Joe Casey's Adventures of Superman #597-600: President Luthor and Other Celebrations

"Rubber Crutch" / "Cult of Persuasion (prologue)" / "Borba za Zhivuchest" / "A Lex" / "The Dailies 2002"

The Adventures of Superman vol. 1 #597-600 (Dec. 2001–Mar. 2002)

Writer: Joe Casey
Pencillers: Derec Aucoin, Mike Wieringo, and Mauricet 
Inkers: Derec Aucoin and Jose Marzan, Jr.
Colors: Rob Ro & Alex Bleyaert and Tanya & Rich Horie
Letterer: Bill Oakley
Comic Strips: Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale, Mark Schultz & Dave Gibbons, and Joe Kelly & Carlos Meglia
Assistant Editor: Tom Palmer, Jr.
Editor: Eddie Berganza 

In early 2002, the Super titles changed their approach. Though there would still be stories that spanned all four series, they would be less frequent. (I think there are just three more during Joe Casey's time on Adventures of Superman.) Issues #596-605 therefore make up our first stretch of any length of issues just by Joe Casey (though #597 is a tie-in to a Batman event, Joker: Last Laugh), allowing his own writerly voice to begin to emerge; today I'll be dealing with the first half of that run.

from The Adventures of Superman vol. 1 #599
(art by Derec Aucoin)

In the better issues, Casey seems interested in probing the limits of Superman's power. Not in terms of finding bigger physical threats, but in terms of figuring out what he can't do or what he doesn't want to do. The two best issues are therefore "Borba za Zhivuchest" (#599) and "A Lex" (#600). The former opens with a sinking Russian nuclear submarine; Superman flies in and saves it so fast that no one even sees him. Some time later, he follows up with the captain of the submarine, Gussev, a man whose job might be sailor, but whose identity is farmer. Thanks to a bit of heroism he pulled during the disaster, Gussev is now dying. Of course, Clark Kent empathizes with a man who thinks that a farm is the best place on Earth.

I think it's probably not very surprising how things play out, but it is touching. Superman admits to Gussev that he is from a farm in Kansas: "it's the place where I have always found peace... it is where my family lives... that land is my heart as well..." The captain talks about being a farmer shaped his worldview: "We work the land... it becomes a part of us. And so... we see the Earth as a whole... we don't see borders..." Superman can't save this man's life, but he is able to do a couple things for him as he dies. I like it when Superman stories emphasize that being Superman isn't just about fighting bad guys, but about helping little guys in all sorts of ways. My preferred Superman is the one who can take a day out to keep a man company as he passes away.

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

I also really enjoyed "A Lex." President Luthor goes missing, and Vice President Pete Ross asks Superman for help. Superman, of course, doesn't want Luthor to be president... but Pete says that Luthor really cares about America. Superman knows that the right thing for the country is to bring him back. Or does he? Casey rotates between Superman searching for Luthor, Clark visiting Lois to discuss his doubts, and a mysterious new criminal leading the downtrodden of Metropolis in an uprising against corporatism.

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

I like that it shows Superman as someone who struggles with doing the right thing... not in that Superman wouldn't do the right thing, but in that it's not always clear what the right thing is. I also like how the story ends; the new criminal is Luthor, of course, wearing a toupee and without his memory. Superman saves him, partially thanks to Talia al Ghul, who's running LexCorp while Luthor is president; she gives Luthor his daughter, shocking him back to normal. (Lena is an infant here, but last time I saw her, in Our Worlds at War, she was a Brainiac-enhanced adult; I guess this is one of those things you just gotta roll with in comics.) At the end of the story, we find out that Luthor liked being a sewer-dwelling supervillain: "I almost had it... I was free...! Wealth... political power... nothing can match the intoxication of... that freedom... Why couldn't you just leave me alone...?!" We're just about a year away from Public Enemies, where Luthor ditches the presidency to wreak havoc in a battllesuit. I didn't like that turn in that storyline when I read it back in the day, but we're clearly setting it up here.

