Project Superman #1
Written by Scott Snyder and Lowell Francis
Art by Gene Ha
For as interested as I’ve been in Project Superman, pretty much since it was announced, I’ve had no clue what exactly it was. Most of the Flashpoint tie ins have been pretty self explanatory, but this one I kept going in the wrong direction over. Or, at the very least, the first issue is not at all what I came in expecting; in fact, it’s better. There are a few familiar characters in this flashback title, but the line is pretty much drawn at Sam Lane and Nathaniel Adam.
The story beings thirty years ago when Lieutenant Neil Sinclair went to Metropolis to see General Sam Lane, and to be transformed into a hero. Pretty straight forward, right? The United States wants metahumans who are patriotic and want to serve their country, so turning a loyal soldier into one is far and away a better option than what they had been trying prior to that. They began their tests on him, and after a few years he had not only developed powers, but his word balloons turned red! You aren’t immediately explained just where his powers come from exactly, how the government managed to get their hands on the powers to give him, though you are led directly down the Superman path for quite a bit. His powers are similar enough, after all.
The downside to all of this though, is that the longer Neil is there the more powers he develops, as well as the more detached he finds himself separated from everyone around him. New powers, new senses, everyone looking at him differently, he has to find a way to let himself get free from all of that so that he doesn’t constantly focus on just how not-human he has become. It really doesn’t help that his life is in a holding pattern, that despite devoting years of his life to this, and giving up his humanity entirely for the sake of it. He has no going back, and frustration makes sense given that he’s really being jerked around through this issue. He also seems incapable of turning off his x-ray vision.
Gene Ha provides the art for the issue and does an exceptional job. There’s a lot of great detail work throughout the issue, and personally I’m a huge fan of the x-rays. You get to see a lot of Neil through his eyes, literally, and the scenes of him looking through everything look amazing. Better than that though? The action at the end of the issue, which has an almost Wildstorm like style of violence to it. My only real complaint is that I despise Neil’s hair, it feels like he was going for Dragonball Z hair but while he had the gel to spike it, he couldn’t get it to stand straight up.
The fight scene that appears towards the end of the issue goes a long way towards asserting just what tone this book, and this character will take. Neil’s first field operation goes…well, I’m not going to say. It’s a cool scene, followed by a conclusion that, if nothing else, establishes an actual time table for the DC Universe. The front half of the book moves relatively slowly, but once you get to the back half the pace quickens and the attention draws become a lot more apparent instead of relying on the general intrigue created from the story on its own…which is plenty, as the book does a great job making you want to read the next issue.
Project Superman feels like an amalgamation of several different concepts; Captain America and Captain Atom come to mind almost immediately. This isn’t a bad thing though, as it doesn’t come across as borrowing ideas so much as acknowledging that some ideas just make sense in comics. Creating a super soldier just happens to be the most logical one of them all though, as I can’t fathom a military, especially in a world where meta-humans exist, not trying to make their own. The issue moves slowly in the early part as Snyder and Francis try to establish Neil and General Lane before dropping us into the action and shock value of the end of the issue. I don’t say this in a bad way though, as the second half is kind of awesome. They do a great job making you want to come back for part two, not to mention wondering just what exactly is going to happen with our main character….or even if he’ll still be the main character come the next issue. There remains strong speculation that this book sets up Wildstorm’s Apollo in the DC Universe prior to the DC Comics Relaunch, but there is no explicit validation yet.
Overall?
8/10
