“Tales of the Bizarro World” — featuring stories of the defective Superman clones and characters of the Superman universe — was a big favorite of mine when it appeared in Adventure Comics in 1961-62. The idea of an inverted world has passed from Superman comic books into pop culture, even showing up on an episode of Seinfeld.

This story, which originally appeared in Adventure #291, was reprinted with several others in Superman #202 (1968), an 80-Page Giant issue, which used as its theme the topsy-turvy Bizarro World stories. (It is also the only silver age comic book I bought in 2013, when I searched my collection and could not find it. Me hate it when that happens!) The Bizarro stories were also collected in a trade paperback a few years ago.

“The Bizarro Perfect Crimes” was written by Jerry Siegel and drawn by John Forte. At the time the series ended its 15 issue run I was extremely disappointed and stopped buying Adventure Comics, which means I missed out on the popular “Legion of Super Heroes” feature that took Bizarro’s spot. It went on to be a very collectible series. In that way it was a Bizarro thing for me to do.

This is the second of our three-part Spacey Stories theme week.

The Superman titles have course-corrected a lot in the beginning of the New 52, after George Perez left, Dan Jurgens and others filled in for a while, and Scott Lobdell came on and almost immediately turned to the "H'el on Earth" crossover. In this way, Superman Vol. 4: Psi-War marks really the first dedicated Superman-centric volume of the definitive New 52 Superman, by Lobdell and Supergirl's Mike Johnson (while Lobdell filled in on Action Comics).

The result is a mixed bag; not perfect, but nothing I'd dismiss out of hand. The up side is that Lobdell's chapters focuses a lot on Clark Kent -- somewhat under-used so far in the New 52 -- though at points even I felt maybe there was too much Clark here. Johnson's actual "Psi-War," once the book gets to it, is a fairly rousing story (conceptually if not in practice), but the good Clark focus also makes for slow-going to get there, and the eventual absence of artist Kenneth Rocafort definitely detracts. Ultimately, however, I really like Lobdell's iteration of Superman, and that's enough to keep me enthusiastic about the half-dozen or so issues left in his run after this book.

[Review contains spoilers]

Lobdell uses Lois, Jimmy, and Perry better than they have been in the first two New 52 Superman volumes. Lobdell's Lois really shines here, and I thought Lobdell also illustrated Clark and Lois's current relationship, and what it means that they're "best friends," better than it's been addressed so far in the New 52. It's Lobdell's unenviable task to normalize the improbable Superman/Wonder Woman relationship begun in Justice League, but Lobdell does well both in an awkward dinner party where "Diana Prince" meets Clark's Daily Planet colleagues, and also when Wonder Woman comes to Superman's aid to fight a "menace" that turns out to be the New God Orion.

This dinner party, however, is emblematic of Psi-War's extended slow start. I'm a Lois and Clark fan from way back (digital comic series, please!) and I don't mind Clark and the Daily Planet played as a workplace drama, but an entire issue where the greatest threat is Clark's supporting cast acting out of character doesn't get my pulse racing. This is preceded by an issue where Superman mainly catches people jumping off rooftops, and followed by an issue where Superman fights Orion (when we know it's a misunderstanding) and an issue where Superman confronts his friends acting strangely for a second time.

I appreciate that Lobdell demonstrates the mental attacks of villain Hector Hammond and others through the characters' emotions and not something more overwrought, but it struck me as too much of Clark thinking about stuff and not enough Clark or Superman involved in real intrigue.

With Psi-War, Johnson contributes to a long-standing tradition of Superman "wars," no less than the "Blaze/Satanus War," "Fall of Metropolis," Our Worlds at War, War of the Supermen, and so on. And the "Psi-War" acquits itself well, most specifically when it becomes not a two-front but rather a three-front war; the story would seem to be about Superman versus Hector Hammond and the HIVE Queen, but Johnson complicates it in a surprising manner when he introduces the new Psycho Pirate.

I appreciated that Johnson and Lobdell tied the whole thing back to the Twenty, Metropolis citizens mutated by Brainiac, such that these threats feel intrinsically Superman's rather than just villains that he's fighting. At the same time, while the Queen and Psycho Pirate, as part of the Twenty, have believable motivations, I felt Hammond came off as a typical scheming bad guy, without the truly creepy, stalker-esque persona he had in Geoff Johns's early Green Lantern stories. We also lose Rocafort here for a series of fill-in artists; while the Psycho Pirate's presence is compelling, his actual visual design by a fill-in artist is overdone in a way that makes the entire "Psi-War" threat feel less serious and engaging.

What sells Psi-War for me, in the end, is Lobdell's Clark Kent and Superman. If we set aside Clark's melodramatic march out of the Daily Planet in Superman Vol. 3: Fury at World's End (chalk it up to Lobdell's first Superman at bat), what we find is a likable young guy, a journalist at heart despite having left his job, and with friends he cares about and who care about him. Lobdell's Superman/Wonder Woman relationship doesn't dwell as much on grand superheroics as just on two outsiders who like each other and get along well. Clark here is not perfect, using his powers we might say inappropriately to help his partner Cat Grant get a story, but indeed I don't mind a Superman a bit more realistically fallible (and I'm not sure Dean Cain's Superman wouldn't have done the same).

And Lobdell's Superman, in contrast to a number of other Supermans, flies in planes and ride subways and makes coffee in a coffee pot specifically because he could do otherwise, but wants to keep his connection to humanity. That Superman cures diseases in the Fortress of Solitude has become something of the de rigueur depiction of Superman these days, but Lobdell's is a wise and kind take that I think distinguishes his run even though it ends after the next volume.

Between Superman Vol. 4: Psi-War and Action Comics Vol. 4: Hybrid, the latter is the better book, with satisfying stories that test both Clark and Superman, well-illustrated to boot. But Scott Lobdell and Mike Johnson's Psi-War succeeds in many ways that the New 52 Superman books have not so far, and both books lead me to feel that Superman is more on track than he has been in a while.

Action Comics Vol. 4: Hybrid is the first great Superman collection of the New 52 (set in "modern times"; Grant Morrison's "five years earlier" Action Comics goes into a category of its own). Even despite the comings and goings behind the scenes, leading to the book's three or four different writers, Andy Diggle, Scott Lobdell, and the rest succeed in presenting a Superman youthful but classic, powerful yet human, and most of all, impressive. The book is helped handily by Tony Daniel and Tyler Kirkham, along with a team of inkers and colorists, who bring an almost painterly, super-dynamic tone to the pages that sets all the stories here apart.

[Review contains spoilers]

Diggle makes the wise choice of setting the titular three-part story, "Hybrid," one year in the past, such to neither impinge on or be hampered by Morrison's "early days" Superman stories nor the "Clark Kent, blogger/dating Wonder Woman" stories of Scott Lobdell's present. The result is a "back to basics" Superman story that would appeal to the most casual of fans -- one that involves Clark Kent, Lois Lane, and Jimmy Olsen, reporters for the Daily Planet, and with Lex Luthor as the main antagonist. Diggle is even able, without stepping too much on modern-day toes, to make this a "missed connections" story about Clark and Lois's romance, and it dovetails nicely, ultimately, with the opening pages of George Perez's Superman Vol. 1: What Price Tomorrow?

