Superman #714 – Review

By: J. Michael Straczynski & Chris Roberson (writers), Jamal Igle (penciller), Jon Sibal & Robin Riggs (inkers), Marcelo Maiolo (colorist)

The Story: Stop eating those French fries, Superman, have some self-respect!  Don’t you know you can fly?!

The Review: Superman has been around for so long, has been written by so many different kinds of writers, and has gone through so many permutations that it gets a bit harder every year just to give him a story that avoids the formulaic, let alone one that brings something new to the table.  And while “Grounded” as a premise made an admirable attempt to try break away from familiar plotlines, it long ago lost its novelty and is now knee-deep in clichés.

It doesn’t get any more so than Lois Lane in a threatening situation and Superman coming to her rescue.  To start off an issue with this kind of thing already tells us not to expect much in the way of mind-blowing material.  And even though you have zero doubt Supes will get Lois out of this safe and sound, it’s amusing to see him accomplish the task within the first three pages.  Not surprising, though; we all know Lois is just a tool to get Superman into action, nothing more.

That said, the action we get hardly counts as the big blowout you’d expect at the end of such a long, hyped story arc.  Part of the problem lies with our villain—I’m sure she mentions her name somewhere, but I don’t care enough to really remember or look it up—who nurses, predictably enough, a misdirected, personal vendetta against our hero, and has no qualms about stating it with ridiculous explicitness: “I want you to suffer, Superman!  Like you’ve made me suffer!”

I can only imagine Roberson’s fatigue with this storyline (it does feel like it’s gone on forever, doesn’t it?) has caused him to throw the dialogue to the wind, as it all falls into embarrassingly corny territory: “I am your shadow.  I am all of the doubts and fears you’ve been afraid to face!”  Superman’s response?  “What you are is annoying!”  Terrific rejoinder, big guy.  Your time on New Krypton clearly deprived you of practice in the art of American repartee.

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.