Back in 1990, writer/artist Dan Jurgens - who would go on to kill Superman just two years later - introduced what was, for all intents and purposes, a pastiche of Marvel’sFantastic Fourin an unassumingSupermancomic book. The crew of the spaceship Excalibur took off into the air, only to be bombarded by radiation. The Excalibur crashed down to Earth, breaking apart and leaving its inhabitants irradiated and hurt.
As inThe Fantastic Four#1 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, The Excalibur was operated by four tightly-knit friends and family. The crew of the Excalibur first appeared inThe Adventures of Superman#465 by Jurgens, and by the end ofAdventures#466, three of the four were dead.
The Reed Richards stand-in, Hank Henshaw, figures out a way to reverse the effects on his wife, Terri, who had begun to phase in and out of other dimensions - a riff on Sue Storm’s invisibility. Hank, meanwhile, had begun to quickly decay, eventually dying at the computer and collapsing as a skeleton. Of course, this story would not be the last fans would see ofHank, as he would later become the nefarious Cyborg Superman.
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The Adventures of Superman#466 by Dan Jurgens, Dick Giordano, Glenn Whitmore, and Albert De Guzman
Instead of Reed, Sue, Johnny, and Ben, the Excalibur had Hank, Terri, Steven, and Jim. When they crashed to Earth, the parallels between Jim and the Thing were immediate and horrifying. His body had fused with rocks, grass, and pieces of the Excalbur, leaving him a silent, hulking mass. Steven soon displayed the ability to fly and harness electricity the way Johnny Storm harnesses flames. What no one knew was that Hank would becomeone of Superman’s most dangerous foes.
Hank, despondent over the loss of his wife, merged with Superman’s rocket and exiled himself to space.
Only two issues later, Hank - now a being of pure energy and capable of controlling machinery -resurrected himself as a robot, using cobbled together parts from the LexCorp facility where his body had collapsed. He paid a visit to Terri, hoping to reunite with the love of his life, but his ghastly new appearance terrified her, leaving her catatonic after a nervous breakdown, with later issues clarifying that she had died. Hank, despondent over the loss of his wife, merged withSuperman’srocket and exiled himself to space. In a comment to ScreenRant, Jurgens said:
At the time, I thought of it as a simple, one-shot story that would have a bit of fun with one of the classic origin stories in comics history. Once I was nearing the end of writing and drawing it, I began to see future possibilities with Hank Henshaw and realized I wanted to open things up with an ending that would allow us to explore him further.
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The next time Henshaw returned to Earth, he would be far more dangerous, vicious, and uncontrollable. Driven past his breaking point by the isolation of space, Hank Henshaw started to blame Superman for the loss of his wife and friends. After all, if the Man of Steel had only been there slightly sooner, Henshaw reasoned, he could have saved them all.Henshaw set his sights on Earth - and on Superman- with vengeance in his heart. Only one problem: the Man of Steel was dead.
The Death and Return of Supermanis one of the most important Superman stories in DC history; the entire crossover event is available now, both digitally and in various collected editions, from DC Comics.
After learning that Superman had died at the hands of Doomsday, Henshaw used mastery over technology - and his easy access to the Kryptonian technology of Kal-El’s birthing matrix - to become a near-perfect, cybernetic clone of Superman. He and his new traveling partner Mongul wanted to destroy Earth and leave the blame at Superman’s feet, ruining the hero’s good name for all time. The Cyborg Superman was born, and one of DC’s most popular villains of the last 30 years was ready to make his mark - starting with the obliteration of Coast City and its seven million residents. Jurgens reveals more about his intentions for the character:
I liked the character and saw the potential of power in him. I had said many times that back then, Superman had too many civilian enemies without powers. The Cyborg could give him a worthy foe. That was based on his connection to the matrix chamber, which, at the time, is what essentially brought Superman to earth as a soon-to-be-born infant. It gave him something close to Superman’s powers, which instantly made him a worthy adversary.
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In the years that followed, Henshaw - usually called Cyborg Superman, but sometimes just “Cyborg” or “Henshaw” - became one of DC’s most fearsome villains, squaring off not only with Superman but also Coast City resident Hal Jordan. While many DC creators depicted him mostly as a mass murderer cursed by his own immortality,Jurgens frequently returned to the well of Henshaw’s lost humanity. In 1999’sSuperman / Fantastic Fourby Jurgens and Art Thibert, Henshaw even came face to face with Reed Richards, a story Jurgens remembers fondly:
It was tremendous fun—the kind of thing I could not have imagined when I first dreamed up the raw concept of the first [Henshaw] story. I’m still amazed that we eventually got to do it— especially as a Treasury Sized Edition.
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More than a decade and two reboots later, Jurgens once again revisited the Excalibur crash in the miniseriesSuperman: Lois & Clarkwith artist Lee Weeks. In an alternate timeline, Superman still can’t stop the tragic Excalibur disaster from happening, and has to come face to face with a new version of Henshaw, heartbroken over his failure to change the fate of one of his most tragic enemies. It’s one of DC’s bestSupermanstories, andled to Jurgens' excellent work during the RebirthEra, but more than that, it brought closure to the story of DC’s tragic riff on theFantastic Four.