Lex Luthor has been a bit of a sticky widget now three years into the New 52. We've seen Lex Luthor, businessman, in the pages of Morrison's Action and Lex Luthor, imprisoned criminal, in the pages of Lobdell's Superman, but how Lex got there and what the general relationship is between Superman and Lex has been conspicuously absent in the modern-day Superman stories. Diggle's story, at least until someone else contradicts it, would seem to fill in that gap, enjoyably as a story but maybe a little too neatly -- Lex, having harbored a grudge against Superman for the past five years (since the "Morrison days") finally attacks Superman one year ago, Superman defeats him, and Lex goes to jail and remains there until we see him in Lobdell's Superman Vol. 3. That answers all the questions, though one battle seems not a lot for the amount of security Lex has in Superman Vol. 3, and for the enmity between Superman and Lex.

But again, Diggle's story is enjoyable, and the Lex plot within favorably reminds of the same in John Byrne's Superman work. Diggle's role as writer lessens and artist Tony Daniel's grows as the story continues; arguably one could note there's more large panels toward the end of the story where the art is filling in for lack of story, but also again, Daniel's Superman work here is so dynamic -- and demonstrably different, I think, from his Batman work -- to make even this excess palatable.

Scott Lobdell pens a two-issue "modern day" story, filling in presumably for the sudden departure of Diggle from the title. "Fill in" is a good word for the story, which sees Superman called off-planet to join alien freedom fighters against a cosmic menace -- what seems, at least as far as this volume, "just" a Superman story and not anything with imperative connection to Superman's ongoing adventures. But, Lobdell seems far more comfortable here than in his first outing in Superman Vol. 3, which was at times over-narrated and over-dialogued, and his Superman is funny, sarcastic, irreverent, and still devoutly, devoutly heroic. If the pre-Flashpoint Superman was one you'd want to have a glass of milk with, Lobdell's Superman is one you'd want to have a beer with (or at least a Soder Cola), and from whom you'd walk away thinking he was no less Superman.

What "relevance" the story lacks is also helped again by the artist, this time Tyler Kirkham. Kirkham delivers some impressively detailed aliens, and especially the hulking space monster (if unfortunately named) Lexus, all given greater dynamism by the inkers and colorists. Kirkham offers here a more angular, less animated style than his Green Lantern: New Guardians work, again giving the sense that everyone involved with this volume is working at a higher level.

The book finishes with the five-part "World of Krypton" backups from Action and other Super-titles, mainly written by Frank Hannah, who also recently wrote a good issue of Supergirl. It's the story of Jor-El and Lara foiling a military coup, set when the two have just met and don't like each other, and that dynamic is delightful (begging for a sequel). Hannah is aware of his story and knows who the audience expects the Kryptonian "Colonel" to turn out to be, and I was pleased that his ending twists this slightly such to meet reader expectations, and also not to erode some good character work that Geoff Johns and others did as regards these Kryptonians in the pre-Flashpoint "New Krypton" books.

Diggle's Superman/Wonder Woman Young Romance story, also collected here, squirms in the general ill-definition of the extent and seriousness of this relationship (no fault of Diggle's, but rather that the relationship emerged in-organically from Justice League), though I appreciate the string of continuity notes that ties the story to both characters' titles. It's fine enough for a "young romance" story. Also included here is Action Comics #24, part of the "Psi-War" story going on in Superman, which I skipped in order to read later in conjunction with Superman Vol. 4: Psi-War (the final page, I noticed, directs the reader from this trade to that, though in reading it seems some of Superman Vol. 4 takes place before Action Comics Vol. 4, and then some after).

There's no basis here to really be optimistic about Superman's future, since none of the creators in Action Comics Vol. 4: Hybrid continue to the next volume. At the same time, the book's new writer is Greg Pak, who did well enough on the first volume of Batman/Superman, so maybe Action Vol. 4 will be the start of something after all. Irrespective, if the New 52 Superman hasn't appealed to you so far, this is the book I'd suggest picking up, one that I think will please new and old Superman fans alike.

[Includes original and promotional covers, "WTF" gatefold cover image]

Next up indeed is Superman Vol. 4: Psi-War. Don't miss it!

Grant Morrison's Action Comics run has been a pleasant mix of modern and throwback sensibilities -- modern, of course, in the New 52 costume and origins, and retro in the 1940s industrial settings (a callback to Action Comics's beginnings) with 1950s Elvis swagger and a heavy dose of 1960s-1970s Silver Age weirdness. But though Morrison's Action has sometimes felt a little metatextual around the edges, the series really hasn't offered full-blown Grant Morrison wobbliness ... until now.

Superman: Action Comics Vol. 3: At the End of Days is a fantastic conclusion to Morrison's Action run, exciting and moving but also a thorough head-trip as only Grant Morrison can deliver. As with Morrison's Batman, the big ideas in Action have started small, but by this third volume they're nearly ballooning off the page and out of this dimension.

[Review contains spoilers]

Volume one of Action Comics was a Brainiac/Luthor/Metallo story; in volume two, Morrison reimagined Captain Comet as a sort of post-human prophet. The quick concept of volume three is that Morrison writes a Mxyzptlk story, but surely, surely this book is more than that, especially since Mxy is central to the story but appears almost not at all. I'd even venture that At the End of Days goes down as one of the all-time classic Mxyzptlk stories, even despite that Superman largely fights Vyndktvk and his minions most of the way through.

Many of the themes that have made Morrison's Seven Soldiers, Batman, and Final Crisis so interesting are also blended in to Action. We have a multi-dimensional attack, a spear thrust from another universe that becomes marauding angels in ours (see also Final Crisis's bullet shot through time). Superman's adventures are ultimately a story being told by a jester for others' amusement (again, Final Crisis, the Monitors, and limbo; also that we are, by implication, a dimension looking in on the comics dimension). We learn that Vyndktvk has been taking revenge on Clark Kent for something done in the future by attacking Clark throughout his past (Batman's hole in everything and again the selfsame magic bullet). Vyndktvk is defeated ultimately by a kind of worldwide collective consciousness, hearkening here all the way back to Morrison's JLA. And it certainly seemed for a while that Vyndktvk was the Devil (and maybe he was), not unlike Batman's Dr. Hurt.

I don't begrudge Morrison revisiting these themes at all. Quite to the contrary, I'm glad to revisit these themes through the guise of Superman (at times I think DC ought just give both Superman and Batman to Morrison and let him go wild). I am less immediately familiar with Morrison's All-Star Superman, but undoubtedly there's some overlap between that and Action Comics, too; certainly anyone who was concerned at the outset of the New 52 that the new Superman would be more ornery than heroic need only look at Superman's constant concern for the people around him to find some kinship with All-Star.

Indeed what always impresses me about Morrison is that despite how ultra-cerebral his stories are, he's equally able to write character and emotion within his works. The book starts with a rather charming story that introduces Krypto into the New 52 (and Sholly Fisch's Krypto backup story is equally delightful). Morrison also recasts the classic Silver Age Superman story of the Kents' death to include Vyndktvk and the result is distinctly heartbreaking (here again, Fisch's backup is a fine complement).

Action also continues a Morrison tradition where the reader finds themselves in the middle of a puzzle they didn't know they were trying to solve (see also Seven Soldiers). Sure, I took note of Mrs. Nyxly mentioning that Superman's three friends had shown up looking for him, but I'd long-since forgotten that clue by the time I realized Morrison's Action to be a non-linear, time-spanning adventure, a conspiracy from start to finish. I also thought one of the strongest aspects of Morrison's story was his use of Erik Drekken, whose actual battles with Superman are never shown but whose character we come to understand by piecing him together through a variety of time-displaced details.

