Superman Annual #5 (1993) Bloodlines Outbreak Part 6

[pyrotwilight]

Back to the Bloodline!

One interesting tidbit for those who don't have/use Facebook is that Dan Didio is being somewhat mysterious and has began researching the Bloodlines annuals and the New Bloods spawned from them. Whether that means we may be seeing more of the New Bloods is a good question but it has me excited. Hopefully it won't be to round up the still living New Bloods to gun them down...

Now here's one of my favorite New Bloods a character soon to be known as Myriad. As we've seen with the other New Bloods they were wholly new characters, that is actually not the case with Myriad as she was actually a character that first appeared in Part of the World Without Superman story (Superman #77).

So hope you like this story it has Luthor, it has the mysterious new Blood, it has the Man of Tomorrow but he's no Superman.

4 pages from Superman #77
And 17 from the 56 page story from the Annual


Back during the 90's as many know, Luthor masqueraded as his own long lost son in a cloned body fooling the world into thinking he was a genuinely benevolent man. It was in many ways one of the more ingenious ideas since there was no reason for Superman to even see Luthor as a villain even though he constantly plotted against Superman. But of course even the greatest mask can fail, Luthor is a petty pettty man but still smart enough to cover his tracks.

Shortly after Superman's death Luthor grew quite frustrated since he was robbed of killing Superman himself though he resigned himself to some happiness in at least being the one to BURY him..





But of course after the interview...



 

Sasha was thus one of Luthor's many forgotten victims, never to be a threat to Luthor again (not that she ever was but hey, he's got an ego the size of the sun)

But then comes the Bloodlines event...                          




The issue unlike Superman #77 takes place during the Reign of the Supermen. We saw Steel in Metropolos meeting Edge a few issues back this story we have the Man of Tomorrow , the Cybord Superman meeting Myriad with Luthor around of course.

This story opens up with a garbage truck at Metropolis' land fill with the Sanitation Workers complaining about how without Superman around the only thing good anymore is the overtime they earn working nights at the landfill while they shoot at some of the rats in the area.



As luck would have it Venev and Gemir are in the area for a snack and prey on one of the workers there, when suddenly Gemir smells another person nearby.



And so the two walk off without appearing for the rest of the story though they do get referenced a bit (which makes sense since the two wanted to keep quiet in Metropolis for now since their ship was there and they didn't want to be discovered.)

But a rather unexpected event occurs....



Back in Metropolis the bodies of people with their spinal fluid removed show up and the city police are amazed at the amount dead. The Man of Tomorrow arrives to help but they don't trust him.

At LexCorp Luthor is going about his day until Mr. Green, Sasha's father asks for help, Mr. Green asked for help with the police some time ago but was brushed off, the police commissioner is at LexCorp to ask for help with the mysterious victims of the Parasite attacks.

Luthor promises to Mr. Green he'll do anything he can to find Sasha.



Meanwhile Sasha has walked her way from the Metropolis landfill on t5he edge of town and shows spots a nearby sports club, she doesn't understand most of it but goes inside to clean herself up.



Kinda weird of an art error but it looks like they forgot to draw in the hole from the attack on her, though I suppose it could've been a bit higher and covered by her hair but it's a weird thing to notice.



Yes,Myriad literally believes herself to be Muriel now.



A creepy little scene takes place that I can't post for page count but shows The Man of Tomorrow tapping into the phone lines in Lex's place while the Police Commissioner and Lex talk where when the Commissioner gets called Cyborg Superman redirects it to himself and tells the police to grant the Cyborg Superman their full cooperation the next time they see him, making himself electronically sound like the Police Commisioner.

After some  analysis Cyborg Superman concludes the mysterious fluid found with the victims are extraterrestrial in origin.

Meanwhile Myriad after making an escape dazed and back to not knowing who she is drives off with Muriel's car right into a fight between two gang members since crime has gone up  in Metropolis with Superman gone. There Myriad comes into contact with one of the thugs and then the man gets shot, she feels the pain just as he does from the bullet and she instinctively kills him.

 

Roscoe being the other gang member Wendell was having a street fight with.

 

This page...well...I just haaaad to post it.

While this is all going on the Man of Tomorrow goes to speak with Lex, having come to a conclusion about Sasha's disappearance. Lex is of course fearful that somehow this Cyborg has discovered the truth, but....

