Reviews

Superman: The Rebirth Deluxe Edition Book 3 by Patrick Gleason, Peter J. Tomasi

helpfulsnowman's review against another edition

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3.0

DC relaunched, then rebirthed. I'm just getting to this now in a reading project let's go ahead and call

DC: AFTERBIRTH!

Superman. What we have here is apparently an alternate Earth Superman that we got to know during Flashpoint. Sooooo our relaunch involves a character who is a clone of our Superman that came about from a 2011 comics event.

Two things:

1. DC, c'mon, dudes. Relaunch the shit or don't. I don't get why they keep doing this, relaunching but not really. It's super annoying. If I'm looking for a jump-on point with Superman, it's not this.

2. Let's face it, it's totally irrational, but nobody likes when a character is replaced with an exact clone. No matter how exact. We just plain don't like it. I think because it implies that if we were cloned, nobody would know the difference, and that fucks with a person's sense of self. I'd like to think if I were cloned right now, my girlfriend wouldn't figure it out at first, but then she would, and she would hold the clone hostage, bust me out of mega-prison where I have to wear magnet boots, and the clone would grow a beard and go off and live his own life, ultimately shaming me by being a much better version of me.

I mean, people don't like when you replace Peter Parker with AN EXACT CLONE OF PETER PARKER. This happens here and there in other media too. There was a Futurama where Bender was replaced with an exact Bender clone, and the writers got a nice pile o' hate mail. Or, we have cat cloning. That shit's real. $25,000, but still, very real. And I think most of us view the idea with a level of suspicion. Because...it's just not the same.

Anyway, I don't know why this happens as often as it does in comics, but replacing a character with an exact clone? Never works. Just let's not do that. Let's do...anything else but that.

There's some mileage in this book of Superman as a dad. That's probably the best stuff, although it gets a little adorable for my liking when Batman comes on the scene and superdads unite. It's cute, but cute wasn't really what I was looking for. When I want cute, I know exactly where to look: Me, in the mirror. That's all the cute I can handle.

georgezakka's review against another edition

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4.0

3.5.
Pre 52 superman is here and has a kid and once had a mullet!!

Plot - there were a few stories in here including one about eradicator coming to earth to eradicate Jon, one where a Frankenstein cop goes searching for a criminal, one where Jon and Damian have to work together and some filler stories here and there.

Thoughts - took me a long time to read this because the first arc was pretty boring and I found it uninteresting but after a few issues it gets better but then there are some filler stories but what really lights up the book is the trials of the supersons arc where Jon and Damian had to work together which obviously doesn’t work by force but in the end they do help each other to save their fathers, the art by Patrick Gleason is great and it’s so colourful. Another great part about the book is the family aspect, usually superman is untouchable but now he has more