Superman #677

Maybe it's just that between All Star Superman and Action Comics, Superman fans have been spoiled recently but I thought that James Robinson's first issue of Superman was pretty much a complete dud.

The opening conversation between Superman and Hal Jordan set the tone for the rest of the comic: not only did it feel forced but their whole conversation about Hal's experiences with alien women and ultimately just how very, very lucky Clark was to have Lois and his bestest pal Krypto, was terribly handled. If it's function is to foreshadow some looming tragedy involving Lois Lane then it came across as far too blatantly obvious, if not it just came across as simply being clumsily written.

Badly written as that exchange may have been, it is the narration in this issue that really lets the side down. First we have a couple of pages narrated by Krypto (!), which seemed to serve absolutely no purpose whatsoever, followed by narration by Hal Jordan sounding nothing like Hal Jordan and finally the grossly overwritten narration from the captain of the Metropolis Science Police (or whatever they were called), which was occasionally interrupted by old style third-party exposition narration.    

Add to all this, a thoroughly uninvolving plotline, bad characterization and very little of any real interest and we have a comic whose strongest point is its decent but far from mind blowing artwork.

I'm willing to give the guy who wrote the Golden Age, one of the best arcs from Legends of the Dark Knight (Blades) and, of course, Starman the benefit of the doubt that he was simply finding his groove with the book but if things don't improve exponentially soon, Geoff Johns would be wise to distance his excellent work on Action Comics from its sister title.