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Busiek is a hit-or-miss writer, and when he misses, he REALLY misses, so it was never a no-brainer that this would be a good book. In fact, it could easily have been worse, as seen by some of his Avengers issues. Simonson’s art was great though.

That last panel where Lois says that Superman has never killed anyone, does that mean that that John Byrne story were he executed the pocket universe Kryptonian criminals is no longer part of continuity? Did it get wiped out when Superboy punched the wall or when Alex Luthor created the new earth?

Yes, it seems that panel makes it official that Byrne’s Superman is no more. I wish they would just come out and say, “OK, this is Superman and his history.” instead of making us wonder what is and isn’t cannon. Heck, what was Krypton like? All silver age or Byrne-like? While the silver age Jor-el outfit is a nice design the Byrne Krypton was at least more interesting.

The following is a reprint from my blog.
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I’m not sure what Busiek was trying to do with this story, other than figuring out some reason for Supes to have a hell themed story for his 666th issue. I figure that Busiek is mimicking some older story with which I am not familiar, but this certainly doesn’t read like a typical Kurt Busiek story. For one thing, it’s pretty disjointed. For another, it really doesn’t make much sense. In general, when Busiek writes dream or alternate reality issues, they still make sense. Not so, this issue. The gist of it is that when Krypton exploded, one of the demons of its theological hell hitched a ride with baby Kal-El’s spaceship, and nestled in his subconscious (?) until he killed someone, whereupon it made a deal with the lords of human hell to acquire his soul. Yeah, I know, it REALLY doesn’t make any sense. I’ve read some good hell stories, in Moore’s Swamp Thing, Gaiman’s Sandman, and even in the recent issues of Shadowpact. This story is not good. It doesn’t make any sense, and Walter Simonson’s odd artwork doesn’t contribute anything towards understanding it.
It’s not good, but I’m hesitant to rate it lower than EH. Because maybe I’m just not getting it. But I didn’t enjoy it. Which is surprising, as Busiek’s run on Superman (both titles) has been one of my favorites in years. For a long time Supes was being written by people who just didn’t understand who he was or how to write him. Busiek gets him. So I’m not sure what’s going on here.
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I wish Busiek would answer me, because I know that he reads my blog.

I thought it was an awesome issue, personally. My favourite Busiek issue thus far, in fact. I really haven’t been enjoying this particular run, but this was a fun story (incidentally, Greg, you really think it’s odd that DC’s going with satanic-themed stories for their 666 issues? Really?), with great art and lots of quotable dialogue.

I didn’t feel like I’d seen it all before, either, unless Superman exploded Jimmy Olsen’s head somewhere else and I missed it.

I’m not particularly surprised that DC is going for Satanic-themed comics for the 666 issues, Rohan, I just wonder if they’ve had any problems with people complaining. People are, after all, uptight. Personally, I don’t care, but I wonder if they’ve gotten any negative feedback. Of course, the people who would give them negative feedback probably aren’t buying comics anyway.

Sure, it’s a fun story, and that’s why I think it would work well for someone who hasn’t read a comic before, but although we’ve never seen Jimmy’s head exploding (a highlight), we’ve all seen stories about how noble Superman is and how he overcomes temptation. It’s a decent example of that kind of story, but I personally don’t care to read that again.

Yeah, that’s a fair point, I guess. It’s not like we haven’t seen some pretty dark stuff in the Batman (and even Superman) comics before, but there probably are people that will complain about anything.

I know we’ve seen this particular type of story before, but c’mon- how many different types of Superman stories can there be? I’m not too fussed if the broad theme of the story has been done before, as long as the execution is original and entertaining. I thought this was both, but different strokes for different folks.

Eh, I don’t care much for Simonson’s art style.

I’m right there with you, Stealthwise. It looks like everything’s made out of hard plastic, and Lois has a really ugly haircut in that one panel. Too many unnecessary lines.

“I’m not particularly surprised that DC is going for Satanic-themed comics for the 666 issues, Rohan, I just wonder if they’ve had any problems with people complaining. People are, after all, uptight”

True, but ‘666′ has been trending towards mainstream pop culture kitsch for a while now.

It’s not as if there’s any other 666 issues coming along anytime soon. Two doesn’t make a trend.

No actually it was awesome.