Superman #40 Cover Reviews 

The Justice League Chillax in the Uneven “Superman” #40 [Review]

By | May 1st, 2015
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Superman tries to understand his new power, while a legendary artist pulls double duty as a writer in the uneven “Superman” #40.

Written and Illustrated by John Romita Jr

The spotlight shines on John Romita, Jr. as he goes solo to tell the story of the testing of Superman’s new power against the Justice League! But the appearance of an unexpected enemy could end the Man of Steel’s life!

Ever since Superman hit super-puberty and developed a new and unexpected superpower, DC has been eager to explore its new ramifications. After finding himself completely powerless for 24 hours after unleashing his new solar flare, Superman finally enlists the help of the Justice League to test and analyze the limits of his new ability. After the brightest minds in the DCU reinforce the JL Watchtower Satellite as much as they possibly can, the structure still threatens to burst at the seams from the force. As it dawns on the League that they now have a strong new weapon to use against the near constant cosmic invaders that threaten Earth, there’s only one thing that the team can do: crack some beers and watch Superman talk about food.

After literally decades at Marvel, John Romita Jr made a big splash at DC after teaming with Geoff Johns on “Superman”. This issue marks the first time that Romita has ever written the Man of Steel and for DC itself. While his art is as good as ever, this issue indicates that Romita’s talents are best expressed through images, not words. The premise itself is actually quite promisingly, as expanding Superman’s stagnate power set definitely opens up some unexplored territory for the character. The alien/human dichotomy has been the defining internal conflict for Superman/Clark Kent. Clark is fascinated by humans, and spends a good portion of his time pretending to be something he can’t be. The question of what Clark would do as a regular human could truly be used to redefine how Clark views humanity and himself. Unfortunately, so far we’ve only seen a depowered-Clark act like almost exactly like regular super-powered Clark.

Romita fills the issues with a lot a great small moments that, unfortunately, are tied together with weak dialogue and odd pacing. Batman complaining about always having to pick up Superman after uses his solar flare, the Justice League tricking Superman into letting them blast him with heavy artillery to test his limits, and the whole team hanging out at the bar are all fun moments, but all the disparate pieces just don’t fall into place.

The very fact that the Justice League hang out at a bar together and joke around is so different from anything else that DC has done in the New 52 that anyone familiar with the main DC titles will have a hard time rectifying the tone and character actions. Batman stands out in a particularly strange light, with his extremely lighthearted attitude and totally willingness to engage in playful banter. The New 52 Batman has been open to some dry humor from time to time, but here it almost feels like he had his personality swapped with the Flash.

The way that Romita structures dialogue has a real throw back feel to earlier eras in comics. This is especially apparent in the last third of the book, when Superman says every thought that pops into his head aloud for everyone to hear. There are some great comics that feature characters giving themselves pep talks and verbally guiding readers through their actions, but once again, it just doesn’t gel with the tone of almost anything else in DC’s main superhero books.

For all the misfires in terms of the script, is doesn’t take away from the fact that Romita continues to shine as an artist. While he has penciled almost every hero to grace the pages of Marvel Comics, this issue is the first time that Romita has had the opportunity to draw the Justice League. While he doesn’t veer very far from the established New 52 character models, it’s still a surreal experience for long-time fans to see Romita’s signature style applied to the League. His Wonder Woman stands out as being particularly well down, with his sharp edges lending themselves well to the fierce nature of her character.

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He handles the rest of the League fairly well, although it should be said the sometimes uncanny likeness between Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent becomes even more apparent when they each are sporting Romita-style broad foreheads and vertically rectangular noses. It would have been nice to see Romita render the League in a large bombastic action sequence, but we’ll just have to wait and see if there’s a future run on “Justice League” in store for the artist.

This issue is fairly light on the action, but Romita uses what little there is to produce some stand out images. The sequence where Superman experiments to find the trigger of his solar flare builds over several panels until his unleashes in an enormous fireball. A signature element of Romita’s style is heavy line work, especially when rendering shadows. As Superman emerges from the aftermath of the flare, Romita coats him in so many thick lines that it almost looks like he has some Jason-Mamoa-as-Aquaman tattoos. In the final action scene, when a still slighty-depowered Superman faces off against gun-toting criminals, Romita captures that characters frustration and discomfort at having to feel some level of pain.

But no matter how great an artist John Romita Jr is, Superman leap-frogging from building to building still looks as silly as it did 70 years ago.

There are a many interesting ideas and moments featured in “Superman” #40, but an uneven story and strangely retro dialogue makes the issue feel odd and disjointed. John Romita Jr is a great artist, with a long list of justly deserved accolades, but the pieces just don’t come together here.

Final Verdict: 5.0 – A rare misfire from a legendary artist.


Matt Dodge

Matt Dodge is originally from Ottawa (go Sens!), where he attended University and somehow ended up with a degree in history and political science. He currently resides in Toronto where he is a full-time procrastinator who occasionally takes a break to scribble some pretentious nonsense on a piece of paper. He knows way too much about hockey, Saved By The Bell, and Star Wars. Find him on Twitter @Matt_Dodge.

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