Action Comics #595
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeAction Comics #595 holds a firm place in post-Crisis Superman history as the debut of Silver Banshee (Siobhan McDougal), one of the most distinctive supernatural antagonists John Byrne added to the Man of Steel's rebuilt rogues gallery. At a moment when DC was deliberately steering Superman back toward science-fiction roots under Byrne's revamp, Silver Banshee arrived as a deliberate counterweight — a magic-based villain whose lethal sonic scream bypasses Kryptonian invulnerability entirely, dramatizing Superman's fundamental weakness to the arcane. The issue also stages an early post-Crisis team-up between Superman and the Martian Manhunter, with Byrne concealing J'onn J'onzz's identity from readers via a mystery-guest cover gimmick that was itself a callback to the era's beloved World's Finest tradition. The story thread it plants — Lex Luthor's furious resentment that he alone did not deliver Superman's death — would echo forward all the way to the Death of Superman arc years later.
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Byrne wrote, pencilled, and designed the cover for this issue as part of his run stewarding the post-Crisis Superman line, with Keith Williams on inks, Tom Ziuko on colors, John Costanza lettering, and Mike Carlin as editor. Byrne conceived Silver Banshee to deliberately broaden Superman's villain pool beyond the science-fiction archetypes that had defined it, drawing her visual look and power concept directly from the banshee of Irish folklore — a death-heralding spirit tied to specific ancient families — and grounding her in Celtic myth by making her origin a family ritual gone catastrophically wrong. At the time, Action Comics was functioning not as a straightforward Superman solo book but as a rotating team-up title, which shaped the issue's structure and gave Byrne room to spotlight the Martian Manhunter in a guest capacity while keeping his identity a surprise through the cover copy.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First appearance of Silver Banshee (Siobhan McDougal), a supernatural Superman villain created entirely by John Byrne.
- Story title: 'The Ghost of Superman'; cover date December 1987, published by DC Comics.
- Full creative team: John Byrne (writer, penciller, cover artist), Keith Williams (inker), Tom Ziuko (colorist), John Costanza (letterer), Mike Carlin (editor).
- At this point in its publishing history, Action Comics was operating as a Superman team-up book rather than a standard solo title; the surprise guest star here was the Martian Manhunter, whose identity was withheld on the cover with the teaser copy 'Superman & ?????????'.
- Silver Banshee's powers are magical in nature — rooted in Irish/Celtic folklore — making her one of the few foes capable of threatening a Kryptonian through supernatural means rather than physical force or Kryptonite.
- This issue marks the first instance of Lex Luthor's recurring fixation that Superman must die by his hand alone — a character beat that would be revisited during the Death of Superman storyline.
- The issue has been reprinted in the collected editions Superman: The Man of Steel Vol. 6 and Superman: The Man of Steel Vol. 3 (2021 Edition).
- Silver Banshee went on to appear across animation (Justice League Unlimited, Batman Unlimited: Monster Mayhem, My Adventures with Superman), live-action (Smallville, the CBS Supergirl series), a dedicated 1998 two-issue miniseries by Karl Kesel and Terry Dodson, and was reimagined in the New 52 as Siobhan Smythe with ties to Supergirl rather than Superman.
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