Last Week's Top 3 Future's End Comics (Part 2)

[zapbiffpow]

And last week's second place goes to...

#2 Action Comics, by Sholly Fisch, Pascal Alixe and Vicente Cifuentes

The Story:

Sand Superman goes around giving people powers, to make them realize they don’t need them to improve their lives. This kid, however, goes above and beyond:



YES.

Let’s analyze this: this kid has no idea he just became part Kryptonian, the precedent being the other people who were also surprised that they got Superman’s powers.

All he knew going into this was if he tried to protect his Mom, he’d get his butt handed to him by an abusive dad as ugly as a literal butt, and as insecure as that butt’s owner at a gerbil removal procedure.



This man.

And yet the kid stands his ground. No weapons to point at the enemy. No superheroes subtly intimidating the bad guy. Just a kid seeing abuse being done to someone and saying, “AW HELL NO.”

Anyway, there’s a side-effect to each of the individual Kryptonian powers: for example, superstrength minus invulnerability = broken wall, plus broken hand. Also this:


That font coloring is the text equivalent of mumbling.

I like his gentle diplomatic, mildly formal tone. It’s not patronizing: you know where he stands, but he says it in a way that the mother doesn’t feel bad for knowing it. I can’t remember the last time a superhero said the words, “Consider this”, and meant it purely.

Anyway, Sand Superman finds Clark, and instead of criticizing him for retiring as Superman, the sand creature thanks the man for having been an inspiration to so many people for as long as he did and explodes into a rainstorm of life-giving fertilizer, like the ending to a violently mistranslated Pinocchio anime.



“WH-WHY?! DON’T EXPLODE YOURSELF! I…I LOVE YOU!”

Anyway, barring Sand Superman’s ‘exit’ (and his barely readable font) this issue was a wonderful balance between ‘Super’ and ‘man’. It doesn’t sacrifice the ‘human struggle’ angle that tugs at the heart, or the ‘superpowers’ angle that appeals to the imagination.

Which, I guess, is what Superman is all about.
---

Also, a thought about Nightwing, Incorporated and its um, ones of members:



Guess I don't I need to tell him to suck it, since by the looks of that last panel, it looks like he's trying to do it already. Aw, man. I kid Grayson because I love the guy.

P.S. As long as we’re speaking about voices, has Batman ever said the word ‘yeah’ in the DCAU? It sounds too, uh, colloquial for him. As far as I can remember, it’s always ‘Yes’, or ‘It is,” or ‘they are.’

Comments

[halloweenjack]

Sand Superman? Whoa, that takes me back.

[crinos]

+1 on that.

I mean Holy Shit, of all the things I never expected to see referenced again in any continuity. It was "That one time half of Superman's power got transferred into a duplicate made out of sand."

[zapbiffpow]

Wait, WHAT?!

I thought this guy was just residue from Superman's fight with Mxyzptlk.

[crinos]

Its been a while, but IIRC Superman fell into some irriadiated sand or something that absorbed half his power, becoming a clone made of sand, after a few issues the Sand Superman absorbed more of his powers and became more human like. It wasn't evil, but it had no interest in giving Superman back his powers or helping people, eventually leaving Supes near powerless. In the end it turned out it did have a heart and gave its life (And Supes his powers back) fighting some evil statue or something brought to life.

[doomedpatroller]

Quarrmer was his name. I remember him from the Superman vs. Shazam oversize Collector's Edition. :)

[zapbiffpow]

Thanks for the lead. I got this from TheDCUGuide:

"this extra-dimensional being gained his shape from an impression Superman made in the sand."

You know I knock the seventies, but we've never really matched their capacity for realistic story plotting, even today. Heh.

[starwolf_oakley]

I don't mind "post-Crisis references." They work in many ways. One of my favorite is the idea that the Daily Star is the oldest newspaper in Metropolis.

Something about near-invulnerability = no sense of touch bugs me. Like it means your skin feels like a callous. Still, every time someone says Superman can't feel pain, I want him to say "Right, Kryptonite just makes me really sleepy."

[obsidianwolf]

I'd say its more near invulnerability without the accompanying compensating abilities. equals the impression of no sense of feeling. It isn't that the kid can't feel it's that nothing human can generate the force required for him to feel.

The kid still has a normal humans sense of touch but now has skin so resilient that nothing short of a punch from a superman class opponent is going to make him feel a thing because his nerves aren't sensitive enough to pick up that something touched him.

[icon_uk]

Pain and touch are too different things though. Invulnerable characters having no sense of touch actually makes a lot sense. If their skin is immune to the impacy of small arms fire, how can it sense the far lesser impact of, say, typing on a keyboard?

John Byrne has created at least two such characters; Diamond Lil of Omega Flight and Bethany of his "Next Men" series...

[silverzeo]

I still think the Impulse issue about parental abuse was better...