The world on his shoulders.
Creative Staff:
Story: Robert Venditti
Art: Scott Hepburn
Colors: Ian Herring
Letterer: Dave Sharpe
What They Say:
Metropolis is without the Man of Steel for a day and villains are coming out of the woodwork to take advantage. Can the city stand against the many threats and where is Supeman?!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
While we got the start of a new storyline mixed into the previous issue, Robert Venditti is working it more as setup and gives it just a couple of pages here. Which is fine by me as we get a pretty great little standalone story here that deals with a couple of distinct things. I continue to like Venditti’s take on Superman a lot but he doesn’t get to do much with the Clark/Lois relationship where I think he really shines. This issue has Scott Hepburn on the artwork and a lot of is pretty good with solid designs, good flow for action, and some nice layouts as it deals with an array of character. I just didn’t like his take on Superman and Clark at all. The look is probably a little more classic originalist in some ways with the framing but it wasn’t something that really worked for me and was a bit distracting at times. But not all interpretations have to work for everyone!
The premise here is that Superman is taking the day off from protecting Metropolis and it’s front-page news at the Daily Planet. While he’s off, the expectation is that Metropolis will have criminals coming out of the woodwork to cause trouble. The city isn’t entirely undefended by others but what this offers is a chance for friends and family to come from afar to help out, such as Supergirl, Flash, and Black Canary to deal with some of the problems like Chemo and some new upstarts along the way. But the part that’s always included, and should be as we’ve seen earlier in this series, is the rise of the citizens to stand against what’s coming. They know Superman is always there for them and rely on him but they’re also intent on being there when he isn’t or when he’s in need. So it’s a small scene but one that I’m always glad to see included.
As for Superman himself, we get an interesting excursion for him. This isn’t really time off but he’s stepped up to help Atlas and the burden that he handles. The mythology aspects tied into the real world and superheroes always leaves me a little off, which is why I’ve struggled with Wonder Woman at times, but I like how this unfolds. Atlas has to lay down his burden briefly in order to give his daughter away in marriage in Olympus and only Superman could really handle the burden. It’s not the same burden, hence how Zeus set things, but it challenges him as he does what Atlas thought nobody else would do and step up to help out when he was in real need. Atlas is amusing during this as he’s mostly serious but he absolutely loved seeing how surprised Zeus was as he never expected anyone to take over for Atlas. But that just further reinforces that the gods don’t understand Superman.
In Summary:
This was a fun issue in seeing Superman’s friends helping out around the city and the positivity that comes from them and the citizenry in dealing with it. Superman’s efforts have really turned a sprawling place like Metropolis into a community where everyone works together and looks out for each other. It’s fun to watch as this plays out and seeing the concern initially from Perry White over it since they’re basically advertising they’re without protection. Superman’s story itself with Atlas has its own points to make that I do like and Venditti handles all the different things floating through this installment well, even giving us two pages of Mentallo material so we get a better understanding of what he’s being prepped for. A solid book that while not my favorite looking of the run handles a lot of it very well.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 12+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology and Kindle
Release Date: July 20th, 2020
MSRP: $0.99
