Super Fan XL – 40 Years Of Post-Crisis Superman

The Man of Steel #5
Released August 21, 1986

John Byrne – Writer & Penciller
Dick Giordano – Inker
Tom Ziuko – Colorist
John Costanza – Letterer
Andy Helfer – Editor

I get a kick out of the first page of the issue. I remember reading it at age 6, when OF COURSE I recognized that green battle suit as the same armor that was on my SUPER POWERS Lex Luthor action figure, usually found in it’s Lex-Soar 7 (and yes, I still own both today. They’re currently in my son’s room.)

Of course it’s a fake out. We turn the page to reveal that Superman is holding up this random flunkie in the battlesuit while confronting Luthor in his Hong Kong office. We quickly infer that Superman was attacked by this grunt, whose armor isn’t only made entirely of LexCorp components but also included his LexCorp ID badge.

Slippery as owl shit, Lex says Superman is premature when he calls this sloppy, revealing that if one were to check the records, they’d find every component of the battlesuit as listed as stolen and the man inside was fired weeks ago. Even more unfortunate, the suit’s interface with the user’s brain turns the user into a mental vegetable after about an hour of use.

Superman says Lex is bound to screw up soon and he’s not going to try to stop exposing him. This scene does its job in leaving the impression that there have been a lot of these confrontations since Luthor declared he’d have his revenge on Superman.

Lex steps into another room where Doctor Teng awaits and we understand that Luthor’s real objective was luring Superman to him so that sensors in the office could scan every part of Superman’s celluar and molecular structure. This led Teng to the discovery that Superman is not a mutated human of any sort, but rather an alien. He’s concerned this could effect the “duplication process.”

When his device opens and an exact double of Superman walks out, we see what he was doing. Alas, the double collapses and Teng explains his “bio-matrix” was created to duplicate any known form of human life. Unfortunately, it’s rejecting the alien DNA, causing the body to crystalize.

Furioius that his plan to create an exact double of Superman that would obey him has failed, he fires Teng and orders the creature destroyed, calling it “bizarre” in the process.

We shift to Metropolis finding Lois Lane with the terrible Byrne haircut that won’t go away (short hair on Lois rarely works) and her blind sister. Lucy’s blindness is a recent condition and she’s a bit short with Lois, who lightly chides her about wearing sunglasses in the house because she doesn’t want people to see her eyes. Later we learn she’s in this state thanks to a highjacker who threw some unknown chemicals in her face last year.

Lois goes to work and before long, Lucy’s throwing herself off the balcony, feeling worthless as a “blind flight attendant” and intending to commit suicide. She’s caught mid-air by what she thinks is Superman, though he doesn’t speak. He puts her back on her balcony and flies off, leaving Lucy to wonder why she feels so “strange” and “dusty.”

It’s not the greatest depiction of someone struggling with suicidal thoughts. Lucy’s inner monologue reads like “I feel useless now. Oh well, guess I’d better kill myself.” This would definitely be written differently today, with more sensitivity about depression and probably a focus on getting Lucy some counseling. Alas, this is the last we hear of Lucy’s depression.

Meanwhile, at the Daily Planet, Clark hears a commotion in the lobby and races down to find the duplicate, now revealed in full for us with white chalky skin, wearing a sport coat over his Superman outfit and donning glasses in a way that makes him look like Superman and Clark all at once.

Superman and the creature battle for a few pages, which Superman noting that they seem to be evenly matched and that white power seems to fly off of his imperfect duplicate with every punch. As Lois wanders near the battle, Superman uses his heat vision to burn off the double’s “Clark” guise leaving him in a darkened version of the costume.

When Lois gets too close, the creature takes her off into the skies and kisses her. Fortunately for the story he takes her to Lucy, whose vision has improved since her encounter with the creature. Superman catches up to them, provoking another battle between the two. This covers Superman in enough of the “dust” that he can give it a proper look with his microscopic vision. He says it’s not organic, but it can mimic organic cells, leading to the conclusion that this being isn’t exactly alive, but more like an android.

Determined to hit him with everything he’s got, Superman soars at the creature. His double comes right at him too and they both collide at top speed.

As dust from the impact rains down, Lucy’s sight is fully restored. Superman arrives with a theory that the dust countered the chemicals in her eyes that caused her blindness. Lucy asks if he knew that when he tried to destroy him and Superman says, no, “…but somehow I think… HE did.”

Obviously, this is the Post-Crisis take on Bizarro and for my money it makes for an entertaining story. Just the fact Bizarro is silent makes for an improvement in my book, as Bizarro-speak has gotten increasingly complicated and impenetrable lately. It used to mean when Bizarro said something like “Goodbye, me am NOT happy” it meant “Hello, I am happy.” But some writers use a sentence like that to mean, “Hello, I am sad,” with the intent being you invert the meaning of everything in the sentence.

Just look at this exchange between Bizarro and Bat-zarro from SUPERMAN/BATMAN #20.

“What you lose here?” = “What you find here?” That one’s pretty clear.

“This am very difficult case.” So does Bat-zarro mean this is an EASY case?

“My worst idol Batman has alive parents. Now he am worse detective than me.” “Worst” obviously inverts to “best,” but does “idol” get inverted too? Is he Bat-zarro’s idol or enemy. “Alive parents” is likely meant to be understood as “dead parents” and “now he am worse detective than me” seems to be an expression that having dead parents makes Batman a BETTER detective.

So here it seems if there’s a noun, we only invert what modifies it.

“Batzarro’s parents am dead.” I guess he’s saying his parents are alive?

“So me not kill other parents and not solve crime.” Is he going to kill other parents and solve the crime? Is he going to not save other parents and solve the crime?

It’s too much work figuring out what’s opposite and what’s not! This is why I prefer a silent Bizarro. And Byrne does great work making him feel creepy and unsettling.

Lucy’s blindness being cured by Bizarro’s death is an homage to the first Bizarro story in SUPERBOY #68. In that story, Bizarro befriended a blind girl who doesn’t realize there’s anything unusual about him and becomes his only friend. When Superboy arrived with the means to destroy him, Bizarro deliberately sacrificed himself and the resulting explosion fixes the girl’s eyesight.

At one point, Lois makes reference to “five years of dreaming about being kissed by Superman,” indicating that we’ve advanced three and half years in the timeline since the previous issue. Lex’s further receding hairline also is evidence of the timejump.

This won’t be the last time we see Lex’s hair trigger have him fire an employee the instant he’s displeased with them. It’s short-sighted and petty – specifically in this case because he ends up needing Dr. Teng’s services again in a few years – but that’s also classic Lex.

From one perspective this is a standalone issue, but I think it serves a good purpose here in showing us two of Lex’s anti-Superman schemes and how this is an ongoing annoyance to Superman. It’s good for laying foundation for the status quo as we move towards the new ongoings.