DC Animated Universe Hybrid Chronological Viewing Order

My seven-year-old is a fiend for DC Comics, and it's been making me nostalgic for the way I was introduced to a lot of DC characters, the DC Animated Universe. So I started thinking about trying to get them to watch it with me... which of course meant I wanted to work out a proper order!

Lots of people have made timelines, of course, but the problem with timelines is that there were two series set in the future compared to the others, but watching those at the end doesn't make sense; the assumption of the series is that when Terry from Batman Beyond pops up in Justice League or Static Shock, you know who the character is because you've already seen Batman Beyond. I suppose one could watch in a strict broadcast order, then, but that seemed to have its own downsides; I wanted something that captured more of a chronological flow, where you were moving back and forth between shows that happened simultaneously instead of watching in big chunks as seasons aired.

So here's my attempt:

The first tab shows the broad-strokes organization; the second gives you an episode-by-episode breakdown. Similarly, I'll give a broad-stroke explanation here, and then drill down into the details.

Broad-Strokes Organization 

The episodes of Batman: The Animated Series are notoriously confusingly ordered, either as produced or as broadcast. I used this Reddit thread as a guide to a totally new order, with some small tweaks based on the comments. I timed Superman: The Animated Series relative to it and The New Batman Adventures, such that the two crossovers between the two characters ("World's Finest" and "The Demon Reborn") lined up correctly. 

Once both shows come to an end, they are replaced by Batman Beyond, Justice League (later Justice League Unlimited), and Static Shock, so at the same time you are following the Justice League and Static in the present, you are following the new Batman in the future; thus when he pops up in both shows, you know who he is. Finally, there's the other DCAU future-set show, the Batman Beyond spin-off The Zeta Project; I timed this to start when Zeta first appears on Batman Beyond and wrap up around the same time JLU ends.

There are obviously some times when there are big gaps between when things aired: for example, B:TAS finished airing Nov. 1994, while New Batman Adventures didn't start until Sept. 1997. Similarly, there was a big gap between when NBA and S:TAS ended (Jan. 1999 and Feb. 2000, respectively) and when Justice League started (Nov. 2001), where just Batman Beyond and Static Shock aired. But in all of these cases, I just had things carry through as continuously as I could.

Detailed Organization

Batman: The Animated Series and The New Batman Adventures 

I used Batman: The Animated Series and The New Batman Adventures as the organizing spine of the first half of the timeline. I added in the Batman-adjacent DCAU movies based on the Reddit thread above:

• Mask of the Phantasm between "Prophecy of Doom" and "Night of the Ninja"
• SubZero between B:TAS and NBA
• Mystery of the Batwoman after "Sins of the Father"

This gave me 105 installments of Batman, which I numbered sequentially. (I did accidentally leave out "Two-Face, Part II," so it got added in as 15.50. I hope I didn't miss out anything else!)

Justice League and Justice League Unlimited

The two Justice League–focused shows ran the longest of everything that came after B:TAS and NBA, so I used them as the organizing spine of what was left. The regular stories were thus numbered 106 to 167 on my list. Then, at the end we got:

• 168. Justice League vs. the Fatal Five: released years later, supposedly in continuity with the DCAU, after the end of JLU
• 169. "Epilogue": the season two finale of JLU, but entirely set in the future timeline of Batman Beyond and designed to function as a coda to the whole DCAU

There's also a Batman & Harley Quinn movie that takes place between seasons of JLU, so I numbered it 154.50. 

Superman: The Animated Series

This began during the gap between B:TAS and NBA, and continued in parallel with NBA. S:TAS and NBA crossed over in the S:TAS story "World's Finest," which is set before "Sins of the Father" (80.00), the first episode of NBA. I thus numbered "World's Finest" as 80.50. I decided that prior to that, I'd like it if the shows just pretty much alternated, so I numbered all the preceding stories of S:TAS backwards from there: the one immediately before "World's Finest" ("Father's Day") would be 79.50, the one before that ("Ghost in the Machine") 78.50, and so on. Working backwards, this gets you to the series premiere, "The Last Son of Krypton," as 56.50, so basically, fifty-six B:TAS stories in, you begin alternating the two shows up until you get to the crossover.

The next key story was "The Demon Reborn," which is another crossover with NBA. This story sees Batman and Superman teaming up, and so many place it simultaneously with the NBA episode "Girls' Night Out" (97.00), where Superman and Batman are away on a mission. So I numbered "The Demon Reborn" as 97.50. In between "World's Finest" and "The Demon Reborn," I just distributed stories evenly, which came out to intervals of 0.89. So mostly alternating between NBA and S:TAS, but sometimes you'd get two S:TAS stories between stories of NBA.

That left just one S:TAS episode, the series finale "Legacy." I decided to make both NBA and S:TAS wrap up at about the same time, and thus numbered it 104.50, placing it before the last episode of NBA, "Mad Love" (105.00). This creates a decent gap between the last two S:TAS episodes, but that actually reflects how they were broadcast, months apart.

Static Shock

Static Shock started out totally standalone, but ended up crossing over with the wider DCAU a few times. The first of these is "The Big Leagues," a crossover with NBA, which probably goes after the end of that show according to the fine folks on Reddit.

There are then two Justice League crossovers, "A League of Their Own" and "Fallen Heroes." These both need to go before the Justice League episode "Starcrossed" (130.00), before the league was reorganized as the Justice League Unlimited. So I numbered "Fallen Heroes" as 129.50.

I then decided that I'd like Static Shock to pretty much just start when S:TAS came to an end, so that there wouldn't be a point after the end of S:TAS before the debuts of the other shows where you were only watching NBA. Thus I numbered its first episode, "Shock to the System" as 98.50, picking up right off from S:TAS's "The Demon Reborn" at 97.50.

I then distributed the Static Shock stories between those two episodes evenly, which meant they occurred at intervals of 0.76. So between NBA stories (and later, Justice League stories), you'd typically have one or two episodes of Static Shock. Doing this gave "The Big Leagues" a placement of 108.33, so after the NBA finale (105.00), which was right, and "A League of Their Own" a placement of 120.43, so again, in the right spot.

