Well, if you’ve seen my comic reading backlog, you’ll know I am a little behind in my reading. I’m chugging through about 5 to 6 a night though, so I’ll hopefully catch up soon I’ll try to read a few releases from last Wed tonight, just to keep things fresh.

DC has been promoting the return of James Robinson to the company like it is the second comic of Jesus Christ. Robinson had a fantastic run on Starman several years ago, so expectations for his return to comics are understandably quite high.

I have to say that this first issue of his Superman run is rather disappointing though. The issue is designed as a bit of a jumping on point for new readers, but I don’t think it really delivers on this front either. The issue starts with Superman and Green Lantern having a chat in space while playing Frisbee with Krypto. Now, obviously with a comic like Superman suspension of disbelief is somewhat of a necessity, but people talking in the vacuum of space is very dumb. Also, we know that Superman doesn’t need to breath while in space, but for some inexplicable reason he is wearing a helmet made of Green Lantern energy! Anyway, Superman and Green Lantern have a chat about relationships, and Superman starts talking about how lucky he is has to have Louis in his life, and a great dog like Krypto (no mention of Chris Conner though). This is pretty much the most obvious set up I have ever read to someone kidnapping a super hero’s loved ones.

The rest of the comic is taken up with the Science Police of Metropolis battling an unknown enemy that is attacking the city. The scene is narrated by their commanding officer, who describes the battle and talks at length about the officers under his command. This is pretty pointless, as these are just incidental, disposable characters. The CO talks in a really annoying staccato rhythm, like a really bad Bendis ‘talking head’ reject “O’Brian: Big. Bad. The Best. I trust him. How far?” The monster in said battle is then taken down by someone who we are lead to believe is Superman, but it turns out to be a baddie called Atlas, who also catches the Daily Planet globe after it falls of the building’s roof during the battle. Wow, original! You’d think the Planet staff would fix that globe on a little better, as it’s fallen off so many times! Atlas then issues a challenge to Superman, who hears it from space (WTF!) and rushes to Metropolis.

The whole comic took me 4 minutes to read, which breaks one of my primary rules: it should take 15 minutes to read a $2.99 comic. If it doesn’t, you are obviously getting ripped off. the worst bit of writing is when a text box describes Green Lantern as something like: Green Lantern, master of the green. I’m not looking forward to the rest of the run, I am afraid we are going to find that James Robinson has gone the way of Jeff Loeb, in that he produced a couple of really good titles a few years ago, then just kept knocking out absolute garbage, but still kept getting work. Let us not forget that James Robinson also wrote the terrible screen play to the movie adaptation of Alan Moore’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

Grade: 3 out of 10

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