2005 Upper Deck Justice League of America VS System CCG Card DJL-109: Power Siphon

Illustration by Keron Grant.

I forgot to mention yesterday that even though my card scans are often squared rectangles, gaming cards almost always have rounded corners like poker cards, because the rigors of gameplay would swiftly wear down pointed corners. The points would poke your hands (as was still the case if you played with plastic sleeves,) and it would create a point of vulnerability for the card to be permanently bent (or "marked,") and the sides could begin to separate from each other. Another thing that I forgot as I started looking into the VS. System is that I have old man brain, and it would wear me down.

I've been a little obsessive over the Vs. System, because I realized while working on the DC Secret Files Podcast that the short form periodical reference books like Who's Who were abandoned in the '90s in favor of trading cards. They returned in comic book form as Secret Files and Origins specials, but those were far from comprehensive in their coverage, so you needed trading cards to supplement them for snapshots of the full scope of the DC Universe in the '90s. But also, getting into the 21st century, the non-sports comic book trading card market was virtually extinct, and almost none of those sets featured original art. It was just reprinted, repurposed material from the comics industry. Also, the Secret Files books themselves were increasingly few and far between in the aughts. But see, collectible card games were still a thing, had a broad scope in service to gaming mechanics, and I finally realized my usual resource Trading Card Database effectively "hid" these cards in a separate gaming catalog. Suddenly, properties that I'd struggled to find resources to cover were at my virtual, digital fingertips. All these Vs. System posts are the fruit of searches for these cards on places like eBay.

The quality and resolution of these images vary wildly, and the availability of images from the later sets are thin. What I really wanted was to get my hands on the actual cards to pull my own scans. However, most eBay listings for individual cards start at a dollar each, plus shipping, and I'm looking at needing hundreds of these things. I don't want to get buried in duplicates of a card game that I'll never play by buying not-inexpensive boxes, where there are even boxes available to buy. So one day, my gal and I hit numerous comics and gaming stores, plus a gaming-specific co-op "convention" open most weekends on the other side of town. This took up much of the day. We came home empty-handed.

For starters, the only actual Vs. System product we found was at Houston's oldest comic book store. They only had Marvel cards, in packs, collecting dust in a plastic case on a back wall counter. The card I'm featuring today can almost book a rental car without any insurance hassles. Why would I even think anyone would have a decades old gaming system in stock? Even though VS. System had way more releases than the Overpower I did collect, and I saw them being sold in more shops, that was also probably during the Bush Administration. Hell, HeroClix is much more recent, and nobody has carried those in nearly a decade. The only hybrid comic/card shops that I know of to still exist are all like that one-- local institutions-- around my advanced age. Only after did it occur to me that I never see sports cards outside of department stores nowadays, or single trading cards outside of booths in antique malls.

I do see gaming cards, but guess what? That's still mostly Magic and Pokemon. Almost nobody has those bulky cardboard boxes, or even the wooden shelving anymore. It's all plastic and glass now, enough to hold active modern card packs and encase high dollar key singles. Common deck building stuff is what you buy the packs for, and then trade with your community, not the shop. I'm sure the prices come from matching online dealers, because who would bother to print a guide in 2026? At gaming specialty stores, Vs. System isn't necessarily even a memory. How many shops have opened and closed since the cooling of J-horror and the rise of K-Pop, itself an institution now, rather than an emerging scene?

At that CCG convention thing, my gal was going booth to booth with a picture of a Vs. System pack on her phone like we were working a missing persons case. We also called some shops on said device (not helped by her initially asking for "Vee's Cards,") and almost nobody even knew what we were talking about. Here, they had sports cards. There was a stray comic booth where I tried to buy a $3.50 Comics Journal, before determining it was actually a $350 wall book because of some early McFarlane art. There was a tiny representation of comic book trading cards in a few binders. There were some of those intricate cardboard boxes from back in the day. They did not contain twenty year old VS. System singles, nor should they have. Why would they? Only an old man who sees that broad expansive of time as a blip, despite my entire relationship with my previously mentioned old lady being contained within than expanse, could delude himself into thinking otherwise. What do I know about modern CCG retailing, or any hobby retailing? I haven't gotten my regular comic fix at an LCS in near on a quarter century.

And so, back to eBay, casting my net far and wide for viable scans. Probably ordering singles to fill those gaps. And torturing y'all with the product of these efforts. An old man boring you with tales of a card game that could attend college that he never even bought himself.

Superman Sonderausgabe #6 - Superman gegen Mongul! (1981)

I never thought of Cologne as a must-visit locale for comic book fans. However, my second trip to Germany was going to be too brief to do anything substantial, so I Googled some nice looking shops within walking distance of where we were staying. As it happened, there were actually several very appealing and quite varied fandom-related stores in the area. Some were more geared toward Generation X nostalgia, like 1970s actions figures, lunch boxes, and such. One was a three story deal in the heart of the tourist section that gives Forbidden Planet a run for its money. My Gal found a vintage Playmobil from her childhood in their basement, while I hoarded a bunch of cheap '80s/'90s digest reprints of U.S. comics for "stocking stuffers." I was quite pleased to find Red Circle and First Comics representation in that department, although the condition on the latter was so poor that it's physically warped (while reprinting Warp.)

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Given the oft-noted fastidiousness of Germans, I was surprised to observe that they don't know how to store comic books. For instance, all of those digests were loose on a freestanding display rack, and some had been mauled to pieces by small children and clumsy adults (guilty.) They don't use standardized comic boxes either, with that mega-store I mentioned employing wooden shelves with dividing panels instead. Houston's own Bedrock City Comic Company has a similar set-up, with the key difference being that the Germans also don't use backer boards. Their vintage "floppies" are often on a thinner, glossier stock than their Bronze Age U.S. counterparts, and on top of that, they love sealing their comic bags with 3-inch-plus strips of tape. I over-zealously chanced opening them while on the road, and surely put some crimps in them spines, where a wiser man would have cut them free with scissors instead.

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I bring this up in part because there was one specific shop that I had targeted when getting the lay of the land. While on vacation in Europe, we saw plenty of modern style comic shops full of Panini reprints or North American imports, usually with at least some selection of more antiquated formats. This one shop in Cologne though was a proper Android's Dungeon hole in the wall. Mind, it probably still had more square footage and better bones than your average dusty old American dump, but it was still a dim and cluttered mess with treasures of yore. I could have easily spent a whole day there, and way too much money, but I had already punished my wallet and suitcase miserably at early stops. I needed to be as swift and objective-minded as I could be in the time allotted.

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This was tough because there were boxes everywhere, and again, random old repurposed and tape-reinforced cardboard of quite varied dimensions. Not knowing what else to do, I grabbed a smallbox small box (about a square foot) off of an eye-level but deep shelf, and set it on another chest-level box. A severe and socially disinclined shopkeeper that was already giving my gal hairy eyeballs just for taking up the limited space scolded me in Deutsch. Following his gestures, I was meant to take any given box to a cluttered wooden table nearby to peruse, since again, these comics were not held up by backer boards. I had been selfish in many of my prior purchases, but also, there wasn't that much representation of the Bronze Age DC favored in my blogging/podcasting circles. Here I had a good chance of digging up varied Silver/Bronze reprint floppies of their childhood favorites, and I did. Several nifty old numbers and a few more contemporary items that were reasonably inexpensive, so I didn't feel to guilty about it.

