20 years ago today, this blog launched. It started as a group blog, but, quickly, became smaller and bigger with me taking over as the eventual sole writer. I wasn't sure how I wanted to mark the occasion and debated various options. I landed upon the following long essay written in the summer of 2020 for other purposes. It's been sitting on my laptop for over four and a half years, something I've always thought was a shame as I'm quite proud of it. It's also something a bit reminiscent of the early essays that I did here, like the one on Marvel Boy or the one on another Joe Casey comic, Codeflesh. I have updated it with a short section at the end that may feel grafted on a bit... because it was. Please, enjoy. And thank you for reading for the past 20 years.
Kevin Nowlan’s cover for Adventures of Superman #612 demanded that I buy the comic. I was a fan of Joe Casey’s writing, having lucked into being a subscriber of Cable when he took over the title from James Robinson with issue 51 in 1998. That Cable issue was cover dated February (the same month he took over Adventures of Superman in 2001) and this Adventures of Superman issue was just five years and one month since his debut. For whatever reason, I hadn’t gotten his Adventures of Superman to that point despite following his other work like Wildcats (which, by this point had evolved into Version 3.0) and Automatic Kafka in a fairly obsessed manner. But, the cover for issue 612 changed all of that.
With a striking two-toned green background featuring ‘rays’ of green emanating from an unseen point, the image was simple: the current, modern Superman has just been leveled by an uppercut from what looks to be the Golden Age original Superman. The caption reads “The Man of Yesterday vs. the Man of Tomorrow!” Nowlan adapted his style for the Golden Age Superman, with a cleaner line, less shading, the use of Benday dots for colouring the skin tone; the posing is stilted and somewhat forced. It’s a striking (no pun intended) image that remains one of my favourite covers.
It also got me to pick up the comic.
And that’s how I began reading the best 12 issues of Superman comics I’ve ever read.
I’ve since gone back and gotten the rest of Casey’s tenure on Adventures of Superman, but, aside from the odd issue or scene, those issues have never held the same appeal as Casey’s final year on the title. Joined by Derec Aucoin on art (with Charlie Adlard stepping in for a two-parter), those 12 issues are a different sort of Superman comic than I’ve read before and since.
Casey has spent much of his career trying to figure out what happens after. His Wildcats tried to answer what happens after the war is over; Automatic Kafka is all about what happens after superheroes stop being superheroes (or, after their comics stop being published); Gødland is about a series of never-ending attempts to answer what happens after enlightenment. If superhero comics have spent decades showing what happens, Casey wants to show what happens after.
In that final year of Adventures of Superman (and in a spattering of issues leading up to it), he tried to write a Superman comic about what happens after he stops using violence to solve problems. What happens if Superman doesn’t throw a single punch for an entire year’s worth of comics? Is he still Superman? Are the stories still interesting? Is there still drama and conflict and high stakes? Is it still satisfying?
I sure thought so – and still do.
The idea that the premier superhero, known most of all for his fantastic strength, could forego violence is an exciting one. After all, one of my strongest associations with Superman in comics comes from when I was nine and he died at the hands of Doomsday after an epic multi-issue brawl that leveled Metropolis and much of the surrounding area. It’s not my earliest memory of Superman by any means, but it’s one that took hold. How could it not? Costume ripped, bleeding, bruised, slugging it out with this monster of muscle and jagged bones that could someone slice open Superman’s skin... That sort of imagery tends to leave a mark.
And Casey spent a year going entirely against it. Not only that, but, five issues in, he announced his intent by making Superman’s pacifism explicit. While Casey would later say that having the character state outright that he’s a pacifist was, perhaps, going too far, I’ve always thought it key to the experiment. It’s part declaration of intent, part insane challenge, and part gotcha. After all, Superman didn’t become a pacifist in the panel where he announced himself as one; he had been one for over four issues, at least. By announcing it that way, Casey was reassuring readers that nothing was really changing, because it already changed and no one noticed.
The road to Casey’s pacifist Superman didn’t begin with issue 612. It didn’t even begin with his first issue of Adventures of Superman. And it didn’t end with his last. In this essay, I will show how the seeds for this version of Superman began with one of the most unlikely characters and, then, has continued in Casey’s work since departing Adventures of Superman. I will also explore that singular year of Superman comics where he renounced violence and showed the logical next step for the character. The year when Superman truly became the superhero of tomorrow.
One of the best Superman stories I’ve ever read doesn’t actually feature Superman.
Instead, it stars one of the many analogues of the hero and not necessarily the first one that would spring to mind. Mr. Majestic #1 by Joe Casey, Brian Holguin, Ed McGuinness, Jason Martin, Comicraft, and Dan Brown tells the decades-long story of the eponymous hero literally transforming the solar system in order to disguise it from a cosmic predator of unimaginable power. It begins with “You won’t find this story in the history books...” and attempts to position this Superman rip-off at the top of a scale that the DC hero once occupied before dying, returning, transforming into a being of pure energy, getting split in two, and returning to normal. As the promo piece for Mr. Majestic read: “Remember when superheroes could move planets? We do...” Rooted in some real life science, the story has the hero moving planets, dismantling Saturn’s rings, adding a smaller binary sibling to Sol, among many other changes. The work takes over a decade and requires a ton of scientific support for the alien hero to accomplish what needs to be done. But, the hard work pays off and the world is saved.
And not a single punch is thrown.
Mr. Majestic debuted in WildC.A.T.S. #11 as Kherubim warlord, created by H.K. Proger and Jim Lee as a Superman-like hero who was not afraid to use his powers. Coming from a military background, Majestros (his true name) is more direct and violent than Superman typically. Not as bloodthirsty as the other major Image Comics Superman analogue, Rob Liefeld’s Supreme, the character used violence more freely, including killing enemies when necessary. Colder and more distant than Superman, his status as a third-tier knockoff has rarely been disrupted despite the attempts of Alan Moore and the solo series currently under discussion.
The approach of writers Joe Casey and Brian Holguin to Mr. Majestic was not entirely in line with the depictions of the character previously, most notably with regards to violence. While they maintained his more distanced persona, over the course of the nine issues of the series, the character rarely used violence to solve problems, preferring to find a more effective solution. Superficially, this is out of line with the character, but it’s a clever take on Majestros’s military background where efficiency would have a premium. Why get into a long drawn-out fistfight when there is a more elegant and efficient solution available?
