That tag might include any of the four Marvel Captain Marvels, and possibly Carol Danvers when she was still Ms. Marvel. It would also cover the artist currently known as Shazam, if you want to call him that or not. And now that tag includes today's book! From 1992, Action Comics Annual #4, "Living Daylights" Written by Dan Vado, pencils by Chris Wozniak, inks by Karl Altstaetter, Trevor Scott, Karl Kesel, and Steve Mitchell.
Before I even open this issue: did I read any of the Eclipso: The Darkness Within crossover? Maybe the two endcap issues. The Robin Annual, since it guest-starred Anarchy, who got jobbed so hard I had to double-check: his creator Alan Grant wrote this one, and he still lost bad. Maybe the two Batman annuals, although I don't know if I loved Sam Kieth's Joker. I might've liked to read the Justice League America annual, featuring the team's "weakest" member, Blue Beetle, vs. Eclipso. I don't think Beetle got to completely save the day; and I don't know if I like that cover. Maybe I'm just defensive for him, but it's less like the floating heads are looking on in concern, as much as they're looking down on him.
Beetle is already MIA at the start of this one; it's not revealed yet, but he's part of the science team putting together a secret weapon to defeat Eclipso, and Professor Hamilton and Lex Luthor II are grabbed as well. (LLII was the redheaded fake son of Luthor, who actually was Luthor in a cloned body.) With Eclipso controlling the town of Crater Bay, Superman is forced to surrender himself to save those people, and leaves what's left of the JLA--Booster, Fire, and Ice--to figure out how to stop him. This is an appallingly bad plan, since Eclipso doesn't release squat when he takes over Supes, but Ice had called in some help: Captain Marvel!
After a lengthy fight--and like four pages of a local resetting the timer on a solar beacon, "this thing's worse than my VCR!" The townspeople are freed, but not Superman, and he takes off. The entire town and a good chunk of the countryside are completely destroyed, though; and the agitated townsfolk don't remember a thing. Meanwhile, Superman had already had two annuals in this crossover and would get one more: the still-Eclipsed hero would fight Guy Gardner and Lobo in Adventures of Superman Annual #4. Why don't they ever use Eclipsed versions in fighting games? Seems like way less legwork to get heroes beating the tar out each other...
Am I going to Shazam this weekend? I hadn't planned on it, but maybe. I do have my Avengers: Endgame tickets already, though!
Those Eclipso covers were pretty cool, as were Eclipso'd versions of characters. For some reason tho, no matter how much DC has tried to make him a big deal bad guy, it just doesn't stick. I wonder why.
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