Flashpoint: Project Superman #2 – Review

By: Scott Snyder & Lowell Francis (writers), Gene Ha (artist), Art Lyon (colorist)

The Story: “I’m only hurting you because I love you so much,” takes on all new meaning.

The Review: Traditionally, we tend to see Superman’s values and virtues as something bred in him by the good, wholesome, Midwestern upbringing of Ma and Pa Kent.  It’s what allows us to believe that such an all-powerful alien would have such adamant devotion to a world full of bickering, selfish, violent earthlings.  In this title, we remove the Kents from the picture entirely, and discover that perhaps Superman’s goodness is more innate than we give him credit for.

After all, in the Flashpoint world, he has extremely little reason to care for anybody on Earth, given the circumstances with which he arrived and has been treated since.  We’re spared nothing regarding his suffering; we see him in crawl spaces, a bowl of food on the floor and a hamster-like water drip against the wall; he’s forced to endure dozens of humiliating and painful scientific inspections; his captors coldly put him through frightening “drills.”

During this early period of his life, he forms attachments only with Subject Two (in our world known as Krypto) and General Sam Lane, the former proving to be sadly short-lived, the latter tenuous at best.  Lane’s affection for Kal (as he insists on calling what everyone refers to as “Subject One”) is touchingly ironic, but naturally portrayed.  It makes sense Lane’s military work drove his family away, leading him to turn his fatherly eye on a child, even an alien one.