Next up for the month is one of Superman’s lesser known
villains: Silver Banshee. Superman only has a few female villains and she’s one
of them. Banshee, aka Sibhohan McDougal, was part of an old Gaelic clan. When
she had once delved into the world of dark magic, her soul was dragged to the
Underworld. When she was sent back, she caused a lot of damage and some of that
was in today’s issue. She’s only made a few appearances in the comics since
then, though. She did make it to other DC properties like Justice League
Unlimited and Smallville. The place where she’s probably remembered best is on
Supergirl where she and Livewire took on both Supergirl and the Flash.
She was actually one of John Byrne’s creations, first
appearing in today’s book, Action Comics #595. At this time, Action Comics had
pretty much became “Superman Team-Up” since a hero would guest star in the
book. Today’s hero is my favorite dude, “Name Withheld.” The issue was written
and drawn by John Byrne who was also working on the main Superman book at this
time. Inks were done by Keith Williams.
Action Comics #595
Writer/Pencils: John Byrne
Inks: Keith Williams
Colors: Tom Ziuko
Letters: John Constanza
Editor: Mike Carlin
“The Ghost of Superman”
The story starts of with some weird lady getting cat-called
by construction workers. Instead of telling them off like most women would, she
touches one of them and he falls over dead! She then goes into a book store and
does the same thing to the owner. The Metropolis Police Department hear about
this, so Maggie Sawyer, Dan Turpin, and the rest of the crime unit go out to
face this weird lady. It turns out she’s attacking another book store.
They try to apprehend her but one from the crime unit is
touched and killed. Another gets touched but nothing happens to that guy.
Superman then shows up and strong enough to take her touch… but not her voice.
Superman falls over and is considered dead! Everyone is aghast at the news of
Superman’s demise. Even Lex Luthor is ticked off that he didn’t do him in. At
Justice League headquarters, J’onn J’onzz, the Martian Manhunter realizes
something must be done. At the funeral, all but Clark (of course) and Jimmy
(who’s chasing after Silver Banshee) attend. Suddenly, they see something a bit
aloof: the ghost of Superman rises from his dead corpse and head off to stop
Silver Banshee.
Uh... Hmm... I knew he was powerful, but dang!
Silver Banshee is attacking another book store and this time
Jimmy is on her tail. He almost gets caught but Ghost Superman catches her off
guard. It even gets to the point where her powers don’t affect either of them,
so she disappears. Jimmy is then shocked to see two Supermen. It’s revealed that
the Martian Manhunter was Ghost Superman. Superman and MM explain
to the Daily Planet staff that Superman was only unconcious, so MM used Superman’s
form to confuse Silver Banshee. She couldn’t affect folk she touched nor masked
folk. After this exposition-vomit, we end on a one-page tie-in to the weird event
known as Millennium.
………………
I thought this was a fine read. It’s a simple story of
Superman going up against a threat and needing help to save the day. If this
was an issue of DC Comics Presents (a older Superman team-up book), I wouldn’t
be surprised. The writing was pretty good for the most part. I also thought
that Silver Banshee provided a nice threat to everyone. It was nice to see the
Martian Manhunter make an appearance. I wonder where he is these days during
this phase of DC Rebirth.
An example of cat-calling gone bad.
The artwork is really good. Byrne’s Superman always looked
good and in charge. It was also nice to see him draw other heroes like MM,
Batman, and Black Canary even though she was in that horrible suit. The design
for Silver Banshee was quite striking and really good. It’s a look that you
really can’t forget about. I can see why she was being cat-called even though
that act can be a bit rude. The only negative I can give the writing is the
exposition vomit we get at the end. When re-reading a lot of Byrne’s Superman,
this pops up a lot and it’s not that great. It was also weird that Superman was
just dead. Did anyone check his vitals or was he really that gone?
Overall, this was a nice read. Banshee would come back a few more times in Superman. Eventually, she showed up in the 90’s
Supergirl series. Last I heard, she again showed up in Supergirl’s New 52
series. She’s not one of my favorite villains but her look is pretty striking. Also,
it’s nice to see a female villain take down a Superperson every so often. I
don’t know how I’ll feel about the next villain, though. Until then, Peace, God
Bless and be safe this Labor Day weekend.
NEXT TIME: BLOODSPORT (NOT THE VAN DAMME VARIETY)!
Action comics was a team up book briefly when DC Comics Presents was cancelled after Crisis. This is one of the better issues as the mystery of who the guest star is works really well here. Byrne did like his exposition can't argue, as for not being sure Superman is dead how do you verify that? This was lampshaded during the Death ad Return of Superman story when Superman assumes he wasn't really dead just "in a coma or something"
ReplyDeleteI think my thing about it is that we didn't see much of anything between the "death" and the funeral other than reactions. It was a 22-page comic, so they couldn't show everything.
ReplyDelete