Cover: John Byrne

Action Comics #596

Jan 1988 · DC · 0.75 USD; 1.00 CAD; 0.40 GBP

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“Hell Is Where the Heart Is...”

About this Issue

Action Comics #596 is the climactic chapter of John Byrne's Superman strand within DC's 1987–88 company-wide 'Millennium' crossover, resolving the shocking revelation that every person raised in Smallville alongside Clark Kent had been brainwashed as a Manhunter sleeper agent — a plot thread that permanently altered the post-Crisis mythology of Superman's hometown. The issue is also a rare pairing of Superman with the Spectre, deploying the supernatural hero's power to navigate an astral-plane duplicate of Smallville and dismantle the Manhunter construct holding its citizens captive. It closes a crucial loop for Clark's secret identity: once the Manhunter programming is purged, Lana Lang — who had briefly acted against Superman while controlled — retains no memory of knowing he is Clark Kent, tidying the continuity Byrne had threatened for several issues. As part of one of the Copper Age's most sprawling crossovers, the issue stands as evidence of how aggressively late-1980s DC wove its ongoing titles into line-wide events, requiring readers to track story beats across dozens of concurrent books.

In "Hell Is Where the Heart Is...", Superman joins forces with the Spectre to rescue the residents of Smallville, who are trapped in a haunting illusion of their own demise. Written and illustrated by John Byrne, with inks by Keith Williams and colors by Tom Ziuko, this 1988 issue blends supernatural mystery with Superman’s enduring sense of hope, all framed by Byrne’s striking cover art.

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writer, artist, inker John Byrne · inker Keith Williams · colorist Tom Ziuko · letterer John Costanza · cover John Byrne

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History

The issue was produced entirely by John Byrne — script, pencils, and figure inks — with background inks by Keith Williams, colors by Tom Ziuko, lettering by John Costanza, and editing by Michael Carlin. It followed directly from Adventures of Superman #436, in which Superman defeated a Manhunter robot in Smallville only to watch the town's 'sleeper-agent' residents apparently die as a consequence; Action Comics #596 was the immediate continuation, published as the Week 4 tie-in component of DC's 'Millennium' event, an eight-issue weekly limited series written by Steve Englehart with art by Joe Staton and Ian Gibson that ran across more than forty ongoing DC titles in January–February 1988. Byrne's decision to embed Smallville's entire population within the Manhunter conspiracy — essentially grafting a galactic menace onto Superman's childhood — drew some criticism from readers and commentators who felt it over-committed the Superman titles to a crossover whose changes would ultimately prove fleeting.

Trivia · 7 facts

Story title: 'Hell Is Where the Heart Is...' — cover-dated January 1988, released October 1987.
Entirely written, penciled, and figure-inked by John Byrne; background inks by Keith Williams; colors by Tom Ziuko; letters by John Costanza; edited by Michael Carlin.
Designated 'Millennium Week 4' tie-in (part 4.2 of the crossover), making it one of more than forty ongoing DC titles woven into the event.
Central story: the Spectre transports Superman to a spirit-world replica of Smallville, where the town's residents — apparently killed when their Manhunter programming was severed in Adventures of Superman #436 — are found alive, held by a Manhunter simulacrum that the Spectre ultimately destroys.
Resolves the Lana Lang secret-identity threat: with the Manhunter control eliminated, Lana no longer consciously knows Clark Kent is Superman, closing the arc that had run through Superman Vol. 2 #12–13 and Adventures of Superman #436.
Byrne established that a Manhunter agent had been conditioning every child born in Smallville after Superman's arrival to serve as long-dormant sleeper agents — a retcon that embedded the Manhunters into the post-Crisis Superman origin.
The story is set on Halloween, with the Spectre explicitly using All Hallows' Eve as the metaphysical justification for his ability to move souls between the astral plane and the living world.