Early on in Action Comics I felt there were some mildly distracting art shifts between Rags Morales and Brad Walker. By this volume, however, the changes are much cleaner, and indeed often the artists' work appears side-by-side on the same page, reflecting Superman's past, present, and future. Whether this was originally intended or a patch due to artist schedules, it's an effect that works quite well in these pages.

Morrison hits one key continuity note in this conclusion, heavily referencing Doomsday and the death of Superman. There's an interesting twist in that the characters refer to red skies on the day Superman died (and indeed it's never said directly that "Doomsday killed Superman," so much as they reference Superman dying with a Doomsday-like Vyndktvk avatar on the page); there's a moment in the third chapter where Mrs. Nyxly looks directly at the camera and seems to be referencing Crisis on Infinite Earths just the same as she could be talking about present events (or even Final Crisis?).

"Doomed" is currently ongoing in the Super-titles, and I'll be curious if that story builds on what Morrison has set up here, or if Morrison's story was intentionally vague precisely because how and by whose hand Superman died in the New 52 is still up in the air.

I haven't generally felt that Grant Morrison's New 52 Action Comics run has received as much acclaim as Scott Snyder's Batman or Brian Azzarello's Wonder Woman, but I think it's equally worthy. Action Comics Vol. 3: At the End of Days especially, solidifies Morrison's Action run as firmly a part of the Morrison canon. To be sure, all of this is plenty to whet my appetite for Morrison's Multiversity.

[Includes original and variant covers, character and cover sketches. Also the Phantom Stranger. Also Vartox!]

[Guest reviewer Nick Slicer blogs at The Culture Cast with Zack and Nick]

When I first learned of the H'el On Earth storyline, I was extremely excited. Not only was it going to be the first "Super-Crossover" of the New 52, but a new, lengthy adventure for the Man of Steel. Growing up with the Superman comics from the '90s, I love to find myself sitting down and becoming invested in a giant Superman epic. I was primed for Superman: H'el On Earth to accomplish this. Much to my satisfaction, it did.

[Review contains spoilers]

In H'el On Earth, we find Superman contending with Superboy and Supergirl as a mysterious new Krypotian, the titular H'el, appears on the scene. H'el has discovered a way to resurrect Krypton through the use of a time travel contraption; the only problem is it will destroy Earth in the process. Supergirl, restless since coming to Earth, devotes herself to H'el (though she's unaware of his plans for Earth). The story provides a ticking clock as Superman tries to thwart H'el while connecting with Superboy and reasoning with his cousin.

H'el On Earth has a lot going for it. It delves into the backstory of Krypton which is always interesting, especially for a Superman who really doesn't know that much about it. It also gives us the first real interaction between Superman, Supergirl, and Superboy in the New 52. Previously, each has had some minor contact with one another, but nothing on the scale such as this. Because this version of the DC Universe is new, we get to see the building of these relationships. Supergirl is mad at her situation and lashes out towards Superman at how content he is on Earth. It makes sense how easily swayed she becomes with H'el. She's lost all she's even known and now this mysterious guy says he can bring it all back. As a brash teenager, why wouldn't she accept his offer?

Writers Scott Lobdell, Tom DeFalco, and Mike Johnson craft an aura of mystery around H'el. Is he truly from Krypton with ties to Jor-El? Or does he just think that's the case? We are never quite sure, and perhaps H'el isn't either. Unfortunately, this story doesn't go into what's the truth and what isn't (which would have helped flesh out his character greatly). However, what does work is H'el's characterization. He's surely a madman, but you get why he's doing what he's doing. A sympathetic villain is usually the best kind of villain. He wants his planet and people back. And the logic behind his plan actually makes sense: if he goes back in time and stops Krypton's destruction, H'el will create a new timeline where he won't need to destroy Earth to begin with. But H'el cannot be 100% certain that his plan will work, a problem the story probably doesn't explore as much as it should have.

The only major problem I had with H'el (besides the non-reveal of his backstory) was the inconsistency of the backwards S-shield on his chest. In some chapters it's there, other times it isn't. Some characters notice it, but others don't. That it's never fully considered makes me wonder what the point of it was.

H'el On Earth spreads across the Superman, Supergirl, and Superboy titles, and there are times that it feels a bit padded. The story starts out well, but just before the mid-point it starts to spin its wheels. It felt like there were too many chapters where H'el was continuously "almost done" with completing his time machine. I suppose this was meant to show that some of these chapters are happening simultaneously, but in a massive collection like this, things get bogged down. We get some interesting character interactions (particularly between Superman and Superboy), but little story progression occurs. Not helping matters are the few tangents this tale takes us on including a visit to an imprisoned Lex Luthor and a trip inside a pocket dimension. Some of this could have been cut down.

Still for me, Superman: H'el On Earth largely hits all the right notes. The story is exciting and kept my interest throughout. It does suffer from some pacing issues, but this is unfortunately common in the artificial structure of crossovers. And while the story does resolve itself a bit too quickly, it does give readers a story about the "Super-Family" at odds with one another and then overcoming those odds for the greater good. What more can anyone ask for in a Superman story?

[Includes original and sketch variant covers]

It's been a good season for media tie-in comics of late, between Brian Woods's "New Hope" Star Wars continuation, Joe Harris's X-Files Season 10, the rumored Heroes comic, and especially the digital Smallville Season 11 series, of which the first collection of the paper reprints is The Guardian.

Writer Bryan Q. Miller, with artist Pere Perez, writes the new "season" of a television show that fundamentally changed with its finale. Whereas Harris can relatively easily plug Mulder and Scully back into their old roles, Miller must take ten seasons of Smallville and extrapolate from them what kind of Superman Tom Welling's Clark Kent would be, without any direct on-screen cues to indicate how to do so.

What emerges is a good comic -- the best of the DC Comics direct-to-digital comics I've read -- though one that feels more like a Smallville comic than a Smallville show (Guardian is a better comic than X-Files Season 10, too, though the X-Files book is more evocative of its show). Those of us who never thought we'd see "new" Smallville again, however, will hardly be disappointed.

[Review contains spoilers]

The Guardian might've lead Superman fans to think Millerw ould be introducing Jim Harper to Smallville's version of the Cadmus Project. Instead, in true Smallville style, Miller takes the "Guardian" name and applies it to an orbiting defense platform created by Lex Luthor and manned by one Hank Henshaw -- and with Henshaw's introduction, Superman fans definitely know where this one is going.

The story is "Smallville enough" -- Clark first encounters Henshaw as an interview subject, where the two bond over world-saving tendencies. In this, Henshaw would seem to function like characters Milton Fine, John Corben, and Davis Bloom before him -- recurring characters whom the audience gets to know as members of the cast before they transform into Superman villains.

As it turns out, however, Miller structures the story more like a comic than like the television show. Henshaw's "big scene" to interact with the cast is his interview with Clark, and it's not long after that he transforms into the Cyborg villain. What Miller covers in the first volume might've taken the Smallville show a half or whole season. Granted the Cyborg might be back and Miller might indeed be playing a long game, but in the first volume of Smallville Season 11, Hank Henshaw's storyline feels truncated, and he lacks the ties to the cast that were indicative of Smallville to make us care about Henshaw as a character.