There's also some references to the Ricard Donner Superman films; this kind of thing can be overdone, but here it was a nice touch, reminding you of what another kind of Luthor could be at a time where Luthor had been a "respectable businessman" for almost two decades of publication.

from The Adventures of Superman vol. 1 #597
(art by Derec Aucoin)

On the other hand, Casey is weaker when he attempts straight action stories. In "Rubber Crutch" (#597), Luthor is infected by Joker venom and goes mad (remember when beginning your re-election campaign only one year into your term was a sign of madness?); Superman has to stop him from destroying the Earth with nuclear launch codes. There's some okay political jokes, but it's all pretty perfunctory otherwise.

Issue #598 is the prologue to Cult of Persuasion, a storyline that will appear in #601-02. I found it confusing and undramatic. Apparently removing the futuristic Brainiac 13 technology from Metropolis increases the use of automation? Seems counter-intuitive. It's not really clear to me why a group of disgruntled workers decide to pattern themselves after a member of the Legion of Super-Heroes's Fatal Five, even if footage of Superman fighting with them is replayed on television. Hopefully the full storyline is better.

from The Adventures of Superman vol. 1 #600
(art by J. G. Jones)

In addition to all of this, Adventures #600 has some backmatter in honor of its milestone status. (Note that the title being celebrated here was actually just called Superman from issues #1 to #423; in January 1987, it was retitled The Adventures of Superman so that DC could have a new Superman #1 but not lose the numbering of the original title.) There's a page of three "comic strips," the conceit being we're reading a single daily installment of three different newspaper comics: The Daily Planet, Super-Commander Kent—In the 7th Millennium!, and The Most Bizarro Case of All. They're cute glimpses of what could be-- I want to read an actual story where Harley Quinn goes undercover at the Planet and Jimmy Olsen falls for her-- and worth it for the art. Work by Dave Gibbons and Tim Sale is always appreciated!

Finally, #600 contains a set of pin-ups covering key moments in Superman's life. Pin-ups often feel like padding to me, and this is a below-average set, alas, but there are still some nice ones. J. H. Williams & Mick Gray's and John Cassaday's were the two best.

Issues #598 and 600, by the way, mark the last work of regular penciller Mike Wieringo on the title. I don't think I ever said much about his work in this reviews, but I liked it. He was at his best when Casey was writing Superman as heroic and/or uplifting. On the other hand, I don't think he was always suited for Casey's take on the darker sides of the character. Just within this stretch, for example, I thought he was a good fit for #600, but I would have put him on #599 as well, instead of Derec Aucoin, whose sensibilities seem better suited elsewhere.

ACCESS AN INDEX OF ALL POSTS IN THIS SERIES HERE

Review: Star Trek: New Frontiers (a.k.a. The Mirror Universe Saga) by Mike W. Barr, Tom Sutton, and Ricardo Villagran

Comic trade paperback, 190 pages
Published 2009 (contents: 1984-85)
Acquired September 2009
Read May 2019

Star Trek Archives, Volume 6: Best of Alternate Universes

Written by Mike W. Barr
Art by Tom Sutton & Ricardo Villagran
Lettering by John Costanza, Janice Chiang, & Carrie Spiegle

Colors by Julianna Ferriter

Let's start with the complaints about IDW.

There is a vast body of uncollected Star Trek comics out there. IDW's Star Trek Omnibus line was a decent effort to get some of it into print. While two of its five volumes were already-collected IDW material, the other three reprinted material that had largely not been collected before: the original Marvel ongoing, Early Voyages, and the film adaptations.

from Star Trek vol. 1 #10

The Star Trek Archives line, on the other hand, was ferociously misguided. Very little of DC's ten-year run of well-regarded Star Trek comics have been collected, and yet the majority of the issues reprinted in volume 1 of the Archives, published 2008, had just been reprinted by Titan in its Star Trek Comics Classics line in 2006! Why not try to reprint something never before reprinted? Volume 6 of the Archives reprints issues #9-16 of DC's Star Trek vol. 1, a storyline called New Frontiers, already reprinted by DC itself under the title of The Mirror Universe Saga; you can still get that collection for $11 including shipping on the secondary market, while IDW charged $25 for its new collection! Why? (I still bought it, though, so I guess that's why.)

