Retro Review: The Sand Superman Saga

Imagine that Superman begins to lose his powers. A new Superman is on the scene and we’re not sure if the original, Kal-El, will ever be the same. That’s the situation in 2021, but what goes around comes around, and it also was true in 1971, half a century ago. Dennis O’Neil’s Sand Superman Saga, perhaps Superman’s first great alteration – at least, one that was written into the plot of a story – has just passed its silver anniversary.

Before there were cosmic reboots, when creative minds wanted to change a detail about a comic book character they just changed them. Sometimes they didn’t even seem to do so on purpose. If the readers noticed when the Daily Star suddenly became the Daily Planet, or when Superman could fly instead of merely jumping high, there was no Internet or even letter column to leave a record of reactions to those retcons. But another way to revamp a character is to write a change into the plot of the story, and and that’s what O’Neil did, changing Superman in unprecedented fashion.

This saga unrolled over the span of ten issues in 1971, but two of the issues in the middle – one written by O’Neil, one not – were not part of the larger plot. Thus, in eight issues, O’Neil, under the direction of editor Julius Schwartz, made bold and “permanent” changes to Superman, but most of the literal ones occurred, or began to occur, in the very first of those, Superman #233. In that one, bold issue, an experimental test of a new energy generation system destroyed all green kryptonite on Earth, Clark Kent became a reporter working on television rather than writing for a newspaper, and an epilogue teased the introduction of the nameless guest character who would do, basically accidentally, what hundreds of villains had attempted but failed – the permanent powering-down of the Man of Steel. However, the story did not fully culminate in one issue, nor could it have and been effective. Instead, O’Neil took Superman’s powers away, then gave them back, then took them again. In repetition that almost wears down the reader’s ability to keep track, Superman lost his powers partially or completely, sometimes one at a time, over and over, and in response became unsure whether he wanted them in full or at all. And keep in mind that two of these plot changes worked in nearly opposite directions: The elimination of kryptonite made Superman more potent than ever, while the varying loss of his powers and other injuries made him quite easy to defeat – and, moreover, to dislike.

Lest there be any confusion, this wasn’t simply Superman being written in a new style to the tastes of a new writer. This was a deliberate plan, with a flashy cover somewhat deceptively proclaiming “1” on issue #233, the first issue of the story arc: The amazing “NEW” adventures of Superman. The captions on the first page announced, “Beginning… a return to greatness!” and a subsequent caption called what was to follow “stunningly new.” Then, an extradiagetic splash page showed three panels of Superman flashily displaying his super powers while a suffering Superman in silhouette served as the black background for more introductory text, teasing that Superman has “a dark side” – a mention of his dark side on text written visually on his literal dark side! But as for style changes, there were those, too – beginning in this issue, Clark Kent’s previously-universally blue suit became brown.

But there’s real substance behind the style, so much so that a reader familiar with the series as it had been wouldn’t have been ready to read it the way O’Neil allows to unfold. After all the kryptonite on Earth is destroyed, Morgan Edge memorably questions whether the removal of Superman’s primary weakness is a good thing: “Power corrupts… and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” But Morgan Edge was a pawn of Darkseid, and thoroughly unlikable in his best scenes; for Edge to say this begged for the reader to conclude the opposite, a sentiment which Superman soon enough articulated, saying that the destruction of kryptonite freed him up to do more good that ever. A reader who set down #233 for the first time would have to conclude that Superman was the moral compass to follow on this, or any other point. But by the last page of #242, that perspective had been definitively defeated.

Does absolute power corrupt Superman? In the scenes following the elimination of kryptonite, he casually knocks three criminals unconscious with blows to the head, when there’s seemingly no need for him to do so. His mental narration is full of hubris and self-celebration which is immediately followed by harsh contradiction from reality: twice, after Superman mentally celebrates his near-invincibility, he suddenly experiences the failure of his powers. This creates drama, but also makes the saga into a morality tale about pride coming before the fall. But after he loses those powers he regains them, then loses them again, for a total of four times in only the story’s first two issues. What this repetitive and disorienting gyrating accomplishes is to create dialectic and dialogue where previously Superman’s story was one of simple, fairy-tale moral certainties.

