Reviewed by: Mathan “No Black Pete Ross?” Erhardt
All Stories Written by Geoff Johns & Richard Donner
Story Title: The Many Deaths of Superman
Penciled & Inked by: Art Adams
Colored by: Alex Sinclair
Lettered by” Travis Lanham
Story Title: Who is Clark Kent’s Big Brother
Penciled & Inked by: Eric Wright
Colored by: Lee Loughridge
Lettered by Travis Lanham
Story Title: Mystery Under the Blue Sun
Penciled, Inked & Lettered by: Joe Kubert
Colored by: Joe Kubert & Pete Carlsson
Story Title: The Criminals of Krypton
Penciled by: Rags Morales
Inked by Mark Farmer
Colored by: Edgar Delgado
Lettered by: Travis Lanham
Story Title: The Deadliest Forms of Kryptonite
Penciled by: Gary Franks
Inked by: Jonathan Sibal
Colored by: Brad Anderson
Lettered by: Phil Balsman
Secrets of the Fortress of Soliture
Penciled by: Phil Jimenez
Inked by: Andy Lanning
Colored by: Jeromy Cox
Lettered by: Travis Lanham
Superman’s Top 10 Most Wanted
Penciled & Inked by: Tony Daniel
Colored by: Brad Anderson
Lettered by: Phil Balsman
This annual opens with Lex Luthor pondering the various ways in which Superman can be defeated. But as he’s thinking things over he’s hunting the tool he’s planning on using for Superman’s demise.
The next story involves a young Clark Kent and his first meeting with Lar Gand aka Mon-El. It’s a poignant tale that unfolds over a week in Smallville. It’s actually almost heartbreaking.
From there we take a quick trip into space to find some Thanagarians encountering an oddly familiar cube shaped planet and it’s denizens.
Then it’s a quick tour of the new Fortress of Solitude which truly nails home the idea that the Silver Age is alive and well as far as it comes to Superman.
We then find ourselves back on Krypton and discover the secret origin of Zod, Non and Ursa and their relationship with Jor-El and how their feud was born. It’s a tale of tragedy that casts the villains in a brand new light.
After that we get a rundown of Superman’s top villains, which underscores how Superman’s status quo has returned to the early 1980’s.
The annual concludes with Lex Luthor giving a tutorial on the effect of various forms of kryptonite. While it answers some questions about Bizarro it begs the question of how Lex can know the effects of gold kryptonite.
In terms of art this book is top notch. It’s a treat seeing Adams’ detailed work again and Wright continues to impress with his pencils. Morales’ facial expressions with Zod, Non and Ursa really makes the story that much more powerful. Frank’s art seems overpowered by Sibal’s pencils but beyond that the book looks great. The coloring truly compliments the storytelling on every tale.
The writing is solid. The strongest stories involve a young Kal-El (“Who is Clark Kent’s Big Brother” and “The Criminals of Krypton”) and the weakest involved Lex Luthor (though their mostly weak because Lex seems so focused on a singular mission.) My main complaint about the writing is that it’s clear that Superman is returning to the Silver Age. While this annual isn’t bad, it’s clearly a huge step down a slippery slope to hokey-dom.