from Star Trek vol. 1 #10

Plus the paratext is, as always, bad. The indicia claims the collected issues are #9-16 of a series called Star Trek: New Frontiers, and I don't get why the title is "Best of Alternate Universes." Is it really a "best of" if it only has one story in it? And why "alternate universes" when the story is from one specific alternate universe, the so-called "mirror universe"? If "The Mirror Universe Saga" was out of the question, then surely "Best of the Mirror Universe" would have been better?

from Star Trek vol. 1 #11

All that aside (and I'll have more complaints about the Star Trek Archives next week), I read this between the adaptations of Star Trek III and IV in the Movie Classics Omnibus. I remember reading this in high school and finding it just okay, but rereading it in context reveals what a good job scripter Mike Barr did. In Back Issue! no. 5, he says the difference between his work here and his work on the Marvel Star Trek series is the Marvels were written like tv episodes, but the DCs were written like comics.

from Star Trek vol. 1 #11

However, this reads like a film to me. If instead of The Voyage Home, the third Harve Bennett-produced film had been a trip to the mirror universe, it would have been exactly like this. Barr totally nails the scope of those films, the humor, the moments of characterization, the sense of fun. Big, titanic things happen here-- this isn't the small-scale adventures of Marvel's Star Trek. It draws together threads from the two films before it; I like that Amanda, Spock's mom, gets an appearance (there was no room for her in Star Trek III). I like that Tom Sutton draws Saavik as Kirstie Alley even though she'd been recast as Robin Curtis by this point. The idea that Spock's post-resurrection mental confusion would be cured by melding with mirror Spock is completely delightful. The use of David is neat (though it could be more emotionally impactful). I like the idea that after destroying his ship, Kirk kind of gets to step foot on its ghost. I like that Kirk gets a worthy adversary-- himself!-- and I love that mirror Kirk outplays our Kirk by using the same trick our Kirk used on the Klingons in Star Trek III.

from Star Trek vol. 1 #12

It starts to flag near the end (the final showdown seems one too many), and I'm not sure Kirk needs two order-following martinets as antagonists, nor that his defiance of orders really makes sense, but this is unabashed greatness in comics form. Has the Excelsior even been this impressive? I love The Voyage Home, but there are moments where I wish this had been made instead. Or maybe as Star Trek V? With some small tweaks, I could see it.

Next Week: We find out what happened between Star Treks V and VI, in volume 3 of the Star Trek Archives... The Gary Seven Collection!

Review: The Expanse: Cibola Burn by James S.A. Corey

Trade paperback, 581 pages
Published 2015 (originally 2014)
Acquired and read June 2019

Cibola Burn: Book Four of The Expanse
by James S.A. Corey

This is the dullest Expanse novel by a long shot. Holden and company being sent to mediate between squabbling colonists is just not interesting; people bicker and blame each other again and again and again. It could have been an interesting allegory for real-world colonization issues, I suppose, but the lack of complexity for the principal characters in the dispute mean the dispute itself lacks complexity. The lack of the Roci characters in the early chapters also disappointed. I did like the surprise return of Miller's partner from Book One (how will the show handle this, given it killed him off during Season One?), but the other two new POV characters were pretty flat; Corey did a much better job coming up with new characters in Books Two and Three. Things pick up as they go, especially once Naomi and the rest of the Roci crew play a bigger role, but the overall plot never really excited me. Hopefully Book Five is stronger, because I'm seeing this through to the end.

On the (Multilevel) Market

When I graduated from college back in 2007, I knew I didn't want to be a high school teacher (what one of my two degrees had been in), and I had this vague sort of inkling I wanted to go to grad school. Alas, I didn't really do any work to go to grad school until the last minute. Like, I took the GRE and subject GRE, but didn't solicit any rec letters. I ended up just applying to one local M.A. program in English solely because they didn't require rec letters. I got in, but as you might imagine of a grad program that doesn't require rec letters, they weren't at all competitive, and didn't offer any funding. So I didn't go.

That left me unemployed and living with my parents.

