It's an exciting time to be a Superman fan. The character is celebrating his 80th anniversary
this
year and there's a lot going on with his character, both in comics and elsewhere. The 1000th issue of
Action Comics was released last month to much fanfare. A new movie adaptation of
The Death of Superman is set to be released later this year. Meanwhile Brian Micheal Bendis, after his recent departure from Marvel Comics, is set to start writing both
Superman and
Action Comics after the completion of a miniseries,
The Man of Steel, the first issue of which was released this past week. Finally, Peter J. Tomasi and Patrick Gleason have completed their run on
Superman. Which brings me to my point. With all of this going on I figured this would be an opportune time to review the rest of their run (I
reviewed the first volume last year).
Superman, Volume 2: Trials of the Super Son is essentially a collection of short stories. To be honest, in this age of serialized storytelling, I find this approach really refreshing. In the first story,
Our Town, we see Clark accompany Lois and Jon to the Hamilton County fair. While there he prevents a robbery, must to Lois' consternation, as he promised her there would be no super-heroics. This is a fun little story and its nice to see Clark interacting with his family. However, the main source of tension, Superman trying to avoid suiting up so he can spend time with his family, doesn't really work for me. Surely Lois doesn't expect her husband to stand idly by while the robbers take the entry money for the fair, and potentially hurt the ticket agents? Her impatience with him is meant to be endearing but I don't really buy it.
In the second arc,
Escape from Dinosaur Island, Superman and Superboy are transported to Dinosaur Island where they meet Captain Storm, one of The Losers, a team of WWII soldiers created by Robert Kanigher in the 1960's. We learn that Storm is the only surviving member of the team, the others having perished in their mission to the island. Its a really fun story, I mean who doesn't want to see Superman fight dinosaurs and giant ape monsters. It's also a fitting tribute to Darwyn Cook who, in his out-of-continuity
DC: The New Frontier, had The Losers killed off during a mission to Dinosaur Island to rescue Rick Flag. Cooke passed away from cancer a few months before the story was published and it serves as a nice tribute to one of our generations most unique and vital creators.
The third arc,
In the Name of the Father: World's Smallest, serves as a set-up for the
Super Sons ongoing series, focusing on Jon and Damien Wayne. In it we find out that Damien has been spying on Jon behind his father's back. He and Clark decide to help the two boys become friends by putting them through a sort of "training camp." This is really the main arc of this volume, the one that moves the overall story forward the most and it's pretty well done. Jon and Damien's very different personalities and attitudes create a lot of natural drama but I also buy it when they eventually work together and become friends (or frenemies to borrow an annoying modern term). There also some, more subtle, growth in Superman's relationship with Batman. Ever since the 52 version of Superman was killed in
The Last Days of Superman, Batman has mistrusted this new (or older, I guess?) version of the character. Throughout the early issues of Tomasi's run we see them begin to form a trusting relationship. This will end up becoming irrelevant due to some retconning later on, but oh well.
In the last story arc,
Super-Monster, it is revealed that Candice, an editor who has offered Lois a job writing for the Hamilton Horn, is actually an alien fugitive named Kroog, who Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E. is searching for. A conflict breaks out when The Bride of Frankenstein, now a bounty hunter, shows up to collect the bounty on Kroog. In the confusion, Kroog escapes. We learn that Frankenstein and the Bride broke up after she was forced to kill their son, who went on a murderous rampage. Ultimately, Frankenstein allows her to take Kroog and collect the bounty, hoping to win her back but she rejects him. This story is a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand I like the relationship between Frankenstein and the Bride and the way Tomasi frames it as a tragic mirror of Clark and Lois' marriage, giving them a greater appreciation for what they have. On the other hand some of the conflict feels a bit contrived, especially considering how easy it is all resolved in the end.
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| Jorge Jimenez's art for Superman #7 |
For this volume the different teams of artists were assigned to
different stories, making for a more cohesive read then the first volume, which featured jarring shifts in the art style in the middle of a story. The first story was drawn by Jorge Jiménez with colors by Alejandro Sanchez. Jimenez is not a bad artist, but a lot of his work here looks a little rushed, with some sloppy facial work. Both
Escape from Dinosaur Island and
Super-Monster feature pencils by Doug Mahnke and inks by Jaime Mendoza (along with Trevor Scott on the former and Keith Champagne, Norm Rapmundand and Christian Alamy on the latter) with coloring by Wil Quintana. This art is, generally pretty strong and Mahnke handles the over-the-top action scenes really well. Finally,
In the Name of the Father: World's Smallest was penciled by Patrick Gleason with inks by Mick Gray, Mark Morales and Christian Alamy and coloring by John Kalisz. This art is the strongest of the run as Tomasi and Gleason clearly have a really strong working relationship. They do some interesting things with the panels contrasting the more wild action beats with the more standard plotted dialogue scenes.
Overall,
Superman, Volume 2: Trials of the Super Son is a fun read. While some of the stories are better than others there all worth reading and the art work is more consistent then the first volume. Nothing super important happens, continuity wise but for me that's kind of a plus.
Score: 8/10
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