Mild Mannered Reviews - Regular Superman Comics

Adventures of Superman #583

Adventures of Superman #583

Scheduled to arrive in stores: August 16, 2000

Cover date: October 2000

2000 Shield No. 40

Writer: J. M. DeMatteis
Penciller: Mike Miller
Inker: Armando Durruthy

"Life is but a (very bad) dream"

Reviewed by: Nick Newman (Nnewman8283@yahoo.com)



Superman stands in shock at the corpse of the Batman hanging on the wall. A group of Joker's men run to stop him, but Superman sweeps them away with a casual arm. He pulls the stakes from the wall and pulls the dark knight into his arms. He buries him in the cemetery, inscribing "Batman A True Hero" on the gravestone, and flies away. The dirt beneath the stone begins to move and Batman pulls himself out of the grave.

In Joker's Ha-Hacienda Lois confronts the Emperor. Everyone believes that Lois has feelings for Superman, but she denies them. To test her, Joker spins Steel around and smashes him against a wall, killing him. Lois doesn't seem to care.

In a fiery place, Satanus sits at a piano and plays for Superboy and Supergirl. Supergirl doesn't trust him, but Superboy listens as Satanus offers him a place in any dream. The only cost, their souls. Superboy begins to consider it, as Supergirl prays quietly.

In the cemetery Batman lies on the ground exhausted. Superman arrives just in time to pick his old friend up and help him. Suddenly, hordes of zombies burst through the ground and come after the two heroes. The two heroes begin to fall before the onrushing creatures, but Superman defies them and knows that he has to win. He throws all of them off, and his faith restores Batman's. Together the world's finest heroes defeat the monsters.

In hell, Supergirl convinces Superboy that they need to help Superman. Superboy finally agrees and Satanus sends the two of them back to Earth, where they meet up with Superman and Batman. Batman insists that it is their faith that will destroy Joker. Supergirl believes that she may be able to teleport them into Joker's soul to defeat the monster. Suddenly, Mxyzptlk appears but he barely has time to say anything before Joker appears, holding Lois. He drops her, but Superman comes to her rescue. Joker offers them a war, and suddenly the two JLAs are battling each other.

Using her power and Mxy's magic, Supergirl succeeds in bringing them into Joker's soul. They begin to take Joker down, when suddenly Lois pulls a kryptonite ring out and holds it up to Superman. They get rid of the ring, but the betrayal shatters Superman's faith in everything. Joker laughs as bombs around the world explode and the universe shatters.

Of course, Joker can put it right back together. He and Lois sit in thrones while our heroes sit on the floor as pets. 3Story - 3: Definitely the weakest part of the story, this just didn't do it for me. It was okay in Joker, but the whole faith idea got to be a little much in this issue. It makes sense that their faith would break them out of the nightmare, but they talked about it a little too much this time. It was cool to see Lois betray them, as was the reappearance of the Super-pets, even though the horse didn't look like Comet.

4Art - 4: I like Miller's art; it's clean and it works. It's not the best I've ever seen, but I'm happy with it. Not much else to say about it.

3Cover Art - 3: The art was okay, but Supergirl just doesn't look like herself (I do think she looks like Joey Lawrence from 'Chasing Amy' though). It's not that eye-catching, and a cover of Superman and Batman battling zombies would have been much better.



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