Adventures of Superman #600

The Superman books got a new trade dress starting this month, and we finally get a written explanation from the editor that the triangle numbering is no more.  Adventures of Superman reaches its 600th issue, but it pales in comparison to previous milestone issues.

Superman #178

Superman appears in Smallville at the grand re-opening of the Kent's general store.  While there, the Golden Age hero Uncle Sam returns and starts a fight with him.  Until this issue, Uncle Sam had recently adopted another costumed identity, the Patriot, but now he returns to his original look.  As the Spirit of America, Uncle Sam has been influenced by America's current president, Lex Luthor.  Superman shows Uncle Sam the rebuilding of Kansas after the Imperiex war, restoring his true American idealism.

Meanwhile in Washington, D.C., a government scientist with no friends or family rushes to show Lex Luthor evidence that Superman's Kryptonian spacecraft landed at the Kent farm.  After President Luthor has Mercy clean up a red spill on the Oval Office carpet, Luthor reviews the classified documents and concludes to himself that Clark Kent must be Superman.

The color scheme of this issue is mostly red, white, and blue.  It's a little strange, for example, that Luthor and others have blue skin instead of white.

Adventures of Superman #600

Instead of a multi-part epic, this milestone issue is a self-contained story.  President Luthor gives the Secret Service the slip, dons a red hairpiece, and returns to a life of crime.  Lex Luthor has never been this sort of street-level crime boss in post-Crisis continuity before, so his issue is an interesting glimpse of the red-headed Golden Age Lex.  Although the whole episode is blamed on a nanite lodged in the President's brain, at the end we see that the whole thing really was Luthor's scheme to try to escape from the prison of the White House.  

This story probably didn't need to be a double-sized issue, but it's padded with bonus material like "Superman daily" comic strips and pin-ups by a variety of artists.  The painted cover by Rolling Stone cartoonist Daniel Adel would've been a variant among many today, but in the simpler time of 2002 this was the only cover for this issue.  This was also the late Mike Wieringo's final issue.  All in all, the story wasn't forgettable, but for an anniversary issue this was a little underwhelming.

Superman: The Man of Steel #122

The villain Earthquake returns and attacks Steel at the Steelworks.  Defeated in his regular armor, Steel puts on the Entropy Aegis and nearly kills Earthquake before Superman intervenes.  Superman is more concerned than ever that John Henry Irons is under the control of the mysterious armor that brought him back to life.

Inside the Steelworks, Professor Hamilton's prosthetic hand takes over his body and he knocks Natasha unconscious.  The cyber terrorists known as the Cybermoths are seeking a new queen to replace Luna, last seen in issue #108 when Professor Hamilton returned.

Lois Lane is still travelling the world with her grieving mother.  But when Superman visits Lois in India, her mother asks her if she's having an affair with the Man of Steel.

Action Comics #787

In a two-part story, Clark Kent and Jimmy Olsen take a trip together to Japan, where Superman has a confrontation with a new pair of Japanese vigilantes, Byakko and Gunshin.  Superman is also reunited with a villain he met before he was publicly Superman.

As Lois and her mother prepare to return to Metropolis, her mother questions if Lois even wants to see her husband again, and Lois pauses and then responds "What if I don't?"  

Although the books have maintained the ongoing story arc of Lois and her mother, it feels like there's not enough coordination among the series as two of the writers are clearly taking it in opposite directions.  This, along with the inconsistency of Luthor discovering Clark's secret identity not being addressed in any other story, made me already miss the days when the books were more connected to each other.