Superman #413 – “Superman—Your World is Mine” – Cary Bates/Curt Swan/Al Williamson
This one starts with a recap of the last couple issues to remind us how Lex Luthor used a mind-altering ray to make Superman hallucinate events that never happened. Not only did Superman believe (for a short while) that he’d killed Luthor and caused the destruction of Metropolis, but Clark Kent got fired from Galaxy Communications for writing a story about Superman that never actually happened. Superman is pretty freaked out, not knowing if he can trust his senses anymore. He decides to change to Clark Kent for a while, hoping Luthor won’t be able to target him. On his island hideout, Luthor is celebrating the success of his plan to drive Superman nuts. He prepares to put the final phase into
operation, triggering the scrambler rods he planted (invisibly) in Metropolis last issue. Clark is at Steve Lombard’s sporting goods store, helping Steve sort out his bookkeeping. Lois calls and tells Steve to invite Clark to a charity function tonight, but Lois is being pretty cagey so I think there’s something more to it. Clark agrees to attend but starts hallucinating again, this time seeing Steve’s office (and entire building) disappear. Clark changes to Superman and flies off, watched by Luthor who gloats over his scheme, thinking to himself that Superman doesn’t even realize how much trouble he’s in. As Superman flies around the city, he sees more and more buildings vanish and 
this time he’s sure it’s actually happening, not just a hallucination. At the Galaxy Building, he sees all his friends disappear and flies outside, only to see most of Metropolis wiped out. Luthor’s voice sounds, taunting him and pointing out that he won’t stop with Metropolis … Luthor is going to make the entire Northern Hemisphere vanish. Meanwhile, there’s a special dinner going on downtown with all Clark’s friends from work, plus numerous others gathering to talk about how great he is. Unfortunately, the guest of honour isn’t there and Lana wonders if Steve somehow screwed up the invitation. But Clark (or Superman) has other things on his mind, like watching half the world disappear while Luthor blames Superman, saying he’s killing all these people as revenge on the Man of Steel. We get a look inside Luthor’s island headquarters and see that Superman is actually
trapped there in a scrambler field. Luthor knocked him out with a brain blast outside Steve’s building and brought him back to the hideout to fill his head full of lies. But the worrying and well-wishing of all Clark’s friends back in Metropolis is picked up by Superman’s subconscious, empowering him to break free of Luthor’s scramblers. Luthor tries to take off but Superman snags him pretty quickly. Before he can haul Luthor off to jail, a vortex opens in the sky, pulling Luthor into it. Superman has no clue where Luthor went (he was shanghaied to take part in Crisis), so he heads back to Metropolis to show up at Clark’s testimonial dinner. Superman tells everyone that the whole “fake story” thing was a ruse to bring Luthor out of hiding and that seems to be enough to convince Morgan Edge to hire Clark back again.
Action #573 – “The Sale of the Century” – Craig Boldman/Kurt Schaffenberger/Bob Oksner
This is a goofy story that belongs squarely in the Silver Age (which you probably guessed when you saw J. Wilbur Wolfingham was involved). Basically, Superman returns from a sojourn in space to find Earth’s entire population gone except for Wolfingham and his nephew, Wormwood. Turns out some alien (Bax) showed up on Earth and Wolfingham tried to con him into buying the entire planet (a variation on the old Brooklyn Bridge scam). But Bax turned out to be smarter (and more
powerful) than Wolfingham thought and reduced Earth’s entire population to infinitesimal size, in anticipation of selling the now-empty planet to alien refugees. When an alien shows up to claim Earth, Superman makes it look like Earth is a total shithole and the alien takes off. Wolfingham convinces Bax that Superman is a genie that serves him and Bax claims the Man of Steel as part of the accoutrements of Earth. Turns out Bax is kind of a slick operator himself, always targeting con men on the planets he visits to protect himself if a deal goes sour. While pretending to obey Bax’s commands, 
Superman puts Bax through the wringer until the alien begs Wolfingham to take his “genie” back, even agreeing to return ownership of Earth to him. Wolfingham agrees and Bax takes off. Superman restores Earth’s population and goes to spread the word about Bax around the galaxy, after pointing out that Bax paid for Earth in the first deal by stealing a wad of money from Wolfingham’s pocket. Wormwood asks his uncle if he got taken, but Wolfingham figures he actually came out on top, since he ended up with the deed to the planet Earth.
“If I Were Superman” – David Campiti, Kevin Juaire/Alex Saviuk/Eduardo Barreto
This is a quick story about a street vendor named Ernie Doyle who’s been in
Metropolis for so long he’s a bit jaded about Superman’s constant presence. Ernie has some pretty strong opinions on things, so every time Superman goes into action, Ernie figures he knows exactly how the Man of Steel should handle things. But Ernie usually misses the finer details and Superman uses some alternate method that works out better. Finally, Superman uses the exact method that Ernie would have, which gives Ernie a thrill (and a boost to business).