After Static Shock came to an end, the character appeared in the JLU story "The Once and Future Thing" (142.00). So I set the last episode of Static Shock ("Power Outage") as 141.50, and distributed all the episodes between "Fallen Heroes" and "Power Outage" evenly at intervals of 1.33.

Batman Beyond

In terms of broadcast sequence, Batman Beyond picked right up from the end of NBA, so I set its first episode, "Rebirth," shortly after NBA's final episode (105.00) at 106.50. Batman Beyond had forty-nine stories, plus a movie, Return of the Joker. There is a Static Shock episode where he travels to the future and meets the future Batman, "Future Shock" (127.23). The DCAU wiki suggests that Return of the Joker must take place before "Future Shock," so I numbered Return of the Joker as 126.85.

That meant I simply distributed all Batman Beyond stories evenly between those two points, at intervals of 0.42. So you are watching quite a lot of Batman Beyond in between episodes of the Justice League and Static Shock.

The Zeta Project

The last thing to place was the other DCAU future-set show, The Zeta Project. Zeta first appeared in the Batman Beyond episode "Zeta" (117.30). There actually was a decent-sized broadcast gap between Zeta's first appearance in Batman Beyond and their own show debuting, but I decided it was more satisfying to pick up right away, and thus set the first episode of Zeta Project ("The Accomplice") at 117.51. Zeta Project crossed over with Batman Beyond again in the episode "Shadows," which the DCAU wiki says occurs after the Batman Beyond episode "Countdown" (126.44), so I set "Shadows" as 126.65. I then distributed the intervening episodes at even intervals of 1.31. 

Lastly, I decided it would make sense to wrap up Zeta Project before the future-set episode of JLU, "Epilogue" (169.00), so I set its series finale ("The Wrong Morph") to 167.50. I then distributed the episodes in between "Shadows" and "The Wrong Morph" evenly at intervals of 2.40.

Epilogue 

I think that's everything! In practice, this gets you the following periods:

1. fifty-six sequential stories from Batman: The Animated Series
2. alternating stories from Batman: The Animated Series and Superman: The Animated Series
3. (roughly) alternating stories from New Batman Adventures and Superman: The Animated Series
4. (roughly) alternating stories from New Batman Adventures and Static Shock
5. lots of Batman Beyond, with interspersed stories from Static Shock and Justice League
6. lots of Batman Beyond, with interspersed stories from Static Shock and Justice League and the occasional episode of Zeta Project (four shows at once!)
7. (roughly) alternating stories from Static Shock and Justice League Unlimited, with occasional episodes of Zeta Project
8. Justice League Unlimited, with occasional episodes of Zeta Project

The caveat here is, of course, I haven't watched it this way! And it's been a long time since I've watched any of this; if you have any advice or corrections, I'd love to hear them.

Review: Superman vs. Wonder Woman by Gerry Conway, José Luis García-López, and Dan Adkins

Collection published: 2020
Contents originally published: 1977
Acquired and read: December 2020

Superman vs. Wonder Woman: An Untold Epic of World War Two

​

Writer: Gerry Conway

Artists: Jose Luis Garcia Lopez and Dan Adkins

Letterer: Gaspar Saladino

Colorist: Jerry Serpe

 

My journey through the comics of Earth-Two is always revealing things I missed and have to go back for; when looking up the history of Baron Blitzkrieg while reading All-Star Squadron, I discovered that he was the villain of issue #C-54 of All-New Collectors' Edition in 1977, a giant "tabloid-size" comic set during World War Two. I decided I would go back and read it before returning to WWII in The Young All-Stars, but quickly realized that doing so would be prohibitively expensive: the original issue goes for $50+ on-line, and while it was reprinted in Adventures of Superman: José Luis García-López, Volume 1, that collection is out of print and goes for $200! But in a total coincidence, right at the moment I had given up reading the story, DC announced a facsimile-sized reprint, and in another coincidence, that reprint was released the month I was due to start reading The Young All-Stars!

 

That dude is my favorite.

 

The story is set in June 1942, and involves Superman and Wonder Woman independently discovering the existence of the Manhattan Project, as well as an effort by the Axis powers to steal its secrets. Though both don't want the bomb in Nazi hands, Wonder Woman doesn't want it in any human hands, while Superman has greater faith in America to do the right thing, and in the end, the two come to blows over it all-- though of course, they set their differences aside to punch some Nazis.

 

Wonder Woman!

The story, to be honest, is not the point. The point of this is to see Superman and Wonder Woman battling rendered in the beautiful art of José Luis García-López at an enormous size. In this regard, the book utterly delivers. Superman fights robot planes; Wonder Woman throws cars at Nazis; Diana Prince sneaks into military file rooms; Superman and Wonder Woman fight each other in Chicago and then on the moon. It all looks great.

 

You might notice a bias toward cool Wonder Woman moments in my scans-- that's because the story itself seems to be biased toward Wonder Woman over Superman, perhaps because Conway was at the time a regular writer of Wonder Woman?

Perhaps for this reason, the book fudges some Earth-Two details. Superman and Wonder Woman are drawn how their Earth-One versions looked in the 1970s, not how their Earth-Two versions looked in the 1940s. But given García-López created the style guide all DC merchandise was beholden to in the 1980s, why would you have him draw anything other than these characters' most iconic forms? The book also has things like Clark Kent working for Perry White at the Daily Planet, not-- as would be the case on Earth-Two-- him working for George Taylor at the Daily Star. On the other hand, it features Earth-Two villain Baron Blitzkrieg, and even includes a footnote referencing the Earth-Two-set World's Finest vol. 1 #246 for those who want to know his origin. So I think writer Gerry Conway is trying to have his Earth-Two cake and eat it too; use the iconic Earth-One versions of the characters because this is a story with broad appeal, but slip in some Earth-Two references for the dedicated comics nerds who worry about how such a story can exist in continuity. (Conway was at the time the writer of the adventures of the Earth-Two Wonder Woman in her self-titled comic and in World's Finest.) As far as weird continuity details go, we also learn that the moon of Earth-Two is home to the ruins of an extinct civilization, one that destroyed itself with the atomic bomb. Did any other comics writers pick up that weird nugget?