Over the nine issues, there are roughly 12 panels (give or take) that have the hero performing physical violence against another being, with none occurring in the final three issues. Part of this is because the types of problems that Mr. Majestic faces over these nine issues are the kind where punching them won’t actually solve them. When a little girl becomes a temporal singularity or a man becomes a black hole, no amount of physical force will resolve the issue. Instead, Majestros, with his cyborg former boy genius sidekick Desmond, must come up with alternate solutions. Even when violence is called for, like when time-displaced Vikings raid a small English town, the amount of force used is enough to retrain the invaders and deposit them in a jail cell until they can be returned to their own time.
When robotic religious fanatics attack his friend, Maxine Manchester (Ladytron), in the third issue, his restraint and attempts to protect innocents is a sharp contrast to her over-the-top violent approach. His one moment of violence has him noting, “They seem to be easily affected by brute force,” a calm and rational assessment of the situation. He then pauses to further assess the situation, realising that with all of the bystanders out danger and Maxine “dispatching these adversaries in an efficient – albeit bloodthirsty – manner,” that he can begin to take another approach to end the conflict.
The one instance of Majestic using physical violence in larger doses comes in the fifth issue where a prison ship passes near Earth and the inmates break free. Faced with the inmates, there is no clever response to stop them from leaving the ship and landing on Earth except for restraining them physically. It’s the closest the entire series gets to a big superhero brawl and ends, not with Majestic triumphing through his might, but when the ship crashes and the inmates are all knocked out. Majestros is then free to return them to their cells and launch the ship back into space where it belongs.
The contrast between expectations and reality with Mr. Majestic is made greater by Ed McGuinness’s line art that depicts a particularly musclebound version of the character. But, more shocking is the way that, until it’s pointed out, that contrast between expectation and reality isn’t obvious. Reading Mr. Majestic, his lack of violence doesn’t stand out in any way. He doesn’t come off as less heroic or feeble or ineffective. If anything, the tone of the writing and art all point to him being a more traditional type of hero; the kind that can move planets and solve giant problems like cosmic planeteaters and temporal anomalies. A cursory reading of the first six issues of the comic make it seem like a modern update of the Silver Age Superman with big ideas and very few moral ambiguities. Casey and Holguin adding characters like Desmond, a Mt. Rushmore Sanctuary, and doing single-issue stories add to that perception.
The final three issues are a departure in that the faux-Silver Age pastiche is cast aside in favour of a story that bears more resemblance to many of Casey’s other subsequent works. Majestros is called to shift from being a mortal (albeit long-lived) hero into a member of a group of cosmic beings who seemingly exist on another plane of existence. It’s a position that his father formerly occupied and seeks to take the hero away from Earth. While there is conflict in these final issues, much of it takes place beyond violence, up to and including the ‘enlightened’ Majestros confronting an evil version of himself (an after-effect from his travel to the place where the cosmic beings meet).
The story is framed through one of the cosmic beings acting as a father telling the tale to another of the beings, a child, and, when this confrontation is about to occur, the child exclaims, “Oooo... this is it! The big confrontation! A titanic slugfest to end all slugfests!” The ‘father’ explains that this sort of resolution will not be coming, as “the hero is not what he was.” Dismissing such a battle as ‘genre conventions’ that Majestros is no longer concerned with, the ‘father’ indicates that there is resolution of another kind coming. The ‘child’ mutters a response that no doubt echoes the thoughts of some readers who tuned in to see this militaristic Superman punch bad guys in the face: “No slam-fest then...? No visceral release...? No satisfaction...?”
Despite this explicit statement of Mr. Majestic no longer being your typical cape-wearing hero (in fact, he sheds the cape at the end of the issue as part of his ascension), he was never that in this series. When his solution to this evil after-effect doppelganger is to inhale him, he explains in a very ‘Superman’ sort of way: “There is a trace of darkness in every sentient creature. Every being that would claim a soul can also claim that which might corrupt that soul. It’s a necessary ingredient. Do we deny it? No. Do we ignore it? No. We triumph over it.”
Are the violent conflicts the darkness in the soul of the superhero comic that must be triumphed over?
Nine months after the final issue of Mr. Majestic came out, Joe Casey took over the writing duties of Adventures of Superman from JM DeMatteis. In typical fashion, it meant wrapping up the in-progress story that DeMatteis had begun before delivering the second part of a month-long “Return to Krypton” story that would take place across the four monthly Superman titles. This first stage of Casey’s tenure on Adventures of Superman is marked by these sort of interruptions. His first ‘proper’ issue, 590 would be followed up by one written by someone else before he would get one more in before the big “Our Worlds at War” event would begin, which would take up another four months (including an epilogue issue) before taking part in “Joker: The Last Laugh,” a loose month-long event across numerous DC titles. It wouldn’t be until 11 months after his first issue that Casey would have a span of eight uninterrupted issues before more crossovers and skip issues. All of which is to say that delivering a consistent story that spans more than a single issue was no doubt challenging for the first year that he was writing Adventures of Superman.
The cleverness and eagerness to find solutions to problems that didn’t involve hitting was only periodically evident over that first year. After all, there are only so many ways to deliver a satisfying read as part of “Our Worlds at War” without Superman fighting someone. However, there were glimpses of Casey’s vision of Superman that would peak out during the non-crossover issues. In the two issues Casey wrote between crossovers (590 and 592), the amount of violence used is minimal, something that would reoccur for five of the eight post-crossover issues. In some cases, the stories don’t necessarily lend themselves to violence (in issue 592, Superman’s solution to Jimmy Olsen being trapped in a video game is simply to reset the game, but one can imagine a version of the story where he enters the game and smashes their way out); but, in others where violence would be more organic, Casey often has Superman act in a passive manner, absorbing violence that does him no injury and resolving the conflict through discussion.