DC Comics Presents #87 – “Year of the Comet” – Elliot S! Maggin/CurtSwan/Al Williamson
This one starts with Superman on the moon, freaking out over the recent death of his cousin Supergirl (in the Crisis). He’s so distracted, he doesn’t notice a couple of aliens (members of the Superman Revenge Squad) lining him up for a ray blast. He soon realizes he’s not in his own dimension though, and figures out he’s been zapped to Earth-Prime (which is supposed to be our Earth, a place where superheroes only exist in comic books). Superman has been to Earth-Prime before, so he’s startled to see a junior version of himself (Superboy) hanging out on a beach with a girl. Superboy flies up into the sky and Superman intercepts him. Both of them
are blown away at the idea of meeting each other and Superboy is shocked to learn of Supergirl’s death. (He asks if it’s “Not a hoax? Not a dream? Not an imaginary story?” which makes me think he might be a proxy for the readers at the time, who couldn’t believe DC would kill off Supergirl.) Superboy is unsure of himself, but Superman assures him he’ll be fine and takes off to head back to Earth-1. Superboy notices a tidal wave bearing down on his friends and his girlfriend, Laurie Lemmon … note the initials. Superboy tries to use his powers the way he’s seen in comics but is only partially successful; luckily Superman returns to help him and they fly off into space. Superman tells his 
young counterpart he couldn’t breach the dimensional barrier back to Earth-1 and admits he’s a bit worried. Clark Kent’s parents (Jerry and Naomi) are worried too, especially after Laurie tells them Clark disappeared from the beach. (Laurie seems to know about Clark being Superboy on this world.) Returning to Earth, Superman and Superboy run into some aliens who are invisible to humans. At first Superman assumes they’re Arcturan tourists, but they turn out to be Polarians trying to raid Earth for nukes. The two Supers destroy the Polarians’ equipment (with Superboy delivering the telling blow since he seems to be immune to the red sun radiation the machines are emitting) and head back to see Clark’s parents and Laurie. Superman tells the Kents
he needs Superboy’s help to figure out what’s going on and they head back to the Polarian ship, where they use the equipment to vibrate them to Earth-1. Superboy is stunned to see Metropolis and the Daily Planet, which don’t exist in his world. (He also gives Superman a shock when he says he’d rather be a test pilot like Hal Jordan than a journalist.) Before they can make any plans, a vortex (just like the one that Luthor went through in this month’s issue of Superman) opens up and pulls Superboy-Prime into it, leaving Superman to wonder what the hell is going on. And we see the Superman Revenge Squad aliens are still watching the Man of Steel closely … but we’ll have to wait until the next issue of Superman to see what happens. We get an origin 
story for Superboy-Prime after the main story (apparently he was teleported to Earth from Krypton before it exploded) and find out he never gained super-powers on Earth-Prime … until Halley’s Comet and some other cosmic alignment bullshit caused him to suddenly manifest powers the same night he met Superman. (As for why he was dressed like Superboy, he was at a costume party on the beach with Laurie, who was naturally dressed as a mermaid.) In a letters column in Who’s Who, it was stated that “Superboy-Prime was a final parallel worlds gimmick introduced with a wink by Julie Schwartz” and that since post-Crisis continuity retroactively wiped out all parallel worlds, he never really existed to begin with. It sounds like Superboy-Prime was meant to be kind of an in-joke, which is interesting since he would come back decades later as a villain. Or maybe this is meant as a farewell to Superboy like last issue was for Supergirl.
