One Year Later - Superman #650 Review

SUPERMAN #650 - With DC’s top writer, Geoff Johns (along with Kurt Busiek) now on tap as the writer behind Superman, it’s time for the Superman comics to get kicked up a notch.

Since coming back into the world of comics last summer, I’ve collected the Superman titles with diligence, hoping that the hero that I love will turn into the must read comic. While there have been some fun issues, like the crossover in Action Comics and The Adventures of Superman which saw Superman team up with another favorite of mine, Captain Marvel, for the most part, the title has been lacking.

With #650, though, Superman is relevant once more. While it’s anybodies guess where this arc (Up, Up and Away, continued in Action Comics #837) is going, it starts off on a marvelous track and makes us all scratch our head, wondering why Johns hasn’t been writing Superman for the last couple of years.

The story is remarkable because the lack of knowledge of the last year adds a level of mystery and intrigue that the title has been sorely missing. It seems that in the aftermath of the Infinite Crisis, Superman is no longer Superman.

Yeah, you read right. Superman no longer exists. Clark Kent is around but if you think he’s going to get into the costume and start flying around by the end of this book, you are sorely mistaken. Clark has lost his powers. We don’t know how or why. We don’t know if it was his choice or something that effected him during the crisis, but Clark is now simply Clark. He gets beat up by Lex Luthor (which is awesome) and the protector of Metropolis is now Supergirl, who’s been trained by cousin Clark.

The book kicks off with a “Superman Retrospective”, a film that is playing in the park and ends with Clark lying in a back ally, beaten and bloody, from an aquitted Lex Luthor who didn’t appreciate the expose that Clark has written in the last year (Clark is now an outstanding reporter). The comic also houses some straight forward art that accompanies the straightforward and refreshing storyline.

It’s also intriguing that the comic is somewhat borrowing from the upcoming Superman Returns film, which follows a similar storyline, except that Superman has been flat out gone from Earth. I’m really excited to see where Johns is going to take this storyline. It’s fresh and brings a human element back into Superman that, just now, we realize has been missing for who knows how long.

A CUT & PRINT GREAT.