Mixed in with these issues, though, were things like “Our Worlds at War” where Superman fights alongside Doomsday to tear a path through alien invaders or a three-parter involving Ultraman and the Crime Syndicate of Amerika that has almost two solid issues of fight scenes. While Casey clearly had a vision for a Superman who didn’t solve all of his problems with violence, one that would confront a group of angry workers misled into dressing up in costumes and attacking the Daily Planet not with clenched fists but an open hand of compassion and understanding, this was also a Superman that solved problems with his fists when need be. Much of the time, it’s reminiscent of the Casey and Holguin Mr. Majestic: a hero that looks for the best solution to the problem he’s facing. If it’s talking the aggressor down, that’s what he’ll do; if it’s knocking them unconscious, well, that works, too.
The final time Joe Casey writes a Superman willing to hit someone in his Adventures of Superman tenure is part of the “Ending Battle” crossover where Superman is targeted through Clark Kent. The second and sixth parts of the crossover took place in Adventures of Superman and Casey’s first contribution to the crossover (issue 608) is a clever attempt to present his version of the character within the confines of the crossover’s mandate. Teamed with artist Derec Aucoin, who had drawn periodic issues of Casey’s run to that point (including his first ‘proper’ issue of the title post-DeMatteis and “Return to Krypton) and would go on to be the primary artist of Casey’s final year on the book, the issue has Superman saving numerous people connected to Clark from various low-grade villains.
Using a 16-panel grid as the base template, the issue implies violence more than it shows it, mostly through the effects of the violence. A typical sequence has the villain threatening an innocent person, a small panel indicating some part of Superman to signify his arrival, and, then, the villain suddenly hitting the wall or something similar. In only a select few panels do you see Superman performing an act of violence, the most explicit of which came near the end where Superman’s fists hitting King Shark in the mouth are shown in two separate panels (between which he allows the villain to try to bite down on his arm, breaking several teeth in the process).
While this issue is not the final one that Casey would write with Superman using physical violence (that would be the next issue, which is almost a throwback of sort, where Superman spends most of it fighting Marvel analogues), it feels like a final statement by Casey and Aucoin on Superman’s violence. It is quick, efficient, and carried out only to save innocents put in harm’s way due to their unknowing association with him. As he’s racing to save as many people as possible, there is no lingering and glorifying in any of the physical conflict. Superman uses the minimum amount of time and effort required to subdue the villains before moving on. If anything, it points to the best version you could hope for of a Superman who hits. But, that also means it is a Superman who hits taken as far as he can go, leaving only two choices: keep repeating that or go further.
Joe Casey would choose to go further.
Adventures of Superman #612-623 comprise the final year of Joe Casey writing the book, an uninterrupted year unlike any he had been given previously. Up until this point, he had managed eight issues in a row without the interruption of a skip issue to accommodate another writer’s story or some sort of crossover. It’s tempting to include issue 610 in with this batch as it fits thematically, but so do many of the previous issues in his run on the title. Issue 610 is a ‘quiet’ character issue where Clark Kent goes undercover to expose President Lex Luthor’s illegal mining, leading to him having to rescue the miners from a cave in, and, then, Superman comforts a small boy whose mother died. It’s a reset issue after the “Ever Ending” two-month crossover, but, then, any possible connection and momentum is stopped by issue 611 being turned over to Joe Kelly for a month-long story that spanned all four Superman titles.
Moreover, we, as comics readers, are conditioned to think of 12 issues as a unit. It makes up a single year of monthly comics, and is often used to designate a singular story or stories that make up a larger story. These 12 issues are a single thematic unit made up of many smaller stories that don’t have any direct or overarching link beyond Joe Casey writing them and Superman not using violence in any of them. That they would have this shared concept is not apparent until the fifth issue.
Looking at issue 612, there’s nothing to it that would suggest that it’s the beginning of one of the most unique year of Superman comics ever published. As I said in my introduction, it features a wonderful Kevin Nowlan cover that dares you to not pick it up, and has Superman confronting a version of himself very much like what we would call the Golden Age Superman. That version of Superman shows up unexplained, righting social wrongs like stopping the execution of a wrongfully convicted man, preventing the police from assaulting protestors, or attacking some racist police officers beating a handcuffed immigrant for the fun of it. In reality, he’s a character from a novel come to life, written by one of Clark Kent’s journalist heroes, Ben Conrad. Conrad was a syndicated journalist who focused on rural reporting and, while proud of Clark, is somewhat critical of his career in Metropolis, thinking it a betrayal of his roots as Kansas farm boy. In this issue, he has just finished his first novel in decades, a work inspired by Superman called “Champion of the Oppressed.”
As he explains to Clark, “The more I researched Superman, the most I felt... I don’t know. He’s a bit too civilized, isn’t he...? All that power... and look 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 too detached for me. So, my fictional champion does things a bit... differently.” Somehow, his fictionalised version of Superman has entered the world and is acting as Conrad wrote him. It allows for a direct examination of who Superman is and who the character began as. The ‘problem’ of this Superman’s existence is resolved when Conrad is convinced to delete his manuscript, but the criticism remains.
Less than a direct criticism of Superman, Casey is highlighting the progression of the character and some blind spots that have arisen. Nothing is resolved for Superman; he’s left watching this version of himself, one that challenges his ideology and methods fade away, begging for its ideals to be remembered, while he exclaims, “Your time here was not irrelevant. What you represent... is not inconsequential.” While you would expect this to inspire Superman to become more of a socially active hero, what it seems to do is clarify his position. If his methodology is primarily based in inspiring people, in setting an example, then what sort of example does he set?
Ben Conrad’s Superman is a violent hero that is so involved with the lives of people that he sees it as his duty to break into a house to stop domestic violence or openly attack police officers. That is no longer (and most likely never will be again) Superman. Instead, this incident calcifies his choice to stand at a remove and be an example of what he thinks humanity should be. If Superman was not consciously a pacifist before, he was now. None of this is stated outright, but, based on the ensuing issues and the declaration of pacifism to come, this is the logical outcome of this issue.
