- Complete Monster: C.W. Saturn, a demon from Hell and the chief servant of Samael, is introduced torturing 666 condemned souls. Samael tasks Saturn with breaking Superman's spirit, for if he succeeds there will be nothing to stop Samael from conquering the universe and allowing evil to rule over the cosmos. Saturn comes to Earth and decides to test Superman by causing various disasters for Superman to deal with. He creates an earthquake that causes a tidal wave to head towards to Metropolis; causes trains to crash; causes a chemical plant to caught fire; and nearly explode and causes a building to start collapsing. After that, he posseses Kristen Wells, Clark Kent's new coworker. In Wells's body, at first Saturn just commits cruel pranks, though some are deadly. After Superman spoils some of Saturn's fun, he decides to get serious and uses his powers to make all the nuclear weapons in the world launch. Saturn's ultimate goal is to force Superman kill Wells in order to stop him, knowing that will break Superman's spirit and allow evil to win.
- Continuity Lockout: For a modern-day, post-Crisis on Infinite Earths, post-New 52, post-Doomsday Clock reader, this book has a steep learning curve, as it is a pre-Crisis Silver Age/Bronze Age Superman. For instance:
- Clark works as an anchorman at GBS rather than at the Daily Planet, which was the status quo following the events of Kryptonite Nevermore right up till Crisis hit the reset button;
- Morgan Edge owns both the Planet and GBS,
- Superman and Lex Luthor were old friends from Smallville who turned into bitter rivals, and Lex is a career criminal Mad Scientist who has been in and out of Cardboard Prison all his life and not a Corrupt Corporate Executive who hates Superman due to his godlike power;
- Luthor's father was a normal person named Julian who was repelled by Lex's villainy (enough to relocate and change the family name after Luthor's being remanded to juvie), rather than being Corrupt Corporate Executive Lionel Luthor.
- Hilarious in Hindsight:
- At one point in the novel there's an aside where Perry White is described as "how Bruce Jenner would look when he grows up." Remember, this novel was published in 1981.
- Early on, characters in the far future discuss how a dictatorial regime on a colony on Mars was deposed in 2014 by combined NATO and Warsaw Pact forces. Needless to say, the Warsaw pact is no longer a thing.
- Superman faces off against a godlike, malevolent entity bent on making major changes just to see how Superman would react, and he defeats it and makes it revert the majority of the changes by the force of his Incorruptible Pure Pureness? And the entity is named after a significant locale? Are we talking about C.W. Saturn or Doctor Manhattan?
- Kristin Wells has a poster of Jack Nicholson along with one of Christopher Reeve and one of John Travolta. At the time, of course, the Reeve poster was a nod to Superman: The Movie, while Travolta was a Hollywood hunk famous at the time for Welcome Back, Kotter, Saturday Night Fever and Grease and Nicholson was a popular character actor best known for films like The Shining, Easy Rider and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. However, just nine years after this book was published the inclusion of Nicholson becomes absolutely hilarious. And in 2004, Travolta would also star in a comic book movie...
- Nightmare Fuel: Jonathan Kent's nightmare about Clark having all of his powers, but none of his moral sense. Thankfully, Jonathan wakes up just before Clark is about to split Jonathan's skull open.
- Tear Jerker: That poor dog back in Smallville. Clark's reaction is understandable.
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