10 Thoughts Review on Superman #702 by J M Straczynski and Eddy Barrows

10 Thoughts, News, Reviews

1. Superman continues his walking tour of America, solving people’s problems.

2. Not a ton happens this issue again (we’ll get to the actual events shortly), which is fine for issue #2 of the arc. The book has one more month, maybe two, before I need something more.

3. Superman plays basketball with some kids, but loses on purpose to the smaller kid to make him seem cooler to his friends. This felt fake and cheesey, with hackneyed, terrible slang.

4. Superman also stumbles into peaceful alien refugees, beating up their robot and making them use their new medicine to save Flint, Michigan. I like that Superman can help here, but major national issues solved in passing is just… trite.

5. The old man he saves is quite compelling, however, and more in line with what I’m looking for here.

6. The conversation with Lois is the best thing in the issue, as he really has both of their voices down. It’s the two dimensional side characters that don’t work.

7. The art keeps even the more hackneyed plot elements interesting, as Barrows draws faces with an authenticity and clarity rarely found in comics.

8. If I was going to drop this, the last page reveal of Batman means that won’t happen. I greatly prefer Dick’s relationship to Superman to Bruce’s.

9. The random giant robot fight thrown in was cute and probably so we wouldn’t be bored by all the nothin’ goin on.

10. Rating: 4/10 – This isn’t a bad comic, so much as it’s just below average. In the last issue, Superman’s talks to a lot of people, but it feels grounded. Here he’s a travelling savior much more clearly and his casual fix of all these two dimensional characters is almost patronizing. Again, next issue I’m here for Batman, then we’ll see.

Glazer is a former senior editor at Pulse Wrestling and editor and reviewer at The Comics Nexus.