While introducing, in a way, the thematic point of these 12 issues, this issue also introduces the antagonists that take up the first five issues: the Hollow Men. “Champion of the Oppressed” was not Ben Conrad’s first novel; published in the late 1950s, “The Hollow Men” was his only novel, a piece of social fiction about a trio of colourless ‘Hollow Men’ that make everything the same, eliminating all differences. It was a commentary on the McCarthy hearings and the witch hunts against superheroes at the time, a warning of what excessive conformity could bring. The trio first show up in the opening pages of issue 612, having sucked all of the colour and will to live out of Major Victory. They would continue as a subplot through the first three issues until becoming a larger problem in issues 615 and 616.
The Hollow Men make for an ideal threat to this Superman, acting not as a physical obstacle, but an emotional, psychological, and ideological one. They don’t pound their victims into submission, they take away everything that makes them unique, vibrant beings. When they threaten a secret government experiment called Heroville, which is like a ‘50s small town where everyone is a superhero, Superman charges in blindly to confront them and save the patriarch of the town, Dr. Camel, and finds himself their target. The ensuing shock of their attack leaves him barely able to mutter, “I... didn’t even want to try...” To battle the Hollow Men is to assert his will of life, of the belief that everyone is special and unique, and should be cherished, celebrated, and protected.
To win that sort of battle with punches would be impossible. You can’t beat an ideology with violence. It’s shocking, in issue 616, when Superman is asked, “Is this it? The big showdown? I’ve always wanted to see you punch out the bad guy...” that he responds, “No violence. I won’t resort to that. I’m a pacifist, Dr. Welbourne.” Within the context of the story, it makes complete sense that he would say that. He immediately explains, “If we’re going to save their victims, I need to confront the Hollow Men on their terms. They think they can take away my hope... my idealism... my faith in the future...? Let them try.” His pacifism extends beyond this story, but it’s the only way to respond to a threat of this sort.
The Hollow Men may not attack with fists, but they do perform violence on their victims. To combat that ideology of forced conformity, Superman needs to be radical and different. What’s more different than a superstrong superhero who refuses to hit?
With the help of Ben Conrad adding to his original novel (which ended with the Hollow Men succeeding in their goals), Superman defeats the trio, able to withstand their attack thanks to his beliefs, specifically his love of his wife, Lois Lane. Lois acts as partly an inspiration in these 12 issues and partly as a contrast/foil to an extent.
No one would necessarily call her a pacifist, except she does so much good, particularly in her husband’s eyes, without violence. In issue 613, Superman is a supporting character in his own comic to her taking the lead when Funky Flashman opens a store devoted to selling Superman merchandise. Disgusted at him trying to make money off her husband, she tries to foil his plans and, is able to, when, after he expands his store to selling merchandise devoted to other heroes, she suggests that he also sell products based on villains. This results in a nasty visit from Captain Cold, which, along with Superman shutting down the sweatshops that made the merchandise, puts Flashman out of business.
Lois stops Flashman with ideas, not violence. This foreshadows how Superman is able to defeat the Hollow Men, not by using his superstrength, but with thought and a contrary idea to their worldview that is simply more powerful.
Each progressive threat post-Hollow Men challenges the idea of Superman’s pacifism a little bit more. The first, a revamp of Mr. Mxyzptlk as the Mxy Twins, Dale and Doris, who has updated himself into something more modern to keep up, in a manner, with Superman. Their particular form of mischief here is selling sets of the Encyclopedia Universal, kidnapping Lois and Superman for a fancy dinner, and removing the Earth’s gravity. Issue 617 has a moment that suggests Superman resorting to violence in a panel where he’s flying towards the twins, fist cocked back, ready to punch. It’s difficult to tell if it’s genuine, a bluff or a case of guest artist Charlie Adlard not being completely aware of the hero’s pacifist stance.
Counterintuitively, I think this moment of panic at the mind games the twins play with him reinforces the pacifist ideals that Superman strives to over this year as it shows the conscious choice he makes. His instinct, at some point, remains to lash out; he chooses not to. A brief glimpse that this instinct remains demonstrates the self-awareness at work in his choice to not use violence. As he seeks to set an example, that involves denying some elements of his basic nature. It’s more heroic if there’s some element of struggle in his stance, reminding us that he could punch them and has made a purposeful decision not to do so. This is also a reminder that having that initial reaction isn’t wrong. It’s okay to want to hit someone bothering you, even Superman wants to; what’s not okay is actually doing it.
Instead, Superman solves the Mxy Twins problem with some help from the Justice League, a little science to give the planet some temporary gravity, and the simple elegance of dispatching them by purchasing a set of the encyclopedia they’re selling. The next antagonist tests his pacifism a little bit more in the form of an alien called Assassin Lad. An insect-looking armour-wearing creature, he comes to Earth to assassinate ‘the Candidate,’ a quasi-Biblical third-party presidential candidate, who is both the target and client of Assassin Lad. The confrontation between Superman and Assassin Lad is brief, but he believes that killing for money is a religious calling, something completely antithetical to Superman.
Assassin Lad is also, ostensibly, someone that could only be beaten through violence. That is his stock in trade, after all, and, again, Superman comes close to using violence himself. When Assassin Lad tries to kill the Candidate, Superman interferes by blocking one of his shots and, then, removing him from the room by grabbing his armour. How much you define this as violence will vary person to person. It is definitely force, but as passive as possible. He doesn’t hurt Assassin Lad, merely stands in the way of his target and then creates additional distance. With the ‘hit’ botched, Assassin Lad makes a quick escape. In a way, Superman lucks out in avoiding further confrontation.
The two issues that comprise this story also provide some additional instances of Superman adhering to his pacifism, first by defeating the Hand of Osiris, god of death, through sheer force of will. The will of the Hand on behalf of death, while Superman acting on behalf of life. This repeats Superman’s victory over the Hollow Men, though compressed and distilled down to the basics.
The other major victory is over the Cannibal Planet that Assassin Lad sets loose on the sun to distract Superman from interfering with his plans. The Cannibal Planet is reminiscent of the cosmic threat that Mr. Majestic saved the solar system from in the first issue of his series, except Superman fights it without any time to plan. He dispatches its attempt to eat the sun by giving it a literal case of ‘brain freeze,’ and, then, repairs the temporary damage to Earth’s temperature through a massive output of heat vision.
