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Action Comics #705 (December 1994)

"Dead Again!," Part 8! The increasingly unhinged Superman steals a corpse and nearly kills some cops to prove that he's NOT an impostor. Yes, very Superman-like behavior.

Back in Adventures #518, after ruling out the Eradicator, Lex Luthor, Brainiac, and Darkseid, Superman decided that only one person could be behind the mysterious corpse that was found in his grave, and that person is: not really a person, but Mr. Mxyzptlk. Since then, Superman's been going around doing stuff like destroying a recording studio because he heard something about a "killer mix" and interrupting a newscast to shout at a being from another dimension (who probably doesn't even watch the news).

Superman's latest stunt consists of breaking into S.T.A.R. Labs to "run his own tests" on the Super-corpse, which freaks the hell out of the guards there. Since they're not getting paid enough to deal with crazed Kryptonians, they call the Special Crimes Unit, who turn up in their fancy new "Simm-Bots" -- big, purple battle suits based on the Awesome Kryptonian Battle Robot that Lex Luthor hijacked and wrecked in Action #705.

Meanwhile, Superman has been running tests on the corpse at super-speed, only to get the same results Professor Hamilton got weeks ago: the corpse is Kryptonian. Frustrated, he takes the corpse outside the lab with the genius idea of beating it to a pulp in front of everyone to prove it's fake. When he sees the Simm-Bots, Superman assumes they must be Mxy's creations and reacts accordingly.

The robots fight back, but we soon learn that "robot based on Kryptonian technology vs. actual Kryptonian" isn't much of a competition. Superman isn't taking it easy on them because he thinks they're not real; in fact, he even grabs the robot-less Maggie Sawyer and tells her he could "hit you with all I've got" and "it wouldn't matter because it's all fake!" Maggie, the toughest cop lady in comics, looks terrified for the first time in the 7 years we've known her.

That's when Mxyzptlk finally shows his handsome face... to say that he's not the one behind the mystery corpse. Oh, and he didn't create those Simm-Bots, obviously; those were real police officers Superman just roughed up. Mxy pops back to the fifth dimension and Superman, realizing he almost punched the real Maggie, breaks down as he wonders if he's really an impostor and yells "I'M GOING OUT OF MY MIIIIIND!!"

At the same time, in New Genesis, someone yells "YESSS!" from a containment unit. Orion, Lightray, and other New Gods go check on that, and that's when we finally learn the identity of the master manipulator responsible for driving Superman insane. It's...

...no, not freakin' Psi-Phon and Dreadnaught (why would you even think that?) but Brainiac! Whose head appears to be growing on that last panel. Whelp, TO BE CONTINUED!

Plotline-Watch:

This issue has a strange aside about a guy with a goatee murdering a woman who sold him a phone plan because she promised he'd save "a fortune" and he ended up saving only three cents. Hey, those build up, you know. The guy's on a mission to "stop the falsifiers" ("the phonies," you could say) because one day, this will somehow give him the power "ta punish the greatest deceiver of all!" Uh... Satan?! No, he means Superman. This would be completely out of place in a Superman comic if this didn't happen to be the issue where Superman goes crazy and almost kills a woman himself. We'll see this guy and his goatee again (unfortunately).

There's also a scene in the Daily Planet offices where Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, Ron Troupe, and a previously unseen British reporter called Nigel go over the crazy stuff Superman's been doing lately. Ron and Nigel think Superman must be a fake while Jimmy and Lois defend him, though she's worried because Clark has been "shutting her out." I'd be more worried about the "almost punching people's heads off" part, but okay.

During the Simm-Bot sequence, Maggie namedrops "Beedler" and "Tenclouds," two of the officers introduced in the Metropolis S.C.U. miniseries running at the same time as this storyline. We don't actually see Beedler and the glimpse of Tenclouds looks nothing like the tall Native American guy from the other comic, so this was probably a late addition, but it's still a nice touch.

So, yes, it was Brainiac all along. Yes, they ruled him out a couple of weeks ago. Yes, that's cheating. We'll get an explanation for how he did it soon, but don't expect it to be too satisfying. I've said it before, but I think a better choice for the villain to be revealed in this issue would have been... Professor Hamilton. He had access to S.T.A.R.'s equipment and could have fudged with the test results to make an illusory corpse look real. Then they could have revealed that Brainiac had transferred his mind into Hamilton's body (perhaps via the S.T.A.R. tech in his new robot arm, since Brainiac took over a S.T.A.R./LexCorp facility in "The Brainiac Trilogy"), which would explain why Brainiac's mind appeared empty in Superman #95. This would have allowed the writers to play with the idea of Hamilton going back to his villainous roots without totally ruining the character, since it was just Brainiac using his body. You can use this idea on the "Dead Again!" movie adaptation, James Gunn!

Shout Outs-Watch:

As usual, shout outs to our SUPporters, Aaron, Chris “Ace” Hendrix, britneyspearsatemyshorts, Patrick D. Ryall, Mark Syp, Ryan Bush, Raphael Fischer, Kit, and Dave Blosser! Plus, a special shout out to Adam Mallinger, who was one of the writers in the excellent Superman & Lois TV show and its tie-in comic, and, more importantly, is a subscriber to our newsletter. Adam has a new blog called Super Fan XL where he's going over every Post-Crisis Superman comic as they turn 40 years old, with fascinating extra posts like this one rounding up all the collections for this era currently out there:

(Much better than our outdated collections guide, which I still plan to update one day...)

