Cover art by Neal Adams
Lex Luthor – supervillain extraordinaire – has been recruited by Batman and Superman to use his scientific genius to help end the famine ravaging the African nation of Ethiopia during the 1980s. At first, he agrees simply because Superman is at a loss and it offers Luthor the opportunity to demonstrate his own superiority. When he visits a refugee camp in the Ethiopian desert, however, even Lex Luthor is unable to contain his anguish.
“My God,” he says to Superman. “How could you allow…? … the children… I’m not the demon you seem to see me as, Superman. Seeing these people… skeletons for faces….”
On October 23, 1984, the BBC in Great Britain aired a short documentary on the “biblical famine” in northern Ethiopia. Journalist Michael Buerk narrated over images captured by Kenyan cameraman Mohammed Amin of starving children in a vast desert landscape. The footage had an immediate impact, with 425 television stations around the world broadcasting it as well. Bob Geldof, leader singer of the Irish rock band Boomtown Rats, watched the initial telecast with both horror and a strong urge to do something.
Aided by music journalist Paula Yates, Geldof assembled a supergroup of British musical talent to record “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” a benefit single to raise funds for Ethiopia. Across the Atlantic Ocean, actor/singer Harry Belafonte was likewise spurred to action and launched the non-profit United Support of Artists for Africa (USA for Africa). Michael Jackson and Lionel Ritchie then wrote “We Are the World,” and this time it was an American supergroup of singers who recorded a song for charity.
Still wanting to do more, Bob Geldof came up with the idea of Live Aid, a one-day concert event in both London and Philadelphia featuring over fifty musical acts held on July 13, 1985. Geldof went on to create the sports-themed Sports Aid the following year, and numerous other fundraisers sprouted up as well, including within the comics book industry. Marvel Comics was the first with its Heroes for Hope featuring the X-Men, followed by Heroes Against Hunger from DC Comics. Each comic book enlisted various writing and artistic talents who volunteered their time to work on two-to-three pages each, with the sale proceeds going to Ethiopia.
“It’s a good story and one that doesn’t promise a pat solution for a problem that’s as large and complex as famine,” DC executive editor Dick Giordano wrote in the back page of Heroes Against Hunger. “Yet, we do offer some hope and that’s enough for everyone to hunker down and get back to work. We have two of the world’s greatest role models showing how it can be done, and hopefully, people will pick up on that.”
Giordano then added, “The problem isn’t going to go away no matter how much money we help raise. There are environmental and political problems to be overcome, but progress is being made. And I’m glad DC Comics was able to do its part.”
Heroes Against Hunger opens with Superman transporting tons of topsoil to Ethiopia with the intent of transforming the desert into farmland. A sirocco – a powerful wind that regularly sweeps through the African desert – causes a quarter of the topsoil to blow away before Superman can lay down netting to protect it. He still has thousands of acres yet to transform when he suddenly finds himself confronted by a Peace Corps volunteer named Lee Ann Layton.
“Been here over a year,” she tells Superman. “And I’ve had better years, I can tell you that. But it didn’t take me as long as you to learn that there are no easy answers here. Not for me and not for you, bruiser. So how does it feel to be doing more harm than good?” The Man of Steel is taken aback by the words but is forced to admit that his reclamation work in the African desert will take twenty years before it comes to fruition.
“Case closed,” Lee Ann Layton says as she walks away.
The famine in Ethiopia was initially triggered by a decade-long drought. A secessionist movement in the northern part of the country, coupled with human rights abuses by the Marxist government, aggravated the situation, making it even worse. An estimated 7.7 million people out of a population of 33 million were affected, with 2.2 million forced from their homes and 5.5 million battling starvation. The estimated death toll in Ethiopia for 1984 alone ranged from 200,000 to one million.
“By the time a British television crew awakened the world to Ethiopia’s famine, with a seven-minute documentary first shown on the 6 o’clock news in London in October, by the time Western governments had decided that the crisis was a humanitarian issue, not a political one, and began last month dispatching shiploads of emergency supplies, it was too late,” Los Angeles Times reporter David Lamb wrote in December 1984. “The famine was out of control, and in Alamata, Korem, Bati and other little villages lost in the Ethiopian highlands, hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of people were dying every day.”
While Superman was struggling to cover the Ethiopian desert with topsoil, Batman was nearby inspecting the wreckage of a plane carrying food that was donated by the Wayne Foundation. The two superheroes inevitably meet, and Superman suggests approaching Lex Luthor for help. Luthor had recently visited a planet he named “Lexor” that was likewise suffering from a severe drought. He not only restored irrigation on Lexor but developed a plant growth formula that was able to feed the entire planet.
Although Lex Luthor is initially not interested, Batman is able to convince him to help by telling Luthor that he could succeed in Ethiopia where Superman had already failed.
Being a comic book, Heroes Against Hunger needed a villain and found one in an alien who simply called himself “the Master” and fed on the misery of others. It was the Master who destroyed the plane carrying food that Batman had inspected, as the alien was determined to continue “feeding” on Ethiopia. Once Batman, Superman, and Lex Luthor defeat the Master, Luthor finally plants his growth seeds in the topsoil provided by Superman.
After waiting and waiting, the Man of Steel finally says, “Face it, Luthor, it’s not going to work. The dust has won.”
Peace Corp volunteer Lee Ann Layton reappears at that point and tells the trio, “I’m sorry your formula failed, but I knew it would. It took a century for man to ruin this land, and it’ll take more than a single afternoon of even super-heroic effort to restore it.”
She then explains that colonists decided decades ago to use the land for peanut farming, causing nomadic herders to abandon the region. Those herds had acted as the main source of fertilizer, while peanuts extracted high amounts of nutrients from the soil that was not being replaced. When the market price of peanuts dropped in the 1970s, so ended peanut farming in Ethiopia. Without plants to hold down the topsoil, what little remained was blown away by the wind, creating a barren landscape in its wake.
Having outlined the problem, Lee Ann Layton next turned to the solution. “This crisis can be beaten,” she says. “But it’s going to take more than a few superheroes to do it. It’s going to take more than a miracle to do this job. It’ll take the entire world, pulling together, to save this continent from drying up and blowing away. We’ll have to build hundreds of miles of roads, teach the farmers about proper crop rotation, and reclaim hundreds of square miles of land before this job is done. This awesome task is going to cost billions of dollars and take many years to complete. But we can do it if everyone lends a hand.”
Without saying a word, Superman wraps one arm around Batman and the two superheroes fly away with a better understanding of the problems facing Ethiopia and ready to do their part in a global effort to fix them. Thanks to fundraising efforts like Heroes Against Hunger – as well as the initial BBC documentary and undertakings of Bob Geldof – millions of people around the world were already helping as well.
Anthony Letizia