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Everything Superman throws at Lex he shrugs off in his powersuit and gives right back to the man of steel.

After trading blows and verbal barbs Superman focuses his punches on the chest piece of Luthors suit and follows it up with an uppercut that shatters the upper portion of said suit. He follows this up with a punch that sends Lex through a building.

Batman tries to bring the villain back from the ledge to face his crimes but Luthor decides he would rather die and lets himself go.

Hey don’t judge them, they were in prison.

It starts with Lex dressed up as Superman making it appear that he uses his eyebeams to make Mary Jane and Lois disappear (because remember Superman had whatever powers the writer wanted in the 70’s). In a cute moment both Peter and Clark turn to eachother and ask where the phone booths are.

Spider-Man of course thinks that it must have been the real Superman who attacked the two ladies. Unbeknownst to Spidey, he has been blasted with red sun radiation by Lex to give him some extra power against the Man of Steel. He decks Superman who goes flying backwards but is more surprised at the power of the Wall Crawlers punch than actually hurt. 

Redirecting his flight Superman comes back and gets a a swinging kick to send him into the side of a building. Parker continues to thrash Superman with well-placed attacks until Superman has had enough and comes up with a super punch but stops mid swing as he realizes the punch will kill Spider-Man.

Just throwing the punch causes a compact hurricane force wind to knock the arachnid off the roof. 

Spidey recovers and comes back with a kick but the red sun radiation has worn off and he falls backwards. Standing up Spidey unleashes a flurry of punches, but without the extra power boost all he manages to do is break his hands.

Luckily for Spider-Man the two team up to figure out what is behind this strange turn of events.

Superman VS. Mongul (Superman Annual #11, 1985)

I just covered this entire issue back in IHI 25 so go over here I Have Issues 24 to read that. I extracted the fight from that article and pasted here if you just want to read the encounter between Superman and Mongul

Superman comes to and asks Robin who is behind this. After Jason tells him it’s a big yellow guy Kal realizes who and shouts out the villians name as he flies in a blur.

Superman unleashes heat vision straight into Mongul. Mogul double axe handle punches Superman as he screams the Superman actually hurt him. The two charge against each other and as Mongul lifts the Kryptonian, Superman fires another heat blast that sears into Mongul’s arm. Mongul punches Superman through another wall and jumping through he stomps on top of the heroes and smashes him down through the floor of that room. As they fall Kal twists the alien in midair and slams him onto the ground as he begins to pound the yellow alien in the face with everything he has. Something catches Clarks eyes however and he stops for a split second as he sees a statue of his mother and father and is taken back to what he had and what he lost.

Mongul uses this moment of hesitation to punch Superman off of him as he notes that Superman would have killed him with one more of his punches, but now he is going to finish the man of steel of instead. 

Superman is getting the upper hand on the aging Wayne until he gets a face full of acid and almost gets shot with a kryptonite arrow from a one armed Green Arrow (I feel there is a joke in there somewhere.) 

Bruce goes full crazy old man on Clark and shows him that he could beat him as he dies from a self-induced heart attack.

They fought in the “Hush” story line.

New Frontier

Justice

Jesus I think we get the point!

Superman VS. Doomsday (Superman Man of steel 18-19, Justice League America 69, Superman 74,75 Action Comics, 684, 1992)

The whole death and return of Superman is my favorite “Superman thing” ever! I will never apologize for that. Everything from…

the black armband

Doomsday is under the ground and begins to pound his way to the surface. He’s in a suit and he only has one arm free but starts walking a slow destructive pace. Eventually after destroying trees trucks etc, the JLA attempt to stop him. When I say JLA I mean the diet coke of JLA. Lets call them the jla.

Members

Guy is the first to attack as he doesn’t wait for any kind of tactical plan. 

Gardner gets the hell pounded out of him. 

The rest of the team attacks him one by one and they fall one by one. Blue Beetle is nearly killed and Booster is punched across the sky! 

Superman arrives on the scene, we know how tough he is and we have just seen Doomsday drink the jla’s milkshake! 

Now that is what I call some solid booking! Oh he also still only has one arm free! 

At this point in the story/fight I really wish we had not known Superman was going to be killed because the fight just goes on and on and on and I can’t imagine how amazed I would have been not knowing the outcome. Even still I love this!

Then Dooms sends Supes through a house! 

The jla and Superman try to fire off of all their heat blasts, evil yellow rings and what have you and all it does is free Doomsday’s other hand. 