Roy Thomas would also go on to use Sumo in the Commander Steel storyline in All-Star Squadron.

While the story doesn't need to be very good, it actually has some nice touches that elevate it. It's framed as a series of declassified reports, the moral conflict is a good one, the appearance by Albert Einstein is fun, the way Diana Prince infiltrates military records is a great sequences, and the ending has a sharp piece of irony with President Roosevelt declaring to both superheroes, "As long as I am president... America will never use the bomb to kill. Never." Ouch. I understand that Roy Thomas depicted a post-Crisis version of these events in the Young All-Stars storyline Atom and Evil (as of this writing, I am on YA-S #14, and Atom and Evil begins in issue #21), but I would have liked to have seen him weave the pre-Crisis version of All-Star Squadron into these events, which I'm sure was his long-term plan.

 

The idea that Conway and his artists are reconstructing a story from declassified documents doesn't make a ton of sense, but it is cute.

Anyway, if you are at all interested in this story, this oversized reprint is a gorgeous way to experience it, and I highly recommend it. (Unfortunately, my scans here can't do justice to the best of its art, because its full-page panels are too big for my scanner!)

This post is the fourteenth in a series about the Justice Society and Earth-Two. The next installment is a supplement discussing the Earth-Two Wonder Woman comics. Previous installments are listed below:

1. All Star Comics: Only Legends Live Forever (1976-79)
2. The Huntress: Origins (1977-82)
3. All-Star Squadron (1981-87)
4. Infinity, Inc.: The Generations Saga, Volume One (1983-84)
5. Infinity, Inc.: The Generations Saga, Volume Two (1984-85)
6. Showcase Presents... Power Girl (1978)
7. America vs. the Justice Society (1985)
8. Jonni Thunder, a.k.a. Thunderbolt (1985)
9. Crisis on Multiple Earths, Volume 7 (1983-85)
10. Infinity, Inc. #11-53 (1985-88) [reading order]
11. Last Days of the Justice Society of America (1986-88)
12. All-Star Comics 80-Page Giant (1999)
13. Steel, the Indestructible Man (1978)
    

Joe Casey's Adventures of Superman: Final Post and Reflection

from The Adventures of Superman vol. 1 #594
(art by Mike Wieringo & Lary Stucker)

What makes a good run?

This is the question I'm trying to answer, but I think it requires us to step back and ask another question first: What makes a run?

People always talk about "runs" in comics, but I think we're talking about a couple different things.

1. When a single creator or creative team defines a character or title from beginning to end. Good examples of this would be Neil Gaiman on The Sandman, Matt Wagner/Steven T. Seagle and Guy Davis on Sandman Mystery Theatre, James Robinson and Tony Harris/Peter Snjejbjerg on Starman, Roy Thomas on All-Star Squadron, Walter Simonson on Orion. Though most of those titles had existences outside of those creators, there are versions of those titles entirely defined by those creators. There was a Sandman vol. 1 and a Sandman before Neil Gaiman, but every issue of Sandman vol. 2 was written by him. The character of Orion existed before Walter Simonson, but the comic book called Orion was primarily his work as writer and artist. 

2. When a creator or creative team takes over a character or title, but that character/title extends beyond that creator. Here I'm thinking things like Geoff Johns's The Flash vol. 2 #164-225, George Pérez's Wonder Woman vol. 2 #1-62, Paul Cornell's Action Comics vol. 1 #890-904, Judd Winick's Green Arrow vol. 3 #26-75/Green Arrow and Black Canary #1-14. There were 163 issues of The Flash vol. 2 before Geoff Johns and another 22 after him; Geoff Johns was just there for a time.

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

But you can identify another way of looking at a "run":

A. The telling of a discrete story with a beginning, middle, and end. Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Gaydos's Alias, for example.

B. When a writer is just in charge of a character/title for a while. There's no "climax" to the run-- it's just a series of stories. Mark Waid's The Brave and the Bold, or Gail Simone's Birds of Prey. This doesn't mean that there are no arc elements, just that there's not One Big Story being told.

Of course, there's certainly a midpoint between type A and type B. Cameron Stewart and Brendan Fletcher's Batgirl vol. 4 #35-52 is a good example of this, as it (as I recall) tells three discrete stories, but each one leads into the next. Or there's the Mark Waid and Barry Kitson run on Legion of Super-Heroes, which tells two over-arching stories.

from The Adventures of Superman vol. 1 #600
(art by Mike Wieringo & Jose Marzan, Jr.)

So these two typologies overlap. I could draw you a chart with four quadrants if I wanted, but I'll just make a list of examples:

• 1A. Single Title, Single Story: Gaiman's Sandman; Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Gaydos's Alias; Tom King and Gabriel Hernandez Walta's The Vision
• 2A. Partial Title, Single Story: Brian Azzarello and Jim Lee's Superman; Don McGregor and P. Craig Russell's Killraven
• 1B. Single Title, No Overarch: Matt Wagner's Sandman Mystery Theatre; Paul Cornell's Captain Britain and MI13
• 2B. Partial Title, No Overarch: Paul Cornell's Action Comics; Gail Simone's Birds of Prey; G. Willow Wilson's Ms. Marvel; Walter Simonson's Thor

Okay, why do I bring all this up? Because I think comic fans and comic critics tend to prioritize type-1 runs and type-A runs. Obviously a type-1A is the best: a single creative vision, no extraneous stuff you have to disregard (imagine if there was a Sandman vol. 2 #76 by John Ostrander!), a a beginning, middle, and an end. It's hugely satisfying to read and discuss-- comics at its best. Type-2A and -1B runs aren't quite as good, but they're still very good. You either get a complete creative vision or a complete story.

from The Adventures of Superman vol. 1 #602
(art by Pete Woods & Jose Marzan, Jr.)

