Superman # 405
“The Mystery Of The Super-Batman”
Writer: Craig Boldman
Penciller: Alex Saviuk
Inker: Karl Kesel
Letterer: Ben Oda
Colorist: Gene D’Angelo
“Yes, Lowell, There Is A Superman” (Backup Feature)
Writer: Bob Rozakis
Artist: Kurt Schaffenberger
Letterer: Ben Oda
Colorist: Gene D’Angelo
Cover Date: March 1985
Rating: 
Yep, I’m back with another installment of Review Corner. Here’s why- It turns out that my LCS (And a lot of Comic Book Shops) got in their shipments which contained nothing but trades from Marvel & DC plus all there were no big indy titles for me to sink my teeth into so I decided to skip this week and with that, there will be no weekly edition of “I Love Comics (Blah, Blah, Blah..)” and it will return next week. In the meantime, I felt another edition of Review Corner wouldn’t hurt so for this week’s second installment, I’ll take a look at Superman # 405 from 1985.
Ahhhh, the good ol’ Sliver-Age era of DC, where the stories ALWAYS had a happy ending and it would be months before “Crisis On Infinite Earths” would totally change up the landscape of the DC Universe but these stories were still entertaining. So the story kicks off with Clark Kent and Lana Lang visiting a museum where they come across “The Syrinx Of Arcadia” (A set of gold panpipes); And Lana decides to give them a try, but as she’s playing them, the sound hurts Clark to the point where he gets a pair of horns coming out with his head (I kid you not!) and concludes that the pipes probably had some kind of magical elements that would affect him that way, but until he finds a way to get back to normal, Clark dons a Batman cowl and his utility belt from a shrine he had in the Fortress Of Solitude.
I felt like this was a great issue due to the Superman/Batman mashup and it was fun to see Superman try to use Batman’s background as a detective to help him out so this, in my opinion, is hands down the best Pre-Crisis Superman story out there and it is a wonderful job from Craig Boldman as his script kept the story lighthearted and entertaining from beginning to end and it seems like during that time, Boldman gave Cary Bates (Writer of Superman And Action Comics during that time) a run for his money, plus the artwork from Alex Saviuk and Karl Kesel is completely top-notch, which made me wonder why DC didn’t give Saviuk any work post-Crisis.
The issue’s backup story “Yes, Lowell, There Is A Superman” features a young boy named Lowell who doesn’t believe in Superman whatsoever and has Clark turns into The Man of Steel and proves who wrong he is, he’s suddenly under siege by a number of incidents that require his attention. It’s a fun story to close out the issue but after you get done reading it, you’ll instantly figure out that it will end with a happy note.
Yes, John Byrne came in post-Crisis and gave us a Superman that was completely in the spirit of Christopher Reeve but the adventures of the pre-Crisis Superman were just fun to read as he was the one that made all of us believe that a man truly can fly and it’s always a blast to go back to these back issues when the Silver Age was still alive all while giving us stories that we’ll cherish.
I’ll back next Tuesday with another review so thanks for sticking around and I will see you all next week.
About Author
