Superman #409 – “The Sleepwalker From Krypton” – Craig Boldman/Curt Swan/Al Williamson
This one starts with a UFO hunter named Ferlin Nyxly tracking a possible alien spaceship out in the countryside. Apparently, Nyxly has encountered aliens a couple times before and tried to use their superior tech for himself, but was stopped by Superman. Nyxly finds the alien (well, it finds him after he falls off a cliff and almost breaks his neck) and he ends up stealing the alien’s ship, which can turn invisible. Clark Kent is narrating a documentary on Superman’s powers when he hears a disturbance in downtown Metropolis and goes to check it out as Superman. It turns out to be Nyxly, using the alien ship to cause havoc.
Superman goes after him, but a strange wave of dizziness hits the Man of Steel, causing him to make mistakes. Nyxly uses the alien ship’s computer to analyze Superman’s fighting style so he can counter every move the hero makes. When another dizzy spell hits, Superman retreats to figure out what’s up. By the time he gets to the Galaxy Building, he’s practically catatonic. Luckily, the alien (whose name is Brakha) has tracked Superman and tells Jimmy Olsen that Supes has suffered a “mental short circuit”. Brakha uses some telepathic ear-drops on Superman, which leaves him in a very suggestible state. Jimmy gets an idea and we soon see Superman confronting Nyxly downtown again. But this time, Nyxly can’t predict Superman’s moves because Jimmy is telling him what to do through an earpiece. Jimmy’s fighting style is pretty 
amateurish, but with Superman’s strength it’s enough to knock Nyxly back on his heels. At WGBS, Lois realizes what Jimmy’s doing and takes over, confusing Nyxly even more. Nyxly gets in a lucky shot, knocking the earpiece out and causing Superman to stop fighting. While Nyxly pounds Superman, Lois sends Justin Moore to the scene to replace the earpiece. He succeeds, but now Morgan Edge wants his turn at controlling the Man of Steel. He accidentally turns on the tape Clark was narrating earlier, which describes Superman’s powers so well that the Man of Steel decimates Nyxly, causing him to surrender. Brakha diagnoses Superman’s dizzy spells as a form of Kryptonian Sleeping Sickness and tells him some gases from a volcano on Thallus 7 could cure him … if he wasn’t invulnerable. Superman figures a higher dose might work, so he goes to Thallus 7 and flies into the volcano, curing his malady.
“One Life Too Many” – Randy Stradley/Kurt Schaffenberger/Dave Hunt
This story illustrates the obvious dilemma of Superman’s dual identity: the
more time he spends as Clark Kent, the less time he has to help people as Superman. He thinks about his choices as he zips around doing good deeds and concludes that it might be time to get rid of the Clark Kent persona and just be Superman full-time. But as Clark prepares to do the evening news for WGBS, some schmoe who works at the station tells him how important he is to the viewers and how he gives people hope even when the news is dire. So Clark (or Superman) decides his civilian side is important after all and to maintain his dual identity.
Action #569 – “The Force of Revenge” – Paul Kupperberg/Dennis Yee, Irv Novick/Rodin Rodriguez
This one starts with Clark and Lois talking about their love lives (or in Lois’s case, the lack thereof) at WGBS. Across town, a plain, chubby girl (Tina Gerber) is treated like crap by everyone at school and goes home, hating them and dreaming about revenge. Her strong emotions (plus some weird planetary alignment) allow a demon named Rhavenj (yeah, that’s his name) to cross into Earth’s dimension, where he anticipates feeding on all the strong emotions humans have. Rhavenj heads for a high school dance nearby, drawn by Tina’s hatred for her two biggest
tormentors. Lois Lane just happens to be doing a story on proms, so when Rhavenj busts in, she calls Clark and tells him to find Superman. Clark leaves his dinner with Lana to change to Superman and tackles Rhavenj. They fight, but Rhavenj continues to draw strength from Tina (who’s at home, dreaming about getting back at everyone who hurt her). Rhavenj senses negative emotions in Lois and blasts her, turning her demonic and bringing out her anger and bitterness at Superman for not loving her enough. She attacks him and comes close to killing him (since he’s vulnerable to magic), but he stops fighting and convinces her she still holds some love for him deep inside. 
That turns her normal again and banishes Rhavenj back to his own dimension. Tina wakes up and remembers her dream, but realizes she could never actually hurt anyone, no matter how cruel they were to her. She gets a call from one of her tormentors, who apologizes for being a dick and wants to be friends, something that pretty much never happens in real life. Superman and Lois briefly think they might have a chance to reconnect, but Lois realizes all the reasons they broke up in the first place are still there, so there’s no getting back together without drastic changes from one or both of them. They agree to stay friends … but that’s all.