As Superman’s problems deepen, three issues – the saga’s second, third, and fifth – build up an impending sense of doom as Superman keeps losing his powers – one power or another, or all of them partially – as the mysterious Sand Superman flies by, with an origin, purpose, and even name unknown to Superman. In these three issues, Superman takes on the challenge of an erupting volcano, a callous business magnate, a vengeful and bitter man named Ferlin Nyxly who uses a (perhaps magical) device to steal Superman’s powers one by one, and eco-terrorists who try to use a seized geothermal power plant to bargain their way into greater power. By and large, the Sand Superman looms nearby as a mysterious added conundrum, though for some uncanny reason, he helps Superman defeat Nyxly (who was later referenced in Grant Morrison’s Action run). Throughout this string of predicaments, Superman suffers the consequences of lost power, as the Sand Superman – initially made of sand – slowly becomes more visibly his duplicate, costume and all. But while the plot and the action move along in these issues, the theme that was initially invoked with Morgan Edge’s “power corrupts” line goes largely unaddressed.

That changes in the saga’s fourth issue, #237. After Superman rescues the pilot of an experimental rocket plane, he finds that the pilot has been transformed horribly by germs originating in space. (Recall that this story was published less than two years after the first lunar landing.) Contemplating that he himself may have the same germs on himself after exposure to the pilot, Superman takes the step of flying up into Earth’s natural radiation belts in order to cleanse himself, thinking, “NO bug could survive exposure to these radioactive waves!” However, Superman is simply and smugly mistaken, and when he returns to Earth, the germs that he has carried back on his body infect an entire room of staffers at the Daily Planet. Moments later, he learns that Lois Lane, investigating a swarm of killer ants in Latin America, is in unrelated danger, and Superman becomes stricken with angst that he is unable to act normally to save her without spreading the infection to her and others, like those in the Daily Planet building behind him. Then the Sand Superman follows him on his way to try to save Lois, draining his speed and power. Superman tries to act from a distance, stopping a swarm of jungle ants but infects two of them, which makes them grow to the size of elephants.

Now the array of problems facing Superman – the worst of which appears to be his own fault –fills him with helplessness, guilt, and despair. He declares to himself, “I’m the worst enemy the planet has! … Should I fly away… lose myself in the vastness between the stars… and never return?” How the mighty have fallen! Only a few issues back, Superman exulted in being truly, absolutely invincible, with no weaknesses, free to solve any problem, and here, he finds himself worse than helpless, unable to save Lois, losing his own powers to a nameless doppelgänger who follows him around, and having spread a plague in Metropolis. However, as he floats in space despairingly, he carefully thinks over the day’s events, and decides that, in a twist, contact with the Sand Superman seems to have sterilized his right hand of the germs that he’s carrying. He deliberately seeks full contact with his erstwhile antagonist, and an explosion occurs, after which – he decides – he is now free of the germs. Superman saves Lois with a hint of anger in his tone, “I’m doing the same as I’ve always done – saving your silly, precious life!” Unable to fly, Superman holds Lois and the pilot of her plane and leaps with them to a place of safety, then with noticeable difficulty defeats a gang of bandits who had earlier menaced Lois. Then he confronts the Sand Superman (who was following close behind) and unleashes a verbal tirade at his unnamed nemesis and for the first time, the Sand Superman, who has now almost become identical to Superman in appearance, speaks, telling Superman in a cliffhanger that he is a being woven from Superman’s own mind, heart, and soul, that he is going to continue to drain Superman’s powers until he has half, until they are exactly equal, and that the process might kill one of them.