The method in neutralising the Cannibal Planet is a debatable one with regards to his pacifism. Using his super-breath to freeze the planet’s brain (or cool it enough to stop it) is seemingly an act of violence. However, the scale on which he’s operating puts the actual amount of violence into question. After all, if Superman is battling something the size of a planet, how much does he hurt it? Does it actually hurt it or merely put it to sleep? Again, the struggle for Superman to maintain his pacifist stance shows through and is put into a position where, possibly, he acts against it.
This wouldn’t be the case in the next story, involving bug-like creatures from another dimension who turn Metropolis’s children into bugs as part of a mating ritual. Superman teams up with a new superhero, Minuteman, who has been training for this moment. His claim to fame is that he can defeat his opponents in under a minute and uses various ‘new age’ techniques in his training. Bugs from another dimension is typically the sort of threat that devolves into a brawl, often even more violent than typical superhero stories. Take Marvel’s Secret Invasion event where the invading Skrulls were met with lethal force that the heroes normally would never use without even the token debate about the morality of heroes killing. Aliens, whether from space or other dimensions, are usually portrayed as less than to the point where excessive or lethal violence is tolerated. Yet, here, the conflict barely gets to the point where Minuteman needs to fight the aliens, on panel, at least.
A single moment in issue 622 stands out as another instance where Superman reaches his limit. With the children of Metropolis transformed into bugs and encased in egg-like bubbles, he flies at the bug aliens, arms outstretched, saying “I didn’t want it to come to this...” Is this him admitting that he is about to attack them with force? It certainly seems that way. No answer is given as the aliens trap him in a similar bubble. Like the other suggestions of possible violence, none actually occurs and the question is left hanging.
In the final issue of the year, Superman tells Lois about various threats he faced, including one where every other hero was controlled into attacking him. In none does he use violence, nor point out the lack of it. The closest he comes is attempting to tackle a phantom football player to restrain the ghost. This issue is also one of the rare times during this year where Superman shows any self-doubt over who and what he is. As the year-long experiment in ‘no violence’ comes to an end and Joe Casey and Derec Aucoin depart the title, the validity of how they portrayed Superman is up in the air. And Casey knows it.
Speaking of Aucoin, his contributions to the idea of Superman as pacifist are mostly subtle. How does one draw pacifism? Instead of trying to show that side of Superman, he does the best thing you could do: he doesn’t change anything. Superman is never shown in weaker postures or framing than normal. He looks just as heroic in these issues as any others. By maintaining the normal look of Superman, it reinforces the idea that he can abstain from physical violence and still be Superman. He looks like a man who utterly confident in himself and his abilities.
Despite the progression of the threats over these issues, Superman’s pacifism is never put to a proper test. He comes close several times to violence and never quite gives in. What Casey never does is present him with a threat that is a purely physical one. Every enemy in these pages is defeated through will or brains (or some combination of the two). This demonstrates how Superman is an effective hero without using his fists, granted; it also isn’t playing entirely fair. The threats that Casey writes in these issues are ones that are meant to be defeated through will and intelligence, not physical strength. He never gets around to having Superman face an enemy like Doomsday or Darkseid or Mongul where will and some clever ideas may not be enough to stop them. Perhaps, given more time, antagonists of that sort would have made appearances to demonstrate just how far pacifism works.
Superman’s pacifism fits into the other large theme of these dozen issues: what makes up Superman? Most of the stories define Superman against some element of the character: his violent hands-on involved origins, the commercialised side of the character, the quaint middle America smalltown Superboy, the updated ‘edgy’ villains meant to match up with a modern Superman, the alien Assassin Lad that’s like a dark mirror to the Legion of Super-Heroes, the progressive hero so adept at solving problems with his fits that no fight ever lasts more than a minute, and, then, the absentee husband.
Each of these stories and the connections that run through them are part of an attempt to distill Casey’s view of Superman and what the 21st-century version of the character is, with the explicit pacifism being one of the more obvious signifiers. The closest Casey gets to defining his Superman is in issue 619 where Superman’s will defeats the Hand of Osiris. One of the bystanders, a fireman, tells a child that “Superman is the personification of life. He is a pure being of light and warmth.”
It’s hard to disagree with that assessment and, in those terms, how could the character not renounce violence?
Probably the largest surprise of Casey’s work here is that, while you can point to his meeting his Golden Age doppelganger as a moment where, perhaps, Superman decides to be a pacifist, there is no large, overwhelming moment of enlightenment. There is no singular moment or talk from the character about how he has ‘peeled the onion,’ and is no more or better than he was. Typically, Casey’s characters undergo an obvious and radically life-altering experience if they are going to be so self-aware and different from what they were before. But, as Casey himself has said, Superman was already a fairly self-aware and confident character. He entered these 12 issues knowing who he was and was unafraid to be that person. While the final issue highlights some of his self-doubts, they very rarely come through in the moment. His doubts are reflective moments that help shape his confident approach to helping.
Moreover, as the issues leading up to these 12 periodically showed, Superman always flirted with pacifism. As Casey wrote him, violence was usually the act of last resort or expediency. At some point, he decided that neither of those were good enough excuses. The lack of that decision is, perhaps, the biggest hole in this run, and one of the larger aberrations in Casey’s career. In the future, his characters would not make similar leaps without the reader seeing exactly what experience drove them.
While he was writing Adventures of Superman, Joe Casey explored related ideas about superheroics in Wildcats Version 3.0 and Automatic Kafka for DC’s Wildstorm imprint. Both comics involved pacifism, of a sort, although from different perspectives. Neither were explicit in that ideology like Superman. Instances of non-violence from his characters were side-effects of the specific aspect of superheroes he explored in those titles.
In Wildcats Version 3.0, Casey explored the idea of a corporation being a superhero with the Halo Corporation helmed by an alien robot set on using the massive resources of the company to make a better world. While Jack Marlowe (as the robot calls himself) has many abilities comparable to Superman, he also doesn’t act violently over the course of that series, having outgrown the clichés of being a typical superhero. He does, however, delegate such tasks, again exposing the limits of a set ideology like his. He may not don a costume or use his fists, but he’s more than willing to pay others to do that for him. As progressive as his use of the Halo Corporation is, he’s an elitist hypocrite by placing himself above those things while demanding others do them.
