Retro Review: ‘The Adventures of Superman’ #466

With the release of The Terrifics #1 today, one could be forgiven for thinking that DC has come as close as it ever would to publishing a Fantastic Four comic — but on March 27, 1990, the company published The Adventures of Superman #466 — a story that even more closely resembled a story featuring the first family of Marvel — and to the amazement of all involved, that comic would shape the history of the DC Universe in surprising and exciting ways for years.

“But,” you might ask, “was it good?”

The Adventures of Superman #466 came from writer/artist Dan Jurgens (yes, the very same man whose Action Comics #988, featuring Superman, hit the stands today alongside The Terrifics). Jurgens is credited with providing layouts for the issue, with DC veteran Dick Giordano providing inks/finished art. Letterer Albert de Guzman and colorist Glenn Whitmore, who probably worked on more Superman comics during the ’80s and ’90s than anyone else, made their contributions here, too.

In spite of being a one-and-done story, The Adventures of Superman #466 has been reprinted numerous times, and remains a sought-after back issue for Superman collectors (even though monetarily it holds little value since it, like most ’90s Superman comics, was printed at a time when the Man of Steel’s circulation was through the roof).

That is becuase the issue is the first appearance of a man named Hank Henshaw, who would later appear in the fan-favorite story “The Reign of the Supermen!” His origin, though, gives him a lot of common ground with the Fantastic Four — something that would be explored explicitly years later when Jurgens and Norm Rapmund did a Superman/Fantastic Four crossover issue.

Henshaw was the genius captain of the USS Excalibur, an experimental LexCorp spacecraft which suffered an onboard explosion and had to make an emergency crash-landing in The Adventures of Superman #466. While about a third of the total comic deals with challenges currently facing Clark Kent as part of then-ongoing storylines, the meat of the issue — and the bits that fans remember — centers on the crew of the Excalibur as their bodies undergrow fantastic changes.

Bombarded by cosmic rays, Henshaw, along with his wife Terri and their friends Jim Garrison and Steven (no last name given), crash in the countryside not far from Metropolis and set about to make it back to LexCorp to seek help reversing their conditions and saving their lives.

The issue is retroactively remembered as the episode that spawned the Cyborg Superman (and usually misremembered as Henshaw’s first appearance, even though he had appeared, and been named, in a panel the month before), or as a pastiche of the Fantastic Four’s origin story, which saw Reed Richards, his fiancee Sue Storm, her brother Johnny and their friend Ben Grimm bombarded by cosmic rays while riding in an experimental rocket.

In its own right, though, it is an emotionally charged story that stands shoulder to shoulder with some of the best one-and-done tales of its time. It may be a stretch to call it one of Jurgens’s best Superman stories, but that is largely because he has nearly 15 years of combined Superman tales to choose from and there were a great many very good ones.

Treating The Adventures of Superman #466 as a piece of sterile history is a mistake: to discuss the issue as if it serves only as a springboard for the Death and Return of Superman stories (which were not even a glint in the eye of the creative teams when this issue was released 30 months before they started) is to miss out on an enteratining book with some genuinely smart characterizations and strong emotional beats.

The Adventures of Superman #466 is available here on ComiXology. You can also find it in the collected editions Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (out of print) and Superman: Dark Knight Over Metropolis.