Superman’s hubris in viewing himself as invincible has at this point been well-developed. He tries to hide his loss of power from the world, telling himself that this it to avoid emboldening criminals, but he hides it also from Lois Lane, and he seems to be full of shame as well as self doubt, which escalates heading into the saga’s final three issues. This is introduced by the cover of Superman #240 where an angry crowd lambastes Superman, who holds a Daily Planet proclaiming, “SUPERMAN FAILS!” and the titular hero tells the Earth’s people, “You miserable ingrates – I’m through with you!” This foreshadows the issue’s first sequence in which a weakened Superman is no longer able to disguise his relative loss of power: While saving people from a burning building, he tries to support the skyscraper from structural collapse but visibly fails while the fire department and crowds watch. With the building now too heavy for him, Superman is knocked to the ground by the falling structure, and is photographed walking away in shame. In the following day, as his enemies conspire to take advantage of his weakened state, crowds mock his loss of strength, and Superman stews with antagonism, bitterly thinking of the public as “ingrates” who don’t appreciate his “years of service… of sacrifice” in which he “denied [himself] the comforts of home… family” while helping people. In a true turning point, Superman has not merely lost his physical power (which is, after all, as old a plot point as kryptonite itself) but has begun to lose the will to continue on his mission, turning his back on a bank robbery with the thought, “it’s no concern of mine! The smug citizens can solve their own problems!” Moments later, he relents and engages the bank robbers, but is momentarily struck down and humiliated by their military weapons. After he succeeds partially in defeating them (their leaders escape), he privately reflects, “as a Superman, I’m a wash-out!”

At this point, and for the remaining duration of the saga, I-Ching enters the story. An O’Neil invention from his concurrent run on Wonder Woman, the Chinese sage and mystic arrives to counsel Superman on the loss of his powers and how he can and should regain them. By unhappy coincidence, just as I-Ching places Superman under a trance, criminals who had surveilled Clark Kent arrive and strike at the unconscious Superman as well as I-Ching. A nearly fully depowered Superman wins a fistfight with the criminals after taking painful blows to the head and chest, which concludes with Superman deciding that perhaps, if he can win a fight without powers, he’s not sure that he cares if he ever regains them. At the beginning of issue #241, Superman shares this thought with I-Ching that he would like to remain powerless, and rid himself of the “responsibilities… the loneliness… of Superman.” The mystic man, however, talks Superman into reluctantly accepting his help in regaining his lost powers, and after a brief ceremony in which an astral form of Superman finds and power-drains the Sand Superman, the titular hero awakens with his full powers intact… seemingly the end of his troubles, but here things soon reach their darkest and strangest point.

As the issue continues, Superman finds that his physical powers are at their usual, maximum state, but his behavior, a reader can’t help but notice, is increasingly erratic, egotistical, and hostile to others. As I-Ching and Diana Prince notice from the news, Superman makes destructive mistakes in the use of his powers, and moreover makes reckless decisions that inconvenience good people while punishing evil doers. I-Ching determines that the cause is the blow that Superman earlier took to the head while depowered. Here, the story becomes a curious sort of sci fi / fantasy parable about mental health, with Superman angrily denying that he has a problem while his friends – Diana Prince and I-Ching – try to get him to accept help. Here, for the first time, the reader receives an explanation of what has been going on, as I-Ching’s magic reveals the nature of the Sand Superman.

Here, O’Neil introduces us, through I-Ching and the Sand Superman, to a dimension called the Realm of Quarrm, a “state of alternate possibilities, a place where neither men nor things exist, only unformed, shapeless beings” – sounding a bit like Plato’s conception of forms, superior to the things in our real world. We learn that the explosion at the outset of the saga created a rift between Superman’s world and the Realm of Quarrm, bringing one nameless creature through who assumed, through proximity to Superman, a link to him that caused the creature to take his form and begin to drain his essence and powers.

In performing a ceremony that procured this information, I-Ching, however, has made a serious mistake, opening a new rift between the DC Universe and Quarrm and allowing a second spirit to enter our world. This one animates the statue of a Chinese war demon, which then begins wreaking havoc in Metropolis. As the saga’s penultimate issue concludes, the odd trio of I-Ching, an unpowered Diana Prince, and the Sand Superman hope to cure Superman of his mental impairment, while the real but ill Superman is knocked out in battle by the War Demon, which drains most of his powers into itself.

As the finale begins in Superman #242, a pair of malevolent street criminals find that the War Demon will follow their orders and, after beating a now-depowered Superman mercilessly, they utilize the War Demon as a sort of evil genie on a rampage of crime. Doctors operate to repair the brain damage suffered by the fully-depowered Superman while the Sand Superman, possessing by its own calculation just a third of Superman’s original powers, fails to vanquish the War Demon.

In time, the War Demon turns on his masters, killing them, then is drawn to the hospital where Superman is recovering, seeking to kill him, too. But, in the presence of Superman, power flows back from the War Demon into Superman until the two of them are equal, and fight to a stand-off. Then the Sand Superman arrives on the scene and joins the original Superman in battle against the War Demon, which – outnumbered – flees back to Quarrm.