In the era of the collected edition, the type-1A is king. You can get a nice set of Sandman volumes, an Alias Omnibus, and a complete Vision hardcover. 2A doesn't do too badly. Azzarello and Lee's Superman fit nicely into two trades. Both type-B variants fare less well. DC has fizzled out doing a run of SMT collected editions twice now; you can get all of Paul Cornell's Action Comics in trade, but I doubt there will ever be an omnibus.

But then type-2B runs languish at the bottom of what we appreciate. This is, perhaps, silly on the face of it. People love Simone's Birds of Prey and Wilson's Ms. Marvel. But I think it casts its effect on the way you read it. It's a little tough to get into Birds of Prey because these characters have some not-quite-explicated history. The whole run kind of fizzles out without a climax if you leave when Simone does. On the other hand, if you keep going, Tony Bedard takes over, and he maintains some stuff, but up-ends the status quo in other ways.

from The Adventures of Superman vol. 1 #610
(art by Derec Aucoin)

And Joe Casey's Adventures of Superman is probably more type-2B than most 2Bs! There's no one big story here; in fact, Casey's run was often in service to other people's stories. In the 35 issues of his run, eight were part of crossovers with other Super titles, not to mention that there were two other fill-ins, and one issue wrapped up the previous writer's story arc. That's almost a third! What was left was not telling one big story; the closest the run got to that was #612-16, just five issues. 

And Adventures of Superman had a long history before and after Casey wrote it. (His run was #588-623; Adventures of Superman ran from #424 to 649, plus before and after that, it was just called Superman vol. 1, which ran from #1 to 423 and 650 to 714. He's just a drop in the bucket!) His run begins by trying up someone else's, as I said, and the early parts of the run in particular are very dependent on you knowing what Superman had been up to in Action Comics, Superman, and The Man of Steel. He's happily married to Lois, he's on a break, they're together; he's happily employed, he's fired from the Daily Planet, now he's not.

from The Adventures of Superman vol. 1 #612
(art by Derec Aucoin)

It just doesn't satisfy as a cohesive unit. I wanted it to. I felt like there's a really good story to be told about Superman's growing uncomfortable with the amount of power he possesses and what he does with it... but this, to be honest, isn't it. It's jumpy, it's not always in focus, and the thread doesn't come to a climax so much as a stop.

But is this fair? Am I judging a type-2B run by the standards of a type-1A? Why should the best comic book runs be ones where a single creator tells a single story? Isn't that just the imposition of a certain kind of storytelling that came into vogue in the late 1980s? Comics didn't do that for fifty years prior. Maybe I should be judging Casey's run by what it was actually trying to do (telling interesting individual Superman stories focusing on his power while weaving in and out of Big Events), not what I wanted it to do.

Type 1 isn't better than type 2; type A isn't better than type B. They're just different ways of writing comic books, with their strengths and weaknesses.

I think what bothers me, though, is that the part of this type-2B run with the most potential to take off was often the most frustrating. The set of stories where Superman is a pacifist didn't work for me! Casey sets out a great challenge for himself: to tell Superman stories where he can't win through force. Yet the ways he does win often seem as arbitrary as the fact that he's always the strongest guy around. Many of the run's later issues invoke great ideas, but fail to climax satisfactorily (e.g., #603-05, 614-16, 617-18, 619-20, 621-22). I love of a lot of the premises here, but too often Superman doesn't do anything that feel brave or clever, and instead he wins just because. Plus, I really wish there had been a story that tested his pacifism. (Ending Battle is kind of this, but it felt hollow, and it actually comes before he's a pacifist!)

from The Adventures of Superman vol. 1 #619
(art by Derec Aucoin)

Indeed, if I list the individual issues I liked the most, most of them, though not all, come from early in the run (e.g., #590, 594, 596, 599, 600, 608, 610). I feel like Casey did some of his best work when he was constrained by the overall plan of all the Super titles. Maybe because he couldn't tell complete stories based on external conflicts (as those ran across the Super titles), so he had to settle for stories based on internal conflicts purely (as those he could handle in a single issue on its own). Or maybe he just wasn't that good coming up with Superman plots on his own, but as part of a group doing it, he was just fine.

I don't know. This makes it seem like I really didn't like the run, and while I did groan my way through both Return to Krypton stories and The Harvest and big chunks of Our Worlds at War, most of my problems with those stories can't be laid at Casey's feet.

When he was writing, I was enjoying what I was reading more often than not. Casey himself has a good grasp on Superman as a person, and on the sense of humor and playfulness a good Superman story should engender. It reminded me of All-Star Superman in that regard, without being quite so on the nose about it. And both Casey's main artistic collaborators, Mike Wieringo and Derec Aucoin, were great in very different ways. I always like me some José Marzan, Jr., and it was nice to see early Pete Woods. And even if the story doesn't lead to a satisfying climax, there's a great continuity of theme: the stuff that will come into the open with Superman's pacifism in #616 is clearly layered at least as far back as #590, over two years earlier.

from The Adventures of Superman vol. 1 #623
(art by Derec Aucoin)

This was solid Superman stuff on the whole.

I guess I just feel like I was promised spectacular, and this isn't it. I think I went in thinking I was getting a type-1A run (even though obviously I couldn't be!) or perhaps a type-2A, and that's why a type-2B was doomed to disappoint me. If you read Casey's Adventures of Superman, judge it on its own terms as much as you are able.

