The forging of a hero comes in surprising ways sometimes but always through difficult circumstances.
What They Say:
Picking up from the end of FLASHPOINT #3, Subject One is free! But so is Subject Zero! Frightened, scared and out in the world for the first time, Subject One must learn what it means to go from man to Superman!
The Review:
The lack of a Superman in the Flashpoint world has been an unsurprising twist since it’s been a common theme in many types of stories over the years. What I liked, convoluted as it was, is the idea of what happened in an effort to create a Superman in order to give the country something to rally around. The older material dealt with Sinclair and what happened to him, which in the end had him thrown into the Phantom Zone where he got to stew while General Lane worked on his other project with Kal. Unfortunately, as we’ve seen, that’s just given Sinclair a whole lot of time to figure out his powers even more, become more resentful and to be bursting with energy when he finally gets out of there after Cyborg and the others try to rescue Kal.
Being the finale for the miniseries, it’s largely a punching fest which is actually quite good. Having Sinclair make his way out after Kal has already headed to New Themyscira as he has this desire to help. What he runs into there is disturbing to his young mind as there’s plenty of dead bodies. The coincidence here is strong though as he comes across Lois Lane, who he hasn’t seen in some time, and that gives us a bit of the classic pairing as he has to face off against Sinclair when he makes his way over there. The history that this trio has together has its moments, especially with Sinclair’s general anger over things and the way he holds so much against the “children” of Lane since he includes Kal in that, but it’s just kind of awkward as well because of the way each issue progressed.
What this book needs and has though is a pretty solid fight to work through. Gene Ha’s layouts really work well here with them, especially the way the frames are done with frazzled blue borders against a black background that comes across wonderfully in digital form, as there’s a good sense of power to much of it. Sinclair’s form alone has that kind of rough, angular feel that really speaks it even more and the fight itself plays out well. It may be predictable with how the fight itself plays out, but they have some decent stakes to it and some emotion that helps to carry it through, though the ties to the Lois Lane book feels a little forced and could have been played out better considering what she did in her own book.
Digital Notes:
This Comixology edition of Flashpoint: Project Superman contains the main cover as seen with the print edition with no variants or other extras included.
In Summary:
Project: Superman is a book that I wasn’t sure what to make of in the first installment but came to like a lot in the second as we saw Kal’s story more. With the third issue, it spends a mix of time between Kal and Sinclair but lacks a distinct and consistent voice to tell its tale, though Sinclair does largely dominate it. The quiet scenes are really good to see as Kal heads overseas and things hit him personally but the big action scenes are what makes the book at this point as we want to see some action, some real pounding going on and to see Sinclair and Kal duke it out. And we do get it, with consequences on ramifications on a couple of levels. It’s just an uneven piece, largely dealing with multiple things that have to hit at a certain point with the Lois Lane miniseries and Flashpoint itself, so that undercuts part of it. But there are some fun ideas to be had in here.
Grade: C+