At the same time, it may be that Hank Henshaw really isn't the point of The Guardian. The story's real villain, as might be expected, is the newly-resurrected Lex Luthor, and Miller pulls off a Luthor scheme that's right up there with the early days of John Byrne's Lex Luthor. Miller's Superman/Lex Luthor relationship has a classic feel, but also stays true to Smallville -- at the end of the story, Superman goes to Lex in praise of Lex's good deeds, still believing in his old friend despite himself, only to be once again surprised at the depths of Lex's machinations.

Miller doesn't delve so deeply into Smallville continuity that casual watchers will feel lost, but there were a couple references that sent me to the internet, including the alternate "Earth Two" dimension that I barely remembered. Miller also works to smooth out some Smallville continuity issues, like whether or not General Lane knows Clark's identity; on one hand I appreciate this patch-work, but on the other I think trying to understand the glitch might have confused me more than the glitch itself, which I had forgotten.

Again, given that Tom Welling was barely Superman in the series, Miller must create the Smallville Superman almost whole cloth. Miller's Superman is believably a "young Superman" in his self-consciousness and tentativeness, but I wouldn't say Miller's Superman "sounded" like Tom Welling necessarily -- we're not used to hearing the Smallville Blur speak quite as much as Superman does here. (In contrast, Harris keeps the dialogue short and choppy in X-Files Season 10, which I think better mirrors the customs of television.)

Artist Pere Perez's slightly animated style is perfect for this superhero comic. One of the most distracting things about media tie-in comics can be artists trying to achieve resemblance between their images and the on-screen characters, often with disastrous results; Perez, fortunately, only does this occasionally, and mostly with the Superman character. In fact, I was surprised at how off-model, to an extent, Perez's Chloe Sullivan and Tess Mercer were, though I'd prefer this versus trying to swing the pendulum too far the other way.

I felt the Arrow digital series used its episodes poorly, telling too-short and simplistic stories; I liked the ongoing story told in Injustice better, though even there I felt I could tell too easily where the various digital chapters ended and began. Miller gets it just right, cutting the digital chapters (presumably) between scene breaks; with plenty of variations in panel size and layout, I never felt like I wasn't reading a print-first comic.

Bryan Q. Miller and Pere Perez were the creative team of the much beloved Stephanie Brown Batgirl series and it's great to see them on another book; Miller's humor and Perez's fluid lines are each quite right for Smallville's continuation. Smallville Season 11 Vol. 1: The Guardian is more a Superman story told under the auspices of Smallville than a Smallville story proper, but after ten seasons, it might be about time for that. I'm in for the next volume, for sure.

[Includes print, variant, and digital covers; cover sketches; character designs]

Scott Lobdell's first full foray into Superman is imperfect, but there are enough achievements alongside the stumbles in Superman Vol. 3: Fury at World's End to make me optimistic that this book will get better as it goes. By no accounts is the character of Lobdell's Superman the same as the character of John Byrne's Superman, or Dan Jurgens's, or Jeph Loeb's (nor any of Superman's multimedia iterations), nor should it be; rather, love or hate the New 52, it's hard to argue that Lobdell's Superman isn't exactly the Superman that the New 52 calls for.

[Review contains spoilers]

Fury at World's End reveals two somewhat contrary elements inherent in Lobdell's depiction of Superman, which pushed and pulled at my reaction to this book. On one hand, Lobdell's Superman Clark Kent could be easily rejected as being "objectionably flip" in the vein of J. Michael Straczynski's Earth One Superman. This is a Superman who wishes he didn't have to have a day job, who melodramatically quits his job at the Daily Planet, who snoops on Lois Lane's text messages, and who at one point rather blithely puts Superboy in harm's way.

In short, this is a terribly immature and fallible Superman of the kind I imagine many readers don't want to read about. At the same time, taken logically, this is exactly where the New 52 Superman might be at this point in his career -- a little rougher, a little less caring and careful than he might be later. Lobdell's Superman is "year one"-ish Superman (or do we say "zero year"-ish now?), even despite that this depiction is generally inconsistent with his portrayal in Justice League, among other places.

On the other hand, incongruously, Lobdell imbues this depiction of a young Superman at the start of his career with a healthy dose of aged Silver Age imagination. These pages are rife with references to Superman's off-screen adventures -- "the Talking Sun of Alktos Prime" and "the Stream of Eternal Maelstroms," among others, not to mention whatever went down last time between Superman and Lex Luthor. Even if this Superman is something of a jerk to stand and talk to, the culture that Lobdell builds up around his Superman offers shades of Grant Morrison's All-Star Superman -- a cosmic Superman who has sci-fi adventures beyond the limits of human understanding.

In this way, Lobdell demonstrates he understands the greater milieu of Superman, even if Lobdell's Superman doesn't necessarily sound like "my" Superman from page to page. Optimally a comic will have an engaging protagonist and also a strong plot, but if we can't have that, I might accept a comic where the protagonist is sometimes a jerk but the plots are strong, with the hope that the protagonist shapes up as the story continues. And in fairness, Lobdell seems to be aware of the Superman he depicts -- Clark later berates himself (perhaps ad nauseam) for reading Lois's text, and in fact the "star-crossed almost-lovers" relationship Lobdell sets up between Clark and Lois is probably the best the two characters have been since the New 52 began. (As for Clark quitting the Daily Planet, I'm still rooting for this to be the product of mind control.)

Fury is largely made up of the Superman parts of the "H'el on Earth" crossover with the Superboy and Supergirl titles. H'el, surprisingly, emerges as a much stronger villain than the faux Bizarro he appears to be; H'el is instead something like Superman's evil older brother, like a Thomas Wayne for the Superman set. Moreover Lobdell reveals in the end that while H'el's origins might not be what he claims (or even knows himself), his past friendship with Jor-El could actually be genuine.

In this, too, Lobdell offers hints that sticking around for the long-run will pay off. The book starts off with the Superman Zero Month issue in which Lobdell offers a wonderfully sci-fi Krypton, and the inexplicable presence of Superman there, combined with H'el time-traveling schemes, suggest a story to come that's even larger and more ambitious story than just this one piece. That Fury/"H'el on Earth" works, when at first glance it looked like it would not, is what makes me enthusiastic to read Lobdell's second outing on this title.

I have not read "H'el on Earth" in full, but I did not have any problem following the crossover from just the "Superman parts." The part transitions don't tend to be based on crossovers, or at least Lobdell elides the breaks by moving the characters to new locations such that I never felt lost when I started a new chapter. If anything, understandably, the threat of H'el increases too quickly between the pages (given that we're reading every third part) and also the relationship between H'el and Supergirl progresses rather fast; I couldn't quite tell how the Superboy issues really factored into the story, but curious readers might want to pick up the Supergirl issues, at least.

Lobdell's Red Hood and the Outlaws collaborator Kenneth Rocafort provides the art, and as opposed to the story, Rocafort needs no time to find his stride; his sharply angled, sketchy figures are perfect for the science-fiction elements of the story (Superman and Superboy's battle armor looks especially good). The conclusion of this book does offer what I believe to be the first use of "that Crisis pose" in the New 52, in which Superman cradles a seemingly-dead Supergirl in his arms; whether credit for this is Lobdell's or Rocafort's, I'm not sure, but I actually didn't like it. The benefit of the New 52, in my opinion, is to escape the storytelling cliches of the old DC Universe, i.e. creating drama in a scene not because of the scene itself, but by visually referencing a dramatic moment from a comic twenty years past. To begin to make these references again is, in my opinion, a slippery slope toward lazy storytelling.