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There was one though that kind of broke the bank. The first Mongul story from 1980's DC Comics Presents #27 has been reprinted a bunch of times, thanks mostly to his being immortalized in "For the Man Who Has Everything." However, that introductory story arc by Wein & Starlin was pretty well regarded by Superman fans even before Moore & Gibbons got to him. I thought for sure I'd gotten the UK hardcover collection with the original Bolland cover at some point, but I guess not, so this German edition is my first oversized collection of DC Comics Presents #28 with Supergirl and DC Comics Presents #29 with The Spectre, plus unrelated bonus reprints. Despite his fallen posture, the Jim Starlin Martian Manhunter cover remains a personal favorite, so it's nice to have it on squarebound cardstock in a 9" x 12" presentation. The interiors are also on a heavier white stock, recalling the Baxter format, which is much more vibrant than the original comics without becoming glossy eyesores. The inside covers are plain white, and the random reprint stuck between the first and second Mongul chapters is a Supergirl serial that started in 1971's Adventure Comics #408. Mike Sekowsky is joined by inker Dick Giordano for a tale of green-skinned alien invaders that concluded in Adventure Comics #409. I feel this was worth my 25€, but I do feel a bit bad for not feeling the same about getting a similiar edition featuring Firestorm's induction in the Justice League of America (as advertised on the back cover) for my buddy Shag. Eh, he's well traveled enough to go get his own, plus I already got him other cool stuff.

DC in Germany

• Aquaman in Top Comics Wassermann Nr. 108 (1970)
• The Atom & Aquaman in Superman-Batman Heft 8 (April 1976)
• Wonder Woman in JLA - Die neue Gerechtigkeitsliga #31 (1999)
• GrimJack in Die Cosmic-Ranger Nr. 3 (1985)

2025 James Gunn “Chocos Inc” Skeet

A certain Martian will be happy to hear Chocos Inc is going strong in #Superman. See it on the big screen now!

The Vile Menagerie: PROTEX

Alter Ego: Protex
Occupation: Alien Invader
Group Affiliation: The Hyperclan, White Martians
Base of Operations: Varied
First Appearance: JLA #1 (January, 1997)
Height: Variable, but presents at approx. 6'5"
Build: Variable, often slim but muscular
Eyes: Variable, presents as light brown or red
Hair: Variable, presents as strawberry blond

History:
Before humanity had come into being, the early life forms on Earth indicated the potential for super-humanity, an entire race of veritable gods. At the time, White Martians had colonized the planet, and saw fit to manipulate and abuse the indigenous life as they chose. Under Commander Protex, the White Martians conducted horrific experiments that ended in "a biological catastrophe" that caused the metagene to lay dormant in most humans. Seventy White Martians working out of the now infamous Antarctic base Z'Onn Z'Orr were tried for their crimes and sentenced to "The Still Zone," an extra-dimensional prison outside the normal rules of space and time. Lacking much if any land mass or resources, the convicted White Martians were allowed a mothership by their accusers, the Green Martians, whom they would long outlive. Across millennia of incarceration, most Martian life was wiped out by a plague, and Earth evolved to its current state. It was only then, through unrevealed means, that these primitive White Martians finally freed themselves.

Aware of both the threat of the metahumans that had managed to come into being, despite their best efforts, as well as the ready access to the Martian's greatest weakness of fire, the next course chosen was subterfuge. Protex was intent on reclaiming Earth for his people, but those twin threats needed to be addressed. Seven White Martians were chosen to join Protex in assuming a more humanoid form, and the group presented themselves first before the White House as extraterrestrials from far further out than Mars. This Hyperclan were the last survivors of their unknown planet, and had long journeyed to find a world that they could save from itself, as they could not prevent the ecological ruin that befell their home. The Hyperclan immediately began a campaign of "fixing" parts of the Earth, such as bringing precipitation and vegetation to arid deserts, to a cheering population. They did this without any formal request or authority, all the while asking questions as to why Earth's metahumans hadn't done this before. At the same time, White Martians disguised by armor destroyed the Justice League's orbital base, while the Hyperclan itself openly tried and executed metahuman criminals like Judgment. As the leader and spokesman for the Hyperclan, Protex was always the media-forward face of the team, as well as the one most likely to engage with any critics.

The JLA soon discovered that the Hyperclan were using telepathic broadcasts from their multiple watchtowers, including the unearthed Z'Onn Z'Orr, to turn humanity against the heroes. The Martians had also targeted metahumans with fire-based powers, while Protex attempted to entice the J'Onn J'Onzz into betraying the JLA and joining his fellow Martians. Once things escalated to open conflict, it was Protex who defeated and captured Superman, by presenting him the psychic illusion of kryptonite in his presence. With five members of the League captive, and one seemingly in league with the Hyperclan, arrogance was their undoing. Protex was so dismissive of the threat potential of a mere human that he allowed the Batman to turn the tide. Upon this upset, Superman saw through the kryptonite ruse, and directly attacked Protex. Across a protracted one-on-one battle, Protex was finally beaten when Superman managed to guide the battle into the Earth's molten core. The defeated White Martians were telepathically brainwashed by the Manhunter from Mars into believing that they were individual human beings, and they were compelled to work in trades that would routinely bring them into close contact with open flames.

The plan was not foolproof, as one White Martian briefly assumed the identity of Bruce Wayne. During "The Id Case," J'Onn J'Onzz unknowingly reversed the brainwashing of the White Martians, who spent the next several weeks regrouping and planning. Protex's Martians developed a means of altering the oxygen in Earth's atmosphere in such a way as to suppress combustion-- affecting the ability of some lifeforms to breathe, suffocating plants, choking engines, and eliminating the Martians' primary weakness. The Martians also began abducting human telepaths. "At first, we gathered them to fully safeguard any detection-- only to make a fascinating discovery. Ingesting their healthy human brainmatter, it seems, allows for the first step in a rather glorious genetic mutation-- one that can multiply our telepathic powers a millionfold-- over distances measured in light-years. That was our true goal all along-- to gradually extend our control and sovereignty over the entire galaxy... all without ever having to physically leave a planet-turned-citadel where we were utterly invincible... because its atmosphere cannot support fire."

The disappearances caught the attention of J'Onn J'Onzz and Batman, with the Martians moving to capture and torture the Manhunter. Key figures in the lives of Earth's heroes were momentarily prompted to injure the JLA in various ways. The naval port of Murmansk was nearly wiped out by a nuclear explosion, its citizens saved by a Green Lantern construct. With the help of Batman and the Atom, the Manhunter freed himself from and weaponized the "psi-spikes" that had incapacitated him, and then destroyed the Martian watchtowers that were suffocating the Earth. The seventy strong White Martians engaged the JLA directly, breaking Green Lantern's arm and nearly bisecting Plastic Man with Laser Vision. However, they were repeatedly bested by the Martian Manhunter's psychic illusions, causing them to chase after phantom "Leaguers," or see each other as Earth's heroes and engaging in mortal, self-defeating combat.

