Superman #702 (October, 2010)
"Grounded, Part Two"
Writer - J. Michael Straczynski
Penciller - Eddy Barrows
Inker - J.P. Mayer
Colorist - Rod Reis
Letterer - John J. Hill
Assistant Editor - Wil Moss
Editor - Matt Idelson
Cover Price: $2.99
Sometimes I'm not sure what books I ought to review. As luck would have it, I noticed an odd surge of traffic on my Superman #701 review yesterday... be those hits the result of spam-bots or humans, I dunno... and for this preamble, it doesn't really matter.
I decided to take a look at the review, and boy... it turns out I really didn't like that issue! I only checked it out to see if my opinion had changed since 2010... and, it kinda did... for the worse! I merely disliked it at first... this time, I actually hated it!
Anyhoo... all that to say, that odd bit of traffic inspired me to check out part two of Superman's walk across America. Let's hit it and git it.
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Superman has arrived in Detroit... and after passing a neighborhood fella who doesn't even the brim of his cap when he walks by, he decides to school some fools on the basketball court. The whole scene is written in such a way to make one wannabe baller "Markey G." look good in front of his pals. Superman lets Markey swat the ball out of his hand... and his buddies do everything but hoist him up on their shoulders to celebrate. Cartoony, but fun. Probably the best scene of the arc so far!
He continues walking... and is attracted to a particular house by the sound of a strange humming. He finds an evasive middle-aged man standing on the lawn. Superman gets in his face and accuses him of perhaps having gills instead of lungs... then threatens to use his x-ray vision to look for himself. The man invites Superman inside so he can explain. Upon entry, he finds himself attacked by a big black warsuit!
Barrows continues with the heavy-lifting here... this scene looks really great. Superman handily takes the warsuit down.
The man is joined by a few others, and they reveal themselves to be alien scientists from the delicious Nutella galaxy. They fled to Earth to escape tyranny... which gives JMS the opportunity to make a pithy "illegal immigration" reference. The Hazelnut and Cocoa clan compare themselves to Superman who was sent here from Krypton... and we begin to split hairs. Superman says he came from a planet that was exploding... and the aliens say that death is preferable to tyranny. Ay yai yai.
Superman asks what they can contribute to Earth... and they offer that, no kidding, they are good at finding lost pets. Superman suggests they aim a bit higher... if they're planning on sticking around, they'd best get to making some real contributions to society. Then he leaves... and tells the aliens that he hasn't decided what he's going "to do about" them. Wow.
Next stop, the industrial graveyard. Superman strolls the abandoned automotive plants. He is joined by an elderly fella named Charley who acts as security. He talks about the glory days of Detroit, and the smell of molten steel signifying the "future". He knows the city is down... but, is thankful that he's still employed. That's not something many of his peers can say. He asks Superman to fly for him... as it's something he's never seen. Worth mentioning that his chatter is intermittently interrupted by coughing... and as Superman takes his leave, Charley begins to choke!
Superman rushes back and grabs him... flying him straight back to the Nutella house. He says that the man is beyond any Earth medicine... but, perhaps not beyond theirs. They bring him to their underground lab and place him into a crystalline pod.
While he's healing, one of the aliens asks Superman if this makes them "square". Will this be enough of a contribution from their kind to warrant their being left alone. Superman strokes his chin... and has a pretty wild idea. Like, really wild. The aliens wind up moving into the abandoned plants where they can further their research. One of the aliens names is Dokko... so, they start a corporation called DokkCo., and even better still, they'll be hiring all of the laid-off auto workers to handle the equipment! Wow, talk about a win-win-win. For the grand-opening... like, the same (or maybe the next) day, Clark Kent is there to report for the (Metropolis) Daily Planet. Is there more than one Planet? Anyhoo, he is greeted by... Charley!
We wrap up with Superman on the phone with Lois, and he discusses how difficult it was for him to write about himself... hmm. She asks if he's heard from any of his friends... from the hero community, that is. He replies that they probably think he's crazy. And like clockwork, we close out with an appearance from... Batman!
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Perhaps it's faint praise, but this was quite the improvement over the first chapter. Still not anything I'd call "good", but I didn't want to run it through the paper-shredder post-reading... so, at least there's that.
Let's start at the beginning. The pickup basketball game was fun. Silly, sure... but fun. Superman lets the perceived "weak link" of the crew bat the ball from his hands... which is probably the most "Superman" as he'll act for quite a while. Good scene.
Then... we get Superman busting the chops of some aliens. I really thought the whole purpose of this walk was to get more in touch with "regular people". Oh well, maybe this is just a way of illustrating that alien flop-houses (at least this alien flop-house) might've gone under his radar before now. I get the feeling that JMS started with the illegal immigration "punchline" then wrote backwards from there. Anybody who has read his Amazing Spider-Man knows he sometimes bends over backwards to make politicized statements... even to the point of having characters who have never been depicted as being political making out-of-nowhere statements. Ever wonder how Aunt May votes? Me neither... but read JMS's ASM, and you'll know!