Taken on its own, Scott Lobdell's first full Superman issue, in which Clark Kent snoops and quits, might be worrisome -- I know it worried me. Taken as part of the whole of Superman Vol. 3: Fury at World's End, however, I see rougher parts of Lobdell's Superman smoothing out and plenty of good stuff already there. I wouldn't proclaim the second coming of the "Triangle Titles" era just yet, but after a rough debut in the New 52, I have more confidence now that Superman is on the right track.

Next week: a review of Talon Vol. 1: Scourge of the Owls!

[Guest reviewer Greg Elias writes for Speed Force]

When Superman vs. Shazam! was released, it marked the first reprint of the top-shelf 1978 DC treasury comic of the same name. Whether intended as a video game tie-in or a companion to Geoff Johns and Gary Frank’s Shazam! hardcover, any excuse for DC to present the balance of Rich Buckler’s Superman/Captain Marvel team-ups is good enough.

The idea of The Man of Steel facing off against The World’s Mightiest Mortal has likely existed since the 1940s, where the two vied for the attention of children at newsstands and drug stores. Without getting into the gory details, DC essentially sued Captain Marvel and Fawcett Publications out of existence in the 1950s and kept the characters in suspended animation, until they acquired their rights in the 1970s.

Analogues of Superman and Captain Marvel appeared in the seminal 1953 Mad Magazine story “Superduperman,” which inverted their heroic qualities and mirrored the legal demise of The Big Red Cheese. Once DC revived The Marvel Family, they were kept separate from the main DC Universe. Superman fought an alternate-Earth Captain Marvel, “Captain Thunder,” in Superman #276, but wouldn’t run into the genuine article until the "Crisis on Multiple Earths" story from Justice League of America #137. Neither of those issues is included here, but that brings us up to the starting point.

Superman vs. Shazam!, originally printed in the 1978 All New Collectors' Edition #C-58 at treasury-size, is simply one of the most satisfying DC stories of the Bronze Age. It is a pure, wide-screen tour-de-force with panel-shattering poundings delivered by both heroes. Buckler, with Dick Giordano on inks, turns in the type of top-flight DC artwork associated with Neal Adams, Mike Grell, and the rest of the best. It is smartly plotted by Gerry Conway, giving readers 72 overflowing pages with multiple confrontations between the title heroes. They’re joined by Supergirl, Mary Marvel, Black Adam, and even the Quarrmer (“Sand Superman”), the latter making his only pre-Crisis appearance outside of the “Kryptonite Nevermore” storyline.

The action also includes the first time Captain Marvel considers using his Magic Lightning to attack Superman, something that would inspire the memorable confrontation in Mark Waid and Alex Ross’s Kingdom Come, as well as the Justice League Unlimited cartoon and even the recent DC Universe video games. Given the cost and assumed condition of most originals, this volume is worth the price of admission for the treasury story alone. It is thrilling, blaringly violent, and revels in the clash of the biggest power players of the DC Multiverse.

The three DC Comics Presents issues that follow, written in part by Conway, Roy Thomas, and Paul Kupperberg, complete a cohesive trilogy. The first two stories maintain Giordano as inker and remain as gorgeous as the treasury pages. The story is a lighter-toned team-up, with the heroes doing their only “fighting” over their uniforms. Starring the combined villains of Earth-One and Earth-S, Buckler continues to deliver a whirlwind of action while the writers branch further into the magical and whimsical dimensions and denizens of both Superman and The Marvel Family.

The final Buckler-drawn story is a stand-alone gem that introduces the Earth-One Billy Batson, who is not (yet?) a Captain Marvel counterpart. Featuring an exciting Central Park clash between Superman and Black Adam that recalls the cross-country landmark tour seen in the first story, Captain Marvel shows up only in the final third for one last round of Buckler’s high-flying fisticuffs. The hopeful final image of the Earth-One Batson is a fitting end to a trilogy of memorable clashes and victories between the two superheroes. The volume’s last story is the oft-reprinted DC Comics Presents Annual #3, a Gil Kane showcase that, at the risk of repeating myself, cannot be over-printed. This one even showed up another big collection this year, playing the role of final story in Adventures of Superman: Gil Kane.

DC finally got around to reprinting their best treasury comics in the last couple of years, like those found in Superman vs. Shazam!, almost as if they were saving them as some secret reserve. Whether packaged in artist-focused hardcovers, movie tie-ins, or a paperback-first trade like this one, they are each important and high-level stories by any measure. There are plenty of other true confrontations between Superman and Captain Marvel, from All-Star Squadron #36 and 37 to the Eclipso-fueled Action Comics Annual #4, and hopefully they’ll see reprints soon, because this volume is an absolute blast.

[Guest reviewer Greg Elias writes for Speed Force]

Since the 1980s, the artwork of Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez has been the marketing standard for DC Comics. From lunch boxes to Valentines and toys to apparel, Garcia-Lopez’s clean and fluid style is immediate and definitive, capturing the grace and power of DC’s superheroes and villains. Though it is tempting to name Deadman or even the Metal Men as his signature subject, his work on the Man of Steel stands out as the artist’s strongest sequential output, making him a perfect name to spotlight in the second Adventures of Superman hardcover.

Like Rich Buckler before him, Garcia-Lopez was once considered to be the top talent to replace the legendary Curt Swan as the Superman penciller. Instead, Garcia-Lopez’s appearances became something of a treat -- top-shelf selection to kick off a news series (DC Comics Presents), draw the occasional story arc, and/or settle in on a nice cover run. His sequential prowess is masterful, which makes a first-time collection like this a wonderful set of Superman tales fit for any fan.

Much of what is included in this book is being reprinted for the first time. DC has finally gotten around to re-issuing their long out-of-print, oversized treasury editions in recent years, including Superman vs. Muhammad Ali, Superman vs. Shazam!, the Superman “Secrets of the Fortress of Solitude” story and, in this volume, Superman vs. Wonder Woman. Much like the Gil Kane volume, this set is, for the most part, the first-ever high-fidelity presentation for many of these stories.

Included in chronological order, the stories start out with inking by Vince Colletta, Bob Oskner, and Frank Springer. At his best when inking his own work, Garcia-Lopez has his Superman bulked up here and weighted by heavy black ink. Though more in line with the “house-style” Superman, these stories have the layout and design but lack the energy of his best work. These early stories range from the classic, complex, and emotional tale of Solomon Grundy’s search for his other-Earth counterpart to the goofy Atom team-up “Seven-Foot-Two ... and Still Growing!” The first one scores with an uneasy ending more in line with Dennis O’Neil’s Batman than the usual Super-fare, while the latter takes a more comedic approach. The wild tonal changes are on display when “Seven-Foot-Two ...” shifts into a violent and introspective Supergirl team-up that questions the origins of the entire Super-mythos.

Despite the high-quality Grundy and Supergirl stories ahead of it, Superman vs. Wonder Woman is no doubt the pillar of this collection. A World War II period piece, the plot has Superman and Wonder Woman clash over the use of the atom bomb by the Allies in Japan. This is an early appearance of the "Superman: U.S. Government Edition" concept that would be immortalized in The Dark Knight Returns and elsewhere -- at odds with his fellow superheroes. The artwork is flawless and presented here in even greater glory than seen in the oversized pages of the 1977 original. Dan Adkins inks preserve the core elements of Garcia-Lopez’s work, giving the first look at the clean and powerful dynamism to come. This is a true super-powered throw-down, unencumbered by history and, in some cases with Superman’s attitude, characterization. You will find yourself sitting with the story for hours and returning to soak in the majesty. It is great to see this DC classic finally get the proper reprint treatment.