Doomsday bum rushes the entire group!

I mean no offense to any bums reading this by the way.

Doomsday then finds Booster and abuses him by smashing him all over the place and even slamming a car door on his head! 

Doomsday takes it and sends Superman flying and gets him in a death grip as they both crash into the police department. Superman “creates separation” from Dooms and goes to rescue a few more civilians as Doomsday starts destroying more helicopters and then comes in contact with the last standing jla member, Maxima.

Maxima is no slouch herself as her power levels are close to that of Superman and she tears into Doomsday. 

Superman comes in for the assist, but Maxima not being from Earth pulls a light pole from the ground and the spark sets off the gasoline that has started leaking from the destruction earlier. 

A big explosion later only Doomsday is left standing and he is on the move again.

I can’t find a picture of this scene on the web so I am putting this picture in because well… it makes me happy.

Ewoks not included.

The grey behemoth shakes it off and splinters the entire city knocking Superman below piles of rubble. Again he takes off for Metropolis.

Now were in the city and Doomsday is killing Metropolis citizens right and left. He is slaughtering people as a battered and bruised Superman tries to get control of him in the air but gets a bony elbow shoved into his side for his trouble. 

At this time Supergirl (Matrix) tries to help out but has her shape shifting face splattered into goo!

Metropolis PD is using all of their high tech weapons on Doomsday and even the Cadmus security fire everything they have at Doomsday, all to no effect. 

Superman comes back with a punch that would kill anyone else but only manages to chip Doomsday’s rocky face.

Punching his way back to the surface Kal fires heat vision and then manages to break one of Doomsday’s kneecaps. 

The aliens trade punches that shatter an entire blocks windows. The two are dying as they put everything they have down to one last punch and when the blows connect they fall to the ground!

Are these all of the good Superman fights? Hell no there are tons that I wanted to choose but they just weren’t visceral enough.

Superman battles Batman (again) as well as Wonder Woman, the Green Lantern Corps, Brainiac and Luthor.

Superman fights Luthor, Solaris and Bizarro!

This is my most glaring omission and as much as I wanted to add it because all of Superman’s villains get there power levels ratcheted up, there just wasn’t that one knock down drag out. Still one of the best Superman stories ever written! 

In closing I really wanted to do this because I have been a fan of Superman for many years and so many times you hear comic fans and non comic fans alike treating Superman as if he is a cornball boring do-gooder. Now you know who Superman is.

In a time when heroes are getting darker and more ruthless, Joe Kelly wrote this store to show everyone why everything Superman stands for is nothing to joke about or be ashamed of.

(Menagerie is essentially a cross between Witchblade and the Darkness in terms of powers.) 

Superman VS. The Kryptonian Super-Criminals ( Action Comics 846,851 and Action Comics annual 11, 2007-08)

That’s just because Adam Kubert couldn’t maintain his deadlines and the story had whole arcs in the middle of it. 

After a short conversation of Zod introducing himself, he punts Clark! Non flies in but is uppercut into the atmosphere as Zod goes into the test of strength with Kal son of Jor El. Suddenly countless space pods fall from the skies releasing even more Kryptonian criminals. Zod sends Kal into the Phantom Zone. 

After a time Superman finds his way back to the real world. Superman is shocked to find Metropolis has been left like an abandoned city with a faux crystal fortress of solitude created right in the middle. In this fortress the criminals have gathered Lois, Supergirl, Batman and various other heroes. 

Out-manned and outgunned, Superman finds Lex and request his help to defeat the criminals as Luthor is the expert on trying to kill Kryptonians. Luthor corrects Superman in that the hero will be helping him, not the other way around. Luthor has formed the Superman Revenge squad with Bizarro, Metallo and Parasite. He also has created red sun rifles to weaken Kryptonians and Green K rifles to kill them.

In one of the greatest Lex moments he is attacked by a Kryptonian and uses a Kryptonite dust grenade to choke him up, he then fires a rifle to set the criminal on fire and then uses a single Kryptonite bullet to kill him. He then says, “So this is what it feels like to kill a Kryptonian. Feels Good.” 

Superman releases the rest of the heroes captured and together they work together to stop the criminals. 

Of course it ends up with Superman versus Zod above the streets of Metropolis where Kal proves that one on one Zod ain’t shit compared to him. 

Remember this one?

Superman awakens from his amnesia and finds Darkseid’s eye blasts tracking him. 