Still, the White Martians effectively countered Earths' other metahuman forces, such as the JSA, Titans, and Young Justice. Protex eventually captured the JLA at the Fortress of Solitude, and with a telepathic prompt from J'Onzz, banished them to The Phantom Zone. Once there, the League could finally plan a strategy without eavesdropping, and were released by The Atom. Finally, Protex and the White Martians were lured to the moon, which was then dragged into near Earth atmosphere and ignited. Given the choice between immolation and banishment, Protex ordered his Martians to take physical form to be cast into the Phantom Zone.

Later, most if not all of the White Martians were massacred by Fernus the Burning Martian, although Protex's specific fate has not be revealed.

Powers: Unlike most of the Hyperclan, Protex demonstrated a more or less full compliment of know Martian abilities, including Telepathy, shape-shifting, invisibility, intangibility, flight, longevity, Martian Vision, and superhuman strength/stamina/durability/speed/senses. He was particularly potent at manipulation, casting mental illusions and swaying even powerful, well-trained Martian and Kryptonian minds.

Weaknesses: Protex has a catastrophic vulnerability to fire, causing diminishment of his abilities, and eventual death with prolonged exposure.

Distinguishing Features: Protex presents with golden, almost illuminated skin, and was especially aesthetically pleasing to humans, with one remarking on his resemblance to The Doors' singer-songwriter Jim Morrison.

Weapons: Protex deployed a variety of Martian tools and technology, such as The Flower of Wrath.

Vehicles:
As the leader of the White Martians of Z'Onn Z'Orr, Protex had access to the wonders of that base during its existence, as well as other, seemingly much less durable Martian watchtowers. He lived on the White Martian mothership in the Still Zone, which contained numerous away vessels.

Quote: "How long has it been? How long since we stood here the first time? What was the human species then? No more than dormant potential in the genetic material of jellyfish! How little they have changed. But remember the barges heaped with spices and precious metals? Remember the music of the brass gongs and the toiling of the warmills? Life was good then. Life will be better."

Created by: Grant Morrison & Howard Porter

Superman Treasury 2025: Hero for All

Dan Jurgens draws eight pages of his second treasury format Superman comic, having written and laid-out the entirety of 1999's Superman / Fantastic Four (with deeply compromised finished art by Art Thibert.) It's inked by Brett Breeding, and while the continuity is garbled by some lousy Rebirth-period flourishes, it is mostly a testament to the 1990s "triangle number" era. Anyone who read the books in the period surrounding "Reign of the Supermen" would be forgiven for feeling nostalgic. There's been online discourse since Standards Manual's rerelease of the 1982 DC Comics Style Guide that other artists draw a version of Superman, but only José Luis García-López draws Superman. That's particularly fair if you grew up with the Christopher Reeve movies and surrounding merchandise, but García-López rarely provided complete art for Superman stories-- mostly just the early issues of DC Comics Presents. Jurgens came up in the late Bronze Age, shared influences with García-López, and produced interior and cover art for nearly a hundred Superman comics. Jurgens was likely the closest fans ever got to a more substantial García-López run, which may help to explain why he was to many the Superman artist of his generation.

At least, that's how I can best rationalize it, because man, I am never going to "get" the appeal of Dan Jurgens to those people. To me, he'll always be a technically proficient journeyman, who was never the most appealing or interesting artist drawing Superman at any given point. He succeeded Jerry Ordway on Adventures of Superman in 1989, working alongside Kerry Gammill on Superman. A few months in, George Pérez returned Superman to Action Comics, when it was reclaimed from the experimental weekly anthology format. By 1992, Jurgens had taken over the core Superman title, but Tom Grummett had replaced him on Adventures, while Jon Bogdanove had launched Superman: The Man of Steel. I would favor every one of those artists on any given book over Jurgens. I've liked a few Superman stories written by Jurgens, but on a monthly basis, I usually preferred other writers as well (though he had good runs of The Mighty Thor and Tomb Raider.) And yet, DC always runs back to Dan Jurgens when they've had a "come to Jesus" moment in screwing up the Man of Steel... like when they killed off the New 52 incarnation and replaced him with Jurgens' Superman: Lois and Clark version, which gave us their son, Jon Kent.

I thumbed through the new treasury, otherwise drawn by Bruno Redondo, out of curiosity. Obviously this was put together to exploit enthusiasm for the 2025 Superman movie, as well as readers "of a certain age" with the disposable income to pay the premium on a publication format largely abandoned since the 1970s. I do like Redondo's art, as well as the coloring of Adriano Lucas, which often digitally replaces solid blacks with more animation-style cel coloring. Having come up in the Bronze and Chromium Ages, I've been spoiled by a level of rendered detail never before or since seen in comic book art, which could make the most of being printed at near to the scale of the original art board. I'm not even confident that the art in this book has a physical manifestation beyond the printed edition, and while attractive, the colors have a better claim of making use of the treasury dimensions than the line art. So if it's not an art book, that leaves it up to the story to justify the indulgent scale. This is a Dan Jurgens script. The odds were never in its favor.

The whole reason that I was primed to write this post was because I saw a lot of Martian Manhunter action in this book during that toss. I stopped partway through, once I'd committed to reading the thing. So of course, that stopping point for me was also more or less the stopping point for the Manhunter from Mars in the story.

A giant robot attacks Metropolis, prompting an evacuation of the city. Ma and Pa Kent are tasked with taking a still-adolescent Jon Kent out of town. I assumed that meant the story took place before Brian Michael Bendis squatted down to release his "embellishments" on Superman lore, but that crap was referenced later in the all-Jurgens sections. For all I know, they've de-aged Jon Kent in recent months. I gave up on following DC continuity a year or two into the New 52, so finer points like that would be lost on me. Superman has a surprisingly easy time taking out the robot, and then we're randomly(?) presented with a Smallville flashback deploying Ben Day dots. We see Pa Kent die in a tornado, ala Snyder's Man of Steel, and it occurred to me that the guy I saw with Ma earlier had a bit of Dale Gribble about him. Maybe she caught another feller as a widow in the modern(ish?) continuity? The '90s stunt implant Kenny Braverman was present in the flashback, as was young ginger Lex Luthor, which I'm aware was a Silver Age element returned to continuity in the Birthright mini-series (bought cheap used; yet to read.) A young adult Luthor was present for another flashback.

At the in-story present, alien invaders destroy the JLA... satellite? Watchtower? I don't know what they're calling it these days. Both Superman and Batman are initially missing from the action, but fellow super-heroes step up to defend a variety of global flashpoints in the invasion. This would be "the Martian Manhunter part." The actual invaders were semi-generic anime mech troopers in pale orange and green. They're like a very boring redesign of parademons. As best as I can tell, their main advantage is taking out Earth's communication technology. The Alien Atlas appears to battle the baddies on the Golden Gate bridge, and he is treated as the key to uniting Earth's metahuman protectors, via a massive telepathic network. There's also lots of token appearances by members of the JLA, JLI, Teen Titans, etc. A big deal is made out of Aquaman delivering the U.S. President and Congress to safety underwater, as though that was a relevant and beneficial action to the world order of 2025. Positively provincial.

