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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (April 14, 1993)
jfes. Arts^Entertainment Revived comic • j /» . p serial features four ‘i'll ** would-be supermen * David Badders/DN By Anna Stayer Stat! Reporter He’s back. Superman, the world’s greatest superhero, returns to the pages of comic books Thursday when DC Comics releasee issue No. 500 of “Adventures of Superman.” Superman, who suffered mortal wounds Nov. 19,1992, in his battle to the death with die creature Doomsday, reappears this week in his adopted hometown of Metropo lis. His appearance, however, comes without the fanfare of a beloved hero returning home. In fact, his sightings are of the fanatical sort usually reserved for Elvis and UFOs. The sightings are not of the traditional true-blue hero, but rather of four separate supermen, each in Metropolis, each claiming to be Superman, each with a relatively plausible claim to the famous red cape and red/gold emblem. Fust is the cyborg from space: Half-alien, half-machine, he chums he’s a superman for the future. Then arrives the coed Kryptonian: A cold super-being who sets up shop in the Fortress of Solitude, claiming to be the last son of Krypton. He takes the law into his own hands without the temperance of justice. Out of the rubble left by Doomsday is die steelworker. John Henry Iron. Iron, buried alive during Superman’s final battle, claims to embody the spirit of Superman. He’s crafted a high tech suit of armor and weapons in order to take on the mantle of the Man of Steel. And finally, the teen-ager: a young, superpowered lad with a leather jacket and an earring — and with no memories of Superman’s private life, but with all his other attributes. Rumor has it that he’s a clone gone awry before the cloning process was completed. Either way, don’t call him Superboy. DC is releasing this new story line under the header, “The Reign of the Supermen.” The story begins in the last panels of “Adventures of Superman” No. 500, which will include the “sightings” of the four different supermen. Two weeks later. DC will issue the four Superman titles — “Super man,” “Adventures of Superman,” “Action Comics” and “Man of Steel” —simultaneously. Each will take on the story of a new superman, chronicling his adventures and his quest for credibility. Superman’s return comes just five months after his much celebrated demise, featured in November’s “Super man” No. 75, the best selling individual comic book of all time with more than 4 million copies sold. w ijjj r seen for 1 the end of a fictional character— Dan Rather even spoke of him on the “CBS Evening News." His much It appears that Danynooeo demise caused Superman’s death was not the immediate speculation about the end, but the beginning. likelihood of its finality. The picture of his dead body The “Death of Superman” on the last page of “Superman” No. issue was followed by the multipart 75 created a media blitz and a “Funeral for a Friend” story line, barrage of publicity never before where the fallen hero’s friends, foes P? a.;:..,; and family mourned his loss and dealt with the aftermath in Metropolis and the world. In the funeral series, Pa Kent, the human father of Superman’s alter ego Clark Kent, suffered a near-fatal heart attack and met Clark somewhere in the continuum . between life and death. The new story line picks up there, when Clark/Superman sends his pa back on the road to recovery. Meanwhile, Clark Kent, understandably missing since before Superman’s fatal battle, is finally declared dead. While longtime love Lois Lane tries to come to terms with this loss, the “sightings’* of Superman occur and throw her mourning into chaos. The new “Reign of the Supermen’’ story line, in addition to chronicling the new supermen, will feature die regular cast of the Superman world, including Lane, the Kents, Jimmy Olsen and Lex Luthor, among others. But the prevailing question will be: If one of the supermen is the real Superman, where is Clark Kent? This week in Lincoln People to see this week in the Big City: • Allen Ginsberg, Beatnik saint, howling madman with songs drip ping from his longue. He’s back on Zero Street this year, two decades and more gone — grey haired, bald and holy. He’ll howl down the moon come 8 p.m. Saturday in Kimball Hall, five small dollars to students, eight to everyone else. Author of this generation’s “Wasteland,’’ “Howl”; crowned King of May in Prague, Czechoslo vakia ini965; wanderer in the shoes of Whitman; Ginsberg is a living saint of the late 20th century. • Also coming this Thursday is Faye Moskowitz, associate profes sor of English at George Washing ton University where she directs the creative writing program; au thor of “A Leak in the Heart,” “Whoever FindsThis: I LoveYou,” and “And the Bridge is Love.” She’ll be reading from her book ‘Talcs from an American Jewish Life” in the Great Plains Room of Love Library at 7:30 p.m. • Bob Camp, creator of the infa mous Ren and Slimpy will make an appearance tonight at 7:00p.m. in the Centennial Room of the Ne braska Union. Free with ID, public bums, $3. . • \ - • And finally, Joan Rossitcr, col umnist and 1991 Mother of the Year, comes as part of the John H. Ames Reading Scries in the Heri tage Room of Bennett Martin Pub lic Library, tomorrow. jux'-j"*.:.r. Thursday, April 15 Elevation, Women of Gold, L is for the Way You Look, Fun Down ThereNancy's Nightmare ■H5 Impress Card, Billy Turner's Afeep Pour Low* Off My Body, Voices From the Front, A Moffie Called Simon, Beauties Without a Cause !_** "' I Exposure. Ecce Homo. Rosebud, Wftni H/AfNPM I Ik* Thnt H+r ww Utmk, vV CMndMnC A ewtMBf m M w * Giveaway, Pedagogue Exposure, Ecce Homo, Rosebud, Want. Women Like That, Her Keep Your Laws Qff My Body. Voices From the Front, A Moffie Called Simon, Beauties Without a A Woman in My Platoon, Lesbian l^sCa^jy^^ Turner's