Wednesday, February 12, 2020

Superman: Heroes #1 Review



Superman's Truth


Written By: Brian Michael Bendis, Matt Fraction, Greg Rucka
Art By: Kevin Maguire, Mike Perkins, Steve Lieber, Mike Norton, Scott Godlewski, Paul Mounts, Gabe Eltaeb, Andy Troy, Nathan Fairbairn, Troy Peteri, Clayton Cowles, Simon Bowland
Cover Price: $5.99
Release Date: February 12, 2020


What happens when Superman reveals his identity to the world?  Well, he then has to go and confront his friends and family about his decision.  That seems to be the point to this issue, where we'll see short little vignettes about Superman's time talking to each person about his decision or how others see his decision.  Hopefully, we'll see some ramifications to his actions because you know they're coming and I mean more than just what's going on in Superman right now, but mostly, this will just be a quick look into the life of Superman after one of his biggest decisions.  Let's jump into this issue and check it out.

So like I said in my intro, we have an issue of Superman going from person to person, from place to place to tell people about the decision he's made and seeing how they react to him or in some cases, letting people know how much they inspired him to be the person he is right now.  For the most part, this is a nice enough issue, but it really lacks any kind of substance until the epilogue, which actually moves our story forward and ties up a loose end that's been dangling since Year of the Villain.


Personally, the story with Bruce and Diana talking about Clark's decision as they're at Wayne Manor is one of the best parts of the book in my opinion, but sadly, Mike Perkins art doesn't do this bit any favors, unless you're a fan of something dark when it specifically comes to Bruce Wayne.  If that's the case than it might work for you.  Overall though, we have some familiar scenes that have already been shown, a strange segment at the Hall of Justice that felt more like the confessionals in Heroes In Crisis and us seeing Superman just making the rounds and finding out if people close to him are cool with his decision........ even though he's already let the cat out of the bag.


All in all, the art was decent throughout even though my favorite section of this book felt needlessly dark like the Lois Lane book, but if you're a fan of Superman then this is probably something you'll want to get because it does go through some of the closest people in Superman's life and shows us in a small way how the world is dealing with the reveal.  The part of this book that I found myself most excited for though was at the epilogue, where we finally find out what was in the box that Lex Luthor gave Lois back in Year of the Villain, but even though I was excited to continue that story, the motives behind Lex for doing this felt off and just kind of tried to elevate one of Bendis' new villains without actually doing any work.  This is a decent issue though overall, even if it just kind of lacks any real substance by the time the book is done.

Bits and Pieces:

While there are some nice moments between our Man of Steel and the different people throughout this book, I couldn't help but feel like there should have been a more emotional touch to some of these stories.  Yeah, you'll get some, but overall this one-shot just kind of lacked in any real substance overall and didn't do more than what we initially saw when Superman revealed himself in his own book.  The art was decent throughout and there was some good installments to this story but my biggest takeaway from this issue was what we got in the final pages. 

6.9/10

4 comments:

  1. Real quick comment: this book kinda spoils JL Odyssey. When Superman is at the Hall of Justice with the other heroes, it also shows Cyborg, Jessica, and Blackfire, Dexstarr, a masked Orion, and the technician are all there, too, for some reason. Why, I don't know.

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  2. they were mostly there in the identity issue as well...I wouldn't trust Bendis to not have just messed it up and grabbed all the characters to throw on the page!

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  3. Also, did Batman just reveal the Kents are alive? He says to Superman "your parents' farm is off the grid. All they have to do is not touch anything." If not the Kents, who does he mean by "they"?
    And yeah, I'm hoping this means JL Odyssey will have some kind of conclusion soon.

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    1. I was thinking the same thing, but it was so brief it could really mean anything and nothing. The thing I was mostly focused on was Zatanna giving us our instant way out of this.

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