the_mighty_monarch's Superman: The Man of Steel #1000000 - Fear and Loathing review

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    Superman: Man, Superman: Of, and Superman: Steel

    The Good: I barely need to say it at this point, but I love the cheesy 90's 3D used in the background of the cover to represent the incomprehensible future of the 853rd century. In addition, Future Superman looks kind of creepy here due to the odd spindly shadows, which does a good job representing the baseless paranoia that the Hourman VIrus generates.
    Although the art itself could use some work, the panel layouts are actually pretty nice. There's a lot of great use of many small panels to create some very smooth or tense pacing at the right moment.
     Since the Metal Men don't have their own series, but do serve a vaguely important role to some of the pacing of this crossover, Man of Steel is probably the best series to have them in. Because of the whole 'metal'/'steel' thing.
    Future Superman isn't on top of his game at all. He shows us exactly what it means to BE Superman. He's rapidly losing his powers, now at a level even below current Superman, but he still faces adversity and fights on to his last breath. You really get a great sense of just how desperate he becomes over the course of this issue.
    The haunting truth to Solaris' true plan is realized. Future Superman is crushed by the overwhelming irony he's been forced into enacting. And it's good to see how we get different scraps of information along the way. No issue feels completel useless because none of them retread already covered ground.

    The Bad: The art is decent, but not consistently so. There's a lot of panels that don't exactly look great, and overall it's not that impressive at all. It's serviceable.
    Not too much really happens in this issue. Superman sets out to stop the missile, and gets to the missile. And the story feels a bit disjointed. We never get too into the whole 'public mistrust' thing once it's established. The scenes creating this idea were well done, but we never get to see too much of it in action.
    Basically, this issue has some pacing issues when it comes to three major points. This issue almost feels like it's a conglomeration of 3 mini stories told as one. The beginning tells the story of Metropolis distrusting Future Superman, the second is Future Superman vs.  the Metal Men, and the third is Future Superman trying to stop one of Vandal Savage's missiles. Each ministory has it's own beginning middle and end, rising action and a climax. It makes the pacing of the issue has a whole feel very up and down like waves.
     
    In Conclusion: 3/5
    It does move along some key elements, but the pacing makes none of this issue feel particularly climactic. Each scene has great pacing in and of itself, but there's too big of a divide between them. There's some big things I enjoy about each section, but as a whole they don't exactly mesh that well.

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