This page may contain one or more affiliate links, which means that if you purchase a product through that link, I may receive compensation. The links will be identified with the text "affiliate link". Click to learn more.
Lex Luthor has inhabited all sorts of mechanical Kryptonite suits, like the one he used to plummet Supergirl into the pavement. So it was no surprise in Action Comics 701 when a self-aware Kryptonian battle suit rescues Lex Luthor from an EMT. Apparently it is not the real Lex Luthor, but rather a clone, I guess. You have to understand that this story was written during the 90s, when death and clones were as common as farts and sunshine.
In Action Comics 701, Luthor uses Superman’s Kryptonian battle suit after he abandoned it on the runway. To think that Superman could be so careless as to leave a tank in the middle of the road with the keys still in it makes me wonder if he could even be trusted to simply hold a baby.
Despite being a vegetable, Luthor uses the Kryptonian battle suit to blast rocket fuel at Superman that is so hot, it melts the suit’s left hand. But that does not matter though, because Superman is unaffected, and just tears open the suit like tissue paper. Luthor is swiftly escorted to a STAR Labs buck naked, which the penicller (Jackson Guice) had no problem drawing. In fact, on page 3 there is a full frontal drawing of Luthor as naked a jay-bird but happens to lack genitals.
So little happens in Action Comics 701 that it feels like fluff. Nearly every single page is a splash-page, meaning that it has only one or two panels. It must have been a frustrating challenge for the artist to portray a paper-thin plot to fill an entire comic. This was also at a time when Superman had long hair, but I guess when there is a character where nearly every inch of his body is covered with a costume, there aren’t too many creative alterations you could make.
If there is one thing that was awesome about the 90s though, it was that every conceivable object in comic books was made into a toy. So remember that awesome Kryptonian battle suit we were just talking about? You can own that bad boy right now! Life is good.