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The truth behind Warworld is even crueler than Superman realized and it changes everything about this twisted planet.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Action Comics #1039, on sale now from DC Comics.
Superman thought he knew the history of Warworld. If he knew he didn’t, then he probably wouldn’t have gone on a mission to liberate it. As soon as he arrived with the Authority, that mission ended in disaster. Now that the Man of Steel is a prisoner of Warworld and its ruler, Mongul, he’s getting a closer look at this cruel planet. By doing so, Superman has learned that everything he thought he knew about Warworld was wrong, and it’s given him a new perspective on his mission.
The Man of Steel took part in some of the Warzoons’ most twisted Warworld customs in Action Comics #1039 (by Philip Kennedy Johnson, Riccardo Federici, Lee Loughridge and Dave Sharpe). When they marched him and many of the other slaves into the depths of the planet itself, he saw something he didn’t expect and it showed him that everything he knew about Warworld was wrong.
Warworld was created by Len Wein and Jim Starlin and first appeared in DC Comics Presents #27 in 1980. The two histories that Superman mentioned he had known before were from the previous iterations of Warworld in comics history. The one he said Martian Manhunter told him of was from Pre-Crisis continuity, where the satellite was created by a peaceful race called the Largas, entrusted to the Martians and then taken over by Mongul. The second, Post-Crisis version was that the Monguls had built Warworld from the ground up, entirely out of metal. Action Comics #1039 showed that both of these versions, in which Warworld is entirely artificial, were wrong.
There were other versions of Warworld too, all of which were indeed artificial, but the Man of Steel clarified that this is the original Warworld. This is verified by what he sees as he journeys down deeper into the planet. There are various layers to the mechanical outer shell, each of which is made from the technologies of different species. Rather than one coherent superstructure, the mechanical surface of Warworld has been built over, century after century, by many long-dead races, all of which were enslaved by the Monguls.
Most interesting of all, however, is what is underneath the artificial shell. There’s a living breathing planet below, with flora and fauna and even its own indigenous creatures. This totally rewrites the previous history that Warworld was simply built. Instead, it was conquered like any other planet that the Monguls visited. The only thing that sets this one apart is that it was cannibalized to become the monstrosity it is today.
Superman believes that this is the reason that Warworld can support so much life, because of its organic roots. It makes sense. If it was entirely artificial, then the only way that Mongul and the Warzoons could get resources to support their slave population would be by plundering other planets. Given the sheer size of the planet, this would be completely unsustainable.
This revelation changes everything about Warworld. It’s no longer a weapon that was built, instead, it’s yet another casualty in the Monguls’ cruel galactic conquests. The fact that it can support its own life, and that that same life hasn’t been wiped out yet, gives a glimmer of hope to those living above it all, in the cold metal cells. That same hope could be invaluable to Superman and give him something to use in his fight against Mongul.
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