You Know What This Issue Is.
In a story arc that is already taking some criticism for being a waste of both Superman's and readers' time, this issue comes along to dump a whole barrel of fuel onto the fire. No one needs to read this issue. As anyone can plainly see from the cover, this is the abusive father/husband issue, and it plays out exactly you expect it to. There is nothing more going on here. There is no twist to the story. It is your textbook child abuse story that you have already read or seen dozens of time.
What little does exist as a B-story to this issue isn't anything special either. Superman takes some grief from civilians for being dangerous because of his presence and has some bad dream about being unable to save the world. Yes, there is a mysterious stranger involved to, but it doesn't amount to much. We still have Superman being plagued with artificial self-doubt. What is Superman's problem again? Was that ever established? I mean, we can't seriously be expected to believe that lady's rant about him not curing cancer prompted all this self-doubt or that it just suddenly dawned on him that he does attract an element of danger and can't save every single person. And isn't it supposed to be the dramatic irony of the character that despite being a powerful alien he is probably the most grounded, human guy you could meet?
But I want to get back to the abusive father story again.
Let's just all be honest here. We don't want this to be a Superman story. We want this to be a Green Arrow story or a Batman story. Or even a Green Lantern story. We don't want to read about Superman stepping into the situation and responsibly bringing it to the attention of the authorities to resolve. No, what we really want is for this story to star the kind of superhero who will beat the hell out of the man and then maybe bring the police into it. I know it's barbaric and not taking the high road morally. But like I said, be honest. Superman's way of handling this kind of situation is not satisfying. You would rather see Green Arrow beat that man with his bow until his arms got tired. And that is the real reason this feels like a pointless issue.
Golden Age Superman would have whooped some ass.
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