As anyone familiar with how Martian Manhunter appearances in Superman comics go, J'Obber J'Onzz's off-panel defeat at the invaders' hands marks the end of the world's effective resistance to the aliens. It is here that the ultimate threat is finally revealed... Lady Maxima! And... um... the Cyborg Superman? See-- Dan Jurgens created Hank Henshaw as an analog for Reed Richards, who had to watch his astronaut family slowly die from horific deformities similar to those of the Invisible Woman, Human Torch, and The Thing. Instead of elasticity, Mr. Fauxtastic merged with machinery, which is how he survived. Using genetic material from Superman, he grew a partial clone body, with compensatory cybernetic elements. I don't know that it was ever explained why he couldn't clone a whole-ass Superman body, or at least doctor-up a completely human face, instead of looking like a T-800 Terminator wearing 9/10ths of a Superman body. The Cyborg Superman has been destroyed many times, but always seems to return to this SuperMetallo form. He was of course one of the ersatz Supermen during "Reign," was in at least one of the Doomsday revival mini-series Jurgens did, and was even a big part of Superman / Fantastic Four, owing to his being a Reed Richards rip-off. In this context though, he's only here as a life-sized "marital aid" for an alien queen who could never seal the deal with her Man of Steel.

Maxima's purpose here was to punish Superman for choosing Lois Lane over her, and making a baby with her. Now, Maxima was killed off in the 2001 Superman event "Our Worlds at War," but a revamped version arrived three years into the New 52, and then more or less reverted to a more faithful version in 2017. Jon Kent debuted as a decade-old in 2015, and was up-aged to 17 to serve as Superman's replacement a few years later. All this is to say, it's a bit rich that Maxima would react this strongly to a long-elapsed, rarely/never-expressed grudge from multiple continuities ago. While powerful, Maxima never seemed to work at this scale before, and I'd guess her usage as the villain was in honor of the still-tender passing of her co-creator, George Pérez. But also, Maxima was a member of the version of the Justice League that Dan Jurgens wrote, and Cyborg Superman is one of his pet creations, so... this.

Batman shows up mostly to prevent the killing/capture of Lois Lane, and to explain who Maxima and Cyborg Superman are to Superman's life partner. Some alien albino gal named Glyanna shows up to prevent the killing/capture of Jon Kent. Except that character was created in 2023, and Jon is back to being a boy, so I don't get this continuity. I do get the Ben Day dot "flashbacks" where Clark Kent never developed powers, became editor-in-chief of The Daily Planet, but watched Lois Lane become the twice-over babymama of Lex Luthor. See, this is Jurgens ripping off "For the Man Who Has Everything," badly, and never explaining why an illusion meant to placate a captive Superman (who never actually escaped from the giant robot's trap-body) instead catalyzed his jailbreak. Just as it's never explained how a couple of second-tier Superman villains and random alien invaders defeated all the metahumans, although somehow Steel and armored Lex Luthor have among the best showings of anyone. Simply, the key explanation is that Dan Jurgens was rarely a notable writer, and got by on telling Superman fans that theirs was the bestest boy! That's what we have here, yet again.

I didn't go wild for the James Gunn Superman movie, because it was a sloppy mess of comedy bits and fan service that crowded a post-1986 version of Superman that I've never fully embraced out of his own eponymous movie. I had the opposite reaction here, of loathing the Jurgens-era SuperDuperMan who rendered the entire DC Universe as mere supporting players in his stories. I know this will always be J'Onn J'Onzz's role, especially in Superman stories, but giving the business to Wonder Woman and other God-tier DC heroes is part of why I hated Superman events during the Triangle Number Era. I don't feel like most modern writers can tell compelling Superman stories, and there's a subset that try to make up for it by elevating Superman so far above his peers that every other hero may as well be Jimmy Olsen. Any time I feel bad for the contempt I hold against Dan Jurgens, I recall lame, derivative, condescending mediocrities like this, and feel validated in my decades of disdain.

Superman: The Man of Steel #92 (September, 1999)

In a "Fearful Symmetry" situation, this cross-title arc was dubbed "Secret Origins" by its writer, but marketing wanted to take advantage of a guaranteed sell logo, so all the covers call the arc "The One-Man JLA!" The absence of Superman is first noted by Martian Manhunter in Superman #147. The JLA were addressing a jail break at Stryker's Island Penitentiary in Metropolis, and an editors note causes confusion. Apparently, many of the villains were not up-to-date, tipping the hand that this was a month of inventory stories to cover the triangle-number, comics-by-committee crew of the Superman titles for a month. But also, most of the issue was already a fantasy about baby Kal-El having landed on Oa instead of Earth, and growing to become a Green Lantern Corpsman. The continuity nit-picking wasn't helpful. Manhunter telepathically detects Superman's mind somewhere in the depths of space, and calls for a team to seek him out. Steel and Green Lantern promptly volunteered, with Kyle Rayner pressing The Flash into service as well. Wonder Woman also wanted to come, but was denied by J'Onn J'Onzz, not wanting to leave Earth too short-handed of defenders. Aquaman was also left behind, but I felt a lot worse about Diana, because the artist rendered her in a gorgeous Frank Frazetta style.

The next couple of issues are pretty much a waste of time. Adventures of Superman #570 imagines Kal-El as a Rannian styled after Adam Strange. In Action Comics #757, Kal-El is a Thangarian that has displaced Katar Hol, and that's actually a more interesting spin than the overall "real" story. Across these two issues, the JLA search party travel through space and get attacked by a giant squid, multiple times. I final reveal is that they've been captured by the same aliens messing with Superman's memories, and are making the JLA replay the same corny adventure on repeat.

Finally, the Sleuth from Outer Space figures out the ruse, and mentally reaches out to "K'All L'Ell," who now thinks he's a Martian. The Manhunter eventually recovers Superman's psychic identity, and Kal-El suggests merging their minds to break free of the conditioning. This Supermanhunter frees the JLAers and the proper Man of Tomorrow, restoring Kal-El's psyche to his body. It turns out that their captor was himself from the conquered people of X'VyV'X. Rendered xenophobic by the invasion that propelled him into space, the X'VyV'X refugee tried to use a Kryptonian device to brainwash a champion to take back to X'VyV'X. Superman agrees to one more mind wipe to "become" a X'VyV'X Superman to repel the invaders without compromising their location or security. However, this selfless inspired X'VyV'X to trust again, and send the JLA to again recover Superman, who was grateful to have friends like these.

The arc was by Tom Peyer, Tom Grindberg, and various inkers, plus covers by Walt Simonson. It was fine-- I generally enjoy Peyer scripts more, but this was a space-filler with Silver Age influences. Some back issues that I can now release into the wild.

Warner Bros Store DC Heroes Lithograph by Mike Deodato Jr.

I've been saving this one for a rainy day/few months/whenever I could find more details on it. I think I stumbled upon it at an auction site, and swiftly downloaded the jpeg, but can't find it again. The best information I could Google was on a 2015 Legion of Super Bloggers post about a different DC Universe art print that made the rounds in the late '90s, which I'm confident was by Dan Jurgens and Jerry Ordway. As a side bit of business, they offered a tiny scan from a WB Store catalog and a larger black & white version of the Deodato print with their http branded over it. Given the featured line-ups, both pieces were probably produced in the late '90s, but maybe offered in the early 2000s? The Jurgens/Ordway one is very post-Zero Hour, which makes sense because they're the art team on that mini-series, and for all I know it was a spread within the book (but I'm probably confusing it with a more packed but also more pedestrian scene where the extended cast all show up in Metropolis.) J'Onn J'Onzz is also in that one, and just (lower) left of center, but also only a head peek out over Connor Hawke. It's a total cheat not to have the Alien Atlas a full head taller, with exposed Martian Man-boobs/cape/etc. It's also dull as dishwater, which is why I was in no rush to cover it here.