From there, it is all vintage Garcia-Lopez with a set of DC Comics Presents stories that have served as Superman highlights since their original publication. With Deadman, the Metal Men, Firestorm, the Flash ,and Robin involved, these one-to-two issue sets are pure shots of classic “Bronze-Age” DC that, for children of the 1970s and 1980s, brought their lunchboxes to life.

The one mis-step in the reproduction comes on the one-shot “The Sleeper Out of Time” from Superman #347 (1980). Despite 343 additional pages of masterful Superman artwork, this is the story that marked the zenith of Garcia-Lopez’s work on the Man of Steel. It is an absolutely gorgeous issue written by Gerry Conway, with one foot on Earth and one in deep space -- the equivalent of a catcher and pitcher calling and throwing a perfect game. Unfortunately, the rich detail and clean line-work of the original is destroyed here by fuzzy, low-fidelity reproduction. Personally, I was looking forward to seeing that story in high-definition the most and it actually appears here in devolved form. What a shame, especially since this problem plagued the earlier Marshall Rogers Batman hardcover as well.

Despite this, it is impossible to not give Adventures of Superman: Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez the highest recommendation for fans of Superman, DC Comics, and even mass marketing imagery. This is a rich set of mostly first-time reprints presented in nearly flawless reproduction. DC was very smart to roll out the very best of non-Swan Superman artists over the first two volumes of Adventures of Superman, reminding fans of the timeless qualities brought out by the best of the best.

For my money, if you want to take a new Superman relaunch that's had a rough start and make it seem legitimate, there's no better creator to bring on than Dan Jurgens. From the first splash page of Superman protecting a mother and child behind his cape, Jurgens and Keith Giffen's Superman Vol. 2: Secrets and Lies is wonderfully familiar, while at the same time the updated costume constantly reminds us they're telling stories in a new world.

It's possible this book may feel too nostalgic for some. The flip side of this book reading like a set of pre-"Death of Superman" stories is that it comes off a bit light; there's never a real sense of danger in the super-villains and monsters Superman fights. I give the writers points for some clever plots, however, especially the titular "Secrets and Lies"; if the point of this book is simply to fill the gap between George Perez's departure and Scott Lobdell coming on full-time, this is an adequate stopgap measure.

[Review contains spoilers]

The winningest issues in this book are #9-12, two connected two-parters. In the first, called "Secrets and Lies," a reporter claims to have uncovered Superman's identity, while Superman fights an untouchable thief called Anguish. That the character is called "Anguish" should be one of the first hints that things are more 1990s here than is probably wise (the character's costume is the second); also Jurgens and Giffen can't help some dated dialogue, like Anguish spouting to Superman, "Y'know what really, really frosts me?" Also, Anguish's initial crime is stealing one item out of a safety deposit box; illegal, but is that kind of crime really a job for today's Superman?

Still, the team brings the story together surprisingly well; the media turns upside down the life of the man (wrongly) revealed as being Superman, and then Anguish threatens the man's daughter. It's a good morality play on the reasons Superman must have a secret identity but then also why it would be tough for him to have a family. This is an oft-told tale, though perhaps not for a while now, but the writers handle it effectively, and with some stellar Jurgens art sprinkled throughout.

The second story picks up on the B-plot of the previous one, involving a Russian sub and its mysterious cargo, which turns out to be an inter-dimensional alien that slaughters the residents of a nearby town. In part one, Superman and the alien fight; in part two, Superman comes to understand that Russians kidnapped the alien and that the alien feels justified in murdering to make his way home. As Superman tries to halt the alien, Jurgens parallels the alien's isolation on a foreign world with Superman's own feelings of "otherness."

Again, this isn't new ground for Superman and the story is told with a rather familiar comic book plot structure, but stories like these were Jurgens's bread-and-butter back in the Triangle Titles days. Perhaps especially because we know Jurgens and company won't be Superman's regular creative team -- this book is an extended one-off, as it were -- we can enjoy these stories for what they remind us of, rather than being concerned that they don't present a viable direction for the Superman title going forward.

The volume is bookended with issues #7-8 on one side and the Superman Annual #1 on the other, all dealing with the Daemonite villain Helspont. As constant readers know, I was excited about the New 52 "Daemonite invasion" storyline, but it essentially fell apart with the basic failure of related titles Grifter, Voodoo, and Blackhawks, along with Stormwatch's shifting creative teams. Here, the story is in its death throes -- we basically understand that Helspont is trying to forcibly recruit Superman to help in his war against the other Daemonites, but how Helspont arrived in the Arctic and what it all has to do with that alien horn from the last volume and the explosion of the Stormwatch HQ is never addressed.

Jurgens and Giffen's initial Helspont issues are at least visually attractive. The Annual uses one too many artists and looks sketched and hurried; there's also too many splash pages decompressing the story. New writer Lobdell suggests a number of interesting ties between DC's various alien heroes and the Daemonites, though unfortunately I doubt we'll see those stories come to fruition.

Just one more round of kudos to Dan Jurgens for the art on this book. Not every page is perfect -- Jurgens's pencils are finished by a variety of artists here including Jesus Marino, and while some pages are great, a good many have been inked much too darkly. On the pages where Jurgens's art pops, however -- especially splash pages -- it really pops. I also appreciated Jurgens injecting some of his old visual Superman "language" back into the book -- for instance, Superman is often holding or cloaked by his cape, even though I believe in Jim Lee's new design it's supposed to be "off the shoulder." Here again was a nice touch for 1980s-'90s Superman fans.

Casual Superman readers can probably skip Superman Vol. 2: Secrets and Lies and go straight to Scott Lobdell's start on Superman Vol. 3: Fury at World's End; that's essentially where the "real" Superman story starts. But, if you were a fan of Jurgens's back then, you probably will be here again; everything old is new again, but old is still pretty good, too.

[Includes original covers]

Next week, Mind MGMT and Batman: Death of the Family. See you then!

[Guest reviewer Greg Elias writes for Speed Force]

By the time Gil Kane and Marv Wolfman teamed up on Action Comics, Kane was already revered for his groundbreaking work at both DC Comics and Marvel. That reputation is likely the main reason that Adventures of Superman: Gil Kane exists. From the Silver Age redesigns of Green Lantern and The Atom to a prolific and legendary turn as the Marvel cover artist, the late Kane had an untouchable pedigree. This volume contains the entirety of his 1980s stint on the Man of Steel, along with two specials, a couple of backup stories and an oft-reprinted gem of an Annual.

When selecting a Superman artist to spotlight, DC was looking at Curt Swan and “the field.” Swan defined the look of the Superman titles from the late 1950s through the 1980s. The specs of Kane’s run provided DC with another marquee talent to kick off the hardcover series while presenting some of the most experimental pre-Alan Moore stories in the two solo Superman magazines. In addition to Swan and Kane, memorable takes by Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez (now starring in his own Superman spotlight hardcover), Gene Colan (The Phantom Zone miniseries, reprinted in July) and Jim Starlin (various issues of DC Comics Presents) are compelling alternatives.

Collected here for the first time, Kane’s Superman was far-removed from the “house-style” Kal-El. With the tonal changes brought on by Wolfman, perhaps an artistic match was desired. All of the Kane hallmarks appear here in full force, from abstract bursts of energy to three-dimensional throw-downs, choreographed by the unmatched master of anatomy. His Superman explodes from the page, punctuated by distortion and the weight of perfect perspective. Kane was at his best when inking his own work and achieved a level of pure confidence that is reflected in his constant innovation.

