Mild Mannered Reviews - Specials

Team Superman #1

July 1999

Writer: Mark Millar
Penciller: Georges Jeanty
Inker: Doug Hazlewood

"The Died With Their Capes On"

Reviewed by: Gareth Baker (GHLBJEDI@aol.com)



In deep space, a superhero goes to the aid of a stricken spaceship, only to fall into the clutches of the vile killer known as "The Aniti-Hero".

On Earth, at Metropolis airport to be exact, a group of terrorists have taken over an aircraft, the idea being to take the Madame Secretary and then parachute out. Suddenly Superman appears outside. One of the terrorists puts a gun to the woman's head and threatens Superman. Out hero responds by ripping open the aircraft's door. The terrorists are all sucked out (the passengers are OK because they were strapped in). As the terrorists fall, their leader presses a button, detonating an explosive device on board the aircraft. The ship is ripped in two and begins to plunge down to wards the ground.

Later Superman holds a conference where he publicly declares his sorrow at the unfortunate events, and that he will be leaving Earth, now and forever. Supergirl and Superboy offer to become the new guardians of Metropolis, but Steel has yet to come forward. At the JLA Watchtower, Steel sits alone.

Superman walks through a spaceship and quotes to himself his script, until he comes face to face with himself, strapped down to a table. The standing Superman morphs into his true form - The Anti-Hero. The villain introduces himself to Superman and explains how he gets his powers, how he likes to capture, torture and kill heroes.

Back on Earth, Lois knows that something isn't right and tells Supergirl. She knows because Superman behaved as if they were just friends. Whoever is impersonating Superman doesn't know their secret. Lois decides she must tell the world the truth, but gives Supergirl 24 hours to track down her husband.

Steel, Supergirl and Superboy meet together in Centennial Park. The whole JLA is out looking for Superman, these three are just "Team Superman". The team head off to the Arctic Circle.

They find nothing, until Superboy flies into a force field. When the rest of the team arrives, Steel sees that it is a cloaked ship that Superboy flew into. The team get inside the ship, and Steels psychic link with J'onn goes down. Then Supergirl headset stops responding after she flies off on her own. Superboy charges to the rescue, only to find out that her batteries had run out.

However, Superboy didn't find the real Supergirl. The Anti-Hero attacks, and Steel rushes to the rescue, throwing his hammer at AH. The villain catches the hammer and throws it back. Steel is knocked to the floor. As AH closes in, Steel blasts him with his rocket boots. A blast of short-circuit vision stops Steel.

The Anti-Hero looks at the new members of his collection of defeated Superheros. After his bragging little speech, the AH leaves.

The team work together, and with a little effort manage to free themselves and then, Superman!

The battle begins. Superboy charges right in and is blinded., Supergirl and Steel are taken out with other powers. As AH charges Superman, he burns him with heat vision, followed by a punch, followed by a joint telekinetic blast from SB and SG. They manage to hurt AH, there is something wrong with his invulnerability. When Steel goes it for the attack, AH hits him so hard, he rips his head off!!

John-Henry Irons is secretly in AH's mainframe computer room. All of the villains powers are controlled from here. The team is still getting beatenb, when John-Henry amanages to strip the AH of all his powers via the computer. Superman rips AH's helmet off to reveal an ugly little alien.

Team Superman take the alien back to STAR LABS (why do I feel this is a bad error), whilst Superman returns home, to his loving wife.

5Story - 5: Hooorrray the perfect full shield. Not often I give these out. Why? Well, to begin with the story was just good solid entertainment. Nothing tooo heavy, but with enough plot to make it interesting. There were so many great bits about the story. Batman knowing it wasn't Supes because of the blinking just to name one. It was great to see the "Superman Family" together again. They worked so nicely during the trial of Superman. Of course there was nothing original about this story, but hey, this is comics, it's always the same old stories!

4Art - 4: As well as the story, the art was extremely strong in this issue, and I real feel it helped to make the story even better. Of course my favourite part was, of course, the final panel, the Lois and Clark kiss.

2Cover - 2: Oh well, it couldn't all be good could it.


Mild Mannered Reviews

1999

Note: Month dates are from the issue covers, not the actual date when the comic was on sale.

June 1999

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