It’s the last week for “Disaster December!” and we’re going to do something a little different…
From time to time, DC Comics published special benefit projects such as this one. Not your typical kind of catastrophe, hunger is nevertheless a form of natural disaster. Since we’re smack dab in the middle of the holiday season, a time when we should be thinking of others who are less fortunate than us, it seems appropriate to share this story.
1986 (May 22, 1986)
$1.50, 48 pages
Editor: Robert Greenberger
Proceeds from the sales of Heroes Against Hunger went toward African famine relief and recovery. Its story, “A Song of Pain & Sorrow,” is written and drawn by an all-star cast of comics creators and is told mostly in two-page chapters. The cover was drawn by Neal Adams and inked by Dick Giordano.
His name is Superman. He’s faster than a speeding bullet. He can leap over the tallest building. He can bend steel with his bare hands. But today he’s set an awesome new task for himself. Today he will learn the limits of a superman…
The voice comes from Lee Ann Layton of the Peace Corps who asks Superman how it feels to do more harm than good.
Miles away at “a site of desolation within despair, a Wayne Foundation plane has crashed and Batman is there to ensure supplies get through without any more killing. Superman meets him and they learn the plane was sliced apart by “a sophisticated type of particle beam weapon.”
Superman investigates using super-hearing, “The Man of Steel’s ability to hear everything…”
Inside, he meets “The Master,” a four-armed green alien with a keyboard embedded in his chest.
I shot down those planes, Superman, because I desire and need desolation. Some seek knowledge; I seek entropy.
Meanwhile, Batman breaks into Lex Luthor’s lab in the Atlantic Ocean, seeking his help.
Luthor demonstrates how he ensured an adequate food supply for an entire world. Batman tells him he’ll be a hero again.
Not interested, Caped Crusader. I’ll help you, but I don’t want any of the credit. Who needs the admiration of a planet that would worship Superman? I could care less about Earth.
Darkness suddenly falls across the entire world. As the unlikely trio braces itself for battle against The Master, they encounter a refugee camp for famine victims…
Superman and Luthor on any other day, they would play their familiar parts as hero and villain, but in the presence of a greater danger, they work in tandem without conscious realization of their change roles.
Life is funny that way.
Hunger isn’t.
Neither is the battle, which proves to be more difficult than anyone would have imagined. Finally…
Afterwards, Batman, Superman, and Luthor take all the steps to implement Luthor’s plant growth formula and… it doesn’t work. Lee Ann Layton tells them she knew the formula would fail, but…
Recommended Film
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (2019)
Starring:
Chiwetel Ejiofor, Maxwell Simba, Felix Lemburo, Robert Agengo
Written by: Chewetel Ejiofor
Based on the book by:
William Kamkwamba, Bryan Mealer
Directed by: Chewetel Ejiofor
Released on March 1, 2019, by Netflix
CODEX OMNIVERSA 