In a Nutshell...
In 1983, after a decade of civil war, commercialization of farming, and the world's lust for peanuts, Ethiopia became more of a shithole than usual as it suffered from widespread famine. Humans being humans, the government of Ethiopia was too busy tramping rebels in order to help their people who were dying from starvation. That's when Irish musician Bob Geldof decided to do something about it. He started Band Aid, a musical supergroup who performed the song "Do They Know It's Christmas" to raise money for famine relief. You know, the typical rich white guy thing to do: Throw money at the problem and hope it fixes things. Well, that struck such a chord that basically every other industry jumped onto the bandwagon to help out a country they didn't bother thinking of before Geldof slapped starving African children onto a Christmas catalog cover and called it a record sleeve.
This isn't patronizing at all!
The comic book industry also got involved. Marvel was the first with Heroes for Hope: Featuring the X-Men (We'll get into that one next time) Not wanting to be left out of the game, DC Comics followed suit with Heroes Against Hunger. Both companies tried to imitate the "success" of Geldof's efforts by cramming in as many writers and artists onto the project. Writers like Jim Starlin, Roy Thomas, J.M. DeMatteis, Marv Wolfman, Gerry Conway, Len Wein, and more joined forces with artists like George Pérez, Carmine Infantino, Barry-Windsor Smith, Curt Swan, Jack Kirby, and Joe Kubert. It was a 48-page comic book, and each talent worked on two pages of plot.
Were the fruits of their labor worth it? Or was the effort just as desolate as the country they were trying to help?
Biting Off More Than You Can Chew
The story opens with Superman attempting to bring fresh soil to the wasteland that is Ethiopia, with a camera crew in tow. Unfortunately, spreading it around is harder than it seems because of the harsh winds blowing away a good deal of the soil before it can be used. Superman is then scolded by Lee Ann Layton, a member of the Peace Corps who is unimpressed with the Man of Steel coming in for a photo op when the problem is bigger than even the Last Son of Krypton to handle.
Look lady, cat saving is a serious problem. Once I heard of seven cats stuck in the same tree!
Still, Superman continues on his mission, but someone blows up his next load of soil. Elsewhere, Batman is investigating the crash of a Wayne Enterprises airplane bringing food and supplies to the region. Spotting Superman flying by, the Dark Knight signals his ally and the two learn about their respective problems. Superman convinces Bats to go seek out his long time enemy Lex Luthor who might have the scientific know-how to revitalize the region while he goes and investigates the recent bout of plane crashes.
Sounds like someone is a little touchy today.
Superman reasons that Batman will be able to talk sense to Luthor, whereas if he went himself his old foe would just go into a rage. I suppose sending one psychotic to talk to another psychotic would actually work out.
The Master Does Not Approve
You caught me at a bad time, can you give me a few to put on some clothes?
While this is going on, Superman investigates the plane crashes and learns that some Wayne Enterprise employees have been replaced with killer androids to stop anyone from looking into the crashes. As you would expect, they aren't much of a match for Superman who uses his heat vision to melt the automatons. Nobody looks into what happened to the real employees in this story. However, Superman does find a spy device that leads him right to the villain of this piece.
He's a massive green skinned creature called the Master. This guy gains strength from entropy and often enjoys the dead void of space. Every now and then he likes to vacation on planets, particularly places that were once teeming with life that are now arid wastelands. Why does he have a keyboard in his chest? Well, that allows him to play music that allows him to do basically whatever he wants. In his first encounter with Superman, he uses this goofy device to wrap the Man of Steel up in metal and teleport him far away from the villain's hideout. When Superman tries to look for him, he can't find his foe because of some kind of cloaking device, thus prolonging the plot longer than it needs to, because clearly, Superman could easily defeat a foe this ridiculous if not for some kind of ridiculous flim-flam. Remember, this is 1986, a time when most DC stories read like kids playing superheroes in a playground.
The Master is a very uninspiring villain, to say the least. A mostly naked green guy with rippling muscles and four arms hardly strikes fear into the heart of anyone. The artists couldn't decide on giving him a kick-ass costume. Nope, just purple snug fitting jockeys. The big reveal makes him look like he's telling the pizza boy that he doesn't have any money to pay for it, and from here, you can probably figure out where this joke is going.