ACCESS AN INDEX OF ALL POSTS IN THIS SERIES HERE

I link to my usual reading guide above. A couple thoughts on it now that I'm done:

• Reading the Super title events that included Casey's Adventures (e.g., Return to Krypton, Our Worlds at War) was the right move even when I didn't enjoy them.
• The Superman/Batman story Casey wrote in 2009-10 (The Big Noise) is utterly terrible and utterly skippable, but it you are going to read it, definitely read it where it seems to go chronologically (S/B #64 after Adventures #588; S/B #68-71 between Adventures #596 and 597). If you read it in publication order, it would be a very dismal way to go out. Chronologically, it just reads like another mediocre Super titles crossover.
• Jay Faerber's fill-in (#607) was worth it.
• The Joe Kelly stuff I added in (Lost Hearts, The Harvest, Hungry Ghost) mostly wasn't worth it, and it contradicts what Casey was doing in Adventures. I probably should have saved it for, say, a Traci Thirteen-focused read, if I had to read it at all.

Joe Casey's Adventures of Superman #621-23: Superfiction, Part 3

"The Mack Minute" / "Mighty Bubbles" / "Bittersweet"

The Adventures of Superman vol. 1 #621-23 (Dec. 2003–Feb. 2004)

Writer: Joe Casey
Art:  Derec Aucoin
Colors: Tanya & Richard Horie
Associate Editor: Lysa Hawkins
Editor: Eddie Berganza 

Joe Casey's run on Adventures of Superman comes to an end with three final issues. The first two (#621-22) make up one story. All the children in Metropolis five and under turn into insects at the same time that Supeman has to contend with an attitudinal new vigilante in Metropolis, the Minuteman (because he defeats bad guys in under sixty seconds). These things turned out to be linked (the fact that the Minuteman is the mail cart guy at the Daily Planet is just a gigantic coincidence, though): the Minuteman is training for the arrival of the Anti-Angelica, insect creatures from another dimension. The Anti-Angelica cannot breed in their home dimension, so after they get married, they travel to another dimension and, as they say, "we can become parents. We borrow... and we breed..."

from The Adventures of Superman vol. 1 #621

To be honest, it doesn't really work. It might be the very weakest of all the non-crossover stories by Joe Casey. First, there's the big coincidence of the mail guy being the Minuteman, and then once the Anti-Angelica show up, what Superman does is kind of lame. He accidentally gets sucked into the Anti-Angelica honeymoon suite, where he does (very easily) free the kids, and then accidentally gets sent by the Minuteman to the Anti-Angelica dimension. There, he talks to them for a minute, and then just... goes back home, trading places with the Minuteman, who is sealed in the Anti-Angelica dimension. Like, he doesn't even do anything, and I don't really get what the point of it all is supposed to be. No one does anything clever or particularly inspirational, we don't learn anything about Superman or his beliefs, despite some banal ruminations on the final page. I don't know that any of the post–Ending Battle stories worked for me 100%, but this one worked least of all.

The final issue of Casey's run is "Bittersweet" (#623)... and it's bittersweet. (Unlike every other non-crossover story in his run, it actually has been collected in English before, in a 75th-anniversay collection of standalones with the unwieldy title of Superman: The Man of Steel: Believe; I think it was meant to tie into the Man of Steel film.) In this issue, Clark and Lois go flying together while they have A Talk. Their sometimes rocky marriage has been a consistent but also inconsistent background element of Casey's run: they have endured multiple separations but also reaffirmed their love for each other.

from The Adventures of Superman vol. 1 #623

Here, they talk about their relationship, but occasionally pause as Superman narrates an old adventure for Lois, so we get a series of synopses, ranging from one to three pages each, of exciting adventures that happened elsewhere. A lot of them have a whiff of bullshit about them: these are the wacky kinds of adventures Superman would have in the Silver Age, not the more "realistic" ones of the post-Crisis era. For example: Superman helping Santa when all the reindeer are sick with a viral infection, someone remote controlling a ghost quarterback, Superman up against the entire (mind-controlled) JLA, the Earth turning into a single-cell organism, and so on. I've seen this kind of thing done well elsewhere-- I feel like this a trope of final issues, though now of course I can't think of any examples-- but I don't feel like these ones entirely work. They're all... too easy? too boring? too distant? I dunno. I know I've seen this kind of montage/snippet adventure done well, and I expected something more interesting here.

What does work is the conversation between Lois and Clark. Clark acknowledges that "We haven't seen much of each other..." because he's been so busy, and in a particularly neat bit, they reflect on the beginning of their relationship sitting atop the house of Friedrich Nietzsche, whose writings gave Lois the name "Superman" when she first reported on him. She acknowledges how that shows her uncertainty about him; Clark's rejoinder that "They called his philosophy 'realism'... which is probably the furthest thing from describing me..." feels a little bit like a metatextual jab at those who want to downplay the character's more fantastic elements. Lois acknowledges that their marriage will never be typical: "I get selfish, too... having to share you with the rest of the world, but I know how important you are... what you mean to people..." It's a good portrayal of the Lois/Clark relationship and its complications; it's great being married to Superman, but it will never be easy.

from The Adventures of Superman vol. 1 #623

The last few pages of the comic intercuts panels of ordinary people doing good, but with the Superman symbol prominent in some way: a fireman wearing a Superman t-shirt beneath his jacket, an EMT wearing a Superman cap in the cold, a doctor with a Superman tattoo on his arm... It's a decent pay-off of some of the stuff set up in #610 about Superman's relationship to ordinary people. Even if he's off in space instead of helping the "little guy," he still helps ordinary people through the virtue of the example he sets, helping us help each other.

It ends with an affirmation of Lois and Clark's marriage as Superman flies off into the sunset. The issue as a whole might be a little rocky, but its closing moments certainly nail it.

That's my last issue... but I'm not done! Come back next week for my overall reflections on the entire Joe Casey Adventures of Superman experience!

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Joe Casey's Adventures of Superman Supplement: Supergirls

Hungry Ghost: "Blood, Broads and Bushido" / "Blood Sisters" / "Blood Demands..."