I was always a bigger Mike Deodato Jr. fan than I was for either of the other print's artists, having appreciated how his Wizard-certified hot Image-style supercharged my favorite run of the Wonder Woman title. I mean, he also kind of ruined that title by turning it into a bad girl t&a book, but his earlier issues were much more story-dense. But more importantly at the time, Deodato finally got fans to take the Amazing Amazon seriously as a contender at DC Comics, rather than the annoying little sister that only had a title to lock in merchandising rights. It was sometime around this period tht DC finally bought all of the rights off the Marston Estate and began promoting the concept of a DC Trinity with their whole chest, and I felt that Deodato played a role in that. Plus, I was simply excited by his Chromium Age style, and bought a bunch of lousy Caliber Comics reprints of his old Brazilian work (in a much different art style) with hacked out new covers (plus "his" Thor run, which was probably more a product of the Deodato Studio.)

The hierarchy of power in the DC Universe is more status quo in the Deodato piece, with a huge Batman & Superman trailed by a considerably smaller Wonder Woman, though she is catching up. Instead of accursed Zauriel (so very Post-Zero Hour,) this one has the short-lived gestalt Hawkman with large wings spread right behind Diana. I adore the Atom sliding down the Batline. There's still a tiny pre-angel armor Zauriel deep in the background, plus a No Man's Land Batgirl and mix of Titans that leans hard into 1999 specifically. I'm tempted to call it on this blog post, but will hold back in hopes of future confirmation.

I got to the WB Store whenever I could in this period, and figure I'd have bought this if I'd seen it. That said, stuff giclée were crazy expensive, and I didn't have a vehicle for most of this period, so my access was limited. Still, there's a full body Deodato Sleuth from Outer Space dead center on this image, so I think I'd have at least remembered seeing it before. If you have more information, please leave a comment, and I'd also maybe be interested if you're selling one (but not at a crazy giclée price?)

Superman: Space Age (2022-2023)

Clark Kent's rocket from Krypton landed in Smallville, Kansas a bit later than in real life, offering a late teen debut of Superman in 1963 as part of an atomic age second act of the Cuban Missile Crisis. As with David Goyer's cinematic take, Pa Kent is averse to his son using his powers in any way, much less ever leaving home to do so, and warns him about unintended consequences with the story of his accidental wartime killing of a child. The flying farmboy in overalls nonetheless inserts himself into a moment of geopolitical panic that's ultimately responsible for the fiery death of the citizens of Coast City, California. Cue a rapper monotonously and repetitively intoning "this is the remix."

Clark Kent stumbled upon the Fortress of Solitude and begins training to become Superman, plagued by imposter syndrome over the recent circumstances, and his failure to live up to the hologram of Jor-El's minimum expectations of his child's development. The following year, Clark moved to Metropolis, where he took over Lois Lane's old "kooks" beat after she leveled-up to full reporter. It was here that he met Pariah ("this is the remix, uh-huh uh-huh") and was given a prediction of multiversal doom that will hang over the entire mini-series. Elsewhere, Bruce Wayne further develops a rejected pitch to the military into his Batman arsenal, jet fighter Hal Jordan downs Abin Sur's starcraft, and Lois Lane investigates the great events of the times, including the story highlight of spending time in jail with the Freedom Riders. Lex Luthor creates another missile crisis so that he can rule over the ashes, but is captured by Batman, and the actual nukes are redirected by the arrival of Superman. The characterizations mostly fit the Tom Mankiewicz mold, so you'd be forgiven for hearing the voices of Reeve, Kidder, Cooper, Beatty, and especially Gene Hackman while reading. The outliers are at Wayne Manor, as you'd more rightly hear Sam Hamm as read by Keaton and Gough, including the complete absence of a Robin. A month later, Wonder Woman is dropped into the U.N. to state the need for Amazonian intervention in any future crisis, and joins Green Lantern and the World's Finest at the new Hall of Justice. You can use whatever voice you want to while reading Princess Diana, because she's little more than an obligatory visual presence throughout this story.

Book Two leaps to 1972, and concerns itself with the impotence of colorful heroes maintaining the status quo in troubled times, within a story that is itself almost entirely bereft of non-whites, aside from stereotypical pimp and hos in the opening sequence. Maxwell Lord ("uh-huh uh-huh") takes over Wayne Enterprises, and runs it with such sociopathic criminality that Batman has to burn it all down in the end. Despite being the liberal voice of the Justice League of America for a generation, the appearance of Green Arrow, along with Aquaman, is purely token-- leaving the handwringing to the Dark Knight and Man of Steel. The Flash gets more attention, but in an already media-indebted work, painfully takes his cues from Ezra Miller's atypical ADHD neurotic. Clark Kent drops the ball on Watergate and is scooped by Lois Lane, who is constantly reinforced as his professional and moral superior. Kent does make a big show of finally acknowledging this, seemingly unlocking Lois' chastity as they finally embrace romantically, then marry, then procreate. It's a remarkably conservative trajectory, even for a Superman comic. The back third of this edition of an exceeding long trilogy of self-important 80-page tomes dispenses with the social concerns in favor of a lengthy Brainiac battle that sets the stakes of a final reckoning with the Crisis, along with the abrupt demise of Hal Jordan. Again though, nobody in this book really matters except Clark, Lois, and Bruce.

As with the Zack Snyder Murderverse, I'm more put out by the late inclusion of the Martian Manhunter than I would have been his total omission. It's explained by a contrivance of the story that no aliens are publicly known before the arrival of Brainiac, except Superman, and also readers saw Abin Sur and the Jor-El hologram, but whatever. He is joined by Green Lantern John Stewart, the Hawks, Black Canary (previously at Jordan's funeral,) Red Tornado, the Atom, and... Swamp Thing?!? Stewart gets the job of a Guardians of the Universe-informed exposition dump on the Anti-Monitor, and the insermountable Crisis coming in its wake. This is furthered by a multiverse of Brainiacs trying to recruit a multiverse of Superman...ses... after destroying their individual Earths for... natural resources, or something? It's a dumb play for such a bunch of... you know. In another straight lift from multimedia, Superman is girded into expanded action by the death of his terrestrial father by heart attack. Superman decides 19 years into the narrative to finally embrace hologram Jor-El and his inherited intellect to... take a few years off to master the human genome so that he can analyze every living being to create a pill that cures whatever ails them? It's ahh-- rather convenient-- and continues the telegraphing of the final resolution begun with one particular multiversal Superman at the top of Book Three.

In a nauseating turn that I'm thankful I read before the election, an Alan Dershowitz stand-in exonerates Lex Luthor for mass murder, allowing him to rebuild LexCorp, undermine Superman, and hire a rather Ledger Joker (complete with a Moore-biting origin story) to kill Batman... in an exhaustingly overlong tangent within an already tediously overwritten yet undercooked work that took me seeming ages to finish in one sitting... in a hospital waiting room, to boot. Trust that I was looking for a good distraction here. I had other books with me, but this thing ate up all the hours available for reading. Plus, the whole thing is just a set-up for a gag where Luthor claims victory just as the Crisis begins in earnest and he's forgotten entirely. Whomp-whomp. Here's hoping life imitates art. All I want for Christmas is a Big Mac-fueled coronary.