One thing you can say about the Master, if this who entropy thing doesn't work out he could have been a fill in keyboardist for Kraftwerk or something.
Anyone Remember Planet Lexor?
"Never fail" if you ignore all the times he actually has failed.
Of course, you don't, because that was a plot point from four or five reboots ago, so unless you're in your 30s you probably don't know about this. Planet Lexor was the world where Lex Luthor was considered a hero, that is until Lex's obsession with Superman ultimately led to the destruction of his adopted world. Lex, naturally blames Superman for this, even though Luthor was at fault. Hence why Superman sends Batman to seek his aid. Luthor is convinced into helping when Batman points out that Superman has failed to solve the hunger crisis in Ethiopia. This is all it takes for Luthor to agree to help and he shows Batman the plant growth formula he created on Lexor that could help solve the problem.
The pair then fly off to join Superman in Africa, where the Man of Steel has been trying to relocate their foe, with no success.
Poorly Executed Plan
Luthor's armor is able to locate the Master, but before they are able to go after their foe, the Master blocks all sunlight from the Earth, threatening to exterminate all life on the planet. When they arrive outside of the Master's base, they discover that he has set up shop in near a small village. Seeing the starving people brings Lex Luthor to tears and in a rare show of humanity, takes command of the situation. While Batman evacuates the people, Superman and Luthor face off against the Master.
After all the atrocities Luthor instigated, who knew he had a weak stomach for starvation.
What follows is another battle that plays out like a kid in the sandbox with action figures, padding out the page count with a number of crisis moments you know will sort themselves out in the most anti-climatic way possible, as was DC Comics writing style at the time. Meanwhile, Batman gets reamed out by Lee Anne Layton, who questions the point of evacuating the suffering villagers.
Eventually, the heroes realize that the best way to defeat the Master is to destroy the weapon he has been using against them the whole time. Disarmed, the Master is then banished to another dimension. Kind of an anti-climatic end, they put as much thought into the villain's defeat as they did in his design. Now with the bad guy vanquished it was time to solve the famine, right? Well....About that....
Epic Fail
Lo and behold, when they attempt to use the plant growth formula from planet Lexor, it doesn't work because -- wouldn't you know it, there is some kind of difference between the plant life on Earth and that of Lexor. That's when Lee Anne comes back and gives a simplistic explanation for the famine and says that it will take more than a few superheroes to fix the problem. The trio then departs, leaving Layton to do her job.
"Hey Batman don't you know a billionaire who could help ---"
"Shhh! Just walk away!"
Why This PSA Doesn't Work
That's a good question. While money was raised for famine relief, who knows how much DC Comics actually donated? Poking around the internet I haven't found any indication and I don't feel like digging through hundreds of comics from 1986-87 for some dollar amount. I will talk about the issues with the cause in my next edition, so let's focus on why the story doesn't work:
First of all, the entire battle went on for far too long. You'd think that someone like Superman who demonstrates the ability to move faster than the speed of light in this same story, could have easily disarmed his foe from the moment he realized the keytar on his chest was a threat. Also, can we talk about how the villain gets his power? He says he gathers his power from entropy. To put it simply, we're talking about the breakdown of something -- life in this case. How do you get power from something that is dead? He also states that he gets power from the void of space. How do you get power from nothing? None of it makes sense.
Let's also talk about Lee Anne Layton: What a bitch. Sure, I'd be a little unimpressed when superheroes come into the region with a camera crew for a photo op. But, you're talking to a man who is the mightiest being in the world and you're refusing his help? Also, I get that she doesn't know that Batman is Bruce Wayne, for someone who is bitching about needing billions of dollars, discouraging a secret billionaire is a bad idea. You are also chewing out a scientist who could still off some valuable aid. Her solution to the problem is throwing money at the crisis in the hopes it goes away. After reading about two of the greatest superheroes in the DC universe failing, what the hell am I supposed to do?
It's also somewhat troubling that the three victors silently fly off and never do anything about the famine again. Great job guys!
Anyway, I'll get into why this PSA failed in a practical way next time when I also tackle Marvel's attempt Heroes for Hope . Be there, won't you?