 

That's the Police Commissioner to make it more clear for those without the issue and his sister is Muriel from earlier.

With Lex's systems all three spot Sasha, Lex being visually disturbed by her sudden appearance "Sasha Green?! First me, then Superman and now her? Doesn't anybody in Metropolis stay dead?"

 

She gets saved by Cyborg Superman and Lex apologizes blaming the weapon systems as being automatic. Sasha collapses and faints with Cyborg Superman and the Police Commisioner saying they should take her to a hospital with Lex yelling for them not to and says he wants to run an analysis on her first.

She's perfectly healthy and the scientists confirm that she has the metagene and that she likely has amnesia, good job there docs. Lex however is worried that if she awakens her memories might come back and she could pin his murder/attempted murder on her so he activates a bomb he has in one of his generators for such an event.



 



And yes, Dr. Happersen knows many of Lex's secrets including that he's actually the original Luthor. I can only assume he's been killed somewhere after this for knowing too much.





 

Myriad's one of the characters that really made me love Bloodlines. I really do like the idea of having major villains have other heroes to fight. Sure Superman and Luthor is always fun but Lex is a major badguy, even if just people he bankrupted hated him we should have more people trying to go after him and while I don't believe Myriad did ever show up again after Bloodlines she's still out there somewhere.                  

Comments

[icon_uk]

I like the name, but the powerset would made subsequent appearances difficult since she'd most likely alter her personality with every issue, there's so little of "her" left. Her goals would shift, her abilities alter, what was important one issue wouldn't be the next, it would make any sort of character arc almost impossible since she's not a character, she's a shifting set of characters with one body.

Note they even had to add in an new power in the last scene, the ability to control people she's linked to's actions, to make this have anything like a neat ending. Essentially she changed from Rogue to Karma to wrap up the story.

[pyrotwilight]

At least how I read it by the end she's essentially "stabilized" with Jillian in control and that adding more memories doesn't dramatically change her that much as earlier when she had less no one copied into her mind. Though at least in theory I suppose it would change if she copied someone whose mind was more dominant than the rest.

[pyrotwilight]

err "when she had no onecopied into her mind"*

[icon_uk]

Yes, that'd be my concern, I don't get any sense of stabilisation here, just making the best of who she has to hand. Since she can't control the acquisition feature, she could find a new dominant personality becoming part of her from something as simple as walking down a street, a kid coming up and grabbing her hand or anything else.

[pyrotwilight]

True true, I'm just going with the idea that as a hitman/Jillian as the main persona that she has a pretty tough persona, one unlikely to be changed willy nilly in future contacts like earlier.

[nemryn]

Dear lord
those shoulders

[icon_uk]

It's Luthor with a bow and ponytail that always do it for me... Sebastian Shaw can make that look work, Luthor 2.0, not so much...

[superfangirl1]

Ha,Ha I like the way you think. :D

[jlroberson]

Jurgens. Ugh.

That is all I ever have to say about that.

[aaron_bourque]

GRAARGH LEX JR WHY DID YOU REMIND ME ARGH.

[goggle_kid]

I believe Myriad showed up for a blink and you missed it cameo in Bloodlines: Bloodbath where she actually got a motorcycle ride from Tommy "Hitman" Monaghan.

[pyrotwilight]

Well, I do count that as Bloodlines. XD

Every New Blood (almost) showed up in Bloodbath.

[psychopathicus_rex]

Huh - interesting. I'd always kinda wondered how that bit of plot resolved itself.
So really, her power is something like Rogue's - only instead of memories and abilities, she gets personalities.

[icon_uk]

At least in the past, Rogue got personalities too, sometimes overwhelmingly so, if the person has a particularly strong personality it tended to over-ride her own. What the current situation is I have no idea about.

[psychopathicus_rex]

I'm pretty certain she doesn't get that anymore - how I always understood it was that she absorbed powers and memories and so on, but not actual personalities unless she'd seriously drained someone dry, like she did with Carol Danvers. (Then again, there is a seriously cool scene in a spin-off novel where she's under mental attack, and summons up the shades of all the people she's ever absorbed to do battle on the psychic plain - so yeah, I don't know what to think.)