Like many 22-year-old college graduates, I had little idea how to apply for jobs; like many English degree holders specifically, I didn't even know what kind of jobs I was qualified for. (I have a memory of walking around campus my final semester and almost going into our career center, but then feeling too nervous and ashamed of my ignorance and veering off. I guess I should sympathize more with my students' inability to take advantage of institutional resources.) I spent a lot of time procrastinating, but I did I eventually apply to anything I could find locally on job sites. Writing jobs, jobs vaguely related to writing jobs, radio jobs (trying to trade on my amateur interest in audio drama), managerial jobs (trying to trade on my time as a student manager).

No one even called me back.

In retrospect, it's obvious why. I think I sent in college papers as samples to writing jobs. Who wants that? But it was all I really had.

But I did get one request for an interview. So I went in, dressing professionally. It had been advertised as a managerial job, but it was really a sales job at a company called Primerica. The whole thing was surreal. A whole bunch of candidates came in at once, and they showed us a PowerPoint... but also watching the presentation were prospective buyers. So the video was more about how awesome the product was than the actual job. But I remember finishing the presentation with only the vaguest notion of what the product actually was ("They consolidate loans, I guess?" I wrote in my blog at the time) and no idea at all what the job actually was!

When I went back for the interview, it was a disaster. Both in how I interviewed, and what I learned the job would be like. Primerica is a multilevel marketing scheme for financial products; I would be an "analyst" and paid on commission... after I paid $200 for a training course that didn't even have a guarantee I would be hired at its end. I wouldn't be a manager right away; in retrospect it seems like I would be a manager only in the sense that, like a lot of MLM things, you get people to work for you, and you get a slice of their sales too.* As the interview went on, I got more and more uncomfortable about the job. (Though I signed up for the training course anyway because surely it was better than no job.)

The biggest red flag for me, though, was the bare fact that they were willing to hire me! Because I bombed that interview, and I knew I bombed that interview. I couldn't even sell myself; there's no way someone interviewing me would have believed I could sell someone else on a financial product. At one point the interviewer said something like, "Steve, whenever I hire someone, I'm taking a chance. Why should I take a chance on you?" I was barely able to form a coherent answer to that question, let alone a compelling one. And then he offered me the job! So I like I said I singed up for it, but their very willingness to "hire" me (i.e., get $200 of my money) made it clear that it was a scam.

So that night, after talking it over with my parents, I called the guy back and left him a message saying I wasn't coming in.

Hopefully, ten years on, I am better at selling myself.

I kept on applying for jobs, and eventually I got called in for another interview, as a technical writer at Belcan. But that is probably best saved as another story...

* Here's a good SFGate article about how Primerica works, from when they went public in 2010.

Joe Casey's Adventures of Superman Supplement: The Big Noise

Our Worlds at War Aftermath!: Casualties of War!: The Big Noise: "Rumble Face" / "Benediction Redux" / "Righteous Destroyer" / "The Final Solution"

Superman/Batman #68-71 (Mar.-June 2010)

Writer: Joe Casey
Co-Writer: Joshua Williamson
Pencils: Ardian Syaf and Jay Fabok 
Inks: Vicente Cifuentes, David Enebral, Norm Rapmund, Marlo Alquiza, Prentis Rollins, Rebecca Buchman, Derek Fridolfs, and Walden Wong
Colors: Ulises Arreola and Pete Pantazis
Letters: Rob Leigh
Assistant Editor: Rex Ogle
Editor: Eddie Berganza 

Joe Casey's return to his run on Adventures of Superman slots in, as far as I can tell, between issues #596 and 597 of his original run. The details seem to line up fine: Earth in general and Metropolis in particular are rebuilding in the wake of the Imperiex War, Luthor is president, the JLA uses a Watchtower on the moon, and so on. The discontinuity that I noted is that Superman's chest logo uses a yellow backing, rather than the black one he adopted in mourning in #596. Maybe it was felt that would be confusing to casual readers. Though if they were worried about casual readers, maybe they shouldn't have marketed it as a tie-in to an eight-year-old event. (I did like the retro trade branding on the cover, admittedly.)

