Matrix Monday: Adventures Of Superman #444

Last week I began the idea of Matrix Mondays,  a spotlight on some of the pieces of the Matrix Supergirl's history which I haven't covered during the 10 plus years of this site.

First stop is The Supergirl Saga, the storyline which brought back a Supergirl to the DCU. Last week I covered chapter one in Superman #21. Today we'll dive right into the second chapter in Adventures of Superman #444, by writer John Byrne and art team of Jerry Ordway and Dennis Janke.

This was an interesting time in the DC Universe. The Crisis was only a couple of years in the past. The idea of something being pre-Crisis or post-Crisis was still fresh in readers' minds. And the long-reaching continuity ramifications were still being discovered. It also meant that if creators wanted to take one last look back, they could do so. Readers still remembered infinite Earths.

Ahhh ... but we should have been able to remember. There was only one universe throughout time after the Crisis. As a result, if you wanted to cobble together some sort of coherent patch in Legion continuity, you would come up with the concept of a 'pocket universe', a slice of time/space that wasn't a whole universe.

Please pass the ibuprofen.

Still, something had to be done to fix the Legion. So here we are.

This issue does what a middle chapter is supposed to do, filling in the details of a story while setting up a satisfactory ending. This issue is basically a flashback of the Pocket Universe Earth and what happened after the death of Superboy in the Baxter Legion book. It does give artist Jerry Ordway the opportunity to revisit Silver Age looking elements of the DCU. Nothing like old school Quex-Ul to make a long time Superman fan happy!

And we get just a smidge more of this Supergirl.

But this is an info dump in preparation of the finale's conflagration.

One last note. I love that the cover of this issue is basically the first panel of the story. Here is Superman kneeling at the graves of the Kents who on this world have passed.

On to the book.

 And page one is him kneeling at those very same graves.

Here in the intact Smallville, the last viable area on this Earth, Superman asks what could cause such devastation.

There is plenty of blame to go around. To Lex's blond friend Pete, the Legion are to blame. But Superman knows that isn't true. They were just pawns in this game.

 And so we get a lesson in Pocket Universes.

The Time Trapper looked back in time to the origin of the Legion and saw their inspiration, Superboy, a being that never existed.

Somehow in the distant past, the Time Trapper carved out a small section of the cosmos that included and entire universe. And then, in this sliver of a reality, this pocket universe, he removed all planets ... all life ... except Krypton and Earth, recreating their histories and letting things unfold as he desired, setting up the creation of his version of Superboy.

This Earth and this Krypton were similar to the 'real' versions. But there were differences. This was the headband wearing, jewel mountain, super-science Krypton of the pre-Crisis. This was an Earth with no other heroes but Superboy.

And it was this Earth that the Legion thought was historical. It was this Earth they would go to when they went into the past. Thus Superboy existed and could inspire.

 No heroes. No villains either.

As for the Trapper became an absentee landlord.We know he became an absentee landlord because Superboy had died.

But these people, this pre-Crisis-y Earth went on without knowing Superboy had died. The Kents passed on. Pete Ross revealed Clark's secret identity. And Lex, never a jealous bald rival of Superboy, became an upstanding citizen and leader and came to Smallville to give Superboy a cure for Kryptonite (a nice nod to his Silver Age origins).

Thinking Superboy was only in the future, hanging out with the Legion, Lex, Pete, and Lana decided to explore the Kent's farm to see if there was any communication device.

 In the Kent basement, Lex stumbled into Superboy's lab. Thinking he found a time viewer to communicate with the future, Lex inadvertantly tunes into the Phantom Zone.

And General Zod, the devious guy that he is, played Lex.

Calling himself Von-El, Zod says he fled to the 'Survival Zone' to escape the destruction of Krypton. With Lex's help, he and his 'family' could enter the plane of reality and be helpful like Superboy.

So Lex, with a little help, builds a Phantom Zone projector.

Of course, we know these are villains. There was a pit in my stomach knowing what was to come.

And Byrne using the words Survival Zone, the slice of unreality that Zor-El and Alura escaped into in the Silver Age, is another nice callback.

 Of course, Zod, Zaora, and Quex-Ul were villains. As soon as they were let out, they smashed the projector and all of  Superboy's machines. There'll be no putting these genies back into the bottle.

How funny to see this Lex be so naive. He didn't even dream a place like Krypton would have a criminal element.

 What happens next should be expected when you release three Kryptonian sadists onto an unsuspecting world.

Outright devastation.

 And the creation of a rebellion, led by Lex, Lana, and Pete Ross but with some familiar volunteers - Oliver Queen, Hal Jordan, and Bruce Wayne.

Not bad.

 Somehow, the rebels, including the now augmented Lana as Supergirl were able to stymie the Phantom Zone villains to the point of utter frustration.

Realizing the best move was to end it, the three villains burrowed to the Earth's core, releasing the contents onto the surface. Only Smallville under the force dome survived.

In the midst of all the war, Lex's devices were able to pierce the dimensions such that they saw the Superman who fought Superboy all those years ago.

Thinking Superman was their only hope, Lex sent Supergirl through the portal. She would be addled a bit, probably amnestic. She'd be stuck in ice for 200 years. But when awake, she would be compelled to go to Smallville and find Superman. It was the best Lex could do.

This whole thing is crazy in a way. This is a pocket universe with one planet ... Earth. There is no other place for these Phantom Zone villains to go to. So they would rather rule over a heap of rubble, the three of them, instead of somehow working a little together. How about just being a benevolent despot?

And so we come full circle.

That is how Supergirl made it to the real Earth.

And so we get a rather angry Superman vows to make these genocidal maniacs pay 'in full'.

Will he be able to? And what of Supergirl/Lana?

I guess we'll have to wait for the next Matrix Monday to find out.

All that said, this was a very expositional issue, laying the groundwork for this saga. It is a lot to take in. That said I like it for its brevity. In the current market, this would probably be a twelve issue story, not three. Still, trying to make sense of pocket universes, false pasts, two planet universes, etc is quite a chore.

Ordway's art is gorgeous. No surprise there. I especially love the middle pages showing the quasi-pre-Crisis Krypton, the pocket universe sort of pre-Crisis-y Earth, and all the goodies from before: Pete Ross, redhead Lex, etc. And we continue the 'letterbox' format of the first chapter as well.

But it all comes to a fiery conclusion next chapter.

Overall grade: B

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