TITLE: Superman vol. 2, issue #83
YEAR: November 1993
COMPANY: DC Comics
WRITER: Dan Jurgens
PENCILLER: Dan Jurgens
FINISHED ART: Joe Rubinstein
LETTERER: John Costanza
COLORIST: Glenn Whitmore
ASST. EDITOR: Frank Pittarese
EDITOR: Mike Carlin
SUPERMAN created by Siegel and Shuster
The Cyborg Superman has been defeated, Coast City has been destroyed and the one and only Superman is back but how would writers close the “Funeral for a Friend” arc?
Well, for one, there was no way they could bring back a storyline featuring Superman and Lois happy together, forever. There was instability in the DC Universe as Green Lantern (Hal Jordan) was losing it and there is a new Batman around (not Bruce Wayne, who’s back was broken by Bane).
Also, for the destruction of Coast City and Cyborg Superman/Mongul creating his own city on the existing area which is starting to break apart, Dan Jurgens came up with the story about finding a way to take down those structures and hopefully paving a new future for Coast City.
So, Superman calls in his fellow Justice League of America heroes to help him to rid of the junk.
While half the heroes want to put the remainders of Cyborg Superman’s city in the sea, Aquaman arrives to tell them about the environmental dangers of doing such a thing.
Knowing Superman is right, the group know they must do something but unfortunately the structures start to break apart and are now falling to the sea, can the JLA find ways to stopping that?
Meanwhile, Lex Luthor also arrives in hopes he can get the killer kryptonite that is in a special room in that city to make it his own as a weapon against Superman. Will he be able to obtain it?
For the most part, while an interesting story, it was an epilogue that felt a bit weak. While the story does have its place, afterall, having Superman and the heroes not acknowledge what happened to Coast City would be a bit wrong, the storyline itself was a bit basic.
If anything, I liked what came out of it at the end, but it seems by this epilogue, perhaps Dan Jurgens had writer’s fatigue by the end of this long storyline arc which began with the fight against Doomsday.
But it was cool issue to see Superman together again with the JLA, but it seems that it was a bit of a weak story, but yet it manages to work and now “Superman” could go back to being a title that fans would look forward to, while DC fans start to follow what was going on with Batman and Green Lantern in their own titles.