Joe Casey Jay Faerber's Adventures of Superman #607: "Alienation"

"Alienation"

The Adventures of Superman vol. 1 #607 (Oct. 2002)

Guest Writer: Jay Faerber
Guest Penciller: Brandon Badeaux
Guest Inker: Mark Morales
Colorists: Rob Ro & Alex Bleyaert
Letterer: Bill Oakley
Assistant Editor: Tom Palmer, Jr.
Editor: Eddie Berganza 

Here we come to this marathon's first installment with no actual Joe Casey content. This issue, in the gap between Super title crossovers Return to Krypton II and Ending Battle, is a fill-in by Jay Faerber. Faerber had just come off a three-year run on The Titans when this was released, and indeed, the issue focuses on a Titan I'd never heard of, Argent, coming to Superman for advice.

I was expecting it to be terrible. A fill-in by a writer I'd never heard of featuring a character I'd never heard of-- and with an awful-looking cover, with a gross looking Alienesque creature. The tagline "Inner Demon!" implied someone battling an anger within, one of my least favorite comic book tropes.

Surprisingly and thankfully, it wasn't. It's not a complex story, but it is a decent one. Argent (whose superpower seems to be how her costume doesn't reveal all at any moment) was recently outed as half-alien, and she feels like people view her differently now. More distantly, more as an object. So she's come to Superman for advice on how to be an alien among humanity.

They have their conversation while Superman is only patrol around Metropolis, and it's the touches that Faerber weaves into this that makes the story come to life. I always like it when Superman is the upstanding moral exemplar, and this story gives us that in spades: he just goes about his business, but keeps reassuring Argent the entire time. At one point he swoops in to save people from a car crash, but tells Argent to keep talking, listening to her with his super-hearing while he casually saves lives.

That's basically it. They talk while they save lives together; of course, she resolves her issues pretty patly when they encounter a situation that mirrors it. It's a simple story, and it's not a great story, but it is an enjoyable little slice of life in the day-to-day of Superman. Faerber gets the character, and tonally it fits with Casey's approach on his own standalone issues, being more about character and the impact of Superman's ideals than fights or action, like #599 and 600 especially.

Brandon Badeaux's artwork is occasionally a little awkward (too many lines), but fundamentally solid, and Mark Morales is one of those consistent inkers of the 2000s I'm always happy to see more of.

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Archival Review: Dark Reign: Young Avengers by Paul Cornell, Mark Brooks, et al.

Comic trade paperback, n.pag.
Published 2009 (contents: 2009)
Acquired December 2010
Read June 2011

Dark Reign: Young Avengers

Writer: Paul Cornell

Penciler: Mark Brooks
Inkers: Mark Brooks, Mark Morales, Walden Wong & Dexter Vines
Colorists: Christina Strain, Emily Warren and L. Molinar & A. Street
Letterers: Cory Petit, Chris Eliopoulos & Joe Sabino

Only Paul Cornell could get me to purchase the Dark Reign tie-in to Young Avengers, a crossover I know nothing about's intersection with a series I've never had a desire to read. Despite that, it's a decent book. As always, Cornell comes up with great concepts for superheroes: a girl who might be an Asgardian enchantress or might be affecting her thees and thous, a girl who views being a superhero as a form of performance art, and a refugees from a universe of microscopic fascists, who's reprogrammed a robot to be her racist boyfriend. Of course, there's also the violent guy with a skull helmet who calls himself "Executioner," but I suppose you can't win them all.

The central conflict of the book is that a group of teenagers dubs themselves the Young Avengers, being confronted by a preexisting group with the same name. The characters-- two groups of six, all with real names and code names-- were too much to keep track of, and the plot's examination of how violent can a group be and still be "heroes" is too tired to fit with the young, fresh voice Cornell seems to be going for. The team's angsty, overwrought leader, Melter, is what drags the book down the most. But there were enough moments that worked-- most of them involving Coat of Arms (the artist), Big Zero (the fascist), or the Enchantress (the enchantress).

I was a bit baffled by characters' reactions to Big Zero's tattoos-- she has Iron Crosses on her shoulders. Everyone acts like these are terribly shocking, but I was not aware of any kind of stigma attached to the Iron Cross. Google tells me that some people think it is racist, but the immediate vehemence of the reactions makes me wonder if Cornell scripted the tattoos as swastikas, but it was changed by the time of illustration.