Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Superman: Secret Origin #3 (of 6)

The holiday continues to mess up ye olde schedule, as new comics don't arrive until Thursday - so we'll run our "Classic" review tomorrow and run one more review from this week today.

Here we see the Superman: Secret Origin as re-imagined by Richard Donner and Geoff Johns.

Johns is the only credited writer, but this book's story is lifted cleanly, with just a bit of alteration, from the Donner-directed Superman: The Movie. Thankfully, Johns used some of the best bits.

The depiction of Clark Kent by artist Gary Franks also does a great job of emulating actor Christopher Reeve without being a direct copy. I consider that a good thing - Reeve was definitely the living embodiment of the Man of Steel, and if DC wants to give that hero a more realistic look, I can't think of a better model to follow.

The rest of the supporting cast is depicted along the lines of their traditional comics appearance (although Lois may have a tinge of Terri Hatcher going on there).

Here we see Clark moving to Metropolis, but it's not the shining city of the future - it's a city suffering under the thumb of Lex Luthor, and one of his main targets is the Daily Planet, the newspaper that has just hired Clark.

I'm enjoying this series, although I'm hard-pressed to explain why these minor tweaks to continuity are necessary. But Johns is taking a more personal approach to Superman's origin, and so far, it's a good story.

Grade: A-

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