Automatic Kafka, conversely, explores the idea of superheroes from another angle: what happens to adult superheroes after they stop fighting crime? Focused on the eponymous robot lead (another robot), the series views the world of superheroics through the lens of celebrity, sex, and drugs. Some members of Kafka’s former team, the $tranger$, still dress up and live out violent power fantasies, but most don’t. One member, Saint Nick, the gun-toting ‘wild card’ member of the group, has given up the life entirely for a ‘normal’ life of a regular job and family.
In an issue where Kafka discovers an old enemy of the group, Galaxia, coming to the house of their rich benefactor for assistance, the former hero and enemy go to dinner. There, as the conversation progresses, Kafka reaches a tipping point, standing up with fist clenched, and asks, “Should we start fighting now...? Toss this table aside and start pummeling each other like it was seventeen years ago...?” Galaxia, holds up a hand, dismissing the idea, “Heavens, no. That would be sophomoric.” They have outgrown the need for that sort of conflict and Casey is more interesting in exploring how these two characters relate to one another at this point in their lives.
Beyond these books, Joe Casey has written a very small amount of Superman-esque characters since departing Adventures of Superman. Kino for Lion Forge, as part of their Catalyst Prime line, could qualify, but that’s definitely more of a Miracleman riff than Superman. He did return to Superman for a brief Superman/Batman story that took place in the aftermath of “Our Worlds at War” and suffered from heavy editorial interference to the point where another writer is credited alongside Casey on the final part. The first part of the story does include Batman making reference to Superman’s “pacifist beliefs,” but that is the extent of that idea in the story. If anything, that mention comes off as sarcastic and is, perhaps, Casey poking a bit of fun at the last time he wrote a Superman comic.
Casey wrote numerous superhero projects and all approached the concept from an unexpected place or revolved around moments of ‘enlightenment.’ Unlike Superman’s progression to pacifism, which had no clear and obvious catalyst, the ‘enlightenment’ in Casey’s other books is not just shown, it’s often over-the-top and takes up a sizable amount of storytelling space. His epic cosmic title with Tom Scioli, Gødland, is incredibly focused on the ideas of progression and enlightenment, and the idea that it is an ongoing process, a struggle without end, where there are fits and stops, regressions that lead to progress, and so on. That method is what would guide Casey’s only true foray into a Superman-esque story since departing Adventures of Superman.
In 2013’s Catalyst Comix for Dark Horse, Casey wrote a trio of features over nine issues where each block of three had one of the features as the lead with the other two as back-ups. They all centred around a huge end of the world threat on December 21, 2012. The comic was an update of a shared universe superhero concept that Dark Horse published in the 1990s. The story that was the main feature of the first three issues, “The Ballad of Frank Wells” focuses on the Superman-esque Titan and the fallout of his seemingly saving the world. In the first part of the story, he appears to stop the “ultimate death concept” Nibru from destroying the world, and the ensuing eight parts deal with the fallout of him finally living up to his potential. The joke is, as he learns later, that it was actually Amazing Grace who stopped Nibru at the same time he attacked the being. He saved nothing.
The final panel of the first part of “The Ballad of Frank Wells” has the lead sitting on his bed, thinking, “So... I saved the world... now what...?” This existential dread drives him to finally stop being complacent about his heroic identity, first as he struggles with the lack of adulation for his efforts and, then, with the assistance of a guru of sorts, the Baba Lama. His meeting with the Baba Lama coincides with an attack by a supervillain who mixes lust with death and violence, bringing to a head the various superheroes clichés that Frank has struggled with. He’s faces with a possible ‘relationship’ of love and hate that could continue for years as they alternate between sex and violence, or, through the Baba Lama, he can break out of this pattern of existence.
The journey Frank Wells undergoes is one that Superman could not. Where the DC hero was confident and self-assured when Casey wrote the title, Frank is the opposite. He’s not the beloved hero of the world; he’s a failure who doesn’t know what he should be doing. Where Superman would save the world from a threat like Nibru and move on to the next crisis, Frank Wells wakes up in cold sweats from dreams of celebratory parades. He’s not Superman, but his journey to ‘enlightenment’ leads him to some similar places to that final Casey-written year of Adventures of Superman.
Through Wells, Casey is able to synthesise both the modern Superman and the ‘champion of the oppressed’ he faced in Adventures of Superman #612. Wells, looking for a clear direction, frees a child labour camp in the third part, tackles a variety of ‘social justice’ issues in the fourth part, imitates John Lennon and Yoko Ono by very publically staying in bed at a Montreal hotel in the fifth before, in the sixth, going after the CEO of the company that employed the child labour camp he freed. None of this feels ‘right’ to him exactly. He swings wildly between the pacifist Superman and the ‘champion of the oppressed’ models, and, in every instance, faces nothing but resistance. While he accomplishes good in the third and fourth parts, each act is limited and is almost insignificant in the larger picture of injustice throughout the world, so he swings wildly to the other extreme with a non-violent sit-in that’s more publicity gimmick than effective mode of action.
It’s only when Frank looks inside and explores who he is truly, in the eighth part, that he’s able to finally find his way. Ironically, the key moment of ‘enlightenment’ is learning that Amazing Grace stopped Nibru, not him. Learning that he was not the global saviour frees him, in a way. When he thought he saved the world, he gained an overwhelming sense of responsibility. With that gone, it’s almost like a burden is lifted from his shoulders and he’s able to see what the Baba Lama has been guiding him towards: “One more threshold to cross. Step outside of the boundaries that have always boxed you in. No more pro wrestling. No more hot spot hopscotch.”
In the final part of “The Ballad of Frank Wells,” the hero confronts the global community in a series of meetings where he outlines his plan to inspire change through the threat of enforced peace. He basically tells the leaders of the world to begin making things better, because they no longer have to worry about the threat of one another. Frank Wells will keep the peace and get involved when needed; otherwise, he’s there as the implied threat of superhuman force to keep things in line. The idea isn’t a new one to superhero comics, one of “protecting the world from itself,” yet it feels like a satisfying way to combine the competing instincts that Wells was struggling with.