The issue only gets more unreal from here. Superman threatens Dokko and his kin... placing himself in a position of authority over them. Telling them he'll be back when he figures out what to do with them... thaaaaaat, just doesn't seem right. Could you imagine living in fear of freakin' Superman 24-hours a day? First, what gives him the right? Superman doesn't act like this... right? I mean, am I completely off-base? Second, Superman is suspicious of the Nutella aliens... but leaves them with their warsuit??? If he really thinks they might become "a problem" wouldn'tcha figure he'd confiscate their giant-killer-robot-suit?
The bits with Charley weren't bad. He gives Superman the tour of the industrial graveyard... which begs the question, does Superman... who is also a mild-mannered reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper... really not know the horrendous state of Detroit's industry? Is this really news to him?
Anyhoo... Charley starts to die... perhaps a result of breathing in melted steel fumes (too bad this didn't happen in the Golden Age... it would've given him superpowers!)... and Superman brings him to the alien flop-house so he can be placed in a miracle pod... which gives Superman the idea that the aliens can become captains of research and industry... like the very next day! Aren't there permits and stuff that need to be filled out for that?
And, let's think about these plants... are they going to be full of these miracle pods and stuff of the like? Wouldn't that make more than a few eyebrows raise? Also... did Charley have a form of cancer... and did the aliens cure it? Like, are we witnessing the cure for cancer being introduced in the DC Universe? That seems like something they'd ordinarily shy away from, right? Maybe I'm just thinking too hard.
Finally... Lois and Clark chat on the phone. He says he finds it difficult to write about himself... but, aren't like at least 2/3 of his articles about Superman? That's like Peter Parker saying he feels weird taking pictures of Spider-Man! Speaking of Spidey... it's so crazy that JMS was so great at writing a fun and relatable Spider-Man, but writes Superman as a pompous ass. Oh well.
Worth reading? For the morbidly curious... sure. Otherwise, we should make like DC and maybe pretend it never happened.
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Superman #701 (September, 2010)
"Grounded, Part One"
Writer - J. Michael Straczynski
Penciller - Eddy Barrows
Inker - J.P. Mayer
Colorist - Rod Reis
Letterer - John J. Hill
Assistant Editor - Wil Moss
Editor - Matt Idelson
Cover Price: $2.99
Remember that time, back a few years before the New-52! when Superman left Earth to futz around on New Krypton? Yeah, me neither... because I kinda walked away around that time.
Remember at the end of that story where we were told that the same guy who saved Spider-Man from the Byrne/Mackie reboot was going to do the same thing for the Man of Steel? That I remember, because it led to me buying Superman books again.
Remember when we all got through the first issue and sorta scratched our heads and furrowed our brows? Well, if you don't... you're about to.
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It's the south side of Philadelphia, and a few neighborhood fellas are gathered around the open hood of an old pickup truck. They know there's something wrong with the rig, but just can't agree on what. A passerby sticks his head in and suggests they take a look at the fuel line. Well, how in the world would a random dude know what's wrong? Well, if that dude's got x-ray vision... ya may wanna listen to what he's gotta say.
Superman has just started his walking tour of the United States, and in the excitement, he finds himself hounded by the press. Nobody can seem to wrap their head around why the Man of Steel is just... walking. And by nobody, I mean in and out of this book. The reporters posit that he might be on some sort of secret mission... or maybe he was exposed to "Red K" and lost his powers. Red K? Isn't this post-Crisis? Did Red Kryptonite (besides the Mxy-made stuff) come back and I missed it/forgot? One especially portly reporter suggests that Superman can no longer fly, and he's kind of a jerk about it. To prove him wrong... and up the ante on jerkiness, Superman grabs him and flies him ten-thousand feet into the sky. Wow, you... er, showed 'em, Supes!
As he walks away from the press gang, he is approached by a very special reporter... Lois Lane. She asks what's going on, and even questions if he had been exposed to "Red K"... oy. She asks what he's planning... and how she can explain his absence. All valid questions, however, some might be missing... What's the big idea? Didn't you just get back from New Krypton? Are you really leaving me for another year? Are we still married? Ya know, stuff like that.
We hop scenes to a small diner... and I think the young man with the camera around his neck is supposed to be Peter Parker. JMS wrote Spider-Man, donchaknow. Anyhoo, inside Superman is considering what he should have for lunch. He really wants a Philly cheese steak, but only has enough cash for a small salad. I know I'm not Superman or anything, but that just feels like poor planning. The waitress tells him it's on the house, but he insists that he pay. He cleans their stock room in exchange for a meal. After all, he's just an ordinary dude... who can organize a stock room in less than a second.
