Something Spooky: ‘Superman: Man Of Steel’ #14 Goes Vampire Hunting

Welcome to Something Spooky, Comicon.com’s annual 13 day countdown to the scariest day of the year. Over the next 13 weekdays, the Comicon team will bring you some of our favorite spooky, scary or seasonally appropriate stories for the most haunting time of the year.

There’s something about the world’s greatest hero fighting creatures of the night. In Superman: The Man of Steel #14, Kal-El does exactly that, but it’s also much more than Superman in a fish out of water fight.

With Superman out of town, Metropolis may be unprotected when a vampire invades the city. But Metropolis isn’t defenseless as Jimmy Olsen steps up in his pal’s place, and a visiting Tim Drake joins the hunt from Gotham. These two young men may be about to discover that it’s very easy to bite off more than they can chew.

This is an issue that I read so much that I had to buy another copy as an adult. Man of Steel — by Louise Simonson, Jon Bogdanove, Dennis Janke, Glenn Whitmire and Bill Oakley — was always my favorite title of Superman’s triangle era. That love started for me in this issue.

Simonson became well known in her work at Marvel, writing X-Factor, New Mutants, Power Pack and more. She has a knack for character work, and that’s fully on display here, as Superman is barely on the page but his absence has weight to it. For most of the issue, disaster after disaster slows his trip home from a cross country assignment for the Daily Planet.

That means when a vampire attacks Lucy Lane, Jimmy Olsen steps up to defend his girlfriend from the bloodsucker. After he successfully scares the vampiric Doctor Ruthven away, he goes all in on vampire hunting. It’s tense, and a really solid piece of horror storytelling, and is even better when Robin and Jimmy start to team up. Really, the biggest fault with the script is that Robin is weirdly bloodthirsty.

But man, the star of this issue is absolutely Bogdanove and Janke. The line art duo do a little bit of vampire homage, a lot of atmosphere, and a Metropolis that’s scary rather than the bright Metropolis we’re used to. Throughout the issue Bogdanove keeps drawing the vampire as a variety of pop culture bloodsuckers (thanks to his shapeshifting powers), and each time it looks stunning.

Best of all, when you’re telling a monster story, you need a scary monster in the middle of it. Dr. Ruthen is threatening, able to take on Superman in a fight, and tears apart Jimmy and Robin. Whenever he’s on the page, he draws everything to him. He’s magnetic, even if he’s the bad guy.

The story continues into Superman #70 the following week, but legitimately, this issue reads great on its own. It’s absolutely one that’s a fun little single issue, especially if you’re looking for some chills.