"Rack and Ruin, Part II"
Cover Date: February 2006
Writers: Greg Rucka (Plot), Nunzio DeFilippis and Christina Weir (Script)
Artist: Renato Guedes
Previously...
Superman had spent the better part of a year battling a new villain named Ruin, who turned out to be Pete Ross, Superman's childhood friend and ex-president of the United States. but, last issue, it was revealed that the previous revelation was a deception, and that Ruin was actually Emil Hamilton, Superman's super-scientist friend.
Plot
Hamilton is gloating over the remains of Mxyzptlk, who he killed at the end of the last issue. He then explains that he's manipulated some female cop into shooting Pete Ross by staging a rather elaborate ruse of making it look like Pete Ross is about to kill his wife and kid. Hamilton then turns on his handy red-sun projector, which all non-magical supervillains carry around nowadays in lieu of Kryptonite, and taunts Superman a bit.
Superman, however, manages to retain just enough power to speed across the city to arrive where Pete Ross is being held just in time to watch the cop shoot...the air, because she knew it was a set up. Hamilton then shows up to try and kill Superman's supporting cast himself in a fit of pique, but can't pull it off. Superman then manages to escape into the yellow sunlight, and Ruin realizes that his goose is cooked.
But wait, Hamilton's got one last chance. He rigs his Ruin suit to explode so that Superman will have to kill him in order to defuse it, and he's also managed to rig a visual feed in the televisions of Metropolis so that everyone will see Superman kill him. In theory, not a terrible plan, but Superman manages to solve it by just ripping the suit off and flying it into the air where it explodes harmlessly. Which is kind of stupid, if only because Ruin's whole schtick was that he knew a lot of Superman's secrets, and so you'd think Hamilton could figure out a last-ditch failsafe that wasn't so easily thwarted.
Anyway, Superman and Rosses reconvene to express their gratitude at the story being over, and Superman promises to clear Pete Ross's name. The End.
Commentary
Well, it's a Superman story that takes place right at the end of a creative team's run, so it's kind of an exercise in seeing how hard you can hit the reset button.
Beyond that, I don't know. the Ruin storyline had been running for over a year at this point, although I'd imagine some of that length is due to the fact that crossovers kept getting in the way as the DC universe lumbered towards Infinite Crisis.
The big idea with Ruin is that he knew a ton about Superman, and so would know how to defeat him, but, well, look at the conclusion to the story. Ruin's last-ditch effort takes Superman roughly three panels to undo. Also, Hamilton's last words in the story are, "You RUIN everything," So that's pretty bad.
But yeah, this was what Superman has been like for the past few years. A writer comes in, sets up his own supporting cast, finds himself a new villain, starts a couple of subplots up, and I guess the idea is that everyone wants to tell a Superman story that's going to be remembered. But honestly, has their ever been a good, main universe, Superman story than ran longer than two or three issues? Around the same time as this comic, Brian Azarello was writing a TWELVE-part story called "For Tomorrow" in Superman that was powerfully mediocre. A while before that, still in Superman, Steven Seagle wrote an eight-part story featuring a new Supergirl.
So, I guess my conclusion is that the over/under for Superman switching back to his normal costume is eighteen months.
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