own right. This issue is no exception, and just serves to remind me that it's been a while since I've reread any of his run.

At this point, I've already heaped enough praise on Doug Mahnke, so I'm just going to let the pictures speak for themselves. But seriously, if you're enjoying what he's doing on Green Lantern these days, you owe it to yourself to go longbox hunting and pick up his Man of Steel and JLA run. It's some really dynamic stuff, and you won't be disappointed.

All characters and artwork reproduced are (c) DC Comics

Deathstroke #50

TITLE: Deathstroke #50

PUBLISHER: DC

COVER DATE: August 1995

COVER PRICE: $3.50

35 pages


WHAT I REMEMBER...

I remember really liking Deathstroke: The Terminator quite a bit back in the day. Of course, it was the 90's and you couldn't throw a stick without hitting a gun-toting, vigilante type anti-hero, bridging the gray area of murky morality. Even so, this was one of the better ones. Or at least that's how I remember it. I've never gone back and reread any of those, so maybe I just have my exceptionally rosy-colored glasses on.

With that in mind, this was one of the titles that I've been waiting for to pop up on this site. But if we've learned nothing over the last seven months, it's that the Randomizer is a cruel mistress. I have the first three years of this title, featuring tales by Marv Wolfman and Steven Grant, with some rock-solid art by Steve Erwin.

So which Deathstroke book is the first to pop up? Why it's the one issue I bought a year and a half after I stopped reading to check in on the title. This was also the last issue of this title I ever bought, so I guess that tells you what I thought of it.

This issue's only plotted by Marv Wolfman, so we missed out on the character being written by his co-creator. The art is by Sergio and Octavio Cariello, and I'm only briefly familiar with Sergio's work from his work in the Bat titles some years ago. It's not exactly a stellar line-up for a fiftieth issue, but let's plunge in anyways and see what's up.

Revelations

• Plot: Marv Wolfman
• Script: Dale Hrebik
• Pencils: Sergio & Octavio Cariello
• Inks: Will Blyberg, Keith Champagne & Ron McCain
• Letters: John Costanza
• Colors: Chris Matthys
• Assistant Editor: Keri Kowalski
• Editor: Pat Garrahy

So the first page opens up labeled as Chapter Twenty-Nine. And here I thought that reviewing an issue from a couple of weeks ago that was part twenty-three was going to be rough, this issue goes and raises the ante. That one turned out to be quite a pleasant surprise, however, so let's just plow on through.

Chapter twenty-nine opens up with Deathstroke atop a genetic research facility owned by Steve Dayton and Daytech Enterprises. It would appear that there is a nuclear bomb hidden somewhere in the building. It's Deathstroke's responsibility to find and disarm it, as he is working for Sarge Steel and Checkmate on this particular assignment.

For those of you not steeped in DCU history, Steve Dayton is the same guy who used to run around with the Doom Patrol, named Mento, and is also the adoptive father of Changeling (a.k.a. Beast Boy) of Teen Titan fame. How this version of Steve Dayton ties into the current version of Mento kicking around the latest iteration of the Doom Patrol is a question better left to the real DCU historians. Besides, this blog doesn't pay me enough to attempt to figure it out.

So in this continuity, Mento is still mentally unbalanced and has decided to forgo his mind-control helmet and insert the Mento Chip directly into his hypothalamus, adopting the nom de guerre Crimelord. This will apparently allow him to control the world through the internet. How that makes any sense is anybody's guess, and hopefully it was explained somewhere in chapters one through twenty-eight.

Still, this was not only the time of comic book speculation, but also of dot-com mania where anybody with a catchy name could name their price on the internet. He probably had investors lined up around the corner for the IPO of mentoworlddomination.com.

This isn't the only nuclear bomb set to go off however, so Sgt. Steel has also recruited the likes of the Outsiders, Steel, Hawkman, and others to span the globe and disarm those as well.





It's all an elaborate plan by Crimelord to distract the other heroes so that he can personally destroy Deathstroke, who he has a particular mad-on for. All of the nuclear bombs are fakes, except for the one that Deathstroke has been sent in to disarm.