You can subscribe to Adam's newsletter here! And ours here! And our Patreon here, while at it! (It has a free tier if you just wanna get posts like this one in your inbox, same as the newsletter.) Oh, and last but not least, you can read the great Don Sparrow's thoughts on this issue HERE:

Art-Watch (by @donsparrow):

We start with the cover, and it’s got a real Jack Kirby feel to it. Not merely because of the wall of tech behind the figures (though that too) but also because of the thick blocky lines of shadow, the exaggeration in the stance and the lack of feat of making Superman look kinda ugly. The colouring also indicates we are firmly in the navy Super-suit era. Thematically, the cover is on-target in that, it’s very unpleasant to see a skulking, desperate, body-stealing Superman, and that’s certainly true in this issue.

Inside the comic, there’s a great misdirection on that first page, as there is something so ominous about the inhuman figure breaking into the impregnable S.T.A.R. Lab, and that last panel uses shadow almost to seem like a mask.

But nope, it’s not a masked villain, we learn on page 2 and 3’s double splash reveal—that crazy eyed intruder is the Man of Steel himself. Jackson Guice is really leaning into making Superman look monstrous, as that first shot we see of him has a hunched pose and strange expression that wouldn’t be out of place on Bizarro more than earth’s greatest hero. Page 4 has a cute visual callback to the cover as Superman is viewed on the security cameras.

Old-school cop Dan Turpin manipulating that giant Kryptonian robot is a funny visual, but it’s really weird he’d wear a suit much less a hat in this high-tech cockpit. Plus he’s smoking! On the art side, smart move to depict the robots as purple and green, as we’ll more quickly make that connection to the Kryptonian survival suit.

The next sequence in the story is our introduction to Ramsey Murdoch, the serial killer who will become known as Savior. Full confession, I honestly put off reviewing this issue after my reread, because, similar to a recent issue featuring the new Bloodsport, I just hated what I was seeing. Yes, death and similarly mature subject matter has always been in comics, even a once-all-ages book like Action Comics. But the way this scene is written and staged is so lurid and macabre, it seems more in keeping with old pre-code EC Comics than in a Superman book. Sure, sure, Murdoch is supposed to be crazy, but having two pages of his ranting with no in-story rebuttal just felt distasteful to me, as did the way it was drawn. I don’t need vacant cold eyes, or a pool of blood to indicate that someone’s been killed, even if that’s the type of story you (for some reason) want to put in a comic about a strong guy in tights. Add to that the religious zealot angle, and there’s just a lot here not to like.

Moving along, Superman’s battle with the robots is well staged, even if it’s hard to see the wild-eyed, frenzied Superman in action. The silhouette of Superman in flame, saying “Dream on” would be a very cool moment, if he weren’t acting like a maniac this whole issue.

The fear in the usually steely Maggie Sawyer’s eyes is something to behold, and mourn.

Finally, mercifully, we get the reveal of who’s actually behind this storyline, and it is jarring to see all these New Gods taken out in a single panel. It’s an interesting visual detail that the top of Brainiac’s head is glowing or expanding in those last two panels of him, as his look will be changing in the next issue.

SPEEDING BULLETS:

This is one of the more awkward transitions, issue to issue, that I’ve seen in the triangle era. The previous issue left us with Superman dead sure that Mxyzptlk was behind the corpse in the tomb, but then Mxyzptlk is shoe-horned into a six panel summary.

Did you forget that Nigel was English? Here’s some hacky Britishisms to remind you (bleedin’, straight on) before they explain he worked in London tabloids.

Ron dismisses Nigel’s views on Superman’s unhinged behaviour as “sensationalism” but Nigel’s actually the voice of reason here, Superman is behaving deeply out of character. So much so that it stops reading like a plot point and feels more like not-great writing. Particularly when you have the love of his life asking herself why Superman is shutting her out. And as a reader all you can do is ask, yeah, why is that? [Max: I think Ron was objecting more to Nigel's tone than his opinion, since Ron himself implies earlier that he doesn't think Superman is "the genuine article."]

I can’t really hide it any more: I’m not digging Michelinie’s run on Action, so far. Overwhelmed and confused, tired of being misunderstood, the Superman we’ve read for 705 previous issues wouldn’t come to the conclusion that dismembering a corpse is a Superman-worthy method of proving himself. To be honest, I just don’t think Superman would let this bother him that much, and he’d be secure enough to want to prove his worthiness through steadiness and being a friend to the people of Metropolis. [Max: I'll give him one thing: Michelinie is the only one who fulfilled the assignment and actually made it look like this Superman might not be the real deal. Of course, in doing that he demonstrated why the other writers were right not to...]

Similarly, even a distracted Superman would realize that Mxy wouldn’t use hard tech like missiles and robotics to mess with him—if Mxy were involved, the robot would probably grow a cartoon leg back as soon as Superman disabled its limb, or something.

There’s something quite pleasing about Brainiac making fun of the New Gods calling themselves that when he’s about to clean their clocks. It’s a good villain moment in an otherwise pretty tough read.

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