Anyway, this is kind of a bog-standard Superman story with a not very important role for Batman that ultimately becomes terrible. So far in reading Casey's Adventures of Superman, I'd say we've moved between Big Events like Return to Krypton and Our Worlds at War (where Casey can't really cut loose, though he did manage a really good installment of All-Out War!) and intriguing one-issue stories like "Don't Cry for Me, Bialya" (#590) and "Shipbuilding" (#596). So I was interested to see what he might do with a four-issue story of his own devising.

from Superman/Batman #71
(script by Joe Casey, art by Jason Fabok and Prentis Rollins,
Rebecca Buchman, Derek Fridolfs, & Walden Wong)

The answer turns out to be: not much. Superman discovers the hijacker of the ruined ancient Kryptonian star destroyer is on Earth, a shapeshifting Durlan (of Invasion!, Legion, and L.E.G.I.O.N. fame) disguised as a secretive financial backer of S.T.A.R. Labs. The Daxamite, Anderson Gaines, sends a bounty hunter after Clark Kent. Superman fights the bounty hunter, Batman goes to space, Superman and Batman win. Somehow this all takes four issues. The dialogue is often terrible; the bounty hunter tells the robots guarding the Fortress of Solitude, "If you two are searching your database for any info on me, let me make it easy for you-- I'm filed under NRG-X! Next time you'll know." Later when NRG-X tells Superman he doesn't know the meaning of "surrender," Superman even calls out they've descended into cliché... but I think calling your bad superhero dialogue "cliché" is as much a cliché as writing it at this point. There are lots of big fight scenes with no creativity or interest to them.

The story sets up interesting ideas that go nowhere. Batman insists that since Gaines is battling like a traditional insurgent, they should use usual counterinsurgency tactics instead of bringing in the JLA. This is an okay idea, of Superman having to be more Batman-like in fighting a Superman threat that uses Batman-like tactics... but not much of interest is actually done with it. Gaines's "insurgency" is to send a flaming fire man after Superman; Batman's "counterinsurgency" is to lure Gaines into space. Genuine character work is pretty minimal.

from Superman/Batman #68 (script by Joe Casey,
art by Ardian Syaf and Vicente Cifuentes & David Enebral)

Plus the story has some weird dead ends. There's this whole thing in the first issue about how Clark interviews Garrison Slate, a redheaded reclusive S.T.A.R. Labs backer with bad facial hair... who is different from Anderson Gaines, the redheaded reclusive S.T.A.R. Labs backer with bad facial hair that Superman is fighting. Why? The other guy doesn't even add anything to the story, and in a later issue, it's claimed Clark interviewed Gaines, so even the writer got them confused.

There were times it clearly aspired to saying something about something, but this was tedious by its end. Mediocre decompressed hollow action comics at their worst. I don't know why this was written or what its point was imagined to be, and I look forward to getting back to the real Adventures of Superman soon.

ACCESS AN INDEX OF ALL POSTS IN THIS SERIES HERE

Review: Star Trek Omnibus, Volume 1 by Martin Pasko, Dave Cockrum, Klaus Janson, et al.

Comic trade paperback, 324 pages
Published 2009 (contents: 1980-82)
Acquired June 2009
Read May 2019

Star Trek Omnibus, Volume 1

Script by Marv Wolfman, Mike W. Barr (with Denny O'Neil), Tom DeFalco, Martin Pasko (with Alan Brennert), Michael Fleisher, and J. M. DeMatteis
Pencils by Dave Cockrum, Mike Nasser, Leo Duranona, Joe Brozowski, Luke McDonnell, Gil Kane, and Ed Hannigan
Inks by Klaus Janson, Ricardo Villamonte, Frank Springer, Tom Palmer (with Marie Severin & Dave Simons), Gene Day, Gil Kane, and Sal Trapani
Colors by Carl Gafford and Shelly Leferman

Letters by Jim Novak, John Costanza, Rick Parker (with Harry Blumfield), Ray Burzon, Joe Rosen, John Morelli, Janice Chiang, and Shelly Leferman

This volume collects issues #4-18 of Marvel's Star Trek ongoing (#1-3 were collected in the Movie Classics Omnibus), which ran from 1980 to 1982. Following on from the events of The Motion Picture, these comics have two reputations that aren't entirely earned.

from Star Trek #6 (script by Mike W. Barr, art by Dave Cockrum & Klaus Janson)