The Deus Ex Machina, getting writers out of shit for thousands of years!

As expected it goes like this.

and this!

And ends up like this.

Help Peter David

Batman can see a tear in Superman’s eye as he has a distinct feeling that he is fighting it. Getting the large gloves that Mongul had been wearing, Robin brings them to Bruce. Batman starts to see the vines untangle and forgoes the gloves to rip the plant off of Clark. At the sime time in his own mind, Kal is trying to reach his son to hold him one more time even as he is starting to realize he is not real. Pulling the vine off of Superman, Batman is attacked and wrapped up into it. Bruce is now back to his childhood and when Joe Chill fires his gun the bullet misses the Wayne’s as his father Thomas fights off the criminal.

Superman comes to and asks Robin who is behind this. After Jason tells him it’s a big yellow guy Kal realizes who and shouts out the villians name as he flies in a blur.

Superman unleashes heat vision straight into Mongul. Mogul double axe handle punches Superman as he screams the Superman actually hurt him. The two charge against each other and as Mongul lifts the Kryptonian, Superman fires another heat blast that sears into Mongul’s arm. Mongul punches Superman through another wall and jumping through he stomps on top of the heroes and smashes him down through the floor of that room. As they fall Kal twists the alien in midair and slams him onto the ground as he begins to pound the yellow alien in the face with everything he has. Something catches Clarks eyes however and he stops for a split second as he sees a statue of his mother and father and is taken back to what he had and what he lost.

Mongul uses this moment of hesitation to punch Superman off of him as he notes that Superman would have killed him with one more of his punches, but now he is going to finish the man of steel of instead. 

Help Peter David

I read the Kieron Gillen run during the end of the uncanny comic and the beginning of the first reboot. Before that I read the Mike Carey run and then before that the Joss Whedon and Grant Morrison runs and on back to Chris Claremont. So give or take the odd year here or there I have continually followed an X-comic one way or another since 1991. The best to me are still the Claremont issues and the worst by far are the Chuck Austen ones, but I always look for something with an X on it to to buy. (Insert porno mag joke here.)

In celebration of Justice League America 200 a group of creators, rivaling that of the members of the team they were writing joined together to give the team the Anniversary issue to end all issues. Combining and contrasting the original team and the new Satellite era teams this comic boasted a star studded cast, and I am not just talking about the spandex clan in the four color pages.

(W) Gerry Conway, (Overall Art direction) George Perez, (Art in the chapters) Pat Broderick, Jim Aparo, Dick Giordano, Gil Kane, Carmine Infantino, Brian Bolland and Joe Kubert!

Shit even Batman is smiling, this must be those good old days all the people refer to.

Roll Call (Satellite Team)

Fast forward to today (today being 1982 that is) and Firestorm is bored as he is on the Satellite Headquarters and watching the monitor. Suddenly a green streak shoots up from the earth and crashes into the headquarters.  J’onn angrily asks where the JLA are and who the hell is Firestorm?! Firestorm uses his powers to atomically restructure the hole that J’onn had just created in the wall. Ronnie (Firestorm) asks J’onn who he is and what he’s doing at the satellite. J’onn mentions that his JLA signal went off and it led him to the satellite. Firestorm wonders why J’onn has a JLA signal device since only members should have them. Both heroes continue to be dumbfounded by the situation and each other. The Manhunter turns invisible and flies off through the satellite claiming he needs to find the meteors before the Earth turns again upon its axis. Ronnie notices that the Manhunter is scared of the flames coming from his head and uses that information to heat up the area around the green hero. J’onn grabs a trophy case one of those huge ass trophy cases that the heroes always seem to have laying around smashes it into Firestorm! The Martian picks up another trophy case and Ronnie catches it on fire and then tries to reason with him. J’onn uses his Martian vision to blast a hole in a water pipe above Firestorm and douses the flame. He then grabs a chunk of the floor beneath his feet and throws it into Firestorm slamming him against the wall and knocking the fire headed hero out. Ronnie eventually wakes up and sends out a triple priority signal to every Leaguer on earth. 

