Reviewer: Iain Burnside
Story Title: Safe Harbour
Written by: Mark Verheiden
Penciled by: Ed Benes & Joe Prado
Inked by: Mariah Benes, Rob Lea, Alex Lei & Joe Prado
Colored by: Rod Reis
Lettered by: Pat Brosseau
Editor: Eddie Berganza
Publisher: DC
The overwhelming scope of the Infinite Crisis continues to affect practically every DCU title the company puts out. The actual INFINITE CRISIS mini-series itself may have finally started, fuelled by an almost unprecedented fire of hype, but we’re still feeling the effects of the build-up. As we all know there were several prelude mini-series that built up to the main event and many of these in turn spawned several ‘tie-in’ issues with regular titles, most of which were completely superfluous. However, there were some cases were the ‘tie-in’ actually wound up in ‘cross-over’ territory due to the important plot points that those issues contained; plot points that were essential to the story of the prelude mini-series and should really have been found within the pages of those issues rather than allowing so much filler material to take their place in order to try and get the reader to buy more titles to try and understand what was going on. The biggest culprit of this shoddy practice was, of course, THE O.M.A.C PROJECT as, in addition to the many numerous ‘tie-in’ books that amounted to little more than an O.M.A.C. being seen or referenced somewhere, it dropped a huge plot point in the “Sacrifice” storyline than ran through ACTION COMICS, ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN, SUPERMAN, and WONDER WOMAN. Yes, that’s right, it’s a six-issue mini-series that required an extra four issues of four separate titles to try and tell its story. In no way can this possibly be considered good storytelling. Judging by the fact that DC has solicited separate TPBs for THE O.M.A.C. PROJECT and the “Sacrifice” storyline, they clearly have not learned their lesson.
This is where SUPERMAN #222 comes into play. The cover bills it as an ‘aftermath’ to THE O.M.A.C. PROJECT, whatever that may mean. The most obvious explanation would be Superman trying to come to terms with how close Maxwell Lord came to manipulating him into killing several metahumans, as well as trying to understand ‘what Diana did’ when she killed Lord to save Superman and the world in general. Something like that would have made for a perfectly reasonable ‘aftermath’ issue. Although it would tend to get a bit grating if they persisted with this self-doubting version of Superman… which is exactly what has happened after it was shoved down the readers’ throats in practically every single Superman comic book following “Sacrifice”, including this one. To be fair, it’s not quite as grating in this particular issue but that’s due to this being more of a Lois Lane story than a Superman one. If the Man of Steel was given more attention here then he would almost certainly carry on with his new persona of the Man of Angst instead. It’s an editorial decision that is meant to lead to a conflict between this apprehensive version of the character and the classic version that turned up at the end of INFINITE CRISIS #1. Since they are actually going somewhere with this interpretation of Superman and what it means to be a hero in the modern-day DCU, it’s understandable but still barely tolerable to see this icon treated in such a manner, mainly due to the ham-fisted way recent stories of his have beaten us over the head with the emo-stick.
Here, Verheiden relies on the supporting cast to avoid overdosing on the super-navel-gazing aspect and pulls it off reasonably well. The main story sees Lois channeling the spirit of All the President’s Men, which is referenced numerous times here, following up on a mysterious lead named Mrs. X that may have information on where all of these O.M.A.C.s actually came from. Despite concerns raised by Perry White, Lois goes ahead with the meeting anyway, although Clark insists on being there too. This is where we get another huge plot point about the origins of the O.M.A.C. project and how Lord and Checkmate were able to infect so many people with whatever it is that turns them into cyborg assassins. As it turns out, Lord fooled Mrs. X, a doctor working on charity vaccination programs, into using a vaccine developed by Checkmate scientists that contains the necessary sci-fi ingredients to allow the human body to be activated as an O.M.A.C. as needed. In the realms of a DC comic book this makes perfect sense but it does again feel like another editorial oversight. Perhaps this vaccination conspiracy was mentioned within THE O.M.A.C. PROJECT, as it certainly should have been, but it doesn’t ring any bells. In that case, we can make it a grand total of eleven essential issues for a six-issue mini-series, with a twelfth on the way next year in the form of a one-shot. Let’s just hope that can manage to be self-contained.
So, we have a main story about the O.M.A.C.s that may be vital to the all-encompassing Crisis currently engulfing the DCU and we have the long-running whiny Superman motif to boot. There’s nothing actually wrong with either of these points in the grand scheme of things but it doesn’t make it any less annoying that the O.M.A.C. plot is so spread-out and that we have to be stuck with an uninspiring Superman for at least a few more months. Thankfully, we can rely on an old favourite to provide a few laughs – unintentional comedy! Yes, as it turns out, the Clark Kent/Superman that appears in most of this issue is actually one of those pesky Superman robots. The real Superman left the robot to stay and look after Lois while he went off to do more interesting things. He claims that this was fighting the Weather Wizard for, you know, the good of all mankind, etc. It seems more likely that he was sitting in his Fortress of Solitude with a big bag of popcorn and a stack of porn, having a grand ol’ time. Come on now, not only did he take the time to make sure that these robots were capable of looking and acting just like Superman and just like Clark Kent and kept up to date on all the latest news… but he’s actually sat down and programmed into them how to satisfy his wife. Sure, the robot isn’t around long enough to make it to the bedroom but you know it would have been fully functional – and that’s just creepy in a way that Lex Luthor could only dream of achieving. It’s just like that scene in WATCHMEN when one incarnation of Dr. Manhattan is in bed with Janey at the same time as another incarnation is working in the lab. Creepy, but oddly amusing.
Creepy, but oddly amusing… That’s not exactly a phrase that should be associated with Superman but, well, here we are.