Action Comics vol. 1 #806-08 (Oct.-Dec. 2003)

Writer: Joe Kelly
Penciller: Pascual Ferry
Inker: Cam Smith
Guest Art: Karl Kerschl
Colors: Guy Major
Associate Editor: Tom Palmer jr
Editor: Eddie Berganza 

This is my last side-step from Joe Casey's Adventures of Superman comics, and my second-last set of comics in the whole sequence. As with Lost Hearts and The Harvest, I picked it up because it co-features Traci Thirteen and I liked the covers.

Joe Kelly's story (called "Supergirls" on the covers but "Hungry Ghost" inside) features three female characters prominent in the era's Superman comics: Traci Thirteen, Natasha Irons (niece of John Henry Irons, one-time Superman himself), and Cir-El (the Supergirl I know the least about). Additionally, like the Kelly-co-written Lost Hearts, it features a prominent role for Lana Lang, one-time Superboy's girlfriend, now Second Lady of the United States of America. (Are you really Second Lady if there's no First Lady?)

from Action Comics vol. 1 #807
(art by Pascual Ferry & Cam Smith)

A weird ghost lady (she's a poorly explain pre-established character) stabs Superman, and Traci Thirteen tries to keep him alive. Of course, Natasha misunderstands and there's a brief fight, but soon all four women are working together to revive Superman and defeat the ghost lady.

To be honest, like a lot of Joe Kelly Superman comics, I'm coming to realize, it sounds better than it is. There's a lot of fight scenes, but a story like this really depends on the conflict and combination of character voices to be interesting... and I felt like this never really got anywhere. The covers have those cool quotes on them (Action #807's is my favorite, from Natasha: "I march. I protest. And I have a giant robot with a killer body. It's very complicated."), but that sense of voice is missing from the actual comics. There's too much space taken up by the generic fights and boring ghost backstory for these seemingly badass women to get to demonstrate their badassery. Kelly might have co-created Traci Thirteen, but (as is often the case with franchise comics), it was other creators who would go on to make her interesting and vital.

from Action Comics vol. 1 #806
(art by Pascual Ferry & Cam Smith)

Also Pascual Ferry just cannot draw women's foreheads for some reason.

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Joe Casey's Adventures of Superman #617-20: Superfiction, Part 2

"Rather, Rinse, Repeat" / "Four on the Floor, Break Stuff" / "Prestidigitation Nation" / "Martyr Party People"

The Adventures of Superman vol. 1 #617-20 (Aug.-Nov. 2003)

Writer: Joe Casey
Artists: Charlie Adlard and Derec Aucoin
Colors: Tanya & Rich Horie
Assoc. Editors: Tom Palmer jr and Lysa Hawkins
Editor: Eddie Berganza 

Now that Superman is an avowed pacifist (except when punching General Zod, I guess) Casey can't write a series of issues of where big bad guys punch their way into Metropolis, and Superman has to punch them back out again (not that he ever really did, anyway). So the last few issues of Casey's run on Adventures of Superman have to be more inventive in the kind of threats they pose, so that Superman can be more inventive in the kind of solutions he comes up with. (Good thing, I suppose, that Doomsday didn't pop by to menace the city during this phase.)

from The Adventures of Superman vol. 1 #618 (art by Charlie Adlard)

This chunk of Superfiction consists of two two-issue stories. The first one (#617-18) is about two encyclopedia salespeople who come to Metropolis, hawking the Encyclopedia Universal. Their previous attempts to get people to buy it haven't gone well; we get a montage of flashbacks of them traveling around the world, talking to different leaders. Then, more flashbacks of them traveling even further afield, which poke fun at DC Comics itself: the Guardians on Oa ("What year is this...?" moans one), the ruling council of Thanagar ("Which reality is this...?"), and the Legion of Super-Heroes ("What is this? Some sort of delinquent youth center...?"). Their attempt to sell it to Perry White renders him comatose, so Superman tackles them, only to fall afoul of their nigh-omnipotent powers himself... and realize that they're a guise for his old foe Mxyzptlk.

Wait, what? I have no idea how Superman put that together. Like, okay, they've got lots of powers and like to be annoying... but surely if you're a superhero, that's the kind of person you meet on the regular? If there was some kind of other clue, I missed it completely.

from The Adventures of Superman vol. 1 #618 (art by Charlie Adlard)

The sibling salespeople fight back by removing Earth's gravity, so we get some high-concept sci-fi as Superman needs to figure out a way to hold the Earth together while he takes care of the villains; with the help of the Atom and the JLA, he places a miniature white dwarf star in the Earth's core! So that's cool.

But that's eighteen pages of the second issue; in the last three pages, he just buys a set of encyclopedias after all, Mxyzptlk makes a speech about how they're going to be more evil these days ("you'll know what we're capable of. [...] No more games. No more saying our name backwards to get rid of us. We're in the mood to be a real super-villain... and next time, we won't hit the reset button."), and then that's it, it's over. I mean, it's slightly clever action, but it's still one big action sequence, and one that's heavily dependent on made-up super-science. The first issue sets them up as fun villains with a weird plan, but once it's revealed that they're not really salespeople, just Mxyzptlk in disguise, it all kind of fizzles out.

It's fun enough, though, like I said. There's a sub-plot about a S.T.A.R. Labs spaceship in Earth orbit; it's staffed by people who Charlie Adlard draws with uniforms like the Imperial Navy's in Star Wars for some reason. (In a brief aside in #617, they help Superman defeat "the ghost of a dead parallel Earth [...] invad[ing] our galaxy!") There's also a bit in #618 where it's finally explained where the Persuader got his powers from in #610:

DOLORIS: I know! Let's do a ret-con!
DALE: Oh, excellent! [...] What should we do...? So many inconsistencies to choose from...! [...] Does the name "Cole Parker" ring a bell? He was a social anarchist who attacked the Daily Planet and got thrown into Stryker's Island... while he was inside, he hooked up with a mysterious stranger who used his powers to transform Parker into the Persuader. Who was that mysterious stranger...?
DOLORIS: Don't tell me, he was us...?
DALE: He is now. Kinda wraps thing up neat and tidy, eh?

from The Adventures of Superman vol. 1 #620
(art by Derec Aucoin)

I admire the sheer brazenness of it. One imagines Casey had plans for the mysterious stranger, but decided to never follow them up, and tied off the dangling thread with the most lampshaded of retcons!