In a totally unobtrusive sequence where Allred definitely does not draw himself, friends, and family in as bystanders, most of the Earth perishes in lava as the planet breaks into pieces. For once, we don't actually see J'onn J'onzz die by fire, though he almost certainly burns. Just to twist the knife, Swamp Thing uses his stretching powers to save people in the final panel to bother with the props that were the JLA in this tale. Everyone dies, but Superman made a crystal that he stuffs through a hole in the multiverse made by the Brainiacs to land on an Earth where only a Superman survives. He uses it to repopulate everyone from the Space Age Earth as clones, including Lois and Jon Kent, who wonder why he made a golden statue in honor of himself. "That's not me, " the other Superman explains to extras from the forgotten 2005 Michael Bay thriller The Island. The End. So now you can't ask "Whatever Happened To...?" And I believe that I used every available Manhunter image in this blog post.

"Space Age" was by Mark Russell & Michael Allred, credits I copied & pasted from Mike's Amazing World of Comics, who it pleased me to realize was still with us long enough to catalog the book. I haven't had much experience with the writer, but was bowled over by his Superman meets Jesus Christ series Second Coming, which left me on the lookout for more. The artist I've enjoyed since buying the original Tundra Madman #1 in 1992, although I've mostly admired from afar.

Superman was one of my first super-heroes, as would be common for children "From the Thirties to the Seventies." Among my earliest exposures was the Superman #1 Treasury Edition, reprinting the initial Siegel & Shuster stories, so my perspective on the character may be a bit different from most. I don't think the Superman comics of my childhood were very good, and while my key periods of faithful reading were 1987-88 & 1993, I don't hold that material particularly dear. As a fan and retailer, I kept up with the Triangle Number period through heavy skimming and odd reads until it ended, and have dipped in from time to time, but ultimately firmly rejected the Post-Crisis interpretation of the character that persists to this day. My taste in Superman is informed less by the comic stories that I've read and more by the idea of him-- heavily informed by the Donner films, the Animated Series, and references/second hand recollections. I like the Kryptonian Superman-- the one who is more Kal-El than Clark Kent-- as seen in the Golden and Silver Age comics. On pure concept, as metaphor, and at the peak of popular cultural relevance, give me the 1950s Weisinger Man of Tomorrow. I think the further he's drifted from that ideal, with an ever greater corruption by acolytes of Stan Lee's heroes with feet of clay, the less Superman has had to say in distinction from any other idiot that wears their underwear on the outside. It's right there in the "Man of Steel" moniker that the emphasis should be on the super, man!

Russell struck me as a big idea type, and Allred loves playing in a groovy oddball mid-century space, so I really thought that this mini-series would finally serve me the alien intellectual Superman that I've been longing for. There is a little bit of that, mostly toward the end, but it slipped my mind that one of Allred's biggest influences was the foundational Spider-Man artist Steve Ditko, and that Russell's overt humanism lent itself more to Denny O'Neil than Otto Binder. I was crushingly disappointed to realize that Space Age was pretty much the exact opposite of what I'd hoped for, and would trod well worn deconstructionist ground. Thanks to its setting and style, it strongly recalls Darwyn Cooke's The Final Frontier, but undermines its heroes and exposes the underbelly of the nation instead of celebrating the progress made in that era. I now understand that the relatively muted response to this piece is probably because it's so similar to and so pale against other efforts. It was sort of a Justice League story with no interest in the team, a Superman story that gave most of the victories to Lois Lane or Batman, aimed for profundity with bumper sticker platitudes, was a Bronze Age Marvel story with Silver Age DC characters, used the fall of Camelot as an arch and unnecessary allegory for modern sociopolitical concerns, and was a comic book largely dependent on characterization from outside media, reading like pro-fic pitched directly at Walter Hamada's Warner Brothers. But most importantly, as with Snyder, it fundamentally misunderstands the icons it toys with, and the nature of their metafiction. Laura Allred's colors are a beauty to behold on her husband's delightful pencils, but it's all in service to a story that I hold in contempt, and was such a chore to get through that I'll only ever take it off my bookshelf to look at, never again to be read. What I don't need in this moment is a downer yarn about the Superman that failed.

1986 FPC DC Comics Calendar Poster

Fellow children of the '80s likely longed for this swell looking calendar, featured in ads across various DC titles. It looked like a normal calendar, with 12 rectangular images of swell characters by top talents, incorporating the monthly calendar. There was a couple of cheats, in that the George Pérez New Teen Titans image was "zoomed in," obscuring six other partially visible sections, and obliterating a second. Further, all of those other images were barely more than postage stamps, and all of them were in black and white. It was a tantalizing tease though, including a Joe Kubert Sgt. Rock & Easy Company, a Gil Kane Sword of the Atom (featuring Princess Laethwen,) Keith Giffen Christmas with Ambush Bug & Cheeks, plus a very licensing on-model Superman (Ross Andru?)

It was produced by FPC, or The Federal Publishing Co. Pty. Ltd., who distributed black & white DC Comics reprints in the Down Under. In fact, the ad running, in the original U.S. comics, added the unusual shipping penalty of $1.50 extra outside Australia-- which is, y'know, all of us buying the original North American editions. Like, almost everybody on Earth is somewhere besides Ozzieland, which has less than 27M population, only 0.33% of the global population. I live in the state of Texas, with nearly 31M, and that's only one (admittedly populous) of 50 United States, and these things went to Canada, too (40M.) At $6.50 in 1985 dollars, that's $19.00 today, including shipping, which actually isn't that bad when I consider it. But it's pretty hefty for something expected to be thrown out on a year, which might be why I've never seen one in the wild. But also, it's a one-sheet poster, not a flip calendar, with the Marshall Rogers Batman & Robin crowding into four of the other images (molesting a small portion of the previously unobscured Titans portion.) Other characters revealed in the final release are Blue Devil & Amethyst by Paris Cullins, and... wait... that's it? A twelve month calendar with only eight images, because several months do double duty, and one triple. What a rip-off.

The image that I haven't discussed yet is maybe my favorite, though not without serious competition. Green Lantern John Stewart, Firestorm, Hawkman, Wonder Woman, and Martian Manhunter, drawn by Luke McDonnell and inked by Jerry Ordway! Wooo-we! That is quite the collection of choices cuts for ol' Frank-- enough for me to let my Texas (or at least my Slim Pikins) out just now. I really wish this art existed outside a sloppy, mangled sheet of paper. And it kind of does, as the original art is nominally available for trade or purchase. I'd miss that lovely Greg Theakston painted color, though I could overlook it wth those characters and that linework. But see, the seller doesn't actually post prices, and the listing is so old that for all I know it's part of the dead internet. I have enough trouble getting art and quotes from people face to face with me at conventions. I can't manifest the energy for "email me bro," so one of you can pursue it with my full blessing. I reserve the right to envy, however.

Action Comics #595 (December, 1987)

Silver Banshee walked the streets of Metropolis, killing men indiscriminately as she searched a series of local bookstores. After one policeman under Maggie Sawyer's command was killed, and another nearly so, Superman finally showed up... only to die himself. Various parties, including members of Justice League International, mourned his loss. Black Canary and the Batman believed that someone should address the situation, while the Manhunter from Mars insisted, "Something must be done!"