Exploring deeper into Dayton's genetic research facility, Deathstroke and is partner in crime Wintergreen find some disturbing experiments being conducted. Among the abominations that soon attack the two silver-haired warriors are duplicates of political figures and world leaders.

It doesn't take long for the two to realize that Steve Dayton is far from an innocent bystander in a potential nuclear blackmail scheme by the Crimelord, but that he actually is the Crimelord!

At the same time, Checkmate is able to come to the same conclusion by tracking the Crimelord's communications to one of Steve Dayton's facilities. The same facility where Deathstroke now finds himself held prisoner as Mento, well on his way to being fully integrated into the internet, has sealed off all the exits and has released the rest of his Hybrates to destroy Deathstroke once and for all.

With Deathstroke trying to escape, Mento goes into his (always premature) villainous monologue about how he has already won and the world will soon be his. The clones of political leaders that they had found earlier were but early failures. As they speak, the real clones are taking advantage of the chaos orchestrated by the nuclear bomb scare to take their place. They will all be his to command from the safety of the internet, and the world will be his to control.

It turns out that Deathstroke wasn't actually trying to escape earlier, but in fact going deeper into the facility as there is still a bomb to be disposed of. Fighting Dayton's abominations at every turn, they eventually make it to the location of the bomb.

Wintergreen used to be in the bomb squad during the war, so he takes a crack at it first. Bombs have changed a lot since the glory days of WWII, and it's not long before they only have mere seconds on the counter with the bomb still active.

Deathstroke, never one to worry about cutting the wrong colored wire, disables the detonator with two seconds left to spare.

While all of that drama has been going on, Checkmate has been successful in gaining entry to the facility and have located the body of Steve Dayton. It's not much of a body, being more of a dry husk laced with circuitry. There's no mental activity from his body, as he has just now become fully integrated with the internet.

It's right about now where you figure he'd have won, but Checkmate had severed all lines of communication leading into and out of the building, leaving Mento trapped and unable to tap into the world wide web.

I wish Mento would have called me up before he started this whole world domination via the internet scheme, as I would've told him how often my connection was interrupted with a dial-up modem and AOL back in the day. He probably should've waited a few years for the wireless technology to come into usage.

All doesn't end so nicely for Deathstroke however, for as he and Sgt. Steel compare notes outside, he is beset upon by a sniper on the rooftops. After separating himself away from Wintergreen to draw away the fire, he confronts the sniper. It's none other than Ravager, the villainous identity originally adopted by his son way back when. A tussle ensues and Deathstroke is successful in unmasking the imposter.

After all this time, he finds out who the latest version of the Ravager really is...it's his half-brother, Wade! Ravager takes advantage of Slade's hesitation at finally knowing the truth and gives him a bullet right to the brain.

Is this the end of our intrepid anti-hero? I guess we'll all have to read the Deathstroke Annual #4 to find out.

SO, WHAT DID WE LEARN

If you're going to take over the world using cutting edge technology, make sure that it's been fully beta tested and always...and here's the important part...always make sure your master plan can't be defeated by simply pulling the plug.

It's almost like reading the old silver age books and looking at what wonders they thought computers were capable of. I guess in the mid-90's the internet was still new enough to mysterious and crazy powerful. Hell, these days you can't even get the internet to crack in half, much less use it to rule the world.

The story was all right, once you get past the Tron-level technology. It seemed a little padded out, and I'm sure that's what all of the other heroes chasing down bogus bombs were for. After all, we had thirtyfive pages of story to fill out for about ten pages worth of stuff.

The art was a mixed bag as well, as the second half takes a noticeable downturn in quality. Maybe that's a little harsh, as it's more of a looser style that doesn't quite mesh with the first half.

It was a fun, if not fully enjoyable, trip down memory lane with Slade Wilson. I just wish we had an issue from earlier in the run, but I suppose that's just going to make the next Deathstroke pick more enjoyable.

All characters and artwork reproduced are (c) DC Comics

Related links for your surfing pleasure...

• Marv Wolfman's official website
• Sergio Cariello's official website