I've fallen behind in my reading, but currently I'm midway through Showcase Presents: the Great Disaster, possibly because there were seemingly a hundred issues of the Atomic Knights. They're early sixties DC sci-fi fare, scientifically more than a little iffy, but fun enough. There's also a string of "The Day After Doomsday!" Short horror tales, that remind me of a sequence in Stephen King's expanded the Stand: here's a bunch of people that miraculously survived the apocalypse, only to immediately die of stupid right after. I haven't gotten to Hercules Unbound or the Kamandi reprints, but I did read 1976's Superman #295, which ties in to all this...somehow. All right, that one doesn't make a lick of sense, and I'd have to have a copy to get into it proper; but conveniently enough I have Superman #294 next to me, and the cover almost looks like it should be the Great Disaster tie-in!
"The Man Who Slept the World Away!" Written by Cary Bates, pencils by Curt Swan, inks by Tex Blaisdell. The splash page gives too much of the game away, as Superman faces Brain Storm, whom you may recall...if at all...from Justice League America #43, where he lost his helmet in a card game! With everyone on earth disappeared, Clark Kent makes a desperate solo newscast, explaining how he and Superman had been on the moon when whatever happened, happened. It's a good cover, but makes Clark a target, as Brain Storm takes him out with an atomic bazooka! Fighting Superman, B.S. explains earth's entire population--some four billion at the time--was locked away in his helmet, so he could absorb the stellar energy from a quasar, to make his helmet even more powerful. (He already wiped everyone off the planet, and needs more power?) If even one human was left, though, their mental patterns would interfere...somehow...and the quasar energy wouldn't be usable. (Superman didn't count!)
Superman tricks Brain Storm, by disguising himself as Clark Kent: when B.S. tries to kill "Kent" and reveals him as Superman, he assumes he's been fooled; and Supes is able to get in close and punch him until his helmet does stuff. Brain Storm brings back everyone, except the "murdered" Kent; but Supes tells him he saved Kent as well...and that Brain Storm was looking at "four billion counts of kidnapping!"
Also this issue: a "Private Life of Clark Kent" story, "The Tattoo Switcheroo!" Among other shenanigans, Supes has to compress his costume down to pill-size, then eat it to avoid discovery. And yes, retrieve it later. I guess his super-digestive system can't break down his indestructible costume; he's not Matter-Eater Lad, after all.
Hard to believe Brain Storm was ever considered much of a menace, but for story purposes, ok.
ReplyDeleteWait, so he had to shrink his costume to pill-size, and then throw it up later? Wow, way to inadvertently champion bulmia there Sups.
Couldn't he have just gone the Flash route with a ring, or would that have been considered gimmick infringement?
Sorry to tell you this but that's Superman 294- 295's a much closer fit to the theme (there are a couple of spoilery plot points so I won't say anything here). It's a good Showcase- Hercules Unbound is good, especially after Cary Bates starts writing and Walt Simonson gets on art.
ReplyDeleteOh geez. That's what I get for not reading carefully. Well, it's still a good Showcase- recommend almost all of the stories in there.
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