1. JMStraczynski and Barrows take Superman on a walking tour of the USA as he attempts to ground himself in humanity after the New Krypton debacle. The concept really shouldn’t work, but still, more or less does.
2. After a year in space, Superman should be being grounded by being with his friends, wife and family. The premise is a failure, but good excecution lifts it well-above that.
3. Eddy Barrows is the real star here. The writing is good, to be sure, but the excecution of Superman’s facial expressions, poses and so on humanize and elevate him simultaneously in a way that words simply cannot.
4. The reporters’ early cynicism leading to everyone slowly losing interest is extremely well-handled, though I do feel like paparazzi wouldn’t ever lose interest.
5. The scenes of Superman helping people are all extremely well-handled. I really like that he’s helping people with everything from car problems to drug dealers to suicide. It might seem trite, but it fits his character.
6. The suicide scene will suffer from being compared to “All Star Superman” but it’s still a really top notch scene. The speech works as Superman, as does his patience with this woman.
7. I think Superman would have followed his word and let her fall, you?
8. The one scene that didn’t work for me is the one about the pessimist who questions why Superman isn’t doing more. Not only is Superman’s answer cliche, but it also doesn’t address the man’s actual point in any relevant manner.
9. I do wonder how long this can go on. Superman is only leaving Philadelphia at this point, and while it’s a road book about him following his manifest destiny west slowly, so as to get somewhere, since he usually rushes from one crisis to another, the issue becomes, well, this is the DCU and there really is a lot more that demands Superman’s attention. Also, most of the situations that can be addressed are here in one comic. This can go on for 3-4 months, but more than that is bound to get self-indulgent and boring.
10. Rating: 7.5/10 – While it doesn’t entirely overcome the premise issues and one particularly clunky scene finishes out the book, this is still a good comic that seems to properly understand Superman. Sure, a lot of that is down to the art, but, well, it’s a comic, not a novel and that’s fine. I’ll be sticking around.