Following some enjoyable backup fables from “The World of Krypton,” the Wolfman stories begin. The script for the opening saga is incredibly dense; a deconstructionist Superman tale with the hero time-divided and depowered. Clark Kent is seen pondering his true nature and dealing with wholesale changes to long-term relationships. Readers of this volume, like Kane, join the story in medias res, with the artist revisiting The Atom and The Flash as Superman attempts to make his was through time.

Trading fisticuffs for some of the psychedelic sorcery of the previous issue, Kane opens Action #541 with a signature full-page 3D punch. A lesser artist may have been overcome by a time-travel-devolutionary-Satanis-doppelganger Superman story, but Kane uses that framework to stretch out and imagine new ways to visualize Wolfman’s experimentations. He makes exceptional use of the twin Supermen as a visual hook, matching the tone of desperation in punctuated, visceral imagery.

The Wolfman stories introduce a redesigned Brainiac, leading to a widescreen pre-Crisis crossover between the Justice League and Wolfman’s New Teen Titans. Kane handles much of DC’s stable over the course of the Brainiac arc, climaxing in a star-studded free-for-all. The following set, a Vandal Savage challenge featuring Animal Man, the Sea Devils, Cave Carson and Rip Hunter, is equally well cast and executed. From out of control fauna to unexplained “time-pyramids,” Kane stays step-for-step with Wolfman in what could be deemed a warm-up for Crisis on Infinite Earths. The finale, “If Superman Didn’t Exist…,” shatters the bounds of imagination and belongs alongside the greatest Superman stories of all time.

Beyond the continuity-rich material of the Action Comics issues, Kane’s two Superman Special stories are finally presented in high fidelity. The first Special is also written by Kane, while the second presents Superman scribe Cary Bates’ alternative to Wolfman’s in-canon progression of Brainiac. Both offer the same high-energy and physicality in long form, tackling evolutionary allegory in blue tights and red boots.

Despite recent reprints in both Shazam!: The Greatest Stories Ever Told and Superman vs. Shazam!, this collection would not be complete without DC Comics Presents Annual #3. A DC multiverse team-up tale of the highest order, it is one of the timeless DC issues that simply cannot be over-printed.

Kane returned to the Super-titles briefly in the mid-1990s and was involved with two prestige-format stories, Distant Fires and Blood of my Ancestors, so the material exists for a second volume. The Adventures of Superman: Gil Kane hardcover, however, is not just essential Superman. It is essential Kane, produced during an under-celebrated period during one of the great artistic careers. It just happens to also collect, for the first time, some of the finest and most important stories from an extremely creative period in the histories of Kane, Marv Wolfman, and DC Comics.

If like me you weren't too keen on the Man of Steel movie, Grant Morrison's Superman -- Action Comics Vol. 2: Bulletproof is the tonic for that. The collection actually only a couple of regular Action Comics issues (thickened out with other material), but Morrison still succeeds in presenting what feels like a complete and detailed story, helped handily by a Silver Age aesthetic that's unafraid to gloss over the smaller details when necessary.

Morrison's is a young, plucky Superman, well-meaning though still finding his way, and it's hard not be enamored with what Morrison creates here.

[Review contains spoilers]

The main story here, told in three issues, is two-fold -- Superman resolves to give up his compromised Clark Kent identity, and Earth's "First Superman" returns, warning of greater threats to come. Morrison successfully transitions from the first volume's cliffhanger as "Nimrod the Hunter" comes after Clark, but in a clever twist, Nimrod is foiled because Clark is already "dead," retired after a Metropolis mobster tries to blow Clark up. The second issue introduces Superman's "Johnny Clark" firefighter identity as Superman talks over events with Batman; it all comes to a head when the "First Superman" returns, and Batman and others compel Clark to retake his original identity.

Morrison economizes the three issues perfectly; the Nimrod issue is essentially self-contained but it sets up well the second issue, which carries over into the third. Morrison skips over Clark's death and Superman's new identity with Silver Age aplomb (though Sholly Fisch handles some of the details in the included back-up stories); where other writers might need six issues to show the agony of Clark's decision, how he set up his new identity, and so on, Morrison's story zips right along, still with plenty of characterization and emotion.

The Justice League appears here, unexpectedly, with Justice League: Origin having apparently happened somewhere between Action Vol. 1 and 2. Morrison distinguishes between Superman on the streets of Metropolis and Superman with the League; for the former, Clark's still wearing his Superman T-shirts, and for the latter he suits up in his Superman armor. In this way, and in his interactions with the League, Superman comes off as younger than his compatriots in a way we haven't seen before; he's not the leader, but rather their junior wide-eyed idealist.

When Superman goes to Batman for advice, Batman seems almost paternal (and this would fit with the New 52 continuity where apparently Batman's been operating much longer than the other heroes). Whether other creators, including those on the new Batman/Superman series, will preserve any of this is suspect, but it works well on Morrison's part, demonstrating a Superman in the early days of every part of his career.

Though the "First Superman" is visually new, his backstory hews to that of the classic Captain Comet, giving the story a better resonance than if Morrison had just invented a new character whole cloth; it also makes the reader believe at least some of Comet's claims of good intentions even as he wreaks destruction in downtown Metropolis. (Artist Rags Morales's Comet also at times resembles Morales's Hourman, which is a nice throwback.) Via Comet, Morrison is as Morrison does, offering up psychic bullets and foreshadowing the arrival of the Multitude, evocative of Morrison's JLA-era apocalyptic threat Maggedon and perhaps also setting the stage for Morrison's Multiversity series.

These three issues would be near perfect, except that series artist Rags Morales steps away at the crucial, climactic battle, and fill-in artist Brad Walker, though capable in his own right, just can't bring the necessary drama to the ending. I might have preferred to see CAFU in these parts; his fill-ins at the beginning of issue #12 and elsewhere are quite good, reminiscent of Carlos Pacheco, and I'd be happy to have seen CAFU stay on this book after Morrison's run.

Other stories in this book include a single-issue focus on the black Superman of another dimension, with plenty of mentions again of Morrison's burgeoning multiverse. As with Action Comics's first volume, DC includes all the back-up stories here, which is great; some of them are more meaningful than others, but all fit in one way or another between the pages of the main story -- only, I might have liked it to be a bit clearer, as it was in the first book, where the main story stops and the back-ups begin.

I was only slightly disappointed to find the Action Comics Annual #1 that finishes this volume written by Sholly Fisch instead of Morrison; I'd wanted more Morrison goodness, but Fisch does a fine job, especially handling Steel John Henry Irons. (Makes me wish DC had bucked celebrity and just put Fisch on Action after Morrison left.) Fisch reintroduces a classic Superman figure and at the same time makes him the new Kryponite Man; some threats from the first book still have their eyes on Superman, and I'm eager to see how it all comes together in the third book.

It's a shame Grant Morrison departs Action Comics after the next volume. I had been skeptical whether Morrison's All-Star Superman beginnings would carry over well to Action Comics, but they do. Superman -- Action Comics Vol. 2: Bulletproof especially offers up some distinctly Silver Age-y storylines and villains that echo All-Star. To some extent the first Action Comics volume, Superman and the Men of Steel had a Golden Age tone; the second volume, the Silver Age; maybe in the third we'll see modern elements, bringing the young Superman fully into the New 52?