“Casting Call” – Michael J. Wolff/Howard Bender/Pablo Marcos
This is a goofy story about a bunch of tentacled aliens wanting to honour Superman (who saved their planet) by making a movie about him. But since they have no bipedal species on their planet, they came to Earth to cast the
movie. Unfortunately, they can’t tell humans apart, so they’re considering pretty much anyone for the role: young, old, black, white, male, female … even Julie Schwartz is standing in line. The real Superman isn’t impressed, especially when they end up casting some nebbishy guy as him. The guy they cast seems vaguely familiar … he reminds me of a character you’d see in MAD Magazine or something. Anyway, this was basically a nothing story, although I suppose you could look at the aliens inability to tell us apart as a way of saying that humans are all pretty alike, despite all the differences we tend to see in each other.
DC Comics Presents #83 – “Shadow of the Outsider” – Mike W. Barr/Irv Novick/Dave Hunt
This one starts with Batman training the Outsiders in stealth. Things go wrong when Alfred comes in and slips on some ball bearing Batman dropped. Alfred hits his head and that brings out the Outsider, Alfred’s evil persona who’s fought Batman several times before. The Outsiders can’t control their namesake and he disappears. Out in the Midwest, Superman tries to save a small town from a tornado, but the tornado turns out to be the Outsider. Superman can’t defeat the Outsider and can’t trap him, so he takes off. Geo-Force and Black Lightning head for the real Batcave under Wayne Manor to see if they can find anything to fight the Outsider without
harming Alfred. They run into Superman, who’s there for the same reason. Another uninvited guest shows up … the Outsider attacks Black Lightning, knocking him out. He then animates the dinosaur statue to fight Geo-Force and changes the giant penny into kryptonite to stop Superman. Meanwhile, Batman and the other Outsiders track Outsider’s unique brainwaves to an old house … not coincidentally, the house where Batman first fought Outsider years ago. After surviving an explosive booby trap, the mastermind behind Outsider’s resurrection is revealed … it’s I.Q., who wants revenge on Batman for beating him in Brave & the Bold 192 (and has apparently figured 
out Batman’s secret identity, since he knows about the Outsider/Alfred connection). I.Q. sends a bunch of punks after Batman, but Katana handles them all herself. Batman, Halo, and Metamorpho find I.Q., who boasts about setting up a crime that Batman can’t solve in a hundred years. I.Q. then uses a painful energy beam against the Outsiders, debilitating them. In the Batcave, Geo-Force frees Superman from the kryptonite penny and Supes knocks Outsider unconscious, which turns everything back to normal. Outsider wakes up, but Alfred’s personality is emerging and Superman exhorts him to fight back against I.Q.’s control. That distracts I.Q. enough to let Metamorpho short-circuit all his computers and knock him out. Batman tells Superman to get Alfred to use his last bit of Outsider powers to wipe all
knowledge of Batman’s identity from I.Q.’s mind. Alfred does so, then forgets everything that happened, including being the Outsider. Just to really round things off, Batman solves I.Q.’s challenge, reasoning that the only crime he couldn’t solve for a hundred years would be one buried in a time capsule … and there just happens to be a freshly-buried time capsule right across from the Wayne Building. All it contains is a couple of trinkets belonging to Batman and Superman, as a way for I.Q. to show a future generation how clever he was.
Noticeable Things:
- This reads like an inventory story: the Outsiders are hanging around in the mini-Batcave under the Wayne Building, Wayne Manor seems dark and deserted, and there’s no sign of Jason Todd anywhere. Maybe this was written earlier and not used until later.
- The Outsider was created when some scientist tried to save Alfred’s life with a healing ray. The ray brought out (or created) a dark side of Alfred’s personality, calling itself the Outsider. Alfred normally has no memory of his Outsider persona and Batman never told him about it, not wanting to burden Alfred with that kind of guilt.
