Wednesday, December 21, 2016

Superman #13 Review and *SPOILERS*



Domestic Dispute 


Written By: Peter J. Tomasi, Patrick Gleason
Art By: Doug Mahnke, Jaime Mendoza, Keith Champagne, Norm Rapmund, Wil Quintana, Rob Leigh
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: December 21, 2016

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

Who would have thought that with all the family stuff that we've seen from this title that we'd be getting a Frankenstein story showing up here?........... I mean, it makes perfect sense to me.  We had a lot of Frankenstein in my household growing up, but that was only because my father loved scaring me, but if you would have asked me at the beginning of Rebirth if I thought we'd be seeing the main monster himself showing up in Superman this early in the series, I would have scoffed and then probably laughed in your stupid looking face.............. I'm sorry that was uncalled for.  Anyway, in our previous issue of Superman, we saw our Man of Steel and Frankenstein battle it out because Frankenstein was trying to apprehend the Editor in Chief of the Hamilton Horn Newspaper, but it seems that the fight was all for not because once big Frank gets his hands on her we find out that this is simply an alien in disguise.  Let's jump into this issue and see what's the deal with this impostor and hopefully find out if the integrity of the Hamilton Horn has in anyway been compromised.  Let's check it out.


Explain It!:

Our issue begins with me getting really excited because immediately we have The Bride of Frankenstein making her Rebirth debut and if you add any sort of Gorilla character or Monster character to a story, I'm all about it, but moving on from that we find out that the impostor named Kroog is an alien who's wanted in several galaxies for murder, but the Bride has other plans than simply allowing her estranged husband to take her into SHADE custody, especially since when last we saw the Bride, she's now become a bounty hunter and intends on making a quick payday out of Kroog.  This of course leads to a domestic dispute, but that is quickly squashed when Kroog just goes and explodes........... That's right, Kroog just explodes, but we quickly find out that this is a defensive move that her species is capable of so that she can get away.  The problem is, I don't quite understand how any of this works because Frankenstein, The Bride and Superman go about blasting the pieces until it looks like they're turned into goo, but then they still have to go off and search for the rest of them that have somehow traveled east. 


Yeah, Kroog's parts make it back to her spaceship that seem to re-integrate her, but I don't know how this is possible because of all the missing pieces.  It probably doesn't matter because it's an alien and I don't know shit about her species........ it just bothered me is all.  Anyway, Lois takes Frankenstein's air bike so that she can go check to make sure that the real Editor in Chief of the Hamilton Horn, Candice is actually alright and tied up in the basement like Kroog said she was, while our trio of heroes fly east to find Kroog.......... which they do and quickly subdue.


In the end, we continue our journey into looking in at the relationship problems between Frankenstein and his former Bride and while it looked like things could have been rekindled between the two throughout this issue, when Frankenstein offers the Bride her ring back, she drops it and takes Kroog for herself and flies off, leaving Superman in a really awkward moment with the monster.  With that all said and done, Superman and Frankenstein go their separate ways and we end this issue with Lois and Clark loving one another and checking in on their sleeping son Jon.  


That's it for this issue of Superman and it's weird as hell that this issue became a backstory about Frankenstein and his Bride to catch people up who might have missed Frankenstein: Agent of SHADE from back in the New 52.  It really had nothing to do with Superman and only acted as a parallel on the opposite end of the spectrum to what our Superman family actually has.  Where Clark and Lois are happily married and have a son they both love, Frankenstein and his Bride are estranged after the Bride had to kill their son because he was a monster.  It's not a bad story, just feels odd, especially with all the recap and ultimately it just felt out of place.  The art in this issue was great though and like last issue I love how Doug Mahnke draws Frankenstein and now love how this art team depicts The Bride as well.  Really everything looked great, I just can't say that I was very invested in the story even though I really enjoyed seeing these characters again.

Bits and Pieces:

This issue of Superman really feels out of place for what we've been dealing with.  Yeah, we have a strange realization that Frankenstein and Superman's lives are running parallel only on different ends of the spectrum, but besides that this story just feels like an odd addition to this series, even if it's told really well and has amazing art accompanying it.  If you're a fan of Frankenstein then totally get this issue, but besides that this really doesn't do much for this title.

6.8/10

4 comments:

  1. This one confused me not really good but not bad but just really weird kept wondering how this will look in trade

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  2. I actually really liked this issue, yeah it stumbled around but the story between Frankenstein and the Bride was good enough for me. I would go an entire point above this score.

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    1. i am a fan of Frankenstein...but I would only go .7 higher

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