I miss Superman. I've followed him on and off for at least 52 years. In fact, the oldest Superman title I currently possess--having sold off a batch of my earlier comics, alas--is Action Comics #363, which was published in May of 1968. And a true classic it is, by the way--what with a cover by Neal Adams, interior art by Ross Andru and Mike Esposito, and a rockin' story by Leo Dorfman in which Superman contracts the incurable Virus X which turns him into a leper...kind of. His skin turns green and goopy. This was the first story in a trilogy of issues which fascinated me back in the day.
And while I haven't followed him faithfully over the years, I have regularly come back for a look-see, and have often ended up staying for fairly long stretches of time: when Action Comics went weekly, I was there every week. And I was there for The Death of Superman story and the follow-up Reign of the Supermen. So when I saw that Action Comics had returned to its original numbering in August of 2016 with issue #957 (after a brief The New 52 re-numbering), I stopped by for a look. And it caught my attention. So much so that I followed it all the way through to issue # 1,000. But that's when my problems began. Because it was at that point that
Brian Michael Bendis took over the writing. Now, I know that Mr. Bendis is a popular writer, and I have enjoyed some of his work in the past...but his take on Superman left me cold. I thought it would be unfair not to give him more than one issue to prove himself, though...and, to be honest, after buying Action Comics for over two years...and every two weeks for that time period...I was loathe to give it up. So I came back for #1,001. And 1,002. But that was it. I just couldn't take it anymore. (Same thing happened over in the Superman title, too...except in that case what drove me away was more than just Bendis--I thought that John Romita, Jr.'s art was just awful. And I usually really like him a lot--have even bought books I didn't care about just because he was the artist.
But Bendis...I haven't read anything from him that I've liked in some time now. And the things about his writing that irritate me are magnified by the character of Superman. I mean...you really have to know your shit to write the Man of Steel...because it's so easy to switch to glide when you've got a character who is essentially a god.
So I've been missing him.
And today as I was thumbing through ComiXology I saw that DC has put up a series of cheap digital comics for its big hitters: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Flash. 99¢ a pop. (Minus 15% if you sign up for ComiXology Unlimited, btw.) I took a look at the Superman book (Superman: Man of Tomorrow). Hmmm. 25 pages. And they were real pages, not those one panel pages that you got from Injustice. (Which, I hasten to add, I loved, and I do not regret any of the many dollars I threw down for that title.) The preview looked okay. The art, by Paul Pelletier, was not flashy, but it seemed serviceable and professional. I was not overly familiar with the writer, Robert Venditti, but reading the preview didn't make me feel nauseous--as any single page of Bendis's Superman did.
So I threw down my 84¢ + tax and, even though there were a few other things that I thought I should probably get to first, I read that first issue.
At first it just seemed like a, "Yeah, okay," kind of story. The Parasite is sucking all of the energy out of Metropolis! Superman tries to stop him, gets the shit kicked out of him! He pulls himself up by his bootstraps and goes back fo s'more.
But then it took a turn. Superman stops to encourage a group of the citizens of Metropolis to help each other out during the blackout. Then he takes Parasite to the dark side of the moon because he has actually thought out how to take him down...and not by beating the hell out of him.
It was a satisfying little turn, for sure. I want to read some more. And oh, look...there are two more issues available Right Now. (It comes out every week.) So you know what I'm going to be doing.
One thing, though, in the interests of full disclosure. For the most part, the Paul Pelletier art stayed at that serviceable and professional level. It sometimes even veered into what I would call Good, with a hint of Jim Lee. But every little once in awhile there was just a bit of sloppy awfulness that came in. Check out this panel (page 15, panel 3), for instance:
Now, that is some shit, ennit? And by shit, I mean shit, not The Shit. It looks more like The Microcephalist of Notre Metropolis. But hey...the guy is pumping out a full size comic book every week, so I'm going to cut him some slack.
Okay. Time for issue #2 for me.
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