"You're hot and your cold, your 'yes' and your 'no'..."
Superman #5
DC Comics (March, 2012)
WRITER: George Pérez PENCILER: Nicola Scott INKER: Trevor Scott COLORIST: Brett Smith LETTERER: Rob Leigh COVER: George Pérez & Brian Buccellato ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Wil Moss EDITOR: Matt Idelson
Superman is taken over by the beings and they go after everyone that has threatened Superman since issue #1, from robots to mutants to that gang that wanted to prove that Superman couldn’t save everyone. When he tries to kill a Daily Planet reporter, Lois screaming for Clark snaps him awake…not in Metropolis but in orbit.
What they got right: Pérez may not be doing any of the art except the cover, but Nicola and Trevor Scott (plus I have to give credit to colorist Brett Smith as part of the art team) do an amazing job. This is what modern comic art SHOULD look like; not trying to be “photorealistic” but being just well done comic art.
What they got wrong: This kind of story has been done before, and with Superman himself. I don’t care if it turns out to be a dream or vision or something: I’m tired of Superman always having to prove himself to the readers with a story like this. (Plus it speaks too closely to the more cynical knock-offs like Boom’s Plutonian or Image’s Omni-Man.) Besides, you can’t do a story challenging Superman’s status quo when we don’t know what that status quo is in the new DC 52 Universe. We’ve already seen in Action Comics that he isn’t quite the same guy we’ve known all these years.
Recommendation: I would be dropping this title if it weren’t for the upcoming writer change (and Pérez himself has said that he’d rather be drawing comics than writing comics, and I wish he’d stay an artist) because I just can’t get invested in this new Superman because I don’t know anything about him. Get it for the artwork, I guess.
If the Electric Superman was a bad idea, I don't think the elemental one will fare any better.
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