Now that the battle’s three are down to two, the Sand Superman declares that he wishes to take the place of the original Superman. With each possessing half of Superman’s power, they decide to fight a duel to the finish to see which will survive to continue as the only Superman. Over the course of a few pages, their super duel causes devastating damage to the Earth’s interior. Within six minutes, the strain placed on the planet causes massive earthquakes and eruptions that wipe the planet clean of all life… or so we see. I-Ching then reveals that he has simulated the battle in the minds of Superman and his double, when actually no battle at all has taken place.

Then the saga concludes with stunning suddenness. The Sand Superman decides to return to Quarrm to avoid such a conflict. When I-Ching proposes that he could perhaps return the stolen half of Superman’s power back to him, Superman refuses this, saying, “No! I’ve seen the dangers [of] having too much power… I am human – I can make mistakes! I don’t want – or need – more…” And in a shadowy final panel, Superman stares off into the distance, alone in his thoughts, with half the power he had when the saga began.

The sense behind having Superman renounce half his powers doesn’t quite add up. When he makes mistakes in this story, none of those would be avoided by reducing his powers by half. If Superman decides to leave a car atop the Empire State Building, or if he accidentally infects people with an extraterrestrial germ, those things occur just as easily with half his powers as full. Moreover, in a DC Universe with many highly-powered beings, Superman just demoted himself relative to many villains such as the Phantom Zone inmates, Solomon Grundy, Bizarro, and others. In fact, in the series’s next issue (scripted by Cary Bates), Superman notes that “it would take a hundred Supermen many life-times to solve all [Earth’s] problems.” In the subsequent issue, again penned by O’Neil, Superman is knocked down by an energy monster and declares, “I’ve never been hit that hard…” Well, it would have been nice to have the other half of your powers back, then, wouldn’t it, Supes?

Numbers aside, O’Neil’s saga injected some thoughtful characterization to DC’s flagship hero, and measurably powered up the maturity of the title. First, it shifted the black-and-white morality of the series to add some shades of gray. Superman could be wrong, not only about matters of fact (that the elimination of kryptonite made him invincible), not only making serious mistakes in the use of his powers (that a particular radiation exposure would kill the alien germs on his body), but it also showed that he was fallible in tone, aggrieved and bitter, subject to humiliation – in other words, human. This was a far bigger change to the character than twiddling his power levels in some meaningless way. And, for all the story’s quirks, it brought Superman down to our level – in character as well as sometimes in power level – by showing the folly of the sin of pride, a story arc right out of Greek mythology.

An irreplaceable way to gauge the impact of story is to look at what came before it, and what after. Twelve issues before the Sand Superman saga began, the cover of Superman showed a morbidly obese Superman bursting out of a telephone booth and calling himself, in language that is shockingly insensitive, “a super-fatso” with the story title, “The Two-Ton Superman.” Five issues after the saga ended, Elliot S. Maggin’s highly-regarded “Must There Be A Superman?” story ran in issue #247, elaborating on the saga’s themes, as Superman must decide for himself when to intervene in human affairs and when not to intervene. That is quite a “before and after” comparison, showing a 1970 title with nothing of value to say and a 1972 title that was, if not high literature, at least asking questions with some relevance to real-world society, morality, and personal responsibility. We might gauge the impact of the story – both O’Neil’s capacity as writer and Schwartz’s as editor– in the increasing years in the age of the target reader rather than in how much Superman could lift or how fast he could fly. The Sand Superman story was part of the character maturing, and gave the series a creative direction it followed for nearly 15 years before its next big transformation.

Fifty years later, while the character, and DC superhero comics as a whole, have been through numerous alterations, and the plot points of the Sand Superman saga are entirely unrelated to current continuity, it may be argued that the Superman title never took a bigger step up in maturity than it did in and around that story. Indeed, remembering that it appeared at the same time as a pivotally thoughtful story about control and rebellion in Teen Titans #31 and during O’Neil’s monumental Green Lantern/Green Arrow run – the story about Roy Harper’s drug addiction appeared just after the Sand Superman saga ended – 1971 might be the year in which DC Comics grew up the most. In the fifty years since, have they grown up any more?