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Pojo's HeroClix "Click of the Day"
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WMNOE |
Superman-Unique
OK, so TECHNICALLY this Unique figure isn't married. Not yet. See this
figure represents the Black Costumed Superman who was just resurrected when
he appeared to end the Reign of the Supermen, WAAAY back in 1993. He was
engaged to Lois Lane when he died, so I guess that makes it OK in my book,
besides we've already done the OWAW Superman, and he was definitely married
by then. I guess we could have done the Superman Vet, but I wanted to check
this one out instead.
So the storyline goes something like this. A very, very ugly big monster
breaks free from his underground prison and crawls to the earth (this took a
month in Comic Book time, it was the last page of each of the four Superman
titles being published at the time.) Once he emerged (somewhere in the
Midwest I believe), he make a path straight for Metropolis destroying
everything in his way. Sooner than later the JLA (back then, a pretty wimpy
team of second-stringers and never-weres led by Bloodwynd…er I mean Martian
Manhunter) was called in, and this creature, whom Booster Gold dubbed
Doomsday, makes mince-meat out of the heroes. Superman saves the day for the
JLA, and the two fight all the way to the Daily Planet building, where they
pretty much kill each other. I say pretty-much, but in actuality, that's
exactly what happened. They both died. No heart-beat, end of story. Right?
It's comic books, wrong. There's a funeral and a body, and a tribute, and
Lex Luthor is pissed, yada yada yada. Clark's soul is flying around, and
meets his father's soul (and when I say father I mean Jonathan Kent) flying
around in the either. Jonathan's soul convinces Clark's soul to come back
and fight the good fight, and so he travels back down to Earth. Or something
like that. Seriously, it was in Adventures of Superman #500, and if you can
figure out what the heck happened, you're a better man that I. Anyway,
meantime, four different Supermen have appeared to take old Big Blue's
place. One was a teenager claiming to be Supe's clones. One was The Last Son
of Krypton, a strangely familiar figure, who resembled Supes in many ways,
though he wore sunglasses and didn't have all of Supe's powers. A Third was
the Cyborg Superman, who claimed to be the real Superman, only completely
transformed. Finally, an African-American construction worker who built a
costume out of steel, and claimed to have inherited Superman's spirit. The
big mystery was, which one of the four was the real Superman? The government
acknowledges that it's the Cyborg, since he actually has Kryptonian DNA in
his fleshy parts. Most other denizens of the DCU split on who they thought
was the real Supes. Turns out, it was none of them.
The Last Son of Krypton turned out to be the Eradicator, a Kryptonian
artifact created by Jor El and attached to Kal El in kind of a symbiotic
fashion. When Kal-El's physical body died at the hands of Doomsday, the
Eradicator planned on taking over his body, but was thwarted when Clark's
soul re-entered his body. The Eradicator quickly constructed a body for
himself, albeit it a less powerful one.
The Teenage Superman did indeed turn out to be a clone, but it wasn't
Superman's DNA that he was cloned from. Not that I remember who it was, but
it wasn't Kal-El. The kid eventually adopted the moniker Superboy and is
still a fixture in the DCU, and I guess the major lasting consequence of
this story. No actually, I take that back, I guess Kyle Raynor would be the
major lasting consequence of this story. But more on that later.
The Black guy in a steel costume turned out to be a black buy in a steel
costume. Later he called himself Steel, and they made his exploits into a
really bad movie starring Shaquille O'Neal.
The Cyborg Superman was actually the villain of the Reign of Supermen, he
turned out to be Hank Henshaw, a former astronaut who was transformed by
cosmic rays (sound familiar? It should), and turned into kind of a living
transformer. Together with the alien dictator Mongul, Henshaw planned to
exact revenge on humankind by turning Earth into a new War World for Mongul.
Why Hank was so upset I forget, Mongul was just being Mongul.
Clark is resurrected just in time, and while he's fighting the Cyborg and
Mongul, he wears the black costume depicted in today's Heroclix review.
Sure, that was a little long winded, but it was fun to write.
In any case, this "weakened" Superman still costs 125 points, and while he's
still a flyer, he doesn't have a ranged attack. His starting stats are 10
Speed, 10 Attack, 16 Defense and 3 Damage. Powers include Charge, Force
Blast, Super-Strength, Impervious and Toughness. He's also a Superman Ally.
Basically, if you want a cheaper Superman, this is your guy. He's still a
heavy hitter, but not a killer.
The sculpt of this fig is nice, if not inspired. He's got the long hair that
the character sported in appearance of the time, which is a nice touch, but
how hard can it be to screw up an all black costume? The Unique Supes and
Bats from Hypertime seem to be the only ones in demand these days, you can
spend as much as $25 to acquire one.
My Ratings
Playability 4 of 5
Collectability 4 of 5
Finally, here's that note about Kyle Raynor. Green Lantern #46 was the only
"cross-over" from the Reign of the Superman storyline, which was a nice
departure from the standard of a huge storyline crossing over into all the
comics of the company. In that issue, Hal Jordan's home town, Coast City is
obliterated by Mongul and the Cyborg in order to turn it into a huge engine.
When I say obliterated, I really mean it, over 7 million people were killed.
This led directly to Hal Jordan going nuts in GL #48-50, and a new GL being
chosen by the last of the Guardians, so, in my eyes, even though Kyle Raynor
and Superboy first appeared around the same time, Kyle is more important.
But Superboy is now in the Teen Titans, so that's cool.
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Spyders
Webbing |
One word of advice: DON'T, whatever you do, push this Supes.
It will be your downfall. After the second click of life, Supes loses Super
Strength and Charge, and gains Force Blast instead. Because of this,
Superman is at this time almost useless for his points, unless you wanna
attack at range or something. Even the rookie is better, since that one has
more Charge and Super Strength.
200:1/5
300:2/5
400+:4/5 (this is where you stick in Wonder Woman instead) |
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