He acts on a global level to effect change and does it without any actual violence. He’s able to, perhaps, inspire the Powers that Be to begin making the world a better place on a large scale and maintain a pacifist stance, for the most part. It’s a balancing act that feels more satisfying and complete than Casey’s pacifist Superman. While bold for the character, that version of Superman never truly confronted the questions raised by his ‘champion of the oppressed’ doppelganger. Here, Frank Wells is able to be at the same remove as Superman and focus on threats of a similar level, while his mere existence is enough to cause some social change in the world.
After Casey left Adventures of Superman, no one else has attempted to repeat his experiment with a pacifist Superman. It’s not quite a forgotten anomaly, but it’s also not referenced or spoken of by the writers of the character. Instead, one push has been for the character to return to his Golden Age roots a little more. In the 2011 ‘New 52’ relaunch of DC’s line, Grant Morrison wrote a young version of Superman in Action Comics that tackles social justice issues like corrupt politicians and unethical executives. He was brash and unafraid to ‘solve’ those sorts of problems with his fists. In comparison to Casey’s pacifist Superman, it felt like a regressive, which, admittedly, it was since it was drawing upon the earliest days of Superman for inspiration. It also felt progressive, because it was Superman finally addressing issues that affect regular people, not dealing only with superhuman or extraterrestrial threats and allowing basic issues of human immorality to go on unchecked in the name of ‘non-interference.’ This Superman actually lived in the same world as the people he was trying to protect.
“The Ballad of Frank Wells” manages to balance that desire with the progressive idea of a superhero who doesn’t need to save the day through violence. How long he would be able to maintain that balance is unknown. It’s a very efficient approach to what a Superman sort of hero can do, reminiscent almost of the way Casey and Holguin wrote Mr. Majestic.
The most correct and efficient method for the problem at hand.
Conclusion – The Ordinary Made Extraordinary
The idea that as superhero could spend an entire issue or more not actively engaging in violence isn’t that unusual and happens far more frequently than anyone notices. That’s part of what makes Joe Casey’s final 12 issues of Adventures of Superman so exciting: he does something completely normal for superhero comics, but in a purposeful manner made explicit.
I don’t think he succeeded in presenting a pacifist Superman as a completely viable option. The character never faced a threat that would normally only be solved through violence. Nor did it address a failing many saw in Superman of being too removed from the world, focused only on setting a good example, not truly fixing things.
It was a start. A shot across the bow to say that there is another way to approach a character like this. It began before Adventures of Superman #612 with various issues earlier in Casey’s run where Superman didn’t use any physical force to solve problems. It began before his time on that title, in the pages of Mr. Majestic with co-writer Brian Holguin with an ostensibly more violent version of Superman who suddenly only used violence when it was the best course of action before evolving to a higher plane and eschewing violence as a viable method of conflict resolution.
How successful issues 612 through 623 of Adventures of Superman are at proving that Superman should only exist as a pacifist isn’t the point. Part of the point was to do something new and different with a character that had long been locked in a single vision. Part of the point was to take a superhero whose basic ethos was conflict resolution through violence and take that away to see if it was possible for the character to still go on. Part of the point was to show that it could be done, if only for a year.
For me, it forever changed how I perceive the character. I’ve read many Superman comics since Adventures of Superman #623 and that none have seemed to take up Casey’s challenge to take the character to its logical endpoint of love and compassion where he would do everything he could to not hurt another living being has frustrated me. But, I also know that more of those issues haven’t had a punch thrown than I think.
“No violence. I won’t resort to that. I’m a pacifist, Dr. Welbourne.”
Those three sentences are the most radical published in a superhero comic in the 21st century. They are revelatory and revolutionary. They fly in the face of one of the biggest genre conventions using the biggest character of the genre.
The most radical part of what Casey did in those issues wasn’t having Superman not use violence. It was having Superman say he wouldn’t. He took something completely ordinary, a superhero comic that lacks violence, and he made it stand out. He made it extraordinary.
Whether or not you agree with the idea that Superman can or should be a pacifist doesn’t matter. It’s a part of the character now and always will be. Throughout the reboots and revamps and creator changes, the character always has that potential to rise above the violent power fantasies of superhero comics and do something different.
I know that, because my favourite Superman comics star a pacifist.
In 2023, Joe Casey returned to the Superman corner of DC Comics with the announcement of Kneel Before Zod, a planned 12-issue series starring the Kryptonian enemy (and, sometimes, ally) of Superman. Reunited with “The Ballad of Frank Wells” artist Dan McDaid, the series began in December 2023 with a preview story in Action Comics #1060 before the series proper debuted in January 2024. While originally sold as a 12-issue series, it ended after only eight, resulting in an incomplete story, which is a pity as it also cut short the very character-driven journey that Dru-Zod was in the middle of without a clear indication of where he would be at the end of the twelfth issue. This is of particular note here because of Zod’s specific relationship to violence, which is in diametric opposite to the pacifism on display in Casey’s Adventures of Superman run. Yet, while a comic featuring Zod as a violent force that stands in stark contrast to Superman is an obvious approach, when you dig into Kneel Before Zod, there’s a more complex relationship with violence at play that suggests, at minimum, a dialogue with the earlier work.
The premise of the series is that Dru-Zod and Ursa rule over a planet along with their son, Lor, who was raised in the Phantom Zone while the couple was trapped there. While Zod builds up the planetary defences, Ursa manipulates the genetics of the native beings of the planet to be warriors to serve under the banner of Zod, and Lor chaffs against the peaceful nature of the world – and the boundaries set by his father. Quickly, the series devolves into Zod exiling Lor (as he was once exiled by his father), the planet coming under attack by aggressive aliens sent by Lor to obtain the ultimate weapon Zod has built, Ursa dying, Zod destroying the planet, and, the final issues, having Zod take over a prison ship, forcibly drafting the inmates into his new army. A status quo is quickly established and, then, smashed, giving way to a new one that, had the series completed its final four issues, may have been left behind for a new one. Everything unfolds at such a breakneck pace that it seems like untapped potential is left in the gutters almost, but it all serves the purpose of exploring the push and pull of Zod’s violent nature and how that reconciles with his desires.
