On this episode of Peace Bound and Down: A Wonder Woman Podcast, Sean is joined by podcast legend Michael Bailey from The Fortress of Baileytude, It All Comes Back to Superman, From Crisis to Crisis, and The Overlooked Dark Knight to discuss Action Comics 600! Is it the greatest love story of all time? Will Superman and Wonder Woman be an item? Will Darkseid stop the course of true love in its tracks? Listen in!
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- Promos:
- The Overlooked Dark Knight
Bringing a little peace to man’s world each month.
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I enjoyed this little break from the WW book! I never liked the Superman/WW as a couple idea, it lessens and weakens both characters. Perez and Byrne dealt and dismissed it quickly, so of course DC tried again with New 52. *sigh*
I worked at a Kinko’s during the overnight 9p-7am shift. The parade of freaks that staggered in was so plentiful we had a SOP for when someone tried to use the self serve copy machines to copy their bare ass. Yes, it happened that many times the company had a dedicated procedure for it.
I hated the job so much it was the only time I quit a job without having another lined up. I just couldn’t stand it anymore.
Love the “Pixar Life Story” idea! I’d prefer mine be by Hanna Barbera and feature model sheets by Alex Toth.
What was the procedure, Rob? And did you have a hidden framed wall of butts in the backroom? Should we do a Tales from the Kinko’s minisode??
I think is debate as old as time but honestly
Since justice league unlimited and episode where the hero’s are turned in kids . I’ve always thought Bruce and Diana were. Better match . And when saw a recent panel from some comics of Dania loving Damien‘s pets . I just think she be better match for Bruce . In my mind .
It’s like putting Archie and Josie together it’s to obvious.
Bruce and Diana are a better match! Agreed. Everyone think it’s Selina or Talia, but I’m going in with Diana.
But I’m Team Lana for Clark. But then, I think Archie belongs with Betty, so it may just be more of that.
Greatest Lois? I say it’s Erica Durance.
Between this episode and JSA Presents, I’ve now read 5 comics written and drawn by Byrne in a week. It’s been a while since that last happened.
So Byrne liked establishing that his Superman had super versions of all human senses, including super-smell. But I guess he doesn’t have super-empathy or super-reading-the-room from Diana’s wide-eyed shock over multiple panels. Hoo boy.
I really appreciated the touch of Parademons changing a sculpture of Zeus’s face to Darkseid’s. It evoked imagery from the Legion’s Great Darkness Saga carving his face into the entire planet of Daxam, and that’s how big Dardseid’s ego is. Plus if there’s any question that the big D is a fascist, it answers itself.
Thank you for all the kind shout-outs for Outcasters: Under Siege. You’re the best, AND you have a great show!
I have Action #600, but I didn’t feel like going to our storage shed and digging among the boxes to find it and read it again. I agree 100% that the 90s Jurgens/Stern/Ordway/Simonson era is my era of Superman even though I didn’t read it as it was being published.
As far as awkward romantic moments, the late, lamented Freaks and Geeks had several. I would have to go with Nick (Jason Segel) singing the Styx song “Lady” to an obviously unnerved Lindsay (Linda Cardellini). And an honorable mention to Nick singing his own composition all about Lindsay called “Lady L” while his friends look on in horror.
Finally, while I was a seminary student, many of us were required to serve for a summer or a semester or even a year as a hospital chaplain. Overnight in the emergency room, you might not meet a madam or have someone drop the trousers right in front of you, but then again, you just might.
Great show, Sean Ross and Michael Bailey.
This was a great show and fun discussion, Uncle Sean and Uncle Michael. I recently did some digging into how the art chores for this issue was shared between Messrs Byrne and Pérez for a few somewhat lengthy social media discussions, and I thought I would share a few highlights with you here:
Uncle Sean, you mentioned that Diana has a very Pérezean face and “Pérez eyes” throughout the story. There is a reason for that. Mr. Byrne had drawn very rough pencil layouts (he was working on several books a month at the time), with very light details for the backgrounds but virtually no details for Wonder Woman herself. The two had already agreed beforehand that (almost) all of the Wonder Woman figures in this story would be completely drawn (pencilled and inked) by Mr. Pérez.
