Joe Casey's Adventures of Superman #596: The Aftermath of Our Worlds at War

"Shipbuilding" / "Prelude to The Big Noise: Three Months Away"

The Adventures of Superman vol. 1 #596 (Nov. 2001)
Superman/Batman #64 (Nov. 2009)

Words: Joe Casey
Pictures: Mike Wieringo and Scott Kolins
Inks: Jose Marzan, Jr.
Letters: Bill Oakley and Rob Leigh
Colors: Michael Atiyeh
Asst. Edits: Tom Palmer, Jr.
Associate Editor: Adam Schlagman
Edits: Eddie Berganza 

Here we have two issues that follow up (or may have followed up) on Our Worlds at War. I'll tackle them in turn, because there's not much unity between them, aside from both being written by Joe Casey. "Shipbuilding" (Adventures of Superman #596) is a quiet issue, taking place as the world reconstructs following the devastation of the Imperiex War (I don't think anyone ever calls it that, but I need to call it something). While the JLA is stretched thin doing reconstruction, though, and President Luthor is making media appearances, Superman is largely sitting it all out: staying at home in his Clark Kent guise, watching the news. As the end of Our Worlds at War pointed to, he's questioning how is it all worth it if his parents can die.

from The Adventures of Superman vol. 1 #596
(art by Mike Wieringo & Jose Marzan, Jr.)

It's not a funk that lasts long, though-- one conversation with Plastic Man and the Martian Manhunter, and Superman is back at it, fighting Flash villains in the Antarctic and saving a construction worker who tumbles off a dam. Luthor chastises Superman for not doing all the reconstruction himself, but Superman gives a speech about how "[h]umanity has to rebuild itself. If I do it for them, it means nothing." Luthor calls it "[c]onvenient," and I agree, though for more metatextual reasons. Superman can't rebuild the Earth because it would break the premise of Superman comics... but I feel like there must be millions of homeless and displaced people who probably would think it would still be quite meaningful if someone rebuilt their homes for them. As always, I feel like ongoing superhero comics are better off not calling attention to this problem than trying to explain it.

Anyway, the construction worker whose life Superman saved comes to his defense, and Superman and Luthor both go back to doing what they do best. It's a fine issue; I'm glad we finally got some emotional fall-out to Our Worlds at War and I hope we get more going forward, but the trajectory of the whole thing was pretty predictable. It wasn't likely to end with Superman not being helpful, was it?

from The Adventures of Superman vol. 1 #596
(art by Mike Wieringo & Jose Marzan, Jr.)

Two other points: 1) Superman debuts a new costume, where the yellow in his S-shield is replaced by black, presumably as a sign of mourning. I wonder how long this will last going forward. 2) This issue can be hella expensive on its own. At the time I purchased my complete run of Joe Casey's Adventures of Superman, the cheapest copy on MyComicShop was $20, for example. (It's since come down a little; it's $4.80 as of this writing.) Thankfully, I picked it up as part of a 29-issue set on eBay for $55, absorbing the cost. Anyway, this is apparently because it features an image of the smoking LexCorp Towers, which were damaged in Our Worlds at War. The LexCorp Towers are very obviously visually based on the World Trade Center... and this issue's cover date of Nov. 2001 means that it was actually distributed to comic shops on September 12, 2001! So it's become a sort of collector's item. But here's the panel; I just saved you $20. You're welcome.

The other issue is Superman/Batman #64, the prelude to a Superman/Batman story arc called The Big Noise (#68-71), which I'll be reviewing next week. Joe Casey returned to Superman over five years after his run on Adventures was over to pen an additional story arc set during it. I only had a rough idea of when it was set when planning my readthrough, so I had to do some guesswork. The main Big Noise storyline is cover-branded "Our Worlds at War Aftermath!: Casualties of War!", leading me to place it after "Shipbuilding," and I guessed that the Big Noise prelude might fall between those.

from Superman/Batman #64 (art by Scott Kolins)

It's okay, bordering on meh. It's very much a prelude, and very much an example of overly decompressed comics. We see a spaceship in the time of ancient Krypton fight another Kryptonian spaceship that's been taken over by aliens... then we jump ahead to the present where the commandeered Kryptonian ship is found abandoned in the asteroid belt by Batman and Superman, who realize an escape pod means one of the alien hijackers is on Earth. The whole thing probably could have been done in 5-10 pages, or maybe have even just been implied backstory. Seeing it all happen in detail is kind of pointless.

As for placement, I think I got it wrong. While the main Big Noise series definitely goes where I guessed (as of this writing, I've read three of its four issues), the prelude takes place earlier. I'm deducing that it goes before Return to Krypton, as some of Superman's dialogue makes me think he has not yet ever been to Krypton; for example, he says, "seeing their [his people's] fate...and my inability to do anything about it except bear witness to the aftermath... time and time again... that's been my primary relationship with my own heritage." Those do not sound like the words of someone who travelled back in time to before the disaster and actually averted it (even if it was a Phantom Zone projection)! So, I am retroactively slotting it between Adventures #588 and #589 in my reading order.

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