All-Star Squadron #47 – “The Secret Origin of Dr. Fate” – Roy Thomas/Todd McFarlane, Mike Clark/Vince Colletta
As you can tell by the cover and the title, this is a “secret origin” issue of All-Star Squadron. There will be more of these as Crisis continues to screw up the continuity of this series. (I generally like Crisis and what it did for the DCU, but it sure didn’t do All-Star Squadron any favours.) I’m not sure if Roy started doing these Origin issues as a way of establishing canon for the post-Crisis DCU, or if he just knew his ongoing stories were pretty much toast and figured he may as well do something else. Maybe it’s a bit of both (and as usual in comics, these origin stories will change as time
goes by and knew writers add things to the characters’ backstories). Since this amounts to a glorified reprint (although McFarlane’s art looks pretty good … it fits with the weirdness of Fate’s character), I’m not going to get too deep into it. It’s basically the origin story we’re familiar with, although with some added details about Nabu. Kent Nelson’s father was an archaeologist investigating a pyramid in Mesopotamia (!) and ended up waking Nabu (a Lord of Order) and accidentally dying from a poison gas trap. To make up for his father’s death, Nabu taught Kent magic (which took years) and when Kent had mastered the power, he tried to take revenge on Nabu. Nabu told him he was 
from a Lord of Order a planet called Cilia and was involved in a never-ending battle against the Lords of Chaos. Nabu needed a human host and he’d chosen Kent, who he now called Dr. Fate. After receiving his costume (including the Helmet of Nabu, which was infused with Nabu’s consciousness), Fate headed to Alexandria to find some ancient secret. On the way, he found a wrecked vehicle and his sorcery told him a woman had been involved in the accident but was now held captive by Wotan, who Fate had never met but who somehow seemed familiar. Dr. Fate tracked Wotan to his hideout and tried to rescue his hostage (Inza Cramer, who Wotan was just using as a pawn to get Fate’s attention), but ended up getting pounded by Wotan’s magic. Inza took Fate’s helmet off and cried over him, which revived him. He put the helmet back on and blasted the shit out of Wotan, scattering his essence
throughout the cosmos. Fate was ready to wipe Inza’s memory, but she pointed out that her human compassion had saved him and maybe he needed a connection to humanity to keep from losing himself. Fate agreed and took her with him and as we know, they eventually got married. Of course, now Fate isn’t wearing the Helmet of Nabu anymore (since it was supplanting his mind), so his powers have been drastically reduced. As Fate finishes his story, the All-Stars get an alert that Churchill needs help in England and has specifically requested either Dr. Fate or Spectre be included in the team that comes. Fate agrees and Starman wonders what’s so urgent; we’ll find out next issue.
Infinity Inc. #16 – “They Call Him … Mr. Bones” – Roy Thomas/Todd McFarlane/Tony DeZuniga
This is a downtime issue, with Infinity Inc. (plus Marcie Cooper, who’s now officially Northwind’s girlfriend) hanging out at Lyta (Fury) Trevor and Hector (Silver Scarab) Hall’s beach house to celebrate their engagement. They play a little volleyball (without using their powers) and Ted (Wildcat) Grant comes by to drop off a present from Lyta’s parents … a couple of baby kangas from Paradise Island. Ted has a young woman with him, Yolanda Montez, who we saw as a reporter at the press conference a few issues back. Yolanda offers to join the volleyball game and everyone’s
cool with that, especially the guys when they get a look at her in a bikini … McFarlane draws the women pretty hot in this issue, maybe practicing for his MJ Watson rendition. (To be fair, the guys aren’t wearing much either, but I’m not quite as interested in them for some reason.) Yolanda’s supposed to be Hispanic, but her skin colour is kind of orange here; I guess with the limited colour separations they had back then it was as close as they could get. As usual, Hector and Todd (Obsidian) Rice get into a fight and Todd goes off to sulk. Yolanda suggests the next point should win the game and says it’s cool if they use their powers. Yolanda seems to be pretty agile for a reporter (and we later 
learn that Wildcat has been training her), but the game ends when Lyta spikes the ball into the ground … literally. She and Hector get in an argument and it’s his turn to take off. That kills the party and everyone leaves except Lyta, who wonders if her engagement is still on. She’s soon distracted when a freaky-looking dude (Mr. Bones) shows up looking to kidnap her and Hector for ransom. Since Hector’s not there, the skull-faced villain says he’ll take Lyta and the Silver Scarab costume instead. Mr. Bones speaks in rhymes and turns out to be tougher than he looks, giving Lyta a hell of a fight before she subdues him. Before she can call the cops (on her Captain Carrot phone), Bones recovers and attacks her again. The kangas try to help and one of them pulls one of
Bones’s gloves off, exposing his skeletal hand. When the other kanga bites Bones’s hand, it dies instantly; turns out Mr. Bones has a “cyanide touch” and is ready to use it on Lyta. (We know he’s serious now because he stopped speaking in stupid rhymes.) Meanwhile, Hector has decided to return and apologize to Lyta, but when he gets there he finds the place trashed and Todd looking things over. Todd shows him a note he found from Mr. Bones, who claims he’s with a group called Helix and they’ll kill Lyta if Hector tells anyone she’s missing.