Lying in state, Superman's ghost lifted from his glass encased body, stating "I have been cut down before my work was done! I must finish what I set out to do. Only then can I rest. Beware, Silver Banshee! Your time of judgment is at hand!" Jimmy Olsen had trailed the villainess to another bookstore, and nearly doomed himself when Spectral Superman showed. Once her powers failed to effect his immaterial form, she blew herself up trying to destroy him with her Banshee cry. Only after did a living Superman reveal himself, while his "ghost" resumed his nat-- er-- typical Martian form.

The Sleuth from Outer Space had deduced that there was a visual component to the Silver Banshee's powers that prevented her from killing someone that she couldn't accurately identify. The Kryptonian form held up better than human victims, but Superman was still placed in a deathlike coma state until the Aien Atlas jumpstarted his brain with undefined "mental powers." It's a huge stretch that doesn't stand up to scrutiny, since she'd killed multiple unidentified dudes, but Perry White lampshades it with "Well, I guess that's a satisfactory explanation... at least it'll have to do if that's all we're going to get." Still, they played fair by announcing J'Onn J'Onzz's presence earlier in the story, and allowing him a showcase for his detective skills.

"The Ghost of Superman" was by John Byrne, with Keith Williams. Crisis on Infinite Earths had ended with 1985, but it took until June of the following year for "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" to wipe the board clean of Pre-Crisis Superman. Then another four months later, John Byrne used the oldest but "spare" of his two Man of Steel titles to continue the team-up format of the recently canceled DC Comics Presents, beginning with #584. I'm fuzzy on when I started picking the title up, but most probably it was with this issue, so it would have been nice to already be familiar with Martian Manhunter for the reveal. It was apparently the first appearance of Silver Banshee as well, though I could have sworn she'd made an earlier one. Obviously she was super cool, and a fairly strong addition to the rogues gallery, so it's disappointing that she's been more or less relegated to a second hand Supergirl foil. Kal-El's so powerful and so visible that he really can't spare someone so formidable, just because neither Banshee or his cousin possess a y-chromosome.

The Weird #4 (July, 1988)

The Weird was aroused by Batman, who was looking for a way to stop Superman; who was laughing off being double-teamed by Martian Manhunter and Doctor Fate; and Nuklon; who was taking on everyone else (including Guy Gardner, whose head will apparently be wrapped in gauze for 75% of this mini-series.) As one would expect in a Starlin book, The Weird recaps the prior issues of the mini-series, which offers the Dark Knight no clues as to how to defeat the Macrolatts that have possessed his super friend, and also Nuklon. So that's 7 pages of 38 down. The duo of possessed metahumans defeated the rest of the present heroes and lay waste to just enough of Metropolis to look like something out of Akira, but somehow not enough to rate any future mention or leave any trace that won't be cleaned up by the next Superman comic. Also, The Weird had a big speech about how the only way to save this reality was to prevent the Macrolatts from ever reaching it, so The Weird won't waste the remainder of his existence (measurable in hours) on a futile gesture. The Caped Crusader chided, "You may look like a man, Weird. But you've got a lot to learn about actually being one."

Page 16. The Weird kneels before the Macrolatts, speaking to the error of his ways and promising to tell his masters of potential threats to them in this realm. If there were any actual threats, they weren't shared with Batman, so we'll give him the benefit of the doubt that he played indignant before being slapped down by the Weird to help sell the lie. The Macrolatts are so arrogant as to be offended by the idea that anything could threaten them, and smack the Weird around before he fully surrenders, ostensibly to allow them to drain him of all his knowledge and power, ending on a twelve panel page of the possessed heroes slowly reaching toward Weird. Pages 22-24: The Weird reaches into Superman and Nuklon's chests with his variable density powers, pulls out a Macrolatt in each hand, and destroys them both. Well... that was a swift and convenient reversal of the story as told.

Oh, there's still 16 pages to fill? Super studies show that nothing can be done to save The Weird. He spends three pages building a small island as a monument to himself. Superman flies Billy Langley to the island across one page, and it's revealed in the opposing splash. Kind of looks like a sailing ship. Walter Langley's son is somehow meant to make it to this small personal island to play on a mostly barren rock whenever he feels lonely. The proposed logistics of that are the weirdest thing in The Weird. They hug, and then Martian Manhunter is stuck with the thankless task of flying this sobbing child back home to the mother that refused to visit, but was totally cool with allowing her son to fly off with Superman to parts unknown. I do wonder if there was some symbolism in the roles, but most probably J'Onn just got the **** detail, so Superman and Guy Gardner could fly off to unpopulated space to watch The Weird explode. I'd like to say Guy was the only Green Lantern dumb enough to risk it, but they're all so "confident" in their power rings, aren't they? The Weird does blow up a significant distance away, so I guess that explains why an energy bubble wouldn't have contained it. Superman, the Kevin Smith of super-heroes, sheds a tear at his passing. Even Guy looks a bit choked up, or maybe it's like how someone puking makes you want to puke, and Guy is just worried for his tear ducts. The final page is a somber distance shot of the island at sunset.

"...Armageddon" was by Jim Starlin, Berni Wrightson, & Dan Green. Well... that sucked. I liked Batman: The Cult when I got it a few years later, and almost ordered the new edition that's coming out, but I didn't like the production work on display. I mention that because I'm a lifelong Starlin fan, and I'm glad that he produced a script worthy of collaborating with Wrightson at some point, but this wasn't it. All the stuff with the father and son was unearned, because instead of developing that relationship to have any independent weight, they Zarolatted and punch-faced us. I can't remember if they bothered to name the wife/mother, but obviously the story didn't care any more about her than we did once it was done. This feels more like an outline than a complete narrative, and at least twice as many pages of art were produced than were needed to tell this basic of a story. Frankly, it was too obvious and unadorned to even earn its given name. The Lame would have been more honest. At least I got to see Wrightson draw the Alien Atlas, I guess?

The Weird #2-3 (May-June, 1988)

Smarmy TV news reporter undermines heroes and wonders aloud about The Weird. The remains of Walter Langley show off "his" powers for "his" son, then explains the basic cosmology of the story. Macrolatts are oppressive energy vampires who seek to expand their empire to our reality. Zarolatts are passive beings who are fed upon unto nonexistence by Macrolatts. Going straight from one reality to another means destruction, so the Macrolatts seduced homicidal narcissist loser Jason Morgan into transforming into a being capable of creating a bridge that would allow them safe passage. The Weird's proximity to these events while being fed upon gave it access to these events and a means of escape through the initial bridge, and its growing power is in service to its conviction toward the newly learned concept of freedom. Returned home, Billy Langley keeps all this from his mother.

"The Jason" found his failed businessman father's body hanging when he was four. His mother turned to the bottle and maybe prostitution before Jason found her body in bed after one of her gentleman callers took a razor to her. Despite being an impoverished orphan who was academically lax and had no prospects, Jason's belief that he was better than everyone else held fast despite his poor social skills, being an incel, living on the streets, doing a stint in prison for the violent assault of a woman, and eventually ending up a garbageman. He was primed to turn on humanity, ready to believe anything the Macrolatts told him if it meant power, and using it to take murderous advantage of at least one woman victim. Although held captive for a time, The Weird eventually freed himself, and at great personal distress, determined that the only way to stop The Jason was to snap his neck.

