Superman #1 – PizzaRat dot Net

Superman (“played” by an action figure of David Cornswet from the 2025 Superman film) stands in between Bloodsport and Metallo as they attempt to fight on a blue background. The title of this comic (“Superman”), as well as the issue number (1), and the text, “A toy comic by Phil Wrede,” all occupy the top portion of the image.

We approach Superman flying over Metropolis, first by showing an image of the Earth from space, then the skyline of the city, then Superman soaring through the sky.

Superman’s flight is interrupted by Metallo, who supports himself in the air with jets fired from the hands and feet of his armored suit, not unlike Iron Man. He tells Superman that he needs his help.

Superman doesn’t take Metallo’s request seriously, as he’s typically antagonistic to Superman. Metallo explains that he needs Superman’s help with the assassin Bloodsport, who he claims has come to hunt him.

Superman scans Metropolis with his x-ray vision, and spies Bloodsport creeping through the street, in the daytime, with a huge gun in his hands. If he’s trying to stay hidden, he’s not doing a good job.

Superman leaves Metallo to go and talk to Bloodsport. As he races through the air down toward Bloodsport, the assassin places his gun on the ground, in a presumably peaceful gesture.

Superman plucks Bloodsport off the street and takes him up to the top of a roof high above the city, where they can have their talk.

Superman demands Bloodsport tell him why he’s come to Metropolis, but Bloodsport refuses to give Superman a straight answer.

When Superman finally realizes that he should probably compare Bloodsport and Metallo’s stories, he turns around to realize that Metallo has flown away.

Superman now scans Metropolis for Metallo, but realizes that Metallo’s armored battlesuit must somehow be shielded against his x-ray vision. Bloodsport tries to sneak away, but to no avail.

With no other option, Bloodsport asks Superman to tell him Metallo’s backstory. Superman complies, telling the tale of John Corben, an internet billionaire who decided he wanted to be a superhero, and spent his fortune designing a powerful suit of high-tech armor.

Superman says that Corben wanted to be loved by the people of Metropolis, and so he challenged Superman to a “heroic decathlon.”

Superman won Metallo’s challenge, and at the ceremony where his victory was supposed to be celebrated, Metallo intended to ambush Superman with a fistful of Kryptonite.

Fortunately, the Green Lantern Guy Gardener intervened, capturing Metallo in an energy construct designed to look like a gigantic fist.

Guy got the Kryptonite away from Metallo and destroyed it, but the reactor inside Metallo’s suit was fragile, and was about to overload from the damage it suffered. Superman picked him up and flew him far outside the city.

Alone, Metallo demanded Superman leave him, declaring that he could fix his suit before the reactor overloaded. That’s where Superman’s story ends.

Superman explains to Bloodsport that he blames himself for what happened. If he’d suspected Metallo’s treachery, he could have disarmed him before Guy showed up, and not let the Green Lantern crush Metallo in a giant fist that assuredly damaged the suit’s reactor.

Bloodsport calls out Superman for having a “martyr complex,” and even states that he’s kind of hurt Superman doesn’t obsess like this over him. Bloodsport reminds Superman that he once shot the Man of Steel with a Kryptonite bullet.

When Bloodsport accuses Superman of only worrying over a select few people, Superman uses Bloodsport himself as an example of how people can change (referencing the events of ‘The Suicide Squad’ film from 2021, which featured the character). Irritated, Bloodsport admits that he did, in fact, come to Metropolis to attack Metallo on behalf of Lex Luthor.

Just as the argument is about to reach a fever pitch, Guy Gardener appears with a captive Metallo once again.

Superman tries to return to their discussion; Bloodsport explains that Metallo is in possession of some synthetic Kryptonite that he stole from Luthor. Guy just thinks this situation is so, so funny…

The credits for this comic, acknowledging the original creators of each character and the ownership of them by DC Comics, Inc., the space photograph from NASA/JPL, the use of fonts by Blambot, stock visual effects photography by Action VFX, and the photography, script, and lettering, which were done by me, Phil Wrede.

I’ve gone on record several times – on this very website, even – that The Death and Return of Superman is, and probably always will be, my favorite comics event. I might even go as far as to call it my favorite story, except that it’s really a lot of stories swirling around one gigantic, heartbreaking tragedy (also, the “compendium” that I own is over 1,370 pages long, and usually when I’m talking a “story” in comics, I’m talking about something that resolves itself in around six issues. Maybe less, though maybe more, if a limited series is the topic – Watchmen, I guess I’m looking in your direction). What is my single favorite story in comics? I’ll think on that as I’m working on this blog post; maybe I’ll have an interesting answer by the time I get to the end!

A copy of "The Death and Return of Superman Compendium," with the 30th anniversary specials of both the Death and the Return placed atop it.

Full disclosure: in the first draft of this blog post, I’d written a long (and, frankly, rambling) essay about why I don’t like Man of Steel, and why, in many ways, I love Superman (2025) because it not only delivered on the promises that the third MoS trailer made, it went further and did even better than I thought it would. I’m certain that the internet doesn’t need more posts about Man of Steel, so if you’ve never read the piece Mark Waid wrote about it, he did a good job of summing up how I feel, too. Only, I’m even more down on the movie than he was.

2025 isn’t a great year to be banging the drum for truth, justice, and the American Way, but fascists aren’t the only people who get to make an argument for what this country could be, and I’m glad James Gunn got a movie studio to give him a ton of money and permission to argue that kindness, decency, and standing up for the right thing (even when nobody wants you to) are values we should all embrace. It’s a classic superhero story lesson; that it seems almost radical in this moment shows you just how far we’ve fallen from the ideals of creators like Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster, and Jack Kirby & Joe Simon.

Anyway, I really liked the new Superman, so much so that I had to go out and pick up a handful of action figures from (and adjacent to) the movie, so that I could sneak into the new DC Universe and tell a little story within it. I’m sure James Gunn and company will give Superman and Bloodsport a proper reunion somewhere down the line, but I’ve been thinking on that line of Viola Davis’ from The Suicide Squad for years (where she explains that Bloodsport put Superman in the hospital, after shooting him with a kryptonite bullet), so I’ve had versions of their conversation ready to write for a long time. I just needed inspiration to give me a kick!

I think my take on Metallo is a melangé of the original, single-L Metalo, the Malcolm McDowell-voiced one from Superman: The Animated Series, and frequent Iron Man antagonist Edwin Cord. There can never be enough billionaire bad guys in comics, if you ask me, and a guy like this version of John Corben will only have more opportunities to cause trouble in this day and age. Hopefully Superman, the Justice Gang, and us as a society more broadly, will be able to put a stop to that…

A slightly fun fact: that’s my hand that Guy Gardener creates as his green energy construct to hold Metallo captive!

Now that we’re at the end of the post, I promised an answer for my favorite comics story of all time, didn’t I? It’s probably the Galactus Trilogy; that’s certainly the one I’ve read and reread the most over the years. I love the Fantastic Four. It’s the perfect summation of everything that makes them as characters, and it’s a tall peak amidst the mountain range of incredible work that Kirby and Lee did.

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