The first big crossover of Tomasi and Gleason's run,
Superman Reborn, sees their
Superman title crossover with Dan Jurgen's
Action Comics. Like most comic book crossovers it's a mixed bag. It does push forward certain story threads that have been building since
DC Rebirth. We see more of Mr. Oz for one thing but, more importantly, this Superman's intrusion into this timeline is finally reconciled and the real identity of the Clark Kent doppelganger that had been stalking Superman's family in
Action Comics, is revealed.
Long story short: It's Mr. Mxyzptlk. Having been captured by Mr. Oz during his most recent attempt to mess with the Man of Steel, Mxyzptlk is imprisoned for an undisclosed amount of time, only to escape using Superman's old trick of saying his own name backwards (Kltpzyxm). Continually pursued by Oz Mxy disguises himself as Clark Kent and cast a spell on himself so that he would believe he really was the mild mannered reporter. Seeing Superman and his family makes him remember who he is however and he plots to exact revenge on Superman for seemingly forgetting about him for all the years he was imprisoned by Mr. Oz.
The story opens with him arriving at the Kent's house and leaving a "present" for Jon: a photo album which causes the house and its inhabitants to begin fading from existence. When Jon disappears Superman and Lois go to the apartment of the Clark Kent Doppelganger to get answers. They eventually discover that he is Mxyzptlk, who challenges Superman to a game in order to get Jon back. He brings them to some kind of inter-dimensional plane, where they begin to lose their memories of Jon, and of being married.
Meanwhile, Jon has come in contact with the life-forces of New 52 versions of his parents, trapped, it seems in the dimensional rift where Mxyzptlk has brought Jon. After he is freed by Clark, who then completely looses his memory of Jonathan, Jon is able to free the New 52 versions of Lois and Clark, but he doesn't know that they are not his parents and doesn't understand why they don't recognize him. He pleads with them to remember him and they decide to try. This leads (somehow) to their merging with their pre-Flashpoint selves.
The implications of all this is that there are no longer two versions of Superman and Lois Lane existing simultaneous in the current DC continuity. There just the Pre-Flashpoint versions which now also lived through most of the events of the New 52 continuity, though I'm unclear which ones or how this all fits together. Rebirth revealed that some mysterious entity (many think it's Doctor Manhattan) stole 10 years from the lives of every DC character. Superman has now gotten that time back.
If your confused by all of this don't worry, I think everyone was. It's unfortunately the nature of continuity driven stories. My real problem with this crossover is that too little story gets stretched out over 4 issues. I mean essentially what happens here is that Mxyzptlk kidnaps Jon, reveals himself to Superman and is then summarily defeated by Jon through some kind of magic/sci-fi mumbo jumbo. There's threads of a really interesting story here. Superman and Lois both struggle to maintain there grip on reality and its possible that their life, as they know it, will come to an end. But the emotional impact of this never really takes affect because the story is more concerned with "fixing" the continuity.
The art is pretty solid, though once again two different teams worked on it. Patrick Gleason (pencils) and Mick Gray (inks) worked on the
Superman issues while Doug Mahnke (pencils) and Jaime Mendoza (inks) did the art for
Action Comics. Both artists really go all out with the trippy Mxyzptlk stuff. Its excessively bright and vibrant but also has a surreal, reality bending quality to it. Steve Ditko (R.I.P.) would be proud. With that said,the two artist's styles don't really blend perfectly, with Mahnke's being more realistic and Gleason's much more cartoony. some of Mahnke's facial work from
Action Comics #975 is honestly pretty bad. The proportions are off and the shape of characters' heads appears really inconsistent. There's also a back up story in this issue written by Paul Dini with art by Brian Churchill. Churchill's art is generally much more consistent then Mahnke's and he does a lot of cool stuff with Mxyzptlk.
Overall, while I'm glad the overarching plot finally moves forward,
Superman Reborn is lacking in a solid, human story and feels overly long and overblown for what it is: a 60's style superhero romp that (more or less) solidifies the current continuity.
Score: 6/10
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