Superman Volume 4: Psi-War

Superman has saved the world so many times that it’s practically de rigueur for the Red and Blue Son of Krypton to come to our defense when, say, Brainiac comes flying down with his tentacled horrors to try and shrink Metropolis the same way he did Kandor — which, apparently, Superman keeps under a bell jar in the Fortress of Solitude. (Which, by the way, the U.S. government wants to send inspectors into, just to make sure Supes isn’t secretly stockpiling weapons. Superman pleads the Fifth, but maybe he is stockpiling something. Although, beyond Martha Kent’s Dutch apple pie, I can’t imagine what.)

At the outset of this particular dark story arc, Superman saves Earth and Metropolis (though not necessarily in that order) from the Brainster and sends him, along with his creepy green “Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated” keister, packing. Lois Lane falls into a coma (she was dating someone else anyway), and a god-like being calling himself Orion descends from some alternate outer-space dimensional wormhole to KO the Man of Steel on behalf of the “Wall of Prophecy.” Orion sort of resembles Judge Dredd and also has a hovering motorbike, just like the Judge.

Wonder Woman steps in to help Orion see that Superman is not out to destroy the universe. Together they try to free Superman from the influence of the most memorable—if comically grotesque—supervillain to appear in this saga: Hector Hammond, an old enemy of Green Lantern. He’s a huge, floating, psionically God-like head with a tiny, comical little body.

Floating, balloon-like heads also appear prominently in Shiver by Junji Ito, which I’m currently reading, so the synchronicity of these things—and the fact that I literally dreamed the title of this particular trade paperback collection (comprising Action Comics 22, 23, and 24, Superman 23 and 24, and Superman Annual #2, among other detours around the time of The New 52) before discovering it—seemed to merit some attention. What, having led me full circle back to one of my favorite comic book crusaders via the REM stage of sleep, was the Cosmic Consciousness attempting to convey to me, oh my brothers? (I downloaded some old issues of Psi-Force as well, just in case God also reads Marvel.)

Getting back to it: Clark is a blogger in this new, hip, millennial phase of the Supersaga, and a ditzy blonde woman named Cat starts a website for him (them) called Clarkcatopolis.com (I think). Then Hector the Head goes floating around menacingly, and the Queen of the H.I.V.E. (I can’t remember off-the-cuff what that acronym stands for) attempts to use Hector to ensnare Metropolis—and then the world—in her Borg Collective. Thus the forces of Order are seemingly bested by the forces of Chaos. Chaos here being represented by the “Psycho Pirate,” a guy in a snake-adorned mask (the serpents sort of glow) who is attempting, counter to the H.I.V.E., to “free” Metropolitans by turning them into maniacs hellbent on riot and destruction. Ordo ab Chao, in symbolic terms.

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Superman, the defeated Ten of Swords here (in Tarot parlance), is countered by the vast psychic violence of Psycho Pirate—the Devil—who brings The Tower (turbulence, trouble, but also transition) in his wake. Lois, the literal, blue-skinned High Priestess, acts as the trickster, foil, and agent of change. Clark, in his defeated state, is fed hallucinations and is portrayed both as Clark and as Superman (the nexus of his sense of illusion and defeat), begging anew: God-like “Zero,” the image of the Fool. Hector the Head is the Magician (El Numero Uno in the Tarot Trumps), that unbenevolent trickster spirit encapsulating both truth and falsehood, the deception of illusion and also All Possibility—his vast intellect and psychic powers forging a new path as a dynamo of destructive capability.

Superman: Psi-War is written by Scott Lobdell and Mike Johnson, with art by Kenneth Rocafort and Eddie Barrows. It’s superbly entertaining and easy on the eyes—unlike some comics, which present a visual challenge to the visually challenged. I can’t recommend it more highly, but if I did, you might accuse me of being a victim of mind control. I’m just a simple, adequate wordsmith, albeit one of vast, searching intellectual thirst. You’re allowed to shower me with praise, of course, but it makes me uncomfortable. Don’t overdo it.

I mean, I don’t want to get a big head or anything.

One final, curious note: There’s a line in Bernard Pomerance’s play The Elephant Man, wherein John Merrick tells Treves, “Sometimes I think my head is so big, because it’s so full of dreams.” Considering it was a dream that introduced me to this particular book—which features a floating weirdo with a gigantic mutant noggin—the two seem sort of, I dunno, connected somehow. I don’t know what planted that thought in my mind, but I don’t believe it was Hector Hammond.