Comic Review: Superman: Doomsday

Published: April 5th, 2016
Written by: Dan Jurgens
Art by: Brett Breeding, Dan Jurgens, Norm Rapmund

DC Comics, 332 Pages

Review:

Well, Superman is already alive and we’ve reached the fifth and final part of the Death/Return of Superman saga. With that, this story takes care of the last thing that needs to be dealt with and that’s Superman finally defeating Doomsday without dying and thus, restoring balance the the DC universe.

Generally, I like Dan Jurgens writing but overall, I wasn’t blown away by this saga. However, I did find this to be better than all the big DC Comics Crisis events, which always read like overloaded, convoluted messes to me.

While these stories had a lot of characters in them, Superman was always really the focus and for the most part, this stayed on that thread, even if there were some distractions with new “Supermen” and with checking in on individuals after Superman’s death.

I felt like the art, here, was a bit more fine-tuned and better than the rest of the chapters in this massive saga.

Additionally, the writing felt tighter and more focused, as Jurgens pretty much handled it all and the work wasn’t spread out over a handful of people.

The highlights of this are that Superman is definitely back, we get to see Darkseid mix it up with Doomsday, Cyborg Superman cements his place as a major villain, and Doomsday finally gets some receipts cashed in on his ass.

In the end, I’m glad that I finally experienced this saga in its entirety. It was long but by the end, the total body of work made all of the smaller parts come together, giving them deeper meaning and relevance to the overall DC universe. 

Rating: 7/10

Comic Review: The Return of Superman

Published: April 5th, 2016
Written by: Gerard Jones, Dan Jurgens, Karl Kesel, Louise Simonson, Roger Stern
Art by: Jon Bogdanove, M.D. Bright, Tom Grummett, Jackson Guice

DC Comics, 464 Pages

Review:

Well, this is a step up from the previous two volumes in the larger The Death/Return of Superman saga. This is also the fourth of the five big chapters but now that Superman is back, we can stop spending time on mediocre replacements and get back to business.

The four replacements are still here, however, but now they have to find their place in the world with Superman reclaiming his mantle.

Two of these replacements remain heroes and two let their villain flags finally fly for all to see. Where these characters would end up wasn’t a surprise, though.

I think that the most impactful thing about this story isn’t simply Superman’s return, as much as it was seeing him return to Lois after all she had been through in the previous three chapters of this multi-year saga.

Once Superman actually returns, you’re not totally sure it’s him but as a reader, you hope it is and it’s really a breath of fresh air, as the replacements just didn’t cut it. I also think that DC Comics knew this and brought the famed hero back earlier than they probably wanted to.

Regardless, it’s good that he did return, as it was like a shot in the arm to this story, which I found myself losing interest in. Had I been buying these and reading them back when they were current, I know that I would’ve stopped before we even got to the return.

In the end, I’m not super keen on these books, beyond the pretty emotional battle that ended with Superman’s death. Although, this did make up for some of the lower points a bit and it sets up the next showdown between Supes and Doomsday, the jerk that killed him.

Rating: 6.5/10

Comic Review: Reign of the Supermen

Published: April 5th, 2016
Written by: Dan Jurgens, Gerard Jones, Karl Kesel, Louise Simonson, Roger Stern
Art by: Jon Bogdanove, M.D. Bright, Tom Grummett, Jackson Guice

DC Comics, 325 Pages

Review:

I’m not going to lie, even though I slept on this big event back in the early ’90s, I went into this with some real enthusiasm, hoping it would be interesting and have a real purpose.

Sadly, this started out kind of neat but quickly devolved into a clusterfuck without any real sort of cohesive narrative trajectory.

With Superman dead, four new figures pop-up and try to fill the void. Three of the four believe themselves to be Superman while the fourth was simply inspired by him.

As we know now, years later, two of these Supermen would go on to be villains: Cyborg Superman and Eradicator. As for the other two, Steel would just continue to be Steel and Superboy would just stay Superboy and go on to be a really popular character in his own right.

Ultimately, I just didn’t care about any of this and even though I can see how some of the new characters may have resonated with some people, none of them have ever really grabbed me.

I guess, in the end, I can say that I’ve now actually experienced this once important major comic book event. But honestly, fuck these characters. I can see why they brought Superman back almost immediately after this experiment.

Rating: 5.25/10

Comic Review: Green Lanterns: Evil’s Might

Published: July 4th, 2018 – October 17th, 2018
Written by: Dan Jurgens, Tim Seeley
Art by: Mike Perkins, Andy Troy, various

DC Comics, 206 Pages

Review:

This eight-part arc came out pretty quickly, as it was released bi-weekly after the recent Green Lanterns annual. While I prefer Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps a bit more, I do like the characters in this title as well. But really, both the current Green Lantern titles share a lot of the same core characters anyway. This one just has a lot of focus on Jessica Cruz and Simon Baz, who, until recently, weren’t major characters in the same vein as Hal Jordan, John Stewart, Kyle Rayner and Guy Gardner. But with the Corps being so massive, it’s always welcome to see the focus switch to other characters.

This story arc is found in Green Lanterns issues 50 through 57.

I’m not sure if there has been a Green Lantern story like this before but the big thing here is that the Lanterns’ rings become unreliable. They are given bad advice and played against one another. This is an easy weakness to exploit given the means to do it and the villain here does just that. The reveal of who the villain is in this story was a big surprise and it doesn’t even come until the end of the fourth issue. If you don’t want that part of the story spoiled, stop reading here.

Anyway, the big bad in this is the Cyborg Superman a.k.a. Hank Henshaw. He has acquired the Phantom Ring, which is something we’ve never seen before. But he uses it to take control of the Green Lantern power battery, even though he is locked away in the Fortress of Solitude on Earth. Henshaw infects the power battery like a virus, infecting any ring that has since charged with it. Luckily, Hal Jordan hasn’t charged his ring in awhile and therefore wasn’t corrupted.

This story shows how reliant the Lanterns are on their rings and why that’s a bad thing. The Lanterns have to turn towards themselves to figure this out, as their weapon and trusted ally is no longer working on their side.

The big battles in this are great and it has a very similar vibe to the massive events the Green Lanterns fought in during the Geoff Johns run a decade ago. This really felt like a throwback to those stories, which is where I really fell in love with the Green Lantern mythos.

This was a solid finale to this ongoing series and closes things out with a big bang, as some of the key characters move on to different things.

Rating: 7.75/10
Pairs well with: All the current Green Lantern series, as well as the Geoff Johns era.