Action Comics Weekly #637
Action Comics Weekly #637 (cover-dated January 1989) carries the first published appearance of Hero Hotline — the Bob Rozakis and Stephen DeStefano creation that reframed the corporate superhero-team concept for DC, treating caped adventurers as shift workers answering a 1-800 emergency line. That debut launched a four-part ACW tryout that fed directly into a six-issue limited series, making this issue the origin point of one of the late Copper Age's most satirically distinct concepts. The issue also sits at roughly the midpoint of DC's bold weekly-anthology experiment (issues #601–642), a period that temporarily returned Action Comics to its multi-feature, anthology roots for the first time since Superman had absorbed the title decades earlier. Several of the serialized stories running through this issue — including Roger Stern and Curt Swan's Superman/Darkseid arc and Alan Grant and Mark Pacella's Etrigan installment — represent notable creative pairings that bridged post-Crisis DC storytelling with the anthology format's compressed, chapter-driven structure.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
Action Comics became a weekly anthology with issue #601 in May 1988, after John Byrne's departure from the Superman titles following the landmark issue #600. Editor Mike Gold (with Brian Augustyn co-editing the Hero Hotline segment) oversaw a rotating cast of characters, each receiving eight-page serialized installments. Issue #637 falls near the end of that experiment, which ran until March 14, 1989 (#642) before the title reverted to a monthly Superman book. The Hero Hotline feature was the final major tryout launched in the weekly format; Rozakis and DeStefano had previously collaborated on 'Mazing Man at DC, and Hero Hotline grew from that same humorous, street-level sensibility applied to a team concept. The Superman serial within ACW — written by Stern with art by the legendary Curt Swan inked by Murphy Anderson — was later collected in the trade paperback Superman: The Power Within.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First appearance of Hero Hotline and all its core members — Diamondette, Hotshot, Microwavabelle, Mister Muscle (Flex), Private Eyes, Stretch, Voice-Over, and the Coordinator — in the story 'First Day at Work,' written by Bob Rozakis and drawn by Stephen DeStefano (inked by Kurt Schaffenberger).
- Hero Hotline is a corporate, 24/7 hero-for-hire service whose enigmatic boss, the Coordinator, is later revealed to be Golden Age hero Harry 'Tex' Thompson (the Americommando), communicating only as a shadowy figure on a screen.
- Cover by Jerome Moore; publication date January 31, 1989 (on-sale approximately December 1988).
- The Speedy ('Exiles' Part 2) story is written by Mark Verheiden with art by Louis Williams and Frank McLaughlin; it features Lian Harper and continues Roy Harper's post-drug-addiction private-investigator storyline.
- The Superman/Darkseid story 'The Power of Darkseid!' — written by Roger Stern, penciled by Curt Swan, inked by Murphy Anderson — has Darkseid reveal his motivations for engineering a religious cult around Superman, with New Gods characters Darkseid, Orion, Lightray, and Metron all indexed in this serial.
- Alan Grant and Mark Pacella's Etrigan installment ('Never Trust a Demon!') features Jason Blood threatening self-harm to force Etrigan to spare a child, then beginning pursuit of Morgaine Le Fey.
- The issue carries an in-house promotional advertisement for the forthcoming L.E.G.I.O.N. '89 series — accounting for the indexing of Vril Dox II, Garryn Bek, Stealth, Strata, and Lyrissa Mallor, whose actual story debuts are in Invasion! #1 (December 1988) and L.E.G.I.O.N. '89 #1 (February 1989).
- Hero Hotline's four-part ACW tryout (#637–640) led directly to a six-issue limited series (Hero Hotline #1–6, April–September 1989); the team was later noted as active during Infinite Crisis events, appearing in Teen Titans Annual #1 (2006).
Cast · 40 characters
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Full plot ⚠ may contain spoilers
▸ Reveal full plot — may contain spoilers
Darkseid tells Superman why he created a holy war and captures the 3 leaders of the Consortium. Darkseid notes that 34 people have died in his experiment.
Plot details indexed by the Grand Comics Database (CC BY-SA).