[Includes original and variant covers, back-up stories, character designs and sketches including by Morrison, Gene Ha, and Cully Hamner]

Next week, more Before Watchmen and more!

Let's talk about Man of Steel, shall we?

[Spoilers for Man of Steel, and maybe a little for Iron Man 3 and Star Trek Into Darkness, too]

I would rate Man of Steel as a fair movie, maybe 5 or 6 out of 10 stars. For comparison, I'd rate it just a smidgen higher than this season's Iron Man 3, though I could be convinced otherwise -- I'm more partial to Superman, but Iron Man had a villain twist and better humor than Man of Steel. Surely, Man of Steel doesn't hold a candle to such superhero movie greats as Dark Knight or Dark Knight Rises, nor Avengers or the years ago first X-Men or Spider-Man films. At the same time, Man of Steel was definitely a head and shoulders improvement over the Green Lantern movie.

Probably my biggest knock against Man of Steel is that I thought it was just too long. That fight with Faora and Non in Smallville, and even the climactic battle with Zod, just went on and on. It's a superhero action flick, sure, but at times the action became so chaotic (I saw it in 3D) that I couldn't necessarily tell who was beating on whom, and in all the movie seemed to devolve into a typical superhero flick at these moments -- there was little in one guy punching another that really said "Superman" to me, whereas I didn't think the action sequences in the Dark Knight movies suffered from the same problem.

In all, I was often bored. And while I liked some of the changes the movie team made to the Superman mythos, I was surprised, with the opportunity to completely reinvent Superman for the twenty-first century, just how much they left alone. The destruction of Krypton, the banishment of Zod, Clark gets in trouble at school and then Pa shows him the spaceship that, yep, they're still keeping in the barn. As an introduction to Superman, I can see how an unfamiliar audience might enjoy seeing Clark Kent in Smallville, how he gets his costume, how he learns of his heritage, etc., a la Batman Begins (which I thought was the least of the three Dark Knight movies, for similar reasons), but as a tried and true fan, I felt I'd seen a lot of this before, many, many times.

I did like the cast very much, though I wished they'd had a better script to work with. Henry Cavill did fine as Superman and, turning back to the script, I appreciated that the movie team did seem to know who Superman was (or, seemed to share my perception of who I believe Superman to be) -- that this was not a dark or angsty Superman, but rather a good-humored Superman who earns the trust of the US military, who takes the time to tell the people on the Smallville streets to take cover because it isn't safe. I felt comfortable with this movie Superman as a descendent of the Christopher Reeve Superman, the controversial end of the movie aside.

Amy Adams comported herself well as Lois Lane throughout; I enjoyed that the movie thought to pair Adams and Jor-El Russell Crowe for a few scenes (this might've been the most surprising moments of the movie). Adams and Cavill have good chemistry, and the movie's other inspired change (the kind of risk I wish they'd taken more of) was having Lois be smart enough to uncover Clark's identity from the start, and then to stick with it and not "kiss it away" in homage to Superman II (I did appreciate immeasurably that Man of Steel was not to Superman II what Star Trek Into Darkness was to Wrath of Khan). There's a Lois and Clark vibe to the closing scene (and how has no one used the line "Welcome to the Planet" before?!) that I liked and that I look forward to being built upon in the inevitable sequel.

Lawrence Fishburne was a fine Perry White with good interplay with Adams; I have questioned whether the Superman mythos really needs Perry White, but he offered a good "man on the street" perspective. Certainly I chuckled when I understood this other Planet reporter was Steve Lombard, and it was a nice call-out to fans -- but then again, with the inclusion of Emil Hamilton, Pete Ross, Lana Lang, even Whitney Fordham for crying out loud (plus Kenny Braverman in the credits), I again rather wished the team had made up their own stuff instead of working to hew so close to what had come before.

And then, of course, Superman breaks Zod's neck. Now can we have a collection of John Byrne's "Supergirl Saga," DC?

Thematically, I totally get it. Clark was raised human, he feels human, but he's got Krypton's whole genetic code (or something) inside of him, he's been fighting the last survivors of his home planet, and when it comes down to it, he has to choose -- let the humans he's adopted die, or kill the very last existing member of his own species. Clark chooses the humans, of course, and he effectively orphans himself a second time. The triumph and tragedy of being Superman.

But Superman doesn't kill ("Supergirl Saga" notwithstanding), as those of us know who've been around long enough to have seen Clark find that darn spaceship in that darn barn at least three or four times. And there's no way the movie team didn't know that, too. Which, if we want to be cynical about it, makes this kind of a funny Superman recreation -- the team does enough fan service to include Steve Lombard and Whitney Fordham, and then wham! -- a bit of adolescent violence at the end just to underline this isn't your grandma's Superman, "suckerz." I don't think that's quite the truth, but it's one way of looking at it and to that extent, I find Man of Steel vaguely insulting in that vein.

But moreover, I think it was bad moviemaking. For one thing, if you're going to have a scene where Superman has no choice but to kill his enemy, you really need Superman to have no choice. Zod was spraying the people with his heat vision because Superman had him in a headlock, so maybe Superman should have let him out of the headlock -- it's not the best option, but it's an option. Another would've been for Superman to have put his hands over Zod's eyes. I'm sure the team has explanations for why all of these wouldn't work, but the bottom line is that the moment needed to be airtight, and it very clearly wasn't. The audience needed to feel Superman had no other choice, and I don't think they did.

The perhaps greater problem, however, is that even as I understand the moment thematically, it's not well built in the movie. Clark never has a moment where he's interested in Zod or his disciples as representatives of Krypton, so we don't really feel Clark's loss here (Man of Steel's Zod is also too one-dimensional, a far cry from Geoff Johns's recent take on the character). We have absolutely no idea, either, how Clark feels about killing his enemies before this point, nor how Ma or Pa Kent would feel about him doing it. Clark doesn't want to kill Zod, but then he does, and then he screams, but it's hard to say which of these things Clark is necessarily screaming about. And then the movie immediately cuts to a happy-go-lucky Superman in a scene where a female serviceman calls him "hot"; Superman's killing of his enemy in this way holds no more consequence than a moment's hug with Lois.

I don't expect this, but it would go a long way toward redeeming Man of Steel in my eyes if the next movie actually dealt with the consequences -- actual or emotional -- of Clark killing Zod (this you can say of "Supergirl Saga"; they surely made a lot out of it). If this is meant to be "Superman Begins," as it were, then perhaps we can hope Man of Steel is the first part in Superman's evolution toward deciding not to kill -- he killed once, didn't like the hero it made him, vows never to do it again, and then that vow would be tested, say, in battle with Lex Luthor, where Superman is in a position to kill Lex but then finds another way. (There, I wrote the sequel for them.)

That would be worthwhile to me -- not a movie where Superman kills his enemy in the end as is modern fashion, but a trilogy where Superman comes out the other end understanding that killing is not the answer. Again, I don't expect it, but that's the hope I'm holding in my heart now.

Man of Steel accomplishes its goal of giving DC Comics a new movie franchise on which it can hang its hat after the end of the Dark Knight movies, and that's a good thing that I'm happy about. But strangely enough for a comic book fan, between Man of Steel, Iron Man 3, and Star Trek Into Darkness, I'm beginning to think superhero/big budget sci-fi movies just aren't for me; they're not impressing me this season the way they once were. Help me, Wolverine, I guess -- you're my only hope.

What did you think of Man of Steel? (Bonus: enjoy frequent guest reviewer Zack King's review of Man of Steel.)