The Man of Steel #3

"One Night in Gotham City..."

Cover Price: $0.75
Bargain Price: 3/$1.00
Cover Date: November 1986

This may be Superman’s comic, but, brother, this issue is all about Batman. This middle chapter of John Byrne’s Superman origin reboot sees Batman and Superman meeting for the first time, while trying to stop an absurdly dressed killer named Magpie. Incidentally, Magpie, whose shtick is to steal shiny things and replace them with explosives, is the only bad part of the issue. Seriously, was the Joker busy? Anyway, Superman has come to Gotham to arrest Batman, but Bats convinces Superman to hold on and help with Magpie by telling Supes that if he even touches Batman a bomb will go off somewhere in Gotham, killing an innocent person. If that sounds out of character, just wait for the twist, which, honestly, is about as Batman as you can get. Batman continues to shine throughout the adventure. There’s some solid detective work and deduction, which, ironically, is often missing from Batman’s adventures, and a great little exchange with Superman about how saving the planet is one thing, but saving a city is something else entirely. As for Kal-El himself, since the story primarily serves to demonstrate to both Superman and the reader the validity of a vastly different approach to crime fighting, the man of steel actually does or says very little in this issue. The result is a fun little meta-commentary wherein Superman is basically the reader, sitting down to read his first Batman comic and learning what a badass Batman is, which is alright with me.

The Man of Steel #1

“From out of the Green Dawn”

Cover Price: $0.75
Bargain Price: 3/$1.00
Cover Date: October 1986

This issue begins John Byrne’s reimaging of Superman, and, while I mainly enjoyed the issue, there is a lot here that just isn’t my cup of tea, raised as I was on the Superman’s Silver Age iteration. Mainly, I just don’t care for Byrne’s sterile version of Krypton. I simply can’t help but think that making Jor-El and Lara so alien, so much so that Lara is repulsed by a human farmer (irony!) and that the duo doesn’t understand our hu-man concept of love, is a bit of mistake. I feel the same way about presenting little Kal-El as an unborn embryo who isn’t actually “born” until his ship lands on Earth, denying any real emotional connection between the infant and his parents and somewhat undermining the tragedy at the heart of the origin. Oddly, there is also no arguing about the planet’s demise nor any attempt by Jor-El and Lara to flee, even though doing so seems entirely within their power. The scenes on Earth fair better, with Byrne making up for dehumanizing Jor-El and Lara by increasing Jonathan and Martha’s role in the book and by keeping Jonathan alive, itself easily the best change Byrne makes. Otherwise, the issue is almost interminably wordy. Still, the art is great and the issue is overall likeable enough that I think that, now that the controversial origin is out of the way, the rest of the mini aught to be pretty fun.