Superman and the Challenge of the Perfect Solids

[arbre_rieur]

Each member of the 853rd century JLA is champion to a different planet in the solar system. So when the modern JLA switches places with their future counterparts, they each materialize at a different planet: Flash arrives on future Flash's homeworld of Mercury, Aquaman swims the xeno-oceans of future Aquaman's Neptune, etc.

Superman, naturally, arrives on Earth.





They arrive at an arena tessaract, where Superman's challenge begins.



Solaris the Tyrant Sun, ancient enemy of the Superman Dynasty, has other plans.



It uses its powers to make it seem like Superman's trying to kill the audience. Convinced that Superman's a Bizarro, everyone goes after him.







In the end it's not any of the wannabes that captures Superman but rather a group of Thanagarian Hawkmen.



Fortunately, these guys have a smarter head on their shoulders than the mob. They take the captured Superman to a junkyard tesseract to see someone who can verify his authenticity: Platinum of the Metal Men.





With Superman's identity verified to their satisfaction, the Hawkmen help him sabotage a Headnet broadcast relay station. (As Lexcorp agents, they have full access to it.)

Comments

[julian]

I've really been enjoying these. Thanks for posting 'em.

[arbre_rieur]

No problem!

[junipepper]

Ditto!

[proteus_lives]

You would think that by the 853rd century Platinum would have built herself a Magnus-Bot.

Or crossed universes and hooked up with Stack.

[icon_uk]

Except that Viridum WAS the Magnus-Bot, once he went offline, I can imagine nothing else would be be same.

[proteus_lives]

Really? That makes sense.

[icon_uk]

Yeah, Veridium was created in the regrettable, and retconned, Metal Men miniseries in 1993 which explained that the responsometers weren't the cause of the Metal Men's sentience after all, but that there were all based on the brainpatterns of the folks who had been left comatose by an accident at Magnus labs and whose minds had been transferred into "blank" robots Magnus had been working on; Magnus's brother Mike (Gold), his fiancee Sharon (Platinum), two lab workers Redmond Wilde (Mercury) and Randy Pressman (Iron), a janitor named Thomas Tinkham (Tin), and a pizza-delivery man named Jack (Lead). By the end of the series, Gold was permanently destroyed and Magnus had been injured to the point that his only hope of survival was (oh irony of ironies) to take on a new robot form himself named (for no readily apparent reason) after the completely fictitious element Veridium.

[thanekos]

there's a Veridium around still, from Rouleau's Metal Men; his evil brother David, after an accident with time travel and transmutation.

[icon_uk]

Interesting. Thing is I wouldn't have minded if they'd made a Metal Man out of a "real" unreal DC material, like Nth metal, kryptonite (Lex's one time deal to one side), intertron or even not-the-element-honest promethium, but creating a fake metal with no actual novel characteristics to exploit seemed approaching the perverse.

[crinos]

I would pay to see more of the adventures of the Negative Gorilla Queen.

[pallas_athena]

Hurrah! Platonic solids!

Superman fighting giant black D&D dice? Hell yeah!

[kamino_neko]

Heh...never noticed first time I read this...Mahol Toj. Random pun, there...

[psychopathicus_rex]

What's the pun? I'm not gettin' it.

[kamino_neko]

Reverse the name order. Toj Mahol. Now swap the 'o's for 'a's - Taj Mahal.

[psychopathicus_rex]

Ohhhhhhh-hh. OK, I get it.

[psychopathicus_rex]

It's a shame that nothing further has been done with Solaris since then. I mean, it was established as a major foe of the Justice League for centuries to come - when's it gonna get started?
Also, it's a shame that Veridium is still in the picture here, because otherwise, it'd be easy to fit this into today's version of the Metal Men. I like the idea of them sticking around long, long after their contemporaries have bitten the dust. Oh, well.

[thanekos]

well, we've gotten Brainiac's people having the capacity to create similar looking 'Solaris-class macroprocessor' weapons, but other than that..

[psychopathicus_rex]

I suppose that's at least an indication that Solaris is known in some parts of the DCU, but otherwise... yeah. Doesn't count for much.

[junipepper]

"Hey, thanks for saving my life, Platinum! We'll have you escorted safely back to your junkyard tesseract now to continue rotting away..."

[capnduckman]

Please tell me you'll post the Hitman 1 million issue.

[arbre_rieur]

Yep.