All-Star Squadron #51 – “The Monster Society of Evil” – Roy Thomas/Mike Clark, Arvell Jones/Vince Colletta
This one starts with a sailor and his girlfriend in New York being assaulted by a statue that suddenly comes to life. The statue turns out to be a monster named Oom, who was turned to stone by the Spectre who put Oom’s soul into a red moonstone gem. Now Mr. Mind (using a small spaceship) has brought back Oom’s soul and reanimated him because Mind wants Oom to join his Monster Society of Evil. Oom agrees, since Mr. Mind has the gem that can steal his soul. Not far away, Dr. Fate and Hourman are heading for JSA headquarters, discussing how several All-Stars vanished last issue. But when they reach JSA HQ, they find no sign of the Justice Society. Instead, the
Monster Society (Mr. Mind, Oom, Ramulus, Mr. Who, and Nyola) has taken over, tying up Hawkgirl. Hourman can’t use his Miraclo pills without endangering his health, so Dr. Fate has to take on the villains alone and ends up getting his ass kicked. Hourman notices someone on the roof across the street and tries to stall for time, asking Mr. Mind why he’s here. Mind tells him he’s from another dimension (Earth-S, if he means Captain Marvel’s world) and somehow received radio broadcasts from earth-2. He was a huge fan of Charlie McCarthy and wanted to meet him, so he built the spaceship and tried to get to Earth-2. When Harbinger was taking Firebrand away last 
issue, she inadvertently opened a rift between dimensions which Mr. Mind exploited. Mind was quite upset when he realized his idol was a wooden puppet, so he decided to meet the JSA instead. Being an unstable megalomaniac, when Mr. Mind found JSA headquarters empty, he freaked out and decided to form his own Society. He used the JSA files to recruit some of their old foes and waited to ambush whoever showed up, Hawkgirl being his first victim. Now that he’s finished his story, Mr. Mind is ready to finish his captives. But Sandy (Sandman’s junior partner) comes swinging in through the window on his wirepoon gun and attacks the villains. In the confusion, Hawkgirl gets loose from her bonds and Hourman manages to pull himself across to the building across the street with Sandy’s wirepoon. After saving Sandy from
being tossed out the window, Hawkgirl flies him across the street too, leaving Fate to fight the Monster Society alone. Fate gets pounded again and Oom teleports away with him to the dark side of the moon. Sandy, Hawkgirl, and Hourman wonder what to do and where the JSA might be. Meanwhile, we check in with Green Lantern, Liberty Belle, and Johnny Quick, who also vanished last issue only to pop back to New York courtesy of GL’s ring. But they quickly realize it’s not the New York they’re used to and soon discover they’re on a parallel earth. Which earth? Well, judging by the pissed off Captain Marvel coming after them, I’d say it’s probably Earth-S, but we’ll find out for sure next issue.
Infinity Inc. #20 – “Crisis on Infinitors’ Earth” – Roy Thomas/Todd McFarlane, Mike Hernandez/Steve Montano
This one starts with Jade and Northwind trying to help victims of the weird weather that’s causing havoc in Los Angeles. (The weather and red skies are by-products of the Crisis, but nobody knows that yet.) They get a hand from Green Lantern and Starman and manage to rescue everyone from a collapsing building and (with some help from Fury) get rid of the errant tornado that knocked the building down in the first place. Further west, Nuklon is undergoing some tests in a hospital, overseen by Charles McNider (aka Dr. Mid-Nite) and his protege, Beth Chapel. Nuklon is a bit embarrassed to be naked in front of Beth, but she reminds him she’s a
doctor and sees naked people every day. The three of them head to lunch, where they meet up with Rex (Hourman) Tyler and his son Rick. Rex is pushing Rick to become a doctor, but Rick is only interested in art. Beth and Charles try to put the brakes on Rex’s railroading his son into a career he doesn’t want (and may not be suited for), but Rex is adamant. Nuklon and Rick knew each other as kids through their JSA connections, but their reunion is interrupted by a huge earthquake hitting the hospital, knocking out power and damaging the building. Emergency power kicks in, but the hospital is on fire so the heroes (and Beth) run to see what they can do. Rex ducks outside to pop a Miraclo 
pill, but when Rick asks for one too, Rex freaks out, telling him it’s too dangerous. Rex changes to Hourman and heads back inside, while Rick pops a Miraclo pill that his dad dropped. Nothing happens and Rick figures it’s because Rex designed the pills so they’d only work with his own body chemistry. Dr. Mid-Nite shows up to rescue a patient and Hourman goes up to the roof to open a water tank. In the children’s wing, Beth and Nuklon evacuate some kids and Nuklon has to phase through a wall to get a trapped nurse. The kids get out okay just before the whole wing collapses and Nuklon makes it outside just in time to save Hourman from being crushed. A nurse tells them Beth went back to help another patient who’s trapped, so Dr. Mid-Nite and Rick go in after her. They find Beth with an old lady in a room full of oxygen tanks. Dr. Mid-Nite grabs the elderly patient just as the tanks explode,
catching Beth in the blast. Rick’s Miraclo kicks in and he uses the super-powers it gives him to save Beth from the flames, but she’s in pretty bad shape. Dr. McNider operates on her while the others wait and Rick tells his father he’s decided what he wants to do with his life … help people as the new Hourman. His father warns him of the danger, saying Miraclo could kill him if he overdoes it. McNider interrupts the argument to tell them Beth will life but she’ll be blind for life. Beth is feeling pretty sorry for herself, thinking her medical career may be over, but McNider points out that he’s a doctor in spite of his blindness. Beth makes a joke about being the next Dr. Mid-Nite, but that’s actually the identity she’ll take on next issue (while Rick becomes the new Hourman).