Alan Moore (writer): the two stories that close the pre-Crisis era
Share
Everything on Alan Moore as writer of the Superman stories that close the pre-Crisis era. This page title says « the two stories »: the body counts three, and you will understand why. The heart is Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?, published in 1986 in Superman #423 and Action Comics #583. For the Man Who Has Everything already has its page: we point there without retelling it. The Jungle Line is the third, often left aside.
📋 Contents
- Alan Moore as writer: three Superman stories, not two
- The Jungle Line: the third story, DC Comics Presents #85
- For the Man Who Has Everything: one paragraph and the link
- Whatever Happened: Superman #423 and Action Comics #583
- What happens to Superman in Whatever Happened
- Mxyzptlk, gold kryptonite and Jordan Elliott
- Alan Moore as writer and his place after Crisis
- The French edition and what not to mix up
- FAQ — Frequently asked questions
- Conclusion
Alan Moore as writer: three Superman stories, not two
At the time when Watchmen is taking shape at DC, Alan Moore has already written three Superman stories, not two. The first appears in DC Comics Presents #85: The Jungle Line, with Swamp Thing. The second is For the Man Who Has Everything..., in Superman Annual #11. The third, in two installments, is called Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?. This page's imposed title keeps only « two »: we do not change it. The facts themselves stay at three.
All three appear under Julius Schwartz. The first two carry a September 1985 cover date. The third has a September 1986 cover date, while the issues go on sale in the United States in May and June 1986. A cover date is not a newsstand date: two or three months often separate them. Moore is not writing a whole new mythology here. He closes an era, while Crisis on Infinite Earths is already folding the multiverse, and before Byrne relaunches the character.
Key Facts
- Moore's Superman stories: three, not two
- The Jungle Line: DC Comics Presents #85, cover Sept. 1985
- For the Man Who Has Everything: Superman Annual #11, on sale May 28, 1985
- Whatever Happened…: Superman #423 + Action Comics #583, cover Sept. 1986
- Art on the farewell story: Curt Swan; inks by Pérez then Schaffenberger
The Jungle Line: the third story, DC Comics Presents #85
The Jungle Line appears in DC Comics Presents #85. Moore writes. Rick Veitch draws. Al Williamson inks. Tatjana Wood colors. John Costanza letters. The cover date is September 1985. The American on-sale day is not settled as a single date: the Grand Comics Database gives June 6, 1985; the DCU Guide lists May 14, 1985. Both sources agree on the cover month and the credits. We keep both on-sale dates.
Superman meets Swamp Thing there. A Kryptonian fungus — a « bloodmorel » in the indexes — mines him from the inside. He hallucinates the Scarlet Jungle of Krypton. Lana Lang appears in flashback. This is not a solemn farewell: it is a sickness story, where the Man of Steel is no longer sure he can stay on his feet. This page title ignores it. The body does not. If you open Urban's French collection, you will find it under the title Aux frontières de la jungle.
For the Man Who Has Everything: one paragraph and the link
For the Man Who Has Everything... appears in Superman Annual #11, on sale May 28, 1985 in the United States. Moore writes. Dave Gibbons draws, inks and letters. Tom Ziuko colors. Mongul offers Superman a plant, the Black Mercy. The hero dreams of a Krypton that never exploded, a life with Jor-El still alive. Batman, Robin and Wonder Woman intervene at the Fortress of Solitude.
That Annual already has its own page on For the Man Who Has Everything. We do not go through it panel by panel. One mix-up to set aside: the DC.com listing for the collection writes « Action Comics Annual #11 ». GCD, DCU Guide and Wikipedia EN say Superman Annual #11. That is the issue we keep. In French, Urban titles it Pour celui qui a déjà tout, in the same album as the other two stories.
Whatever Happened: Superman #423 and Action Comics #583
The farewell story runs in two issues, both cover-dated September 1986. Superman #423 goes on sale May 20, 1986. Action Comics #583 follows in June (ships on the 13th, newsstand on the 26th according to CPV Price Guide). Curt Swan pencils both. George Pérez inks #423. Kurt Schaffenberger inks #583. Gene D'Angelo colors. Todd Klein letters. The covers are signed Swan and Murphy Anderson, the « Swanderson » team.
Schwartz presents #423 as the last issue of Superman under that title: the series continues as The Adventures of Superman #424. The story is an « Imaginary Story ». Later, Crisis on Infinite Earths: The Compendium, in the Absolute Edition of November 2005, places it on « Earth-423 ». It is not Earth-2, and it is not Byrne's reboot. It is the door closing on the Silver Age, while the regular titles pause to let The Man of Steel through. Among the character's essential stories, this one counts as a farewell, not as an origin.
The three stories, by cover date
What happens to Superman in Whatever Happened
Ten years after the hero vanishes, Tim Crane interviews Lois Lane, married to one Jordan Elliott. She tells the story. A quiet stretch came next: Brainiac out of action, Lex Luthor gone, Parasite and Terra-Man dead by each other's hand. Superman goes searching in space. When he returns, Metropolis has been wrecked by Bizarro, set on becoming the « perfect imperfect duplicate », then killing himself with blue kryptonite.
Clark Kent presents the news on television with Lana. Toyman and Prankster expose his identity on air. They pulled the secret from Pete Ross, tortured then killed. Superman gives up being Clark. Luthor finds Brainiac's skull; the skull possesses him. The hero puts Lois, Lana, Jimmy Olsen, Perry White and Alice in the Fortress. Krypto joins them. The Legion arrives from the XXX century with Supergirl, already dead in Superman's present. They give him a statuette that holds the Phantom Zone projector.