Seven heroes answer the call and appear on the satellite to survey the damage, Red Tornado, Black Canary, Hawkman, Elongated man, Zatanna, Atom and Green Arrow. Red Tornado deduces from Ronnie’s story that the damage was done by J’onn J’onzz. Firestorm had never met the Martian before this. Everyone wonders why none of the original members answered the call. Oliver (Green Arrow) explains that he thinks he knows what’s going on as he knows the story of the seven meteors that fell from the sky and helped form the original JLA. The heroes check a map, and it shows them where the other six meteors are hidden. Green Arrow is one smart motherfucker as he figures that all seven of the original members are now searching for the meteors and have their minds controlled by something. It’s now up to the new JLA to seek out the meteors and stop the original seven from completing their task. (Can anyone say flimsy plot excuse to get the heroes fighting each other?) Another intruder alarm goes off in the satellite and out from the transporter tube steps Snapper Carr (regular Joe and one time mascot to the original big seven. He’s the DC Rick Jones.) Much to his chagrin Firestorm is left with Snapper to watch the monitors as the rest of the team goes to stop the original JLA.

In the Indian Ocean Aquaman is searching desperately for one of the meteors. It is noted that he, as well as the original seven members have all had their minds reverted back to the time of the formation of the team. Thus, none of them remember or recognize any of the members on the new team. The volcano is erupting nearby and Aquaman steps ashore to search but is knocked aside by a powerful gust of wind. Red Tornado tries to reason with Aquaman but Aquaman simply leaps and knocks the android into the water. On land Aquaman finds the meteor and has a strong will to take it to the original JLA headquarters outside of Metropolis, though he does not know why. As Red flies out of the ocean to take Aquaman down the Phantom stranger that has been watching the fight cast a lightning bolt to take Tornado out of the fight. The Stranger states that the greater good is at stake. And as much as he hated to do it he had to side with one Leaguer over another. The Stranger then transports Red back to the satellite, which confuses the hell out of Firestorm and Snapper.

Zatanna, using her backwards magic floats to Paradise Island, home of the Amazons. As she sets down, she finds that Diana (Wonder Woman) has beat her to the island and is in the Temple of Athena grabbing the next meteor. As Diana is just about to grab the green glowing rock Zatanna cast the spell sending it into the earth. Wonder woman much like the other Leaguers doesn’t know who Zatanna is and throws a stone slab at her, to which the magician cast a spell to crush the rock with an eruption of earth. As Zatanna recovers Diana has already gone into the earth and grabbed a meteor. Wonder Woman is just about to enter her invisible plane with meteor in hand when Zatanna cast a spell for the ocean to stop her. Diana simply Spins her Lasso and redirects the waterspout to knock Zatanna out.

Ray Palmer travels through a phone line and comes out in Zimbabwe at a military command center. Speaking with the general in charge Ray secures a jet to seek out Green Lantern. Before they see Hal, he creates a green fist that clinches the jet and tosses it aside. Unbeknownst to Jordan, Palmer leapt from the plane and comes down with a sucker punch to knock Green Lantern down.  The Atom tries to explain the situation to Jordan, but Hal simply uses the time to recover and traps Palmer in a green force field. Lantern flies away with the meteor and though Ray shrinks small enough to get out of the force field he is too late to stop Hal. Back in the satellite the beaten members of the league meet and discuss their options. Red tornado explains that the fact that the original members don’t know who they are gives them an advantage that they may not be able to overcome.

In the countryside of northern Italy, the Flash speeds towards the next meteor. Barry Allen stops to ask a man for directions. The man responds that he doesn’t speak English and the flash is off again. Ralph Dibney (Elongated Man) reveals himself as being the stranger and as Barry runs off he wraps him up in his elastic arms. The surprise trips Allen and he lands face first onto a rock. Ralph checks Flash’s pulse and find’s out that his friend is okay. Barry vibrates causing a small earthquake and Ralph falls into a crevice that opened up in the ground. The Flash is off again and Ralph pissed, stretches out of the hole and attempts to wrap Barry up again. Instead, Alan vibrates and the elongated Man goes right through him. The Flash knocks Ralph from behind revealing he used an after image to trick him into grabbing someone who wasn’t there. Allen spins into the ground and grabs the meteor.

If God were to hire an artist to draw him, he would hire Brian Bolland.

Oliver and Dinah are slogging through the swamp land of the Carolina coast. (Brian Bolland does the art on this section and this would be the first time he’s drawn Batman. His more famous Batman story? The Killing Joke with Alan Moore.) Leaping down from a tree-top Batman tackles green arrow. Oliver manages to fire a rubber tipped arrow, but misses. The arrow bounces off a tree and nails Canary in the head. Batman leaves. Oliver handcuffed and leaps off. Dinah uses an acetylene arrow to burn the handcuffs off as Green arrow complains that these are the reasons that he quit the league in the first place.

