Action Comics #724

Something has clearly pushed Superman past his limits in this August 1996 issue, and the cover by Tom Grummett and Denis Rodier captures that tension with striking immediacy — a grimacing Man of Steel presses a green-scaled, orange-haired figure to the ground while a brown-haired woman in a pink dress grabs his arm and pleads, "Stop, Superman! You're killing him!" The story is aptly titled "Losing Brawl," and the sight of Superman straining against his own restraint, with someone desperately trying to pull him back, raises all the right questions about what drove him here. Writer David Michelinie and artists Tom Morgan and Denis Rodier deliver what promises to be a raw, morally charged chapter in the Man of Steel's 1996 run.