This week marks the start of a new era for the Chinese superhero known as Super-Man, as his title is re-titled New Super-Man and the Justice League of China (by writer gene Luen Yang and artists Brent Peeples, Matt Santorelli and Hi-Fi) with #20. In the issue, the Justice League of China celebrates their new status in the title of the book with a fight with an old DC villain, Sleez. Sleez is infamous for his role in one of the strangest Superman stories in history. See Sleez's return and a look at his strange first appearance.

Wang Baixi and Peng Deilan (the Batman and Wonder Woman of the Justice League of China, who are currently dating) are having a snowboarding date when they come upon a man dressed in a Panda costume who was sucking energy out of children. The "man" turned out to be the Apokoliptian villain Sleez, who was feeding off of the desire that the children had for candy. He quickly turns on Batman and Wonder Woman instead...

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Later, Super-Man and Flash show up to join the fight and in the process, Super-Man and Flash (who is Avery Ho, a Central City resident who moved to China to become their Flash following her gaining super speed) ends up being manipulated by Sleez's control over emotions to make out with each other in the middle of the fight. This manipulation is directly evocative of Sleez's first appearance, where he somehow made Superman and Big Barda almost make a porno!

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Sleez debuted in Action Comics #592 (by John Byrne and Keith Williams), a little under a year into Byrne's reboot of the Superman titles. Byrne wrote and penciled both Superman and Action Comics. Action Comics was a team-up series. One of the notable things that DC did in the late 1980s was that they decided to spotlight Jack Kirby's Fourth World characters more. Mister Miracle became part of the Justice League and Darkseid played a major role behind the scenes in DC's first major crossover following Crisis on Infinite Earths, Legends. Darkseid would later play a key role in the event miniseries, Cosmic Odyssey (by Jim Starlin and Mike Mignola). Byrne slowly began to work Darkseid into his Superman stories, with the pay-off being a tremendous battle between Darkseid that Superman and Wonder Woman had in Action Comics #600.

In this issue, Barda is adjusting to her new life living on Earth. She in Metropolis when she ends up in Suicide Slum, the worst part of Metropolis. Her bag is robbed by a pickpocket. He doesn't realize that her Mega-Rod was in the bag, so she shocked him by chasing after him, even into the sewers! He ran into a mysterious being while in the sewers who took the Mega-Rod from him. When Barda shows up, she is not expecting to be attacked by someone who actually knows how to wield a Mega-Rod and she is knocked out cold. We see who did the attack...it is being known as Sleez!!

Sleez has the ability to control people's emotions and through that control, effectively can force them to do anything. He is also, as per the name, a very sleazy person. So what does he do when he has a beautiful woman under his control? He has her dance for him!

He then reveals that he, like Barda, is from Apokolips, where he served Darkseid for years before being banished to Earth.

Meanwhile, Superman figures out that some being is absorbing energy and giving off similar energy that is keeping people in the area alive for much longer than they should be. Thus, when he tracks Sleez down and frees Barda from Sleez's control, he tries to stop Barda from killing Sleez. Barda thinks that that means that Superman is under Sleez's control, so she attacks Superman and knocks him out. This gives Sleez the chance to knock Barda out, as well.

This is not good news for Superman and Barda...

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The next issue has a very striking cover...

It opens with Mister Miracle returning home to discover, of all people, Darkseid sitting in his living room with a video tape.

Darkseid plays the tape...

Now, let's be frank. We never get to see what was on the tape, so we don't know exactly what Barda is doing on it. It is not explicitly stated that she's having sex with someone -- she could be doing something else that Scott Free (Mister Miracle) finds offensive. However, the clear implication is that it is, in fact, a sex tape.

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Sleez visits the man who produced the tape featuring Barda and now offers him Superman as her new co-star!!

Mister Miracle goes to hunt down his missing wife (while also serving Darkseid's desire to get rid of Sleez). While he is doing his search, Superman and Big Barda are getting ready to do their big film debut together...

Sleez tries to stop Mister Miracle but Miracle manages to escape (as is his wont) and he breaks in and manages to stop Superman and Barda from going any further (not that we know for sure that it would have ever gone past kissing based on Superman's resistance. Interesting that Barda was less resistant to the idea of doing a sex tape).

With Barda and Superman out of his control, Sleez seemingly kills himself, but since the people he was keeping alive with his powers were still alive at the end of the issue, it was clear that he somehow survived. He ended up later manipulating the heads of the genetics lab, Cadmus, but ended up dying in that confrontation.

As we can see, however, in DC Rebirth, he is alive once more!