Flashpoint: Project Superman #3 – Review

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

The Story: It’s a bird, it’s a plane—it’s a flying muscleman with Super-Seiyan hair!

The Review: If you’re going to write one of these Elseworlds-type stories, my unsolicited suggestion would be to really take the plunge into the alternate universe aspect of things.  Play into the unexpected and steer clear from the predictable and the familiar.  No sense in putting in a halfhearted effort and ending up with a world that’s only a hop, skip, and a jump away from we already know anyway (see Flashpoint: Hal Jordan #1).

Much of the success from this series comes from Francis keeping Superman a distant figure, even within his own title.  We’re so used to seeing him take charge, the star of the only comic with action in its name, that to see him a passive, even tangential character to others has a quietly unsettling effect on your psyche.  His hesitation to act or speak, even in a narrative sense, feels so unnatural that you know without a doubt you’re in a strange, new territory here.

Superman’s wariness allows other characters to step up and assert themselves, not the least of which is Subject Zero.  As a villain, he exists in an interesting state between cliché (the well-intentioned person mad with power) and sympathetic (a deeply-rooted loneliness).  He’s veered back and forth throughout the series, but in the end, he falls closer to the cliché, raving like a lunatic, throwing around his abilities for the sheer pleasure of showing off his omnipotence, before proving the focus he needs to keep in control is more tenuous than he believes.