Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Adventures of Superman #614-616

Every so often, a Superman story comes around that makes you believe without the shadow of a doubt that Superman is the greatest hero of all time.  The three-part "Heroville" saga is not one of those stories.

The federal government, run by Lex Luthor, discovers a town that was part of a experiment back in the 1950s.  All the citizens in town are superheroes.  Genetically manufactured superheroes.  Meanwhile, someone in the real world is paralyzing and sucking the color out of all the superheroes. 
 You know, classic heroes such as Major Victory, Elongated Man and The Ray.

Superman travels to Heroville to find the research team Luthor sent and finds Dr. Camel, who is the local physician and was once the lead geneticist on the project.  Camel hid the town and destroyed all the files during the Communist witch hunts of the 1950s so the town would not be considered unAmerican.  Superman realizes the town needs to exist so leaves it alone but unfortunately The Hollow Men arrive to suck the hope and color from the town.  Now, The Hollow Men are the fictional creation of an author named Benjamin
 Conrad who wrote a book about government created men who were created to maintain the black-and-white pastiche of Eisenhower's administration.  The novel did not sell very well.

Soon the heroes of Heroville are taken out by the Hollow Men and so Superman sends, and I am not making this up, Kid Scout back into the real world to get Benjamin Conrad to stop his story from attacking.  Conrad decides to write a new ending to his novel as the Hollow Men finally attack Superman and drain him of hope and color.  What is not really explained is how the Hollow Men are 
defeated.  Superman, somehow, is able to resist the Men's attacks but that happens at roughly the same time Conrad finishes his novel so the actual person who stopped the Hollow Men is unclear.  But, like just about every other Superman story, this is all wrapped up nicely--albeit, very confusingly.

There was this section of 2003 that had weird and unimportant stories like this in every title.  That all started to change with the Godfall storyline but then my subscription ran out and I decided not to renew it because I believed my time of reading Superman comics was over.  I had a good run (1992-2000, 2002-2003) and I don't regret my decision.  Plus, there were a lot of horrible stories told and that also turned me off.