You can see photocopies of Mr. Byrne’s pencil breakdowns and Mr. Pérez’s finished art of two pages for comparison on this website:
https://wheartm.com/2025/09/06/george-perez-gallery/
There were a few exceptions to this agreement that you may, and may not, have noticed. According to “The George Perez Interview” published in the fanzine INTERLAC issue 73, Mr. Byrne fully pencilled *and inked* the figures of the Wonder Woman that was Amazing Grace in disguise, while Mr. Perez fully pencilled and inked the figures of the Superman who was a disguised Kalabak. This was to give readers a slight visual cue that something was “off” in those scenes…
(Mr. Pérez also said in the interview that Mr. Byrne “put a little tattoo” on Amazing Grace’s Wonder Woman disguise, which was kept in pencil, so it wouldn’t show up in the published pages. (The interview did not state what the tattoo looked like, or where it was. Perhaps the owner of the original art page can tell us…)
Wonder Woman and the fake Superman were not the only characters fully rendered by Mr Pérez in the story. He also pencilled and inked the depictions of the Greek Gods in panels 1 and 2 of page 17. A Xeroxed copy of John Byrne’s breakdowns of that page shows a completely blank first panel with a pencilled note: “The Greek Gods… All yours, George!!!” And the hologram in panel 2 had a slight semblance of standing figures with the note: “More G.G. for G.P.”
However, the agreement between the two artists to have Wonder Woman essentially be drawn by Mr. Pérez did not extend to the Greek Gods. On page 23 of the INTERLAC interview, Mr. Pérez stated: “This is the [page] that caught me off-guard. I knew that we had agreed to do this on Wonder Woman, the character, but this one I had to actually call Mike Carlin and ask what’s going on. You remember this panel? ‘The Greek Gods — All your’s George, Go for it.’ That’s all it said. I couldn’t believe it! I got paid for full pencils [for that page].”
***
I found it interesting that Mr. Byrne wanted to establish an origin of the Greek Gods that connected to Jack Kirby’s New Gods in this story, which I understand Mr. Pérez did not agree with, and thus dismissed the idea as a misunderstanding by Darkseid (in the upcoming Circe story which you will cover soon) — only for Mr. Byrne, when he took over the WONDER WOMAN title in issue 101, to reestablish that connection again in his first storyline…
***
I expected Uncle Michael to point this out, but since he didn’t, I will: Uncle Sean, Superman and Barda did NOT “film an adult video that Darkseid later shows to Mr. Miracle.” ACTION COMICS issue 593 clearly shows that Sleez didn’t offer the mesmerized Superman to Grossman to film in his videos until *after* Darkseid showed Mister Miracle the tape, and Scott later managed to track down Sleez and foil his plan as Grossman was shooting the first video scene with Superman and Barda, which went as far as the two sharing a not-so-passionate kiss. So in truth, Superman and Barda ALMOST made a adult video…
However, the story did suggest that Sleez compelled Barda herself to make at least one adult video during the time she was in his captivity before he encountered Superman near the end of the previous issue — which was on the tape Darkseid showed to Mister Miracle and Oberon…
I also read a post on Twitter four years ago that heavily implied that this notiorious ACTION COMICS story in issues 592 and 593 was likely retaliation for Jack Kirby parodying John Byrne in DESTROYER DUCK issue 4 with a character called Booster Cogburn, a company man [with a big ego] who could not be killed (a play on a interview with Mr. Byrne in COMIC SCENE issue 2 where he expressed his view of being against the idea of comic creators [such as Mr. Kirby] trying to retroactively claim rights for IP they created in comics under work for hire; stating that as a comic book artist at Marvel, he was a “cog in the machine” that was loyal to the company, implying that all comic artists should be the same. Mr. Kirby, not being fairly compensated for all of the IP he helped create for Marvel during his tenure, was obviously not a “happy cog.”).
