For the Man Who Has Everything

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Superman Annual #11


Cover by Dave Gibbons
Publisher DC Comics,
edited by Julius Schwartz
Publication dates December 1985
Main character(s) Superman, Mongul,
Wonder Woman, Batman,
Robin,
Jor-El
Creative team
Writer(s) Alan Moore
Artist(s) Dave Gibbons
Colourist(s) Tom Ziuko

For the Man Who Has Everything is both a comic book story and a Justice League Unlimited episode

Contents

[edit] Comic book

For the Man Who Has Everything is a story by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons published in Superman Annual #11.

[edit] Plot

Batman, Robin, and Wonder Woman visit the Fortress of Solitude on Superman's birthday, only to find him in a vegetative state, a large alien plant stuck to his chest, its tendrils wrapped around his body. As they analyze the situation, making educated guesses about its origin and function, the alien Mongul steps into the scene, revealing the name of the plant (the "Black Mercy") and how it has put Superman into a coma, feeding him an extremely realistic but plausible dream based on his "heart's desire". As he explains, Mongul puts on a large pair of gauntlets, which apparently allow him to touch the Mercy without risking being attacked by it. Interspersed with these "real" scenes are pages of Superman's dream of living a normal life on his long-destroyed home planet of Krypton, using his birth name of Kal-El and happily married with two children.

While Wonder Woman battles Mongul, whose power is quickly shown to exceed hers, Batman and Robin try to free Superman. Superman's fantasy, meantime, takes a dark turn as, to maintain the plausibility of the scenario, his father Jor-El's prediction of Krypton's doom (in this fantasy, unfulfilled) has led to him being discredited, which leaves him embittered. The Kryptonian society within the dream is undergoing political upheaval, with Jor-El becoming chairman of an extremist reactionary movement called the Sword of Rao which calls for a return to Krypton's "noble and unspoiled" past, which incidentally includes the time he was considered the planet's greatest scientist. A major point of contention in the political struggle is the use of the Phantom Zone, Krypton's other-dimensional prison system, developed by Jor-El and thus making the House of El unpopular. Kal-El's cousin, Kara Zor-El, has been brutally assaulted by anti-Zone protesters, who use the criminal Jax-Ur as martyr and symbol.

Superman gradually begins to "wake up" from the increasingly disturbing dream, with it finally dissolving with a scene of his "son", Van-El, slipping away from him. In combination, Batman has resorted to simply trying to pry the Mercy off of Superman's chest. Without protective clothing, the plant immediately attacks him, putting Batman into his "heart's desire" dream, in which the major traumatic event of his life, witnessing his parents' murder, is foiled and he instead grows into a contented adulthood with a wife and daughter. Superman takes several seconds to recover and, infuriated by both the Mercy's attack and the loss of the fantasy (as Mongul later describes, "escaping it must have been like tearing off your own arm"), savagely retaliates against Mongul, who was about to finish off the defeated Wonder Woman. The two adversaries battle across the Fortress, causing massive damage to it. Meanwhile, Robin puts on Mongul's protective gauntlets and pries the Mercy off of Batman. Thinking quickly, he stuffs the Mercy into one of the oversized gloves, allowing him to safely carry it as he runs toward the continuing battle. Superman, on the verge of delivering a crushing blow to Mongul, becomes distracted by the sight of the large statues he long-ago built of his parents, allowing Mongul to deliver a stunning counterattack. Mongul is on the verge of killing Superman when Robin drops the Mercy on him. Mongul is instantly seized by the plant and submerged into his own deepest fantasy, in which he swats the Mercy aside, kills Robin, then Superman, then conquers the universe.

[edit] Publication

As well as appearing in Superman Annual #11 it has been reprinted in:

[edit] Trivia

Background details in the Krypton fantasy in For the Man Who Has Everything are culled from decades of Krypton stories appearing in various Superman comics, including:

  • Page 1
    • Frame 1: Jax-Ur poster at extreme left. Jax-Ur was a scientist who destroyed Krypton's smaller moon (as well as some 500 colonists) with a prototype pseudo-nuclear warhead (Action Comics #284, Jan 1962) and was sentenced to eternity in the Phantom Zone, Krypton's other-dimensional prison system. These posters will appear frequently through the story, as well as protesters who want the Zone system abolished.
    • Frame 3: Reference to "Kandor Crater". This city was shrunk and stolen by the interstellar android Brainiac (Action Comics #242, Jul 1958).
    • Frame 4: Lyla reference. Lyla Ler-Rol was a Kryptonian actress who Superman (accidentally thrown backward in time several decades to land on Krypton before his own birth and the planet's destruction) met and fell in love with (Superman #141, Nov 1960). To be perfectly consistent with the then-established timelime, Lyla would be at least 25 years older than Kal-El. This is not addressed in the story. Also, this frame contains a Nightwing and Flamebird reference. These were a Batman and Robin-like pair of crimefighters in the bottled city of Kandor, originally with the "secret identities" of Superman and Jimmy Olsen (Superman had no powers when in Kandor), first appearing in Superman #158 (Jan 1963). Later, the roles were filled by two Kandorians. In this fantasy, they are a pair of characters on a popular children's entertainment series. Also, reference to the "Scarlet Jungle", an untamed region on Krypton noted for red vegetation and wild beasts (Action Comics #310, Mar 1964).
    • Frame 5: A white dog appears, possibly Krypto, as well as (we would later learn) Allura and Kara Zor-El (i.e. Supergirl), Kal-El's aunt and cousin.
    • Frame 6: Kara gives Kal a headband. Men in Kryptonian society typically wore headbands as marks of citizenship, i.e. after passing the age of 12 and achieving a certain level of education and/or social development (Superman #352, Oct 1980). In this fantasy, it seems to have fallen out of fashion since relatively few men are seen wearing headbands, including Kal-El himself. The Metal-Eater is a Kryptonian animal resembling a small hippopotamus (though in its original appearance in Action Comics #242, it was portrayed as a giant mole). Note also that Kal-El evidently wears a Clark Kent-ish pair of eyeglasses
  • Page 6
    • Frame 4; Reference to (the late) Zor-El, Jor-El's twin brother, uncle of Kal-El, husband of Allura and father of Kara Zor-El.
  • Page 7
    • Frame 6: reference to "Rao", the Kryptonian sun-god. Note also on this page that Jor-El's clothing is the typical green suit with sunburst emblem, which is how he has almost always been portrayed (see the statue on page 33, frame 5).
  • Page 8
    • Frame 2: Reference to Erkol, an ancient Kryptonian city (referenced in Superman #282, Dec 1974, among other places). Also, reference to "racial trouble with the Vathlo Island immigrants". Vathlo was an Kryptonian island with a dark-skinned population (Superman #239, Jun-Jul 1971)
    • Frame 4: Reference to Science Council, the senior-most ruling body on Krypton. In various accounts of Krypton's final days (including Superman #61, Dec 1949), the body Jor-El fails to convince of the planet's impending doom.
    • Frame 6: Phantom Zone reference. The technology to put people in the Zone was developed by Jor-El himself (World of Krypton limited series volume 1, issue #2, Aug 1979). This discovery originally earned him membership on the Science Council, but in this fantasy is making the house of El politically unpopular.
  • Page 16
    • Frame 1: Nightwing and Flamebird toys, including "Metalgiant". In the next frame, the nurse "converts [Metalgiant] into a trundle gun". Not a Krypton reference, but rather a nod to the Transformers toys popular at the time the story was published.
  • Page 17
    • Frame 3: Reference to "Little Vathlo", presumably where many or most of the Vathlo immigrants to the city of Kryptonopolis have settled.
  • Page 21
    • Frame 4: "Gold volcano" reference. Gold was commonplace on Krypton (World of Krypton limited series, volume 1) and had never been used as currency.

Lyla is also the name of Kal-El's wife in the storyarc "Godfall," which features a similar plotline (Superman living in a fantasy where Krypton was never destroyed)

Additionally, the bottle city of Kandor was restored to full size by Superman in Superman #338 (Aug 1979). He soon after built a perfect replica but was surprised when thousands of tiny aliens, fleeing the destruction of their home planet, moved into it (Superman #371, Aug 1982). When Wonder Woman, not knowing Superman already has a replica, gives him a second one, he hides his at super-speed to spare her feelings.

The final page, detailing Mongul's universal conquest fantasy, includes appearances by numerous extraterrestrial DC characters including Hawkman and Hawkwoman; Brainiac; Adam Strange; Hyathis (empress of Thanagar); Bolphunga the Unrelenting (from a story in Green Lantern #188, May 1985, also by Moore and Gibbons); an Oan Guardian; J'onn J'onnz (aka The Martian Manhunter); and a bearded long-haired human representing Alan Moore himself bowing before his creation, among others. The fantasy also incorporates "a resurrected Warworld", a copy of the planet-sized battle station used by Mongul but destroyed by Superman and Supergirl in DC Comics Presents #28 (Dec 1980).

[edit] Later references

Infinite Crisis featured two references to For The Man Who Has Everything. In Infinite Crisis #1, a panel showing Mongul Jr. confronting Batman and Wonder Woman at the remains of the Watchtower uses the same composition as Mongul's entrance in the earlier story. Later, in a tie-in story in Green Lantern (Hal Jordan), Mongul Jr. uses a Black Mercy to capture Lantern and Green Arrow (Oliver Queen) in a shared fantasy. Queen is able to break free because Jordan's greater willpower allows his desires to override the fantasy to describe what he thinks Queen's perfect life would be, rather than what Queen himself would wish for.

[edit] Animated episodes

The story was adapted for the second episode of the animated series Justice League Unlimited. The main change was that Robin was left out, and most of his lines were given to Wonder Woman. Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons are given credit by the writing staff of Justice League Unlimited at the beginning of the episode.

The story was also the basis for Batman: The Animated Series season one episode Perchance to Dream. In the episode, the Mad Hatter places Batman into a fantasy world where Bruce Wayne's parents never died, he never became Batman, and he is now engaged to Selina Kyle.

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