That night he runs afoul of a group of drug dealers. One especially stupid one gets right in his face. The dealer just starts laying into Superman... telling him there's nothing he can do to stop them... or even scare them. In response, Superman uses his x-ray vision to locate all of the illegal drugs in the neighborhood... and setting them on fire with his heat vision.
The dealers scatter trying to save their stashes... and a... okay, we're going to do this one straight. A young boy approaches Superman and offers him a piece of candy to thank him. Superman then... sigh... tells the little kid that he wants him to deliver a message to the drug dealers for him. Tell them that Superman's got his eye on them. Sounds like a splendid idea, don't it? You send a tiny little kid up to the angry and armed drug dealer... to... deliver a threat?! What in all the hells is Superman thinking? In the nearly 500 posts on this blog, I've really done my best not to curse... this is probably the most tempted I've been to break that streak.
With that nonsense out of the way, Superman... continues to walk. He catches some stupid teenagers about to run a red light, and checks out an older man's heart... and then, and then, he comes upon... the jumper. There is a crowd gathered at the foot of a building. Police are trying to keep someone from jumping... and Superman decides to check it out. He meets a young lady who has had a pretty rough time of late. She says she won't talk to him unless he promises to let her jump if she decides to... and, oh boy, he does.
The police on the ground are confused... and so am I. She lists her grievances, her mother recently passed, she didn't grow up to change the world, her high school dreams never came true, she has to work in a cubicle... all that quarter-life crisis stuff. Superman's words of wisdom are tantamount to: Life's tough. Wow, I'm suddenly inspired to throw myself off of something high.
And so, he and the jumper stare at each other all day and into the night. Superman finally speaks and tells her that... get this... if she thinks she'll never have a "happy day", then she should jump! This has got to be a prank, right? Like, Superman's just trolling us... right? Anyway, the girl realizes that she'll probably wind up having another "happy day", and so she doesn't kill herself.
On the ground, an officer asks Superman if he's have really let her jump... and Superman doesn't answer. Are you... kidding me? Not even a wink? This is bad, you guys.
The issue wraps up with... oh God, not this scene. Superman is approached by an ordinary guy who asks him why he's not... ya know, being super. Instead of giving a friendly... or at least a non-confrontational... response, Superman starts quoting Thoreau. Who is this pompous horse's ass... and why is he wearing Superman's costume?! Thankfully, this is where we get off the walking tour.
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You guys...
...
sigh...
Well, that was the first part of Grounded. This is the first time I cracked the cover on this one since the Summer of 2010... and, holy hell... I'm more annoyed at it now than I was back then! I mean, at the time we didn't realize that (had the New-52! not petered out) this was going to be one of the final storylines for this version and volume of Superman (then again... neither did DC, regardless of what they say). With hindsight, maybe I'm judging this more harshly than I otherwise would... though, that's not to say this was anything less than dull, preachy, pretentious... and just wildly unpleasant. Let's also remember that this was the only Superman book at this time, Action Comics had been taken over by Lex Luthor.
Let's start with Superman sending a neighborhood boy into danger to "send a message". We've got Superman burning up the stashes for a gaggle of drug dealers... and then asks a boy to deliver a message to them. Let's play that out... Superman just sent a kid to talk to... threaten, actually... a group of angry, dangerous, violent... armed (!) drug dealers! Good lookin' out, Supes. Pathetic.
Next, Superman and the jumper. Superman has always been a symbol of hope... an inspiration to we "mere mortals"... and here we have him giving a hopeless young lady a "take it or leave it" kinda speech, rather than anything inspiring. He's all, Yeah life's tough... if you wanna die, then die... if not, don't. What the hell is that? That's not Superman. Gotta say, I never wanna see J. Michael Straczynski try and talk anyone off a ledge.
Remember how during the preamble I mentioned that Superman was futzin' off planet for a long while? Well, now that he's back... instead of being with, ya know... his wife... he sets out on an interminable self-indulgent walking tour. Yeah, Lois... see ya in a couple years... ya know, unless our continuity gets erased in the interim.
And Superman quoting Thoreau? Good friggin' night! What pretentious holier-than-thou garbage is this... and why is it coming out of Superman's mouth? Do you see Superman as a guy who would lecture ordinary people in a way that would make them feel inferior? I don't. This is such a bad issue, folks...
Speaking of Superman as superior... how about that scene at the beginning where he gives those glib answers to the reporters. It's so strange that the entire point of this ridiculous story is to put Superman at the same level as the ordinary American/Human... and he talks to these people like they are so far below him. Glib and dismissive... that is, unless you question his motives... then he'll fly you into orbit to "put you in your place". What an ass.
I will say... it looks pretty. Eddy Barrows and company do a ridiculous amount of heavy lifting here... but it's still not enough to make this something I'd ever suggest people should check out.
Millennium... you're off the hook!
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