I read from a Mark Evanier piece that Big Barda, while physically based on actress and singer Lainie Kazan, had much of her characterization modelled after Jack Kirby’s wife, Roz. So if the retaliation theory on Twitter is true, then that would make that deplorable Barda story by Mr. Byrne even more so…
Great episode, as always. The kiss scene at the beginning was executed so well – it is so memorable for Diana’s eyes! Today, Superman would have been to enough JLA HR training to know not to lead with the kiss but back then? Easily the most memorable aspect of this anniversary issue. And agree the cover and splash should have been switched.
Best Lois? Agree Bitsy was awesome. But I actually loved Rachel B’s portrayal in the movie. I loved her composing the story while piloting Mr. Terrific’s ship.
Always a pleasure to hear Michael B back on the network.
And wow, Isamu – awesome research, as usual. I had read about how Byrne and Perez handled the figure work, but never knew all those details.
Thanks, Uncle Paul.
I suppose that I should also mention something that parallels Mr. Byrne’s refitting his dismissed Greek Gods origin in this story into his Wonder Woman run: Mr. Pérez intended to do a one-shot graphic novel in the early 1990s (when he was writing for both Wonder Woman and Superman) that would give Clark-Diana shipper fans what they wanted… instead of the “one-fight stand” they got in ACTION COMICS 600…
https://www.cbr.com/comic-legends-superman-wonder-woman-nearly-had-a-one-night-stand/
A quote from Mr. Pérez in TITANTALK issue 46: “Also on my Wonder Woman agenda is a one-shot prestige format book tentatively titled ‘Rendezvous’, and it is a romance story with Diana and Superman to be edited by Karen [Berger]. It will, at last, really deal with the physical relationship between these two popular characters. In other words, they do it. Due to the nature of the story, I will probably be using the Gods as a means of allowing the reader his or her option to regard or disregard this tale as part of DC continuity. I have no intention of treating this story sensationally, but there are definitely some mature themes I’ll wish to explore.”
I actually helped pull some of the research for this… as in I helped my dad by pulling out the file boxes of old fanzines that helped him track down the information source he needed to help Uncle Brian with the article…
Mr. Pérez himself mentioned the aborted project in a Wonder Woman 75th Anniversary panel at the 2016 DragonCon, which you can listen to on Uncle Michael’s “Views From the Longbox” podcast episode 247 (time index 32:45 to 34:45), available on most podcatchers until Uncle Michael restores “Views” on his new BAILEY PLANET site…
Great show, Sean and Michael. This episode certainly had roughly 30% more penis talk than usual. “Tales from the Third Shift” would certainly be a podcast to which I’d subscribe.
I remember being so excited for this issue when it came out. My two favorite artists teaming up for a story featuring a Superman/Wonder Woman date! And then it boils down to Superman having no game and Darkseid getting hosed on a real estate deal. The art is terrific, however, especially the four panel fight pages. The one nitpick I have is the way Byrne drew Darkseid with serious dad bod. Not too intimidating.
Regarding favorite Lois Lane: I’m actually promoting the newcomer to the top of the list. Rachel Brosnahan was terrific in the latest Superman movie. I’d add Erica Durance and Dana Delany to round off the top three.
Fianlly, favorite ex, by far, is Madelyne Pryor. Still think Scott should be with her. Pacey did have great chemistry with Joey. By the way, every time I thjink of Joshua Jackson I think of the The Skulls. I still love that dumb movie.
Yeah, Superman and Wonder Woman should have been at least a quick romance. Though Diana might have more in common with Batman or Aquaman. Still this issue was memorable for the Byrne/Perez team up on art.
Favorite Lois? Teri Hatcher followed by Erica Durance