The first is that they're terrible. I don't think so. There are some not-great ones, sure, particularly the dumb opening two-parter where the Enterprise is haunted, and it turns out to be some guy's mental projections based on horror films he watched! There are also ones where the Enterprise battles the Loch Ness Monster and gnomes, and one where Kirk thinks he's a pharaoh. I'm not sure what's up with these old horror standbys; they sound like they might be campy fun, but are just boring. But there are some solid Star Trek stories here: a guy is seemingly killed beaming up to the Enterprise but Spock finds the trick; Spock and McCoy are forced to interfere in the development of a primitive society; Janice Rand moves on with her life but ends up in deep trouble beyond the galactic barrier; McCoy struggles to reconcile with his daughter... who's married a Vulcan! Nothing too flashy, and still sometimes goofy, but solid, interesting Star Trek work.

from Star Trek #7 (script by Tom DeFalco, art by Mike Nasser & Klaus Janson)

I was particularly struck by the thematic consistency with Motion Picture; there are lots of stories of ancient computers and/or would-be gods. Also I enjoyed the emphasis on elements that later Star Treks ignored; Chief DiFalco becomes a friend of Sulu and Chekov for example, and Janice Rand gets some moments as transporter chief, and the perscan belts are even employed on occasion. The comics do suffer, however, from a bevy of rotating writers and artists. Martin Pasko has a good run as writer, but writes just over half of the issues himself. Dave Cockrum and Klaus Janson do good work (Cockrum drew the Legion, so of course he can do Star Trek), but handle just a third of the issues.

from Star Trek #9 (script by Martin Pasko, art by Dave Cockrum & Frank Springer)

The other oft-claimed thing about this comic is that Marvel had only licensed Motion Picture itself, and this could only use elements of Star Trek that appeared in the film. Supposedly a couple references were snuck in. But once you get reading, I'd say more issues use ideas from the original series (and the cartoon) than don't. There's an Antosian from "Whom Gods Destroy," the disease choriocytosis from "The Pirates of Orion," the galactic barrier from "Where No Man Has Gone Before," Kirk's backstory from "Court Martial," the Klingon stasis weapon from "More Tribbles, More Troubles," recurring characters like Kyle and DeSalle, and so much more! Christopher Bennett has suggested that perhaps "the restriction on Marvel was that they couldn't use storylines from TOS, rather than a blanket ban on concepts from TOS." But in Back Issue! no. 5, writer Mike Barr claims they thought they couldn't even use the Vulcan mind meld until someone was told Spock did one in The Motion Picture (the relevant issue was written before the film was even released!). He doesn't really discuss where all the other references come from.

from Star Trek #11 (script by Martin Pasko, art by Joe Brozowski & Tom Palmer)

As per usual for IDW collections of archival material, the paratext leaves something to be desired. The back cover calls these comics "the first-ever original Trek stories for comics," completely missing the existence of a Star Trek comic book published by Gold Key from 1967 to 1979 that lasted for 61 issues!

Next Week: We find out what happened between Star Treks III and IV, in volume 6 of the Star Trek Archives... the Mirror Universe Saga!

Review: Empty Space by Michael Jan Friedman and Calo Cacau

Comic PDF eBook, n. pag.
Published 2019 (contents: 2018-19)
Acquired and read June 2019

Empty Space

Writer: Michael Jan Friedman
Pencils and inks / Colors: Calo Cacau
Colors: Marcos Martins
Letters: Jim Campbell and Zaak Saam

This is the collected edition of an indie comic miniseries funded through Kickstarter, which I backed since it was written by Michael Jan Friedman, longtime writer of space opera in comics and prose (mostly Star Trek, of course, but also The Darkstars!). The series is about a ship's captain who wakes up to find out he died and was brought back to life as a weapon of war. The final result is fine. Friedman's heyday as a comics writer was the 1990s, and it shows here: the narration is repetitive and details are spelled out when they don't need to be. It's decent space adventure stuff, but the character work is thin, which is a shame because I feel like characterization was Friedman's strength as a writer: more could have been made of being an "Empty" but it's mostly a background element, and most of the side characters are pretty generic. Calo Cacau's art is solid and well done; I hope he goes places.

Price Check on Smiles!