Mxyzptlk, gold kryptonite and Jordan Elliott
The next day, the Legion of Super-Villains attacks. A force field isolates the Fortress. Lana and Jimmy take artifacts. Lana kills Luthor at his request, to break Brainiac. The Legion kills Lana. Brainiac, still in the corpse, kills Jimmy. Krypto kills the Kryptonite Man and dies of the radiation. Superman then understands that the last name missing from the list is Mister Mxyzptlk. The fifth-dimension imp has grown tired of being a prankster. He has decided to kill.
Superman threatens him with the projector. Mxyzptlk says his name backward at the same moment the projector opens: he is torn between his dimension and the Phantom Zone. For having killed, Superman enters a chamber of gold kryptonite, loses his powers and vanishes into the Arctic. After the interview, Lois and Jordan's son, named Jonathan, squeezes a lump of coal into a diamond. Jordan winks at the reader. The opening text says it in English: « This is an imaginary story. » It ends as it began, on an ordinary life.
Alan Moore as writer and his place after Crisis
Moore does not replace Byrne. He closes. Crisis on Infinite Earths has already started shrinking the multiverse. The Superman titles then pause a few months, for The Man of Steel. What Moore keeps is the pre-Crisis vocabulary: Swan on art, Krypto, « inverted » Bizarro, Luthor the scientist, Mxyzptlk and the backward-name rule, a Supergirl already lost. What he does not pass on to the next Superman: the deaths of Pete, Lana, Jimmy and Krypto do not enter post-Crisis canon. Byrne starts from zero.
Moore's Kal-El is not the Kal-El of 1986. One says goodbye. The other is born in a matrix. If you follow Superman across the eras, put Moore just before Byrne, not in Byrne's place. The Daily Planet of this story is already not quite the daily newsroom: Clark has left print for television, and that is the set Toyman blows up.
The French edition and what not to mix up
In France, Urban Comics published Superman – Les derniers jours de Superman on March 25, 2016, DC Deluxe line, ISBN 9782365779470, translated by Jérôme Wicky. The album gathers the three stories: Superman #423, Action Comics #583, Superman Annual #11 and DC Comics Presents #85. The French date is not 1986. In the United States, a 2009 Deluxe (then 2020) makes the same grouping. The 1997 TPB kept only the two farewell issues.
Do not mix this collection with The Final Days of Superman from 2016, Tomasi's arc in which the New 52 Superman dies: Urban gave Moore's stories a French title that almost overlaps the 2016 English title. Do not mix Superman Annual #11 with an « Action Comics Annual #11 » that does not exist for this story. And do not take Whatever Happened for the film Man of Steel, or for Byrne's miniseries. Action Comics #1 opens the character in 1938; Action Comics #583, closes the character for Schwartz.
FAQ — Frequently asked questions
Did Alan Moore write two or three Superman stories?
Three. The Jungle Line in DC Comics Presents #85, For the Man Who Has Everything in Superman Annual #11, and Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? in two issues. This page title says « two »: we do not change it, the body says three.
In which issues does Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow appear?
Superman #423 and Action Comics #583, cover dates September 1986. #423 goes on sale May 20, 1986 in the United States. Curt Swan draws both. George Pérez inks the first, Kurt Schaffenberger the second.
Does Whatever Happened belong to continuity after Crisis?
No. It is an Imaginary Story, later placed on Earth-423. Post-Crisis Superman starts with John Byrne's The Man of Steel. The deaths in Moore's story (Pete Ross, Lana, Jimmy, Krypto, Mxyzptlk) do not carry over.
Does For the Man Who Has Everything appear in Action Comics Annual #11?
No. It appears in Superman Annual #11, on sale May 28, 1985. A DC.com page for the collection writes « Action Comics Annual #11 »: GCD, DCU Guide and Wikipedia EN say Superman Annual #11.
What is the French edition of Alan Moore's Superman stories?
Urban Comics, Superman – Les derniers jours de Superman, March 25, 2016, ISBN 9782365779470. The album contains the three stories. That date is not the United States date (1985-1986). Watch out: the French title almost overlaps The Final Days of Superman from 2016, another story.
Who draws Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?
Curt Swan on pencils, in one of his last major Superman stories. George Pérez inks Superman #423. Kurt Schaffenberger inks Action Comics #583. The covers are by Swan and Murphy Anderson.
Is Jordan Elliott Superman?
The story shows it without saying it outright: after the interview, son Jonathan turns coal into a diamond, and Jordan winks at the reader. Superman lost his powers to gold kryptonite. This is an Imaginary Story, not the Clark of the 1986 reboot.
Conclusion
Alan Moore as Superman writer is not two stories: it is three. First The Jungle Line, then For the Man Who Has Everything, then Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow. This page title keeps two. You now have the issue numbers, the cover dates, the on-sale dates, the artists, and the exact place: an imaginary farewell, just before Byrne, just after Crisis.
If you open only one, open the two 1986 issues, Swan on pencils. Then follow the link to For the Man Who Has Everything, already told elsewhere. And if you pick up Urban's 2016 edition, remember that « Les derniers jours de Superman » here means Moore, not Tomasi's arc from the same year.