Welcome to the First Issue Bin, where I — Ethan Kaye — randomly grab one of this week's comics that’s just starting up and give you the details on whether it should get added to your collection … or remain on the comic shop shelf.
Summer of Superman Special #1
Writers: Mark Waid, Dan Slott, Joshua Williamson
Artists: Jorge Jiménez, Dan Mora, Belén Ortega
Letterer: David Sharpe
Editor: Paul Kaminski
I have a feeling a lot of you are missing out on DC's Superman books, and that's a crime. A crime punishable by … well, just rectify the situation and we'll avoid issuing you a fine. For now.
There's a lot of baggage that comes with Superman, and separating the Superman of the distant past (Silver Age stories so out there that they had to place warnings on them identifying them as non-continuity), the less-distant past (the popular films of the '80s/the '90s where Superman died then grew his hair long), and the recent past (the establishment of the Superman Family/Zack Snyder goings-on) is a task difficult for even the Man of Steel. Everyone has their own opinion of what Superman should be.
But if you separate out the cartoons, the movies, the team-up movies, and the action figures from the current continuity comics, you'll see that the last 20 years of Superman books have been absolutely fucking awesome. Superman is funny. He struggles with things we struggle with. He's a family man with a wife, a biological son, the biological son's boyfriend, two adopted kids, two cousins who are always around, a clone who's always around, a Chinese counterpart who's always around, a dog, and plenty of friends who know his secret identity. Bring back the classic villains and introduce some new ones and it's a lush environment for storytelling.
DC gets it, and with the new James Gunn Superman film arriving this summer, it's about time for all the comic spotlights to be turned on Supes. To prepare for this "Summer of Superman," DC launched this oversize special penned by the three writers who will see Superman comics through the warm months and into the future. Veteran DC talent Mark Waid is writing Action Comics, Flash talent Joshua Williamson is continuing on Superman, and "newcomer to DC" Dan Slott is launching Superman Unlimited (as Slott is quick to point out, he wrote the well-received Arkham Asylum: Living Hell for DC in 2003).
Each writer takes one third of this #1 issue, a landmark issue in itself as it's (finally) the Smallville wedding between Clark Kent's childhood sweetheart Lana Lang and his trusted friend John Henry Irons, aka Steel, the basis for that movie with Shaq that one time. And of course, things go wrong.
The background is provided by Waid, with a flashback to Clark and Lana's younger days when she was the most popular girl in town, hanging out with a well-meaning nerd who's juuuuust about ready to drop the glasses and show off how much he can bench. Because no one on the planet knows as much about the DCU as Mark Waid, he plucks an odd villain out of Superman continuity — the monster Validus who usually fights the Legion of Superheroes in the far future — to spoil things and take Clark through a tour of time, a tour that includes a stop to peep in on his married life with someone-who-is-not-Lana-Lang (it's Lois Lane, they've been married since 1996).
The fight is left somewhat unresolved in Part 1, but Slott picks it up in Part 2, with Validus returning during the wedding preparations to battle and then vanish once again. The assembled Superman family saves the day, paving the way for Williamson's wedding, reception, and inevitable teases for the future (Validus is back AND there's an evil Legion of Superheroes coming soon!). There's a lot of love and a lot to love here.
Waid is writing five books in the latest previews for June, and I love to see this absolute genius being utilized to his true potential. He's an encyclopedia of DC lore and he's proving it by whipping up absolute batshit cameos and guest stars in Justice League Unlimited and Batman/Superman: World's Finest. He writes the hell out of teen Lana and Clark, then launches from pastoral to futuristic with the Validus fight. Boom goes the dynamite.
Despite Dan Slott's track record at Marvel (he's at the center of most Spider webs over there and wrote my hands-down favorite Marvel book, the 2006 She-Hulk comedy), he still has a bit to prove when stepping into the other guys' sandbox, working within existing continuity rather than starting from scratch like with Arkham. But it's Slott. Popular complaints about his style aside, he's got skills and ideas to spare. His contribution is the action-packed climax in the middle that, while it does include a puzzling aside about climate change, gives us some good action with high stakes.
Williamson's third brings it all back home, with wedding scenes that just let you catch your breath and bask in the early evening sun of a tiny midwestern town. The copy is beautiful: "As Superman, I've been to the ends of the earth. Seen distant alien worlds. Multiple Earths. Realms of gods and monsters. Islands of Amazons, even. But nothing beats … Smallville in the summer." I had to pause because that line, paired with the light purple sunset skies of Jorge Jiménez's pitch perfect art, just caught me as a moment of relatable emotion. We've all felt that feeling of your hometown on a summer night, those long evenings spent with the sun taking forever to go down as you and your friends get up to some mischief or just play the hours out in a driveway or a parking lot or a picnic table. Nothing can beat those nights.
While the Validus/time travel storyline links the different moments of past, present, and future, it sets Summer of Superman Special #1 as the starting place for new stories that, instead of the usual "nothing will ever be the same after this issue!" hyperbole of comics, builds off what's come before and gives us the satisfying payoff for fans who have been sticking with Superman since the New 52 ended.
Nostalgia that hit Ethan hard: 5/5
Writing: 3/3, get it? Three writers?
Art: Excellent, it's unfair to give it a number
Number of things young Lana Lang reportedly does for Smallville: 6/6
Times Clark Kent excuses himself from a date to shit: 1/1
Verdict: Superman is DC's flagship character and this issue reinforces why he always should be.