The opening four issues (and prologue) take place on New Kandor with the central conflict not being the eventual war with the Khunds that results in the death of Ursa and Zod abandoning and destroying the planet, but with the Zod who was and the Zod who is. Both Zod’s wife and son treat him as an object of derision, a weak, petty tyrant playing at king on this backwater world rather than being the aggressive conqueror that he’s been up until this point. The breaking point between Zod and his son is over the weapon that Lor discovers Zod building in a cloaked part of the planet, one that Zod says has “the capability to deliver – against a force of any size – nothing less than complete annihilation.” While Lor thinks this weapon is best used as an offensive tool to conquer the universe, Zod envisions it as the ultimate deterrent against aggressors. His desire isn’t conquest, but the creation of a new, better version of Krypton. He mulls over the bottled city of Kandor with its miniaturised citizens in stasis and dreams of the day when he can awaken and restore them, giving them the world of New Kandor to inhabit. Not a man of peace by any means, he’s also not a man of war.
Lor sums up the conflict in the prologue: “[Zod] has us preparing for war, but does not share his vision.” Ursa and Lor think that this is all preparation for war when it is a foundation of peace. Despite his previous violent actions – perhaps his very nature – Zod’s actions on New Kandor all point to an effort to only use violence in the defence of what he’s building. His family thinks that he’s still a man of violence, of war and conquest, when he’s settling into the role of a protector instead. Zod’s visions of Jor-El represents the internal conflict over who he is (or thinks he is) and his desire to rebuild what’s been lost. However, as the phantom Jor-El tells Zod in the first issue, “You don’t possess the capacity to create... only to destroy.” Prior to the physical destruction of New Kandor, Zod had already destroyed the initial step towards his final vision of a reborn Krypton, his family. Exiling his son and driving his wife (pregnant with another son) away through his inability to be who they think he is or to share his true desires, Zod breaks his family before the Khunds arrive. The actual physical conflict is more an effect than a cause. Could this fate have been avoided had he been honest about his actions and goals?
The second half of the series has Zod, after destroying New Kandor, taking his revenge on the Khunds, nearly killing himself in the process. If what he desires is no longer possible, he defaults into what he sees as his true nature. He destroys the force that attacks him and, then, kills his would-be rescuers when his revenge nearly kills him too. His rescuers are the crew of a prison ship that travels a set orbital path at the furthest reaches of the civilised galaxy to ensure that the inmates are kept as remote as possible. Zod killing the crew and taking over the ship faintly recalls the plot of Mr. Majestic #5 with a similar prisoner ship. Instead of a crash that a hero must contain, it’s Zod taking the ship as his property and ruling over the inmates, ostensibly to be his new army.
In the aftermath of his destruction of the Khunds and near death, Zod is barely recognisable as himself. He looks almost like a zombie, drawn by Dan McDaid as something of an inhuman monster, showing just how far he’s fallen by giving in to his ‘true nature.’ Destroying New Kandor (after sending the bottled city of Kandor out into the stars, recalling the same rocket that saved Kal-El from Krypton’s destruction) and, then, hunting down the Khunds and blowing up their flagship was a lapse into Zod’s most violent tendencies. It’s a dramatic swing from the life he was trying to live on New Kandor, and gives the impression of a man flailing about, unsure of how he should be. His ‘command’ of the prison transport is much more in the mode of a ‘petty tyrant’ than anything we saw on New Kandor.
There’s a sense that what Zod is reaching for is something beyond his capabilities. His continued hallucinatory conversations with Jor-El and his efforts to build New Kandor into a better version of Krypton suggests that he wants to be more than the violent conqueror. He wants to build and to be a man of peace. He wants to be his enemy’s son, except better. An element running through the series is his view of the United Planets as a corrupt, hopeless institution that is doing little to bring order and peace to the universe. The United Planets was founded, in large part, through the actions of Superman during Brian Michael Bendis’s tenure on the Superman titles and Zod’s weapon is, in part, meant to help establish that missing order and peace through mutually assured destruction. New Kandor is about doing what Jor-El and his son couldn’t do: save/restore Krypton and bring stability to the universe. But, in striving to be both a man of peace and a statesman, Zod is unable to forego his violent nature or his desire to be in absolute control. That demand that he be unquestionably obeyed fractures his family and led to the destruction of New Kandor.
Issue eight of the series gives something close to a conclusion as Zod confronts something of a kindred spirit in Sinestro, now a Red Lantern. While the two do fight, they soon realise that conflict will lead nowhere and cooperate in repairing the prison ship. During their conversation, Sinestro alludes to a life of service for his people similar to what Zod seeks, a possible role model of someone once overcome by violence and rage that has become more. As a Red Lantern, Sinestro is able to harness his inner rage into something external, to direct and control it. Zod lacks that outlet and practically scoffs at Sinestro’s advice. The series ends with Zod in command of the ship and his army of criminals, set to wage war on the Khunds. Despite this seemingly to be an extension of his initial revenge on those that killed his wife, there’s also a possibility that this is actually an effort to direct his rage and violence in a positive direction. He views the Khunds as a warlike race that will always pose the threat of unchecked aggression on the rest of the universe and, perhaps, by eliminating that threat, it will make the universe a safer place.
There’s a hint of pushing the boundaries
beyond the typical ‘anti-hero’ sort of role where the former villain dedicates
himself to ‘good’ while retaining his edge. Just as Casey pushed Superman to
the limits of his ideology through pacifism, there’s a suggestion of Zod going
to the further extremes of violence in the service of a greater good. After
failing to bring about peace and order through the threat of violence, he would
embrace the role of conqueror and tyrant to accomplish the same goal. Would it
have been different from any other story of fascism? Perhaps.
What interests me is the journey that continues to reiterate that Zod is incapable of being anything like Superman. At his core is a fire of rage and violence that, even when he was attempting to build a peaceful world for his people, continued to burn. It wasn’t just that he was no longer acting like the Zod that his wife and son knew, it was that he seemed to project his self-hatred and self-loathing, and continued on only out of ego, unwilling to admit that he had set himself on a path that wasn’t right.
Kneel Before Zod isn’t the match of that final year of Adventures of Superman, partly because it was cut short of its full story – partly because it’s a work about a character less confident in himself. It’s an interesting companion piece that tries to set Zod in opposition to a pacifist Superman, exploring what that could mean.
