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“Superman” #37

By | December 21st, 2017
Posted in Reviews | % Comments

The ‘Super Sons of Tomorrow’ arc starts here! What could the “Superman” portion of this crossover have in store? Some mild spoilers follow.

Cover by Ivan Reis, Julio Ferreira,
& Marcelo Maiolo
Written by Peter J. Tomasi and Patrick Gleason
Illustrated by Jorge Jimenez
Colored by Alejandro Sanchez
Lettered by Rob Leigh

“SUPER SONS OF TOMORROW” part one! The four-part crossover between Superman, the Super Sons and the Teen Titans starts here! The Batman of Tomorrow travels to the present to prevent a cataclysmic disaster before it happens, revealing that Superboy will soon be responsible for the death of millions. But Superman will do anything to protect his son… and the Batman of Tomorrow is unwavering in his resolve to take down the Boy of Steel. Don’t miss a clash of titanic proportion in the opening chapter of this game-changing story!

Some comics reach for literary heights. Some try to push the medium into little-covered genres or new technical territory. Some have something deeper to say below the surface. Some try to reach wide varieties of audiences. And some are just there to show off the pure, dumb spectacle of superheroes living in a shared world. This issue of “Superman,” the start of the ‘Super Sons of Tomorrow’ arc, is exactly that last one. And for the target audience, it’s exactly what they would want out of something like this.

This issue can be split directly down the middle into two halves: the Batman portion, and the Superman portion. Each half has a simple plot: A future version of Tim Drake has returned and fights both Superman and Batman. There’s a macguffin which will undoubtedly become an essential plot element in the next issue of this storyline, but for this “Superman” issue, it’s simply used as a macguffin. That leaves the story extremely thin, relying almost exclusively on the fight scenes to sell the book. Still, though, Tomasi and Gleason fill that void of story by briefly catching readers up on recent big storylines from our two biggest DC heroes: ‘A Lonely Place of Living’ from “Detective Comics” and ‘The Oz Effect’ from “Action Comics.” They do so succinctly, and seeing how neither title will be included in this crossover, it’s a necessary move to catch readers up. At the same time, the recaps are small enough within the action of the issue and discussed organically enough to not drag things down for those fans who are caught up.

Since the plot really isn’t the focus here, the success of the issue primarily comes down to Jorge Jimenez’s art, which is suitably colored by Alejandro Sanchez. Since becoming the primary series artist over on “Super Sons,” Jimenez has developed a notably youthful style. He adapts that slightly here, considering Tomasi and Gleason have given him three adult characters and zero children to work with, but it’s clear he’s learned a lot from “Super Sons” about how to create kinetic, captivating images.

You can feel the youthful playfulness in even the most dour of panels. Batman doesn’t simply get up and approach future-Tim; he holds his shoulder while wincing in pain, then wipes blood off his face, observes it, gets into a power stance to push himself off the floor, and shifts into a full-page-length intimidating headstrong forward walk. Observing each panel on its own, they seem to do a good job conveying what Jimenez wanted. But taken together, they build a character, they non-verbally tell a story, and more to the point, they’re clearly injecting that youthful fluidity in order to portray this decidedly not youthful character as being more relatably human.

Jimenez also does well with portraying the escalation in Tomasi and Gleason’s script. Things admittedly start off pretty high-drama, but that first page alone has a great sense of escalation: in a matter of panels, we go from quiet, dark Wayne Manor to quietly brooding Bruce and soon the gradual approach of Tim’s accelerating Bat-shadow. This keeps going for the rest of the scene: we go from room to room, with the characters gradually hitting each other with larger and larger objects that are framed in a way that gives them greater and greater impact.

Continued below

When we switch to the Superman scene, we start over and work our way up yet again, reaching even greater heights because of Superman’s heightened power levels. Again, Jimenez gradually lets his layouts and framing become more and more impactful until we reach the suspenseful splash page cliffhanger ending. He and the writers latched onto what each other could achieve in terms of building stakes and suspense, then created according to those strengths. This ultimately led to the most engaging possible fight scenes — which, again, took up almost the entire issue.

All in all, “Superman” turned in an enjoyable, if light, first part of ‘Super Sons of Tomorrow.’ It might seem a little impenetrable for new readers, but the action scenes with phenomenal Jorge Jimenez art should be enough for anyone to have a little fun here. The best is clearly still to come, so looking at this as an opening chapter, it comes recommended to anyone who’s down to see some well-done superhero fights.

Final Verdict: 7.0 – Light on plot, but a good time nonetheless for those interested in 20 pages of superhero fights.


Nicholas Palmieri

Nick is a South Floridian writer of films, comics, and analyses of films and comics. Flight attendants tend to be misled by his youthful visage. You can try to decipher his out-of-context thoughts over on Twitter at @NPalmieriWrites.

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