Superman #711 – Review

By: J. Michael Straczynski & Chris Roberson (writers), Eddy Barrows (penciller), J.P. Mayer (inker), Rod Reis (colorist)

The Story: No, Superman–not the electric-blue costume!  The situation’s not that desperate!

The Review: It’s pretty obvious the original premise of Straczynski’s storyline—Superman walking across the country, discovering the real America, or something—has largely faded from view.  This may be a wise choice, since there’s only so much angst to be mined out of it, especially for a dozen-plus issues.  Whatever hang-ups prompted the Big Blue to embark on this bizarre journey in the first place long ago exhausted all dramatic possibilities.

Since his takeover of the series, Roberson has pretty much been giving you the usual Superman activities, and only the non-Metropolis settings tip off the fact you’re still reading “Grounded.”  Except for Supes’ singing of praises for America at the end (those of you concerned after reading the over-sensationalized story in Action Comics #900 can rest easy—he still loves us), Superman steers clear from the dislikable preachiness of this storyline’s early issues.

Instead, he spends most of his time doing what he does best: in the air, helping people with his usual sincerity and sympathy, even someone as troubled as Livewire.  Her outrageous behavior and senseless rants (“Every time I try to have a little fun, you have to come along and spoil everything.”  ) come off a bit contrived, but shutting her down puts Superman’s old electric costume to good use, and at least she gets a more formidable power set out of it.

And at least her antics allow for some fun guest spots.  It’s great seeing Jimmy Olsen using his quick-thinking (and high school physics on top of that) to offer his pal ground support.  Nick Spencer showed us Jimmy really takes off as a character when he has a more active role in facing trouble, instead of acting the mansel-in-distress for Superman to swoop in and save.

We also get cameos from some relatively obscure characters, like Dr. Roquette, young genius of Cadmus (Superboy’s old haunt) fame, now of S.T.A.R. Labs.  Honestly, it’d be great to see her more regularly, with all her retro gear (spangled jacket-vest—really?) and colloquialisms (“Oh, poop.”) intact, as she can serve a very useful, if semi-deus ex machina role to the title.  You can’t say the same for Iron Munro, who has little sway over the plot, and gets hardly any face-time with Superman before taking off to replace Livewire-thrashed dinner jacket.

This issue also introduces a mystery lady with an attitude problem, who has in her possession a crystal a là Kryptonian tech, with Superman’s most painful memories held within.  No doubt she’s a sign this storyline’s finally getting some much needed direction, but she vanishes before you learn anything about her, so her appearance seems rather superfluous to the plot.