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Today, we look at the mysterious alien creature known as Scorn, who briefly wore Superman’s costume when Superman changed into his blue energy look!
This is “You Act Like We Never Have Met,” which is a feature about one-time cast members of popular comic book series that have fallen by the wayside in the years since. Some of these are characters who would appear in comics routinely read by hundreds of thousands of people but are now effectively mysteries.
The being that would become known as Scorn was originally introduced in 1997’s Superman #122 (by Dan Jurgens, Ron Frenz and Joe Rubinstein) as part of a storyline involving the Bottled City of Kandor, which, at this point in Superman continuity, was a hodgepodge world made up of beings from all sorts of different planets (I’ll probably talk about the whole Kandor deal some other time. It was a whole thing around this period in the Superman books). Ceritak was the son of Cerimul, one of the members of the ruling council of Kandor. These beings had lived generations trapped in the city and Ceritak was one of those younger folks who were not content to basically just be captives of this prison city, so he would continually tempt the fates, like heading to the forcefields that trap them in the city…
Well, Superman had just become to deal with his powers acting up and he was visiting Kandor to see if they could help and in the process, his new energy powers allowed him to phase through the force field and in that same instant, Ceritak was able to phase OUT of the force field and, to the people of Kandor, he was seemingly vaporized. Since he and Superman sort of shared the same space there for a second, Ceritak gained a sort of connection to Superman, so when he escaped from capitivity in the middle of the Artic (where Superman’s Fortress of Solitude was), he was drawn to Metropolis.
He encountered Superman, who initially thought he was a villain until Ceritak proved his heroism. In the process, though, he also gained the name Scorn (as he didn’t speak English, so Scorn was one of the only things he picked up on). By this point in time, Superman has officially transitioned into his blue energy period and was wearing a new energy containment costume. That left his classic Superman costume unoccupied and when Scorn’s connection to Superman drew him to Clark Kent’s apartment, he discovered the costume and he decided to start wearing it while doing superheroics in Superman #125 (by Jurgens, Stern and Rubinstein)…
In what I suppose was a riff on Thing and Alicia Masters (or perhaps they’re both just riffs on Beauty and the Beast), Scorn saved Ashbury Armstrong, the blind teenage daughter of Daily Planet conservative columnist Dick Armstrong (basically a Rush Limbaugh riff), and the elder Armstrong did not like his daughter hanging out with Scorn…
Scorn was now a legit outright cast member in the Superman titles. In fact, when DC did its “Face Forward” month in October of 1997, while Superman received one of the full face covers and Clark Kent the other, and a new villain, the Ripper, on the third and Scorn on the fourth…
Scorn would help Superman out occasionally but he was also being hunted by Lex Luthor and there was this whole plot where Jimmy Olsen and Misa (a member of the Hairies) who had magical powers. She initially was sort of a villain, but after Jimmy was forced to go on the run while Intergang was hunting him down, Misa took pity on him an began traveling with Jimmy and the two helped to search for the captured Scorn and eventually helped him escape…
Scorn then had a plotline where he tried to just settle down in Metropolis, including getting a job at a fast food joint that did not go well at all…
Eventually, Scorn’s father was killed and Superman was framed for the murder by the Cyborg Superman (who had manipulated the people of Kandor into thinking he was their savior). In the end, Superman’s name was cleared and Ceritak could remain with his family in Kandor, but he instead convinced his sister to take their father’s place and he returned to Metropolis.
The problem, though, was that we are now into 1999 and the Superman titles are about to undergo some VAST changes (Superman had returned to normal in 1998), with then-incoming editor Eddie Berganza planning to mostly clean house and bring in new creators (after his initial gambit of hiring Grant Morrison, Mark Waid, Mark Millar and Tom Peyer was overruled) and so Stuart Immonen and Jose Marzan Jr. likely felt like they had to just wrap the Scorn stuff up, as we see in Action Comics #750 that Ashbury is dealing with some major problems at school due to her gallivanting around with Scorn all of the time….
Presumably because he felt responsible for Ashbury’s issues, Scorn departs off-panel sometime between Action Comics #750 and #751 and in the latter issue, Ashbury reveals that Scorn has disappeared and he has left behind a note, but it was in his language so it was kind of useless…
This was right when the storyline started where Superman tried to take over the world to protect it (influenced by Dominus, who was actually just recently a big part of the Infinite Frontier at DC), so perhaps Immonen actually initially planned on giving Scorn a full send-off rather than that mysterious one, but whatever his original plans were, that turned out to be Scorn’s big farewell and since it is unclear if his people even technically EXIST in the current DC continuity after the New 52 (the Bottled City of Kandor is back to a Kryptonian deal), he probably won’t ever be showing up again.
But never say never! Not in comic books!
Okay, that’s it for this installment of You Act Like We Never Have Met! Feel free to write in to brianc@cbr.com if you have suggestions for future installments!
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