Grant Morrison: writer
Rags Morales: penciller
Rick Bryant: inker
Backup:Sholly Fisch: writer
Brad Walker: artist
The Solicitation
Metropolis has been captured! To save it, Superman must push the limits of his nascent powers as never before! Aboard the ship that has the city captive, The Man of Steel finds an important tool that may help him defeat Metal-zero and his boss!And as Superman fights foes in the sky, Steel must do what he can to protect those still in danger on the ground in a backup story by Sholly Fisch and Brad Walker!
Preview
The Story
Gag me with a spoon, I thought this was supposed to be the finale?
My second reaction was that they made him grow up really quick, really fast. In the first few pages, Superman went from being able to reach 600 mph tops, to suddenly being able to reach the speed necessary to get into low earth orbit, which is about 25000 mph according to the comic. Superman leaps across random satellite debris but he is finally able to reach the spaceship that is holding the bottle city of Kandor and the bottle city of Metropolis.
He does this while wearing an oxygen tank the whole way up, which I am pretty positive would have exploded somewhere along the trip. But let's move past the science of it all, there is a Superman story being told! Superman then walks through the alien ship all the while feeling a strange sense of deja vu.
Back in the bottle city of Metropolis, Louis Lane knows that Luthor was somehow behind it all! The Luthor, Jimmy Olsen and Louis all start running into a back door into a bar in the alleyway in order to escape robot spider things. Once there they meet the Glenmorgan guy that has been giving Clark Kent trouble since issue #1 drinking his head off. Doesn't matter what the creepy bartender says, although he is probably more than just a bartender, they all get attacked by robot spiders again!
Meanwhile Superman is being told by the collector alien people that they always hide out within the culture they are collecting so that they can get an understanding of the culture. On Krpton they were called Braniac. on earth, they were called the internet. That's right, the internet is a big knowledge collecting alien.
The alien then tells Superman that it has the bottle city of Kandor and the bottle city of Metropolis and that Superman must chose to save one, and that his decision will help solve the debate of nature (Kandor) vs. nurture (Metropolis). Superman then says that he will save them all. We then get an inspirational site of the people of Metropolis, who were once not behind Superman, all shouting his name.
Superman then smashes a glass container to get a costume that started white but then changed to his Superman blue threads. he puts it on and then is greeted by the Brainiac/Internet creature.
That's right, for Superman to save earth, he must defeat the living form of the internet.
As a new reader, you will know nothing unless you know general and somewhat specific Superman lore. This whole issue will feel alien to you. You have to be caught up to this point in order for this issue to make sense. Which is a good thing for readers since issue #1, because now you are seeing some payoff. I just seriously thought that this issue would be the last one of the beginning, but apparently not.
This comic was also one that my retailer is getting the Combo packs only version, meaning that each issue includes a code to download a digital version of the comic and costs $1 more. Considering the fact that this comic was $3.99 before, I am paying $5 for this comic. Not worth it in my books when only half the comic interests me and that half isn't doing great.
I skimmed through the back up story. I won't even grade it, but it again looks like a generic story. A no-conflict one. Sigh.
The Art
Miles above what issue #5 was. So that is excellent. Morales needed the break and it payed off here. This reminds me greatly of the art and how it was in the first issue of the series.
The Cover
I get what they are going for, but it just didn't thrill me. If it was the art only, then it would be fine, but you add in the words, the title, the banner across the top for the We Can Be Heroes thing, the Digital Copy message and it shrinks down the available space for the art to work in. Unfortunately, half the time they don't tell the artist that when it is being drawn. Most artists do realize that they have to work with a title, but with everything else it is just too busy and takes away from the impact of the image alone.
The cover that is here is not the same cover that was put out. The coloring is way off with the people of the city having some regular, shaded color to them and Superman and the sky appear all red. Either way, its still not exciting.
Grades
Words: 5/10 -Mind you this is just the main story here.
Pictures: 9/10 - Huge improvement. Seriously.
Recommend: Nah. In a way it feels like it is going through the motions, and there are some interesting bits, but I'm seeing more material that I would laugh at then I would take seriously or even ignite some excitement in my belly. Boring, and not worth the price of admission.
Buy Next Issue: Nah. I may wait and just buy it online after it gets marked down to $1.99 or something like that just to finish the story, but there is no way I'm buying regular issues of this comic.
Previous Issues
No comments:
Post a Comment