Superman: Zero Hour
Not really a review, just reminding myself about some of the details of what I read ...
I vaguely recall when Zero Hour happened in DC Comics, but if I had to guess it was back in 1994, I would have been way off. I remember the bit where every comic was Issue #0 for that month, but I wasn't regularly reading any comics by that point. This was also sometime after the Doomsday plot line where Superman died and there were suddenly four new Supermen. Again, I never read that story line, but it did make it into the papers and get discussed at a convention. Plus, later on, I listened to an audio presentation of it in my car. (Back in the days of the 50-mile one-way commute.)
The stories up front are connected because of some time storm happening, which causes characters to shift universes. This allows for Batman to appear numerous times, as various incarnations that have been published over the past 80 years (or 55 or so, at that point), and none of them had a broken back. (Note: Bane story line, which made it into the movies. I actually did read some of those books way back when.) Also of interest, Superman has long Hercules-like hair and Clark Kent wears it in a pony tail. That just seemed weird. He and Lois were an item (at least in some realities), and she's also involved with Superman, but no one asks.
Oddly, the core of the Superman portion of the book is taken up by a lengthy piece about a childhood friend of Clark's, one we've never met before, who was born on the same day as Clark (in the post-Crisis DC Universe, Kent was basically hatched on Earth, not rocketed to Earth as an infant or baby), and who always played second fiddle to Clark. Clark's powers didn't manifest until he was nearly an adult, so there was no need to hide his powers when he was younger and feign weakness. He was basically the Olympian ideal, so his competing against humans was really cheating, except that his poor shmoe of a friend, who never had a clue about Clark's extraterrestrial ancestry, still feels cheated, and turns into a jerk, and then into an evil jerk, then super-powered evil jerk.
Side note: the character was so forgettable that I forgot him a week later -- and he wasn't mentioned on the summary pages I found online because he wasn't part of the overall theme of the book despite being such a major part of it. The story should've been one issue, possibly two if you really wanted to build him up. Four parts? And Clark is that stupid throughout, despite Lois stating the obvious.
After all that were a couple of Superboy stories, with his "tactile telekinesis" on full display. Okay to read, and a pleasant distraction after that Superman story. Closing out the book were two stories with Steel, who I'd forgotten about. I knew in the aftermath of Doomsday, one of the comics published was The Man of Steel, but I never saw it. When they first showed the character, I thought it might be a robot or android. Then they showed a villain that looked enough like Clark to make me think that it was a clone (until I realized it was an unrelated villain, and not Steel). The background in the #0 issue refreshed my memory of whatever mention the character got in the audio drama.
I assume Superboy and Steel were included for completeness, but they seemed disconnected to the rest of the book.
That'll probably do it for graphic novels for a while, although there are Manga Classics Illustrated at the library which look interesting (but a little too thick to carry around), and I found a Classics Illustrated book of Romeo & Juliet in my garage that I don't remember acquiring -- or leaving in my garage.
Note: Collects ACTION COMICS #0 and #703, ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN #0 and #516, SUPERMAN #0 and #93, STEEL #0 and #8, SUPERMAN: MAN OF STEEL #0 and #37 and SUPERBOY #0 and #8.
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