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.