The Weird played hide & seek with Superman for fourteen continuous pages in one issue. The Justice League looked on throughout a couple of issues as The Weird had entanglements with other, more powerful beings. "Unbelievable! Not even J'Onn J'Onzz's incredible strength seems able to put a dent in that barrier." Nor Captain Atom's quantum energies, not Green Lantern Guy Gardner's power ring, nor Doctor Fate's mysticism, et cetera. Even after witnessing The Jason's execution, they mostly offer disapproving glares. Well-- that and an order from the Dark Knight to the green one. "It was just as you predicted, Batman. My powers of invisibility caught him completely by surprise." Unable to adapt in time, The Weird took two blows and a hard tumble. Unfortunately, two Macrolatts had escaped to possess Superman and... Nuklon? I guess for his variable density abilities, but yeah, not the guy you'd expect when you have all these powerhouses in Metropolis and Infinity Incorporated is all the way on the West Coast. Also, there was a whole bit about how The Weird had taken over a corpse rather than displace the life energy of a host, so by the rules laid out in the story, both these guys should have died.

"Questions" & "Confrontation" were by Jim Starlin, Berni Wrightson, & Dan Green. These single word narrative direction story titles speak to the reductive nature of the mini-series. Each issue has a few points to check off on a predictable agenda, and the rest is just vamping to fill out space. The art has its moments, but I think everyone involved would have benefited from the space being cut in half. It reminds me of when George Pérez quit Infinity Gauntlet midway through because he was sick of drawing fight scenes where a bunch of people gang up on Thanos and lose. So much of this series involves powerhouse DC heroes floating impotently outside energy fields or getting slapped around by what ultimately prove to be nothing characters, for clout more than narrative necessity. It's all so cheap, pointless, and passionless-- a purely commercial venture that nonetheless can't conceal its distaste toward its own existence. Anyway, I got through the second issue after coming home from HeroesCon, realized the Alien Atlas wasn't in that one, and decided we'd just double up on issues for the following week. This would keep, especially since I have to do my own scans on this thing.

The Weird #1 (April, 1988)

A fit blond white man with roughly half his physical form replaced by a jagged green crystalline substance sat cross-legged on the bathroom floor in his apartment and conjured an atomic energy form. This was an intended "bridge" for his "friends." A red gem of similar coarseness to his own body began to form in midair, but then an energy escaped it, leaving the gem to crumble away. The man, Jason Morgan, was shocked and dismayed.

The small energy ribbon hovered in the sky above Metropolis, and Superman investigated. The energy had no atomic structure-- no mass-- but when the Man of Steel passed his hand through it, he was knocked back three miles. By the time he flew back, J'Onn J'Onzz and Captain Atom had arrived to observe the energy. An hour later, there was a military cordon and a No Fly Zone, then the new Justice League were on the scene. Examinations through varied disciplines were attempted, including a science team on The Bug aircraft consisting of Blue Beetle, Batman, Black Canary, and more. When Doctor Fate's mystics were stymied, Green Lantern Guy Gardner attempted to probe deeper with his Oan Power Ring. An energy surged knocked out Gardner and blacked out the Bug and city as a whole.

Two probes were fired off by the energy ribbon in opposite directions. One was pursued by Superman, as it passed immaterially through a genetics lab's fluid beakers and into its complex computers. The other was followed by Manhunter to a funeral parlor, where the Martian met repeated resistance in contrast to the immediate aid and trust conferred upon the Kryptonian. The energy went into a service in progress, and caused the body of Walter Langley to vanish as mourners looked on in shock and horror. The probes reunited with the core energy, and the gathered heroes watched as the borrowed elements slowly coalesced into a new physical body of a lanky adult male in a queer red and black garb. Super senses detected that this being was not quite right, a sort of cosmic Frankenstein made up of misfit parts that were not quite human. The being collapsed into unconsciousness from the effort, and was taken to S.T.A.R. Labs for testing. Super senses determined that the Weird being, as dubbed by Blue Beetle, was molecularly unstable to a degree that its energies threatened a detonation that could destroy the Earth.

The Weird awakened and assisted upon attending to tasks that "he" refused to take the time to explain to the super-heroes, who attempted by failed to detain him/it by force. The Weird had its vibratory patterns thrown off by the proximity of the super-beings during its maturation period, which had altered the form in unexpected ways. This allowed The Weird to unintentionally push the Alien Atlas across a room, although the Manhunter fared better in a follow-up physical altercation than most of the rest of the League with their varied abilities. Regardless, the Weird at least briefly laid low everyone but Batman, while Superman had left prior to the fight to correct a compromised passenger jet's flight elsewhere.

The Weird sought out "The Jason," the half-crystal man that had been conjuring earlier, but found only his empty apartment. It/he declared the Jason to have a "dark and twisted nature" that would see him pursue world domination. However, a misalignment of the harmonic vibrations in the apartment would prevent Jason Morgan from attempting another inter-dimensional bridge for 18 hours, so the former Walt Langley had some time to kill, The Weird retained some of Langley's memories and motivations, causing him to visit Walt's former home. His widow, Eva, bemoaned his fatal mugging and the scene at the funeral parlor. "I don't care what the police say, I'm sure it's all the doing of that terrible green man." Meanwhile, in the back yard, young Billy Langley recognized his visiting father, even in this altered form...

"Conception" was by Jim Starlin, Berni Wrightson, & Dan Green. Following by introduction to Justice League International with their eighth issue, my reintroduction to the Man of Tomorrow via John Byrne, and a broader exploration of the Post-Crisis landscape moving out from the Millennium event series, I was a target audience member for The Weird house ads. However, I don't know when I had access to individual issues, and do know that I only read the first issue at some point after the final one. Neither experience was satisfying, and I won't know if I ever bothered with the meat of that story sandwich until I move on to covering the second installment. One quarter of "The Studio" and the crown prince of cosmic comics were long time friends who would prove a formidable pairing... on Batman: The Cult. This excessively long warm-up session noodles for 38 pages of heroes impotently watching stuff, then getting trashed by the second in a series of very powerful but rather boring sci-fi/magical Mister Spocks based on the visual template of Syzygy Darklock. I do like though that both Starlin and Wrightson are clearly a more comfortable fit on the Sleuth from Outer Space over Superman. Wrightson seems to relish his dark, exaggerated features over an off-model Man of Steel, with a broad flat nose and thick lips suggesting a less Caucasoid interpretation of the Manhunter, with the strongly implied prejudice that goes with it. I do wonder if Grant Morrison was influenced in his views of J'Onn J'Onzz here (and I think that's the only name he's been referred to in the issue.) Also, Wrightson's horror background gives the takedown of the heroes a more ominous quality than the story would seem to dictate, a sort of accidental element of interest in what otherwise feels more akin to a Radio Shack rudimentary science edutainment giveaway. The issue is way too long to accomplish so little, and I do wonder if this was initiated as a prestige squarebound mini-series for more niche audiences that was either determined not to rate the expensive ask, or was diverted to take advantage of the JLI's building heat on the newsstand.