Sunday, January 13, 2019

Superman: Man of Steel #6 (1991) - "Mismatch" Review


Writers: Louise Simonson
Artists: Dennis Janke, Jon Bogdanove, Glenn Whitmore
Cover Price: $1.00
Release Date: October 16, 1991

This is Part 3 of the Blackout story arc. Superman and Mr. Z have been zapped with everything the Metropolis power grid had, leaving them without any memories of who they are and causing Metropolis to lose all of its power. While riots and chaos fill the streets back home, Supes and Z have washed up onto Dinosaur Island. The last we saw of them in Action Comics #671, they were about to be trampled by a stampede of angry dinosaurs.

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This issue starts with the Frenchmen, who were piloting the plane that Superman and Mr. Z were on, still lost at sea in their raft. They kinda feel cheated that they had Superman right there to save them but he had no idea who he was or what he could do, so now they're just floating around waiting to be rescued. They see a ship on the horizon but it keeps going, not seeing their attempts for attention. They remain lost at sea... for now.

We then see Superman and Mr. Z standing in front of a stampede of brontosaurus. Superman, who has already discovered that he can fly, grabs Z and flies them above the herd. But a pterosaur swoops in and grabs Z by his leg.

Then we jump locations again to nighttime in Metropolis. The only power in the city is the LexCorp Tower projecting Lex Luthor Jr's speech on its exterior walls. Lois Lane and Dr. Hamilton are making their way through the crowds and come across a Daily Planet pressmen strike rally lead by Jeb Friedman, who is the ponytailed douchebag who will soon try and court Lois after Death of Superman. Things get out of hand so Lois steps in to kick some ass.


Then there's what's happening on Dinosaur Island...


Superman releases Z and he goes soaring through the air, let go by the pterosaur. He's able to catch up to Z and catch him before he makes impact with the ground, but they both end up landing in a mud puddle. Then they're promptly stomped by the foot of a grazing brontosaurus. When the dinosaur steps off there's a tribe of what's supposed to be neanderthals standing over them, led by Lola, the smoking hot daughter of their king.


Hamilton was injured at the strike fight, and Lois takes him to Bibbo's Ace of Clubs.


After the motorcycle, Guardian is also tossed through the window. Lois runs to his aid, and he asks her where Superman is during this whole thing. She tells him that he's lost somewhere in the Antartic, which is the last place she knows he's at because that's where he and Mr. Z originally crashed. Guardian says that if Superman isn't here then it must be serious, he offers to bring them to the Antarctic to find Superman as soon as he's finished taking care of the punks that sent him through the window, and he jumps back onto the street ready for action.


Suddenly a triceratops charges at Lola from nowhere, so Superman takes it down... only to get whacked on the head by Lola's spear. She explains that the triceratops is her favorite mount and has raised her since she was a kid, even though Superman doesn't understand a word that she's saying. She climbs up on the dinosaur and Supes gets it. This is her pet.

But now the king has seen that Superman can actually fly. He could be a god or a demon or who knows what, so he has both prisoners restrained until further notice.


Guardian, Lois, and Hamilton are on their way to the Antarctic! But back on the island, a bound Superman is being tempted by Lola. She clearly found him sexy since she first laid eyes on him but now she's really into him because he came to her rescue. Twice. She brings him fruit and then leans in for a kiss, but her father grabs her hair and starts dragging her away with it. Superman doesn't like that too much.


It's here that Superman makes the connection that the king is Lola's father by the words that she uses in her own language, so he lets himself be defeated. Lola tells her father that Superman broke through those ropes so easily that he could have escaped at any point but chose to stay and protect her even though he knew he would lose to the king, and because of that he's a good man. She wants to marry him, and daddy is more than happy to agree.

So she takes Superman to the cave of looooove...


DON'T DO IT, FOOL! Oh man. You know he did it.

Our rescue team has arrived in the Antarctic, at the very scene where Superman and Mr. Z crashed to the ground. But they see no signs of either of them. Then, from Guardian's flying car, they pick up a radio signal from a USSR submarine who rescued two Frenchmen claiming that Superman has amnesia. They zoom off into the sky.


Superman and Lola come out of the cave of love to a big celebration. As a reader seeing the translation of the tribe you know exactly what's going on, but you don't need the translation to get it. This is a wedding. Superman still doesn't have the faintest clue because he's an idiot.


Bits and Pieces

This is such a good issue. You've got blackbelt Lois, my man Bibbo, three kinds of dinosaurs, neanderthal hotness, Supes being Supes without knowing he's Supes, and every bit of dialogue that's said by Mr. Z. And the art, yet again, is so classic for the era. I love it.

9/10

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