THIS WEEK: Summer of Superman Special #1 kicks off the next phase of the Man of Steel’s adventures.
Note: the review below contains spoilers. If you want a quick, spoiler-free buy/pass recommendation on the comics in question, check out the bottom of the article for our final verdict.
Summer of Superman Special #1
Writers: Mark Waid (Chapter 1), Dan Slott (Chapter 2), and Joshua Williamson (Chapter 3)
Artists: Jorge Jiménez (Chapters 1-3) and Dan Mora (Epilogue)
Art Finishes (Chapter 3): Belén Ortega
Colorist: Tomeu Morey
Letterer: Dave Sharpe
Cover Artists: Jorge Jiménez & Tomeu Morey
It’s only been Spring for less than a month, but DC is skipping to the next season this week with the kickoff to their “Summer of Superman” celebration of all things Kryptonian. Summer of Superman Special #1 offers readers a taste of what’s to come in the Super-titles for the rest of the year, including writer Dan Slott’s debut on the Man of Steel ahead of next month’s launch of the new Superman Unlimited series. Joining Slott on this special are current Superman writer Joshua Williamson and incoming/returning Action Comics scribe Mark Waid, along with artists Jorge Jiménez and Tomeu Morey. The team joins forces for a single three-act story spread over 48 pages that makes for a great entry point to Superman’s current status quo.
The story of the issue is fairly straight-forward: Validus, the hulking member of the Legion of Super-Heroes’ antagonistic quintet The Fatal Five, has been thrown through time and keeps popping up at inopportune times in Smallville, hometown of Clark Kent, first when he’s still Superboy and again in the present day, on the wedding day of Lana (Superwoman) Lang and John Henry (Steel) Irons.
Okay, so maybe when its all laid out that way it’s not super-straight forward, especially the Validus of it all, but as told by Waid, Slott, and Williamson, it hangs together pretty well. The individual segments have their own thematic voices, reflecting the many different facets of Superman – Waid’s Superboy section kicks things off in a fun way, leading to Slott’s focus on the overall Super-family and ultimately Williamson’s look at Superman’s position as part of the larger DCU – without feeling disjointed or incoherent. Of the three segments Slott’s is the weakest, with a really ham-fisted ‘moral of the story’ about climate change that feels completely out of place even within its own chapter. Hopefully that can be chalked up to Slott getting his legs under him with the character and it’s not a portent of things to come.
The whole thing is brought to visual life in spectacular fashion by Jiménez and Morey. This team has spent so much time in Gotham over the past few years that it’s nice to see them working on characters who operate in the daylight hours for a change. Jiménez’s linework on the Superboy section is rich with the youthful energy he brought to his work on the Super Sons series, while the modern-day sequences capture the scale and gravitas of Superman’s world even when he’s not in Metropolis. Smallville itself is beautiful to look at, Morey’s colors making the golden wheatfields and sunny blue skies pop off the page wonderfully. It’s a shame this is just a brief foray back to Superman for this team, but it’s a welcome one nonetheless.
The issue’s epilogue, by Williamson and Superman series artist Dan Mora, offers some explanations for the goings-on of the rest of the issue, and ties things to the larger DC All In initiative and status quo in a way that is both unexpected and makes perfect sense given past events in Superman. The Man of Steel is set to play a key role in the next phase of All In, and this special is definitely an important component to that overarching DCU storyline.
Summer of Superman Special #1 is a really solid Superman comic, and a nice sample of what’s to come later this year from the three major Superman titles. Williamson and Waid are a powerhouse pair of writers, and Jiménez and Morey prove once again here why they’re a superstar artistic team. Hopefully Slott can shake off the initial clunkiness he displays here as he gets more comfortable with the Man of Steel.
Final Verdict: BUY.
Round-Up
- In other Superman goings-on this week, Mark Waid, Clayton Henry, Tamra Bonvillain, and Steve Wands‘s Batman/Superman: World’s Finest #38 kicks off the “We Are Yesterday” crossover with the also-Waid-written Justice League Unlimited. This issue is largely setup, with Superman, Batman, and The Flash responding to a threat from Grodd in Gorilla City. Classic superheroics ensue, with a premise that it’s hard to believe has never been done before.
- Back in the present day, Challengers of the Unknown #5 wraps up the series from writer Christopher Cantwell, artists Sean Izaakse and Amancay Nahuelpan, colorist Romulo Fajardo Jr., and letterer Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou. Each issue has been an exploration of an individual Challenger, and this issue is no different, focusing on Rocky Davis, the one Chall who hasn’t been infected with Omega Energy, and the lengths he will go to protect his friends. Sincerely hope we see more of these characters from this creative team soon.
- Ram V and Evan Cagle‘s The New Gods continues its spectacular run with this week’s fifth issue. V and Cagle are joined by guest-artist Andrew McClean, colorist Francesco Segala, and letterer Tom Napolitano for this issue, which serves as a meditation on the nature of life and death through the eyes of Lightray. It’s a powerful issue whose only flaw is its cover, which spoils what would have otherwise been an incredible last-page reveal.
- Detective Comics #1096 wraps Tom Taylor and Mikel Janin‘s first full arc as creative team on the series in dramatic fashion. The Batman titles are firing on all cylinders right now, and Detective is definitely leading the way.
- Also of note in Gotham this week is a pair of titles reaching milestone issues, Catwoman #75 and Nightwing #125. Relaunches be damned, just tell good stories and the people will come, and both of these books are doing just that.
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