Lois Lane #5 Review

Deep Background.... Just Not With The Story

Written By: Greg Rucka

Art By: Mike Perkins, Gabe Eltaeb, Simon Bowland

Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: November 6, 2019

We're jumping back into journalist mode as we follow Lois Lane on her quest to uncover and report the truth........ but like we saw at the end of last issue, it seems like she just likes to talk about the truth more than she likes disclosing it because I'm still struggling to figure out what this maxi-series is about.  We've got Vic Sage back alive with no explanations, we have Lois stop her investigation into a murdered Russian journalist so she can spend time with her son and we have a business man who was murdered in a restaurant before he could spill the beans to Lois about some dastardly deed that's going on that I really don't know about.  Yeah, I'm not having a lot of fun with this.  Hopefully that all changes here.  Let's check it out.

With all my problems with figuring out what this series is, beyond Lois just going from person to person to uncover some political plot, it sure does seem like Greg Rucka is going out of his way to keep everything we're dealing with a secret because like we saw at the end of the previous issue where Lois went on for pages with Renee Montoya about what the truth is, but never actually got to a point where she was willing to tell Renee or us what that is, we see Lois this issue interview a source with homeland security about something that's going on, but they don't actually get to what it is they're talking about.  I swear, this series is just an exercise in beating around the bush without actually saying anything because except for Renee Montoya beating up some bad guys to find out about that business man that was killed issues ago...... nothing really happens here.

Now that's not entirely true because we do open up this issue with Greg Rucka realizing that his initial story had gotten away from him and he has a person on a plane talk to Lois about that Russian journalist that was killed to remind the readers that there's actually a plot to this comic, but it quickly moves away from that so we can then talk about fake news.  I was really hoping that this series would become something that I could be a fan of, but with each issue it really seems like it doesn't want that because it really seems like it goes out of its way not to tell a story.

All in all, the art is good this issue and really shines with Renee Montoya as the Question, but the story is just lacking in that it just doesn't want to progress in any kind of real way and spends pages going out of its way to not tell you what's going on.  It feels like the real point of this series is to introduce the reader to journalistic terms when dealing with a source and..... it's boring as hell.  I wanted to like this series and thought at one point that it would start showing some heart with Vic Sage being back, but like everything else here it doesn't want to give you any answers to what's going on and maybe it will get back to that aspect to the story in a couple of issues, but even if that's the case I can't expect anything from Rucka after what we've been given so far.

Bits and Pieces:

Lois Lane continues to frustrate me because it really feels like the book goes out of its way not to tell us anything that's going on, while focusing more on what terms journalists use while interviewing people and wanting to be more topical than actually telling a story that's compelling.  The art is enjoyable, but this series is really doing nothing for me.

4/10