Mild Mannered Reviews - Regular Superman Comics

Man of Steel #98

Superman: The Man of Steel #98

Scheduled to arrive in stores: January 19, 2000

Cover date: March 2000

2000 Shield No. 12

Writer: Mark Schultz
Penciller: Doug Mahnke
Inker: Tom Nguyen

"Thirty Minutes to Oblivion..." (Y2K: Part 4 of 5)

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



It's the underground, 9am, New Year's Day. The passengers are at first relieved when their train begins to slow down after being trapped for hours. However, when the door opens they wish it hadn't. They have been delivered to Brainiac 13's indoctrination station. Among the prisoners is Ma and Pa Kent.

Suddenly, Superman bursts in and removes the weapons from the guards. It doesn't take long for Brainiac 13 to arrive and have Superman trapped in his cables. The Eradicator comes to the rescue and for some reason this takes Brainiac by surprise. Brainiac flees.

Clark and the Kents are reunited, albeit as Superman. Pa Kent tells Superman that he will help get the people out and to hospital. Superman then turns his attention to The Eradicator. Why has he returned to Earth? The B13 virus is heading for the remains of The Fortress of Solitude. The Eradicator predicts that it will be bad if the original Eradicator programme and the B13 joining. They have thirty minutes. Outside, there are loud booming sounds, then Metallo bursts in through the wall, closely followed by The Metal Men.

Elsewhere, John Henry is busy fighting his old suits of armour which have been contaminated with the B13 virus. Nat runs off, shortly before John is surrounded by attacking armour. Suddenly, Nat shouts for her Uncle to duck, and blows up the armour with a canon and some old nuts and bolts.

Back at the Indoctrination Station (and I assume Metallo is beaten) The Metal Men and The Eradicator prepare to head off for The Fortress. Superman is around, but where? Platinum is formed as a rocket, whilst the others form a cross bow to fire her. She is leased and The Eradicator follows close behind her. Once they are at a safe distance, Platinum opens up and Superman comes out from inside her. Superman and The Eradicator race to Antarctica.

In Lex Tower, Lex, his bodyguards and Brainiac 2 (inside Lena) head for the only weapon that can destroy Brainiac 13.

As the two heroes get closer to The Fortress, it senses their presence, and builds itself into a large warrior with an axe like weapon. The two heroes attack the Eradicator programme-created warrior, but it can detect and anticipate The Eradicator's moves. The pair hit him together with there heat-vision, but nothing happens. Then the B13 spiders arrive and they begin to join together. The Eradicator realises that he must make a huge sacrifice. He flies into the warrior and rejoins the programme, though David Connor's soul remains in control. He asks Superman to pass on his love to his children and then takes the warrior away and up into space.

All around Superman, the B13 spiders begin to breakdown. Can it be that the B13 virus cannot deal with Kryptonian technology?

Back at Lex Tower, Lex has got to the weapon he needs to defeat Brainiac 13 and take back his city... a Kryptonian Battle Suit.

3Story - 3: I hope my explanation was clear when it came to the two Eradicators. Now maybe I'm thick, or maybe I didn't read it properly, but I don't really get what's going on, not so much in this issue but in the others. Why are there two Brainiacs? Why is one in Lena? In Doomsday Wars it said that Brainiac would be trapped in his robot body forever. In this issue, what happened to Metallo? Whilst we're on bad stuff, I wish we'd seen more of Steel. Is it really the end of The Eradicator? There was nothing spectacular about this issue, it's just a lead into part 5.

4Art - 4: This was good, however. The art in all the Superman books has been a pleasant surprise. I was a bit worried when I heard they were bringing on all these "cool" guys. The guard at the Indoctrination Station (page1) looks really scary. The computerised Brainiac is growing on me too. I hated that at first.

4Cover Art - 4: Another strong part of the issue, shame it doesn't happen. In last weeks issue it said about "A Death in the Superman Family", I was expecting Steel to die. I'm glad he didn't.



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