Carter Hall (Hawkman) gathers an arsenal of weapons for his battle with Superman. Hawkman approaches Greenland, where the final meteor is buried and sees the familiar red and blue blur of the man of steel. Carter throws a net around Superman and nails him with the Trident to which Superman explodes revealing himself to be a robot. Hawkman then realizes that Superman must have sent one of his robot decoys because the meteor is made of kryptonite and he himself would not be able to touch it. Another Superman decoy charges Carter from the sky to which he fires a crossbow and blows this robot up as well. Hall sees another blue and red blur arcing down towards him but has a feeling there’s something different about this one. Hawkman swings his mace and it breaks on the Man of steel’s body. This time it’s the real Superman and he lays one powerful punch that knocks Hawkman into space. Superman using a lead container scoops up the meteor and flies away to join the rest of his team.

With the heroes down the aliens decide to resume the battle with each other for ultimate supremacy of their planet.

If the Aliens wore underwear, they would need to change them right about now.

Using teamwork this time they plan on putting a hurt on the invaders. The Wood–King wraps up Hawkman as he swoops in for an attack. Superman comes down and splinters the Alien to a million pieces but the pieces are tainted with Kryptonite and he has to be rescued by Wonder Woman. 

Hawkman is still being strangled but Oliver shoots an explosive arrow and blows apart the remnants of the Wood-King. Zatanna traps the Mercury Monster in a bubble of energy and continues to heat the molecules with her backwards magic until the monster is merely vapor. Black Canary dodges the crystal creatures flying shards of diamond while Batman gets in position and throws a Batarang that Shatters it to pieces. The Flash tries to take the glass fish alien out quickly but is blasted with a light blast reflected by it. Aquaman leaps from behind and pulls the glass creature down into the ocean. Further and further the creature is pulled until it is shattered from the pressure in the depths of the sea. Elongated Man twists and winds his body trying to avoid the fire breath of the flame monster. 

Red flies above the towering inferno and whips up a tornado so strong that the aerial vortex pulls all the oxygen out from around the monster and snuffs it from existence.

The heroes all praise each other for their teamwork and as Green Arrow is about to leave the JLA again he is talked into staying and accepts that he does not have to be loner; he has a family with the League.

The whole thing reads like the ultimate Super friends episode. I did enjoy the comic despite the silly concept; the art is like a who’s who of DC from the 70’s and early 80’s. If you’re an old school fan you should pick this up if you don’t already own it that is. A very fun book with amazing art!

• Accompanying words, (seems like an obvious but sometimes the writer raises the bar for the fight)
• Opponent (How much do you want to see the fight.)
• Personal opinion (I can’t stop this.)
• Epicness (What the French call jea ne se qua)   

Sabretooth’s second death

Wolverine is the leader of the X-Men at this point and is constantly in battle with himself over wanting to go out and kick everyone’s ass and be a good leader and a civilized man. The Grey Hulk which is Bruce Banners slightly less strong but more cunning alter ego just knows he is going to get a good fight from the runt, but Logan apologizes for slicing him in a kneejerk reaction to Hulk surprising him. The Hulk calls him gutless and tries again and again to antagonize Logan into a fight, but the X-Man does not give in to his rage. Hulk thunderclaps with his hands and continues to punch and shout at Wolverine until finally the mutant loses it and leaps into the Hulk slicing into his chest and with the Grey behemoth down, Logan howls in berserker rage and knows he has lost the battle within himself. Logan walks away until the Hulk calls him back, he’s not down yet! Hulk and Wolverine attempt to kill one another (Peter David writes the battle so well you would think he could read Logans mind.) The fight is interrupted and Wolverine gets control of himself and realizes he has a long way to go to be a better man.

In the AOA reality without Xavier to stop him, Apocalypse has triumphed in turning the world into a nightmare where only the strong mutants survive and the only ones who stand against him are the X-Men led by Magneto. Apocalypse has “culled” more than 80% of the world’s human population and carved up the United States for himself and his four horsemen.

In this reality even being a mutant isn’t safe because Apocalypse doesn’t want any pussies in his universe.

Strict no pussy policy.

Downside:  Apocalypse puts the A in asshole!

Fucking mall kids!

Also if you live in Kansas you are probably dead now thanks to this asshat.

But don’t worry because Superman is due back any day now!

Previous installments here http://lostscribe0.blogspot.com/