If you went back to my old LiveJournal (don't), you would discover that when I was in college, I probably talked more about and treated more seriously my job at Scott Dining Hall than I did my studies. I started out working about 6 hours per week; by junior year I was a student manager, usually working around twenty.

I took a lot of pride in this job. I used to talk about it a lot, years later, presumably to the annoyance of those around me. I don't talk about it so much anymore, twelve years on. I hope not anyway.

Scott was à la carte, not buffet-style, was was subdivided into a number of different units. One of the most popular was the personal pizza/hot sub line. Customers could get as much toppings as they wanted, and because it had every pizza topping you could think of, people could get some imaginative toppings on their hot subs. You would get your stuff, then it would go through a little oven on a conveyor belt (3 minutes for subs, 6 minutes for pizzas), then at the other end toppings you didn't want toasted would be applied (e.g., lettuce, mayo). It was all pretty low-tech, very dependent on little receipts upon which customers' names were written.

At lunch, it was probably the most slammed unit we had. I took pride in my running of the pizza line. It usually had three students assigned to it (plus a cashier), so I would put all three student workers on the making end, and then me and a full-timer would man the oven end, which could be pretty grueling. I was good about keeping orders in the right order, and one full-timer refused to do it alongside anyone else. Plus I prided myself on remembering what kinds of stuff some regulars got; some people were astoundingly consistent, getting the same thing three days a week. I could recognize a name, put the toppings on, and then call them.

Okay, okay, whatever. Good job Steve. But I also learned something about how to manage people from this. Usually from my mistakes. When I first started as manager, I was nervous, and in the true Mollmann way, I defaulted to sarcasm. You can be a sarcastic underling or co-worker and be liked; that was when I learned that to be a sarcastic authority figure requires some careful modulation. Thankfully someone was like, "Steve, you're overdoing it. Chill out."

Another thing: No one had set shifts on Friday nights; instead we rotated responsibilities. One Friday evening I was paired with another manager who had literally never worked on that entire side of the dining hall before. She was trying her best, but out of her depth. I might have been obnoxious about it. What I remember in particular doing was something along the lines of telling the student workers not to worry about her too much. I had thought I was helping (relieving the pressure of her responsibilities), but what I had really done was undermine her authority and her competence. She, I think nearly in tears, rightfully called me out on it.

I think much of what I know about working with people, I learned there. I had to do a lot of it in grad school, especially during the two years I had an administrative GA, and I'd like to think I did an okay job, and I think that's partially because of skills I developed making Italian subs.

Also there was this other manager named Josh. When I was working the sub line, he was usually on the wok line. I don't quite know how this evolved, but when things got really crowded and busy, I would shout out across the dining hall, "Josh, can I get a price check on smiles?"

"Steve," he would shout back, "the smiles are free!"

Random people would see me on campus and go "the smiles are free!" at me.

#457: Do you have a job?

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.

ACCESS AN INDEX OF ALL POSTS IN THIS SERIES HERE

Reading Roundup Wrapup: September 2019

Pick of the month: Jingo by Terry Pratchett. I don't know if this is the best City Watch novel, but it is the best of the three I read this month. Great satire-- and like the best satire, as painful as it is hilarious. A funny and harsh take on how easily we mobilize against those unlike us. Pratchett always plots quite masterfully, but everything comes together in this novel in a way that is somehow utterly inspiring and utterly deflating at the same time. Bingley bingley beep!

All books read:
1. Feet of Clay: A Novel of Discworld by Terry Pratchett
2. Best. State. Ever.: A Florida Man Defends His Homeland by Dave Barry
3. Jingo: A Novel of Discworld by Terry Pratchett
4. Secondhand Memories by Takatsu
5. The Fifth Elephant: A Novel of Discworld by Terry Pratchett

Not a big month! Secondhand Memories was a slog, and, well, the beginning of the semester is what it always is.

All books acquired:
1. Star Trek: The Fall: The Crimson Shadow by Una McCormack
2. The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Volume 1 edited by Neil Clarke
3. Doctor Who by Gary Russell

Books remaining on "to be read" list: 652 (no change)
Books remaining on "to review" list: 8 (down 1)