Return of the mummy

Important: This contains unhidden spoilers for Superman #5 – The Mummy Strikes.

This is the second half of a story that began in the previous Superman issue, in which Kent went to investigates advanced ruins that predate human society. Excavations reveal a giant robot which manages to subdue the man of steel.

Clark wakes up to see Lois looking over the Superman costume he’d been carrying.

And yet she doesn’t seem surprised. It’s definitely Lois’ body, but she’s behaving incredibly strange, as if it were some sort of perfect copy. As Superman observes her in conversation, details start to add up. It seems that some other persona is currently occupying Lois’ body, as well as the body of every other person in the archeologist’s camp aside from Clark himself. It seems to be part of some plan, something involving a Mechanism…?

SPOILER WARNING: Click here to reveal hidden content.

The rest of the comic takes on the form of parallel tracks, as we move back and forth between Superman being told what’s going on, and Superman battling the Mechanism (which turns out to be the robot he’s already met) and trying to work out how to defeat it.

Superman learns that the Earth was once inhabited by an advanced alien race that was struck down by a plague that defeated even their sciences. In desperation, part of the society chose to mummify their consciousness inside a host robot. Their plan was to wait until the source of the plague, whatever it was, disappeared completely from the environment, at which point they would transfer their consciousnesses out of the host robot into human bodies, and once again resume their mastership over the planet Earth.

As Superman thinks over everything he’s been told about the aliens and his observations of their behavior he has an idea about how to defeat the host robot…

SPOILER WARNING: Click here to reveal hidden content.

…the vanity of the alien race and their inability to compromise with each other is their downfall. Superman offers a ruse, his own body, and at the same instance the host of alien consciousness attempt to leave the host robot and occupy the excellent body offered in the form of Superman. The robot overloads, and the threat to Earth gone.

Notes:

The two parts of this story don’t do that well independently. Part one is a lead up to a fight, while part two is an information dump alternating with a fight to explain it. I did like the alternating between the dialogue and the action in this issue, but I don’t think that it’s an ideal format for an entire issue.
Comics, or at least comics I’ve read, don’t do (quote unquote) hard science fiction well, and this story here is no different. The concept of an alien race having occupied Earth for some time in the prehistory is a good (albeit well-used) scifi trope, but here it isn't explored at all. Could they properly explore an idea like that in a superhero comic? I’m not sure. I’d like to think that it could be done, but I think it would require some significant changes to the status quo of of plot production.
Shaving’s an important plot device in this story arc. Does Superman use shaving cream? We may never know…

Name	The Last Five Hundred
Volume	Superman Superman
Issue Number	6
Cover Date	June 1987
In Store Date	N/A

Superman #6

pastfarpoint's Superman #6 - The Last Five Hundred review