Chuck Dixon became the writer of the series with issue #644 (May 1992). He and Tom Lyle co-created the Electrocutioner in Detective Comics #644 (May 1992) and Stephanie Brown in Detective Comics #647 (August 1992).
The “Batman: Legacy” storyline began in issue #700 (August 1996). The “No Man’s Land” storyline crossed over into Detective Comics in issues #730–741.
The story deals with Smax and Toybox returning, via magical teleportation, to Jeff’s magically enchanted homeworld. Smax, now a city dweller, seems embarrassed by his unsophisticated, sword-and-sorcery roots. They attend Smax’s uncle’s funeral where Jeff introduces Robyn as his wife, though no such relationship exists. At this point Jeff’s sister Rexa Macksun is introduced, dressed in the typical garb of a female fantasy barbarian such as Red Sonja and just as tall and physically impressive as her brother with the same blue skin and white hair.
When the series was relaunched in late 1986 under its new title, the creative team initially was writer Marv Wolfman and artist Jerry Ordway.John Byrne replaced Wolfman with issue #436 (January 1988) and Ordway became both writer and artist with issue #445 (October 1988). Writer/artist Dan Jurgens worked on the title from 1989–1991. Hank Henshaw, a character who would later become the Cyborg Superman, first appeared in issue #466 (May 1990). By the late 1980s, the plots of the Superman books were often linked. To coordinate the storyline and sequence of event, from January 1991 to January 2002, “triangle numbers” (or “shield numbers”) appeared on the cover of each Superman comic book. During these years, the Superman storylines ran with the story continuing through the titles Superman, Action Comics and later in two further series, Superman: The Man of Steel and Superman: The Man of Tomorrow.
Kara Zor-El has seen some epic adventures over the years, but finds her life without meaning or purpose. Here she is, a young woman who saw her planet destroyed and was sent to Earth to protect a baby cousin who ended up not needing her. What was it all for? Wherever she goes, people only see her through the lens of Superman’s fame. Just when Supergirl thinks she’s had enough, everything changes. An alien girl seeks her out for a vicious mission. Her world has been destroyed, and the bad guys responsible are still out there. She wants revenge, and if Supergirl doesn’t help her, she’ll do it herself, whatever the cost. Now a Kryptonian, a dog, and an angry, heartbroken child head out into space on a journey that will shake them to their very core.
OMAC (Buddy Blank) was created in 1974 by Jack Kirby and published by DC Comics. The character was created towards the end of Kirby’s contract with the publisher, following the cancellation of his New Gods series and was reportedly developed strictly due to Kirby needing to fill his contractual quota of 15 pages a week.As envisioned by Kirby, OMAC is essentially Captain America set in the future, an idea Kirby had toyed with some years earlier while at Marvel Comics, but had never realized.
Set in the near future (“The World That’s Coming”), OMAC is a corporate nobody named Buddy Blank who is changed via a “computer-hormonal operation done by remote control” by an A.I. satellite called Brother Eye into the super-powered One-Man Army Corps (OMAC).
The series was created by a British collaboration consisting of writer Alan Moore, artist Dave Gibbons, and coloristJohn Higgins. Watchmen originated from a story proposal Moore submitted to DC featuring superhero characters that the company had acquired from Charlton Comics. As Moore’s proposed story would have left many of the characters unusable for future stories, managing editor Dick Giordano convinced Moore to create original characters instead.
Moore used the story as a means to reflect contemporary anxieties and to deconstruct and parody the superhero concept. Watchmen depicts an alternate history where superheroes emerged in the 1940s and 1960s and their presence changed history so that the United States won the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal was never exposed. In 1985, the country is edging toward World War III with the Soviet Union, freelance costumed vigilantes have been outlawed and most former superheroes are in retirement or working for the government. The story focuses on the personal development and moral struggles of the protagonists as an investigation into the murder of a government-sponsored superhero pulls them out of retirement.
Writer/artist Dan Jurgens worked on the title from 1989–1991. Hank Henshaw, a character who would later become the Cyborg Superman, first appeared in issue #466 (May 1990). By the late 1980s, the plots of the Superman books were often linked. To coordinate the storyline and sequence of event, from January 1991 to January 2002, “triangle numbers” (or “shield numbers”) appeared on the cover of each Superman comic book. During these years, the Superman storylines ran with the story continuing through the titles Superman, Action Comics and later in two further series, Superman: The Man of Steel and Superman: The Man of Tomorrow.
Created and designed by Jack Kirby, The New Gods first appeared in February 1971 in New Gods #1.
Kirby’s production assistant of the time, Mark Evanier, remarked that: “Folks forget but the New Gods saga was intended to be a limited series … There was no intention that these characters would go on forever. After Jack’s books started getting good sales figures, DC demanded that we keep them going and use guest stars like Deadman, which we were very much against doing. So Kirby had this novel he was forever stuck in the middle of – he could never get to the last chapter. … You can spot the issues where Jack kind of gave up trying to advance the story of Darkseid and Orion and was marking time. If those books had been intended from the start to run indefinitely, they would have been done very differently.”
New Gods #1 marks the first appearance of Orion, Highfather, and Metron, among others.
Beginning an all-new monthly Superman title. Over a year ago, Superman fought the urge to become the Krypton Man…now the Krypton Man is born anew from the Earth’s fiery sun, where the Man of Steel buried the mysterious Kryptonian Eradicator! In the wake of the rebirth of his nemesis, Earth’s yellow sun begins turning red – causing natural disasters planetwide!