The other two issues are about a new candidate for president, set to oppose Luthor in the upcoming election. He's known only as "the Candidate," his campaign promises are vague: "We can achieve." Later he says, "America is ready for change! Well, guess what, America...? I am change!" Reading in 2019, it's impossible not to see something of Obama's 2008 "hope and change" in him and some of Trump's 2016 populist rhetoric as well. Coastal elite Lois Lane sniffs about how people tailgate at the Candidate's rallies. The Candidate-- like Obama and Trump after him-- shows disdain for the press, preferring to speak directly to the people. He's the big hero who will single-handedly save America. But of course, Casey was just extrapolating from what was already happening in 2003: "Show biz politics. Perfect for modern voters. They don't have to think..."

The Candidate won't give interviews; when Lois and Clark bicker over who should get the assignment to obtain one, Perry White gives it to both of them: "You two engage in the strangest foreplay..." What follows is pretty fun, as the two compete; Clark promises no superpowers, but is hampered by his need to keep flying over the world taking care of random crises. Lois, in the meanwhile, dons a catsuit to do some infiltration. Previously in Casey's run, the status quo of Lois and Clark has been in flux. Not because of his writing, but because of what was happening in the other titles: for a while they were separated as Lois traveled the world; later, Clark was suspended from the Daily Planet. But here they are, together, and both reporters, and it's great stuff, showing their competitive streak, and their love for each other. Derec Aucoin is great at this stuff by now; their love comes through even in their body language.

from The Adventures of Superman vol. 1 #619
(art by Derec Aucoin)

While Superman is distracted by a "cannibal planet" that eats the sun's heat, dooming the Earth, an alien assassin attacks the Candidate, only for Lois to intervene and save him. The Candidate is not pleased: "...martyrdom is the final act of political legend, social action through social trauma... The object of government is to prey on the ignorance of the masses... They want it simple...heroes who will die for them...and now it's all gone...who'd vote for me now...?" It's a weird ending to a weird issue, almost an anticlimax, but I enjoyed it anyway.

I think there must have been some kind of directive from editorial that even if Superman was a pacifist, there had to be some big action anyway, because every issue here has a big sequence, even if it's not plot-related. #617 has the dead parallel Earth, like I said; #618 the dwarf star business; #619 has a few panels where we see Superman in Cairo defeating Osiris, god of the dead, because "Superman is the personification of life"; and in #620, there's Superman's big fight with the cannibal planet (though we eventually learn the alien bounty hunter brought it in as a distraction!). These are usually careful to maintain Superman's pacifism, so he's never punching these enemies to death, but I guess you can't sell a Superman comic where people just talk it out.

I would like to see Casey try to write one, though.

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Joe Casey's Adventures of Superman Supplement: The Harvest

"Seeds" / The Harvest, Parts One–Three and Conclusion

Action Comics vol. 1 #801-05 (May-Sept. 2003)

Writer: Joe Kelly
Pencillers: Tom Raney, Tom Derenick, and Pascual Ferry
Inkers: Walden Wong, Bob Petrecca & Norm Rapmund, and Cam Smith
Guest Artist: Jason Pearson
Colorists: Gina Going and Guy Major
Associate Editor: Tom Palmer jr
Editor: Eddie Berganza 

Up until now I've only read the other Super titles when they directly crossed over with Adventures of Superman. However, since I was already planning on reading two storylines guest starring Traci Thirteen, Lost Hearts and Supergirls (Action #806-08), I decided it made sense to read the storyline she appeared in between those two, The Harvest, in Action Comics. Plus I really liked the look of the covers. So I took a side-step away from Joe Casey to see what the other Joe was up to...

from Action Comics vol. 1 #801
(art by Tom Raney & Walden Wong)

The first issue, "Seeds" (Action #801), is a prologue about people all across the United States spontaneously becoming metahumans. Superman has to deal with people suddenly gaining powers they can't control. It's an okay story: I liked that the plot of the issue turned on Superman inspiring a scared kid to live up to Superman's legacy, and use his seemingly monstrous powers for good.

At the end of the issue, it's discovered that this was a targeted attack. Less than a month later is when "The Harvest, Part One" (Action #802) picks up, with the discovery that the perennial DC "rogue nation" of Bialya is at fault. (The Hollow Men story in Adventures #614-16 takes place during these weeks, and Superman reminds President Luthor about its events here. Not sure about this editorial choice to have the storylines overlap: surely so many Americans getting superpowers undermines the excitement of finding a community where everyone has superpowers!) Superman goes to Bialya to investigate, but discovers that General Zod, the Pokolistani general, has devastated the nation already.

A solution to the crisis of rampant superpowers is devised: Superman and Zod purposefully work together to turn the sun red to neutralize all the superpowers until the mutations can be reversed. At first people think Zod died and Superman lived, but it turns out that Zod surgically altered himself to look like Superman and switched places with him, so now Zod is the only powered metahuman, and he conquers the world.

Honestly, it's all a bit much. There's probably a good story to be told about Superman dealing with an outbreak of superpowers; this isn't it. There's probably a good story to be told about Superman purposefully turning Earth's sun red; this isn't it. It's one of those stories that moves too quickly to actually engage with anything. The events here should be hugely consequential, but are anything but. It's spectacle without substance.

from Action Comics vol. 1 #803 (art by Pascual Ferry & Cam Smith)

The main thing it accomplishes is to establish a relationship between the Pokolistani Zod and the Kryptonian Zod, but why do I care if this version of Zod is just a snarling monster, with none of the awesome severity of the film version. And it didn't matter in the end, anyway. Nine months after this storyline ended, a new, properly Kryptonian General Zod was introduced in For Tomorrow. And then just eighteen months after that storyline ended, a new new properly Kryptonian General Zod was introduced in Last Son. (DC keeps trying to translate the import of Terence Stamp to the comics page and largely failing; almost all of the comics takes on Zod have been damp squibs.)

Oh, and if Superman is a pacifist now, as per Adventures #616, there's no evidence of it here, as he reacts in anger to finding out about Bialya's involvement, and punches his way to victory over Zod!

As for Traci Thirteen? She has two small cameos, just establishing the she's moved from D.C. to Metropolis in order to set up Supergirls. She looks weird, which I thought was a thing penciller Pascaul Ferry was doing on purpose, but then when Lois Lane turns up in "The Harvest: Conclusion" (Action #805), she also looks weird, because Ferry apparently just doesn't know how to draw bangs. So reading it turned out not to be a particularly worthwhile endeavor. Oh well, such is life as a fan of shared-universe comics.

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Joe Casey's Adventures of Superman #612-16: Superfiction, Part 1

"Authorized" / "Valentine's Day Sale" / "Truths Told in Super-Secret" / "The Living Double of a Single Fiction" / "Three Camera Shoot"

The Adventures of Superman vol. 1 #612-16 (Mar.-July 2003)

Writer: Joe Casey
Layouts: Derec Aucoin
Finishes: Derec Aucoin, Jose Marzan, and John Stanisci
Colors: Tanya & Richard Horie
Associate Editor: Tom Palmer Jr.
Editor: Eddie Berganza 

Back in my kick-off post for this sequence, I claimed that Joe Casey's run on Adventures had never really been collected. I later discovered that wasn't true: issues #610 and 612-23 were collected in two volumes under the umbrella title Superman: Superfiction in 2012... albeit only in French. So that's neat, but as a result, I'll be using "Superfiction" as my own umbrella title for the final set of issues of the Casey run.

from The Adventures of Superman vol. 1 #612
(art by Derec Aucoin)

With the exception of #613, #612-16 make up one large storyline. (Fun fact: Action Comics #801 takes place between Adventures #613 and 614, but as it is part of a five-part storyline itself, I'll be covering it there next week, slightly out of chronological order.) This storyline begins with "Authorized" (#612) where Clark goes to meet Ben Conrad, a Nebraskan journalist who inspired his own reporting. Conrad has retired from journalism to write a novel called Champion of the Oppressed, about a superhero who fights for ordinary people. Only, it turns out, this superhero has somehow come to life and is flying around wreaking havoc.

"Champion of the Oppressed" was, of course, the title of the original Superman story in Action Comics #1, and Ben Conrad's superhero is a riff on that original Superman, both visually and narratively; Adventures #612 recreates several beats of that original story, as the faux-Superman frees a woman from death row. As has been building in recent Adventures stories, there's an explicit critique of the direction of the 2000s Superman here; Ben Conrad says, "I'll tell ya... the more I researched Superman, the more I felt... I don't know. He's a bit too civilized, isn't he...? All that power... and look at how he uses it... wrestling with aliens and taking meetings on the moon doesn't exactly speak to the common man. He's just a bit detached for me."

from The Adventures of Superman vol. 1 #612
(art by Derec Aucoin)

It's a neat story. I like the riffs on Action #1, still one of the best, most vital Superman stories, and I like how artist Derec Aucoin and colorists Tanya & Rich Horie depict the visual clash between the two different Supermen. As he fades away, the "Champion" tells the real Superman, "Just... don't let these ideals... be forgotten... it's up to you... all of you... to keep up the fight..."; Superman says, "What you represent... is not inconsequential." It's a sad scene, well done. The story hints at something bigger, though, a group of mysterious black-and-white people called "the Hollow Men" incapacitating superheroes.

In "Truths Told in Super-Secret" (#614), Superman discovers a city of super-people hidden in a tesseract in Ohio, isolated since 1955, and still believing in the virtues of the Golden Age of Superheroes. But as he does, so do the Hollow Men, moving on from neutralizing the Ray and the Elongated Man, to attack a whole city of superheroes. "The Living Double of a Single Fiction" and "Three Camera Shoot" (#615-16) chronicle Superman's fight against these beings, who turn out to be from Ben Conrad's first novel. Superman defeats them in mental battle, giving Ben a chance to rewrite the ending of the story so that the Hollow Men neutralize themselves.

from The Adventures of Superman vol. 1 #616
(art by Derec Aucoin)

I found it anticlimactic. It's full of good concepts, but it feels like the story doesn't do much with them. Heroville is cool... but Superman discovers that it exists, gets an explanation, and that's it. The Hollow Men are neat, but the final conflict with them more peters out than anything else; Superman just acts very determined, and that does it. I think Casey is going for thematic depth here, with the Hollow Men as homogeneity against the color of Superman and his friends... but what does that mean? I'm not sure.

And, obviously, you can't tease me with just a couple panels of Elongated Man. DC's greatest detective deserves more than that!

#616 does contain a big moment that Casey's been building toward since at least #608, and surely earlier: Superman's declaration that he's a pacifist. I'm not sure what I think of it. It's an interesting reaction to the violence of the Champion: if he won't use violence to impose his ideals, he won't use violence at all. It promises some interesting storytelling to come: what kind of stories do you tell about a pacifist Superman? Interestingly, in-story, it's not a big moment-- it's a tossed-off comment by Superman while strategizing how to defeat the Hollow Men. (And it's massively belied by the actions Superman will undertake in the subsequent The Harvest storyline in Action Comics.)

from The Adventures of Superman vol. 1 #613
(art by Derec Aucoin & Jose Marzan & John Stanisci)

The other story, "Valentine's Day Sale" (#613), is a cute Lois adventure where she discovers Flunky Flashman is marketing Superman's image and takes him down without Superman's help. I like Aucoin's art on this title in general, but felt this story called for a lighter touch than he could provide-- and besides, the way he draws Lois in this one is a tad skeevy. There are some nice callbacks to Superman: The Movie, though one wonders why there isn't a comics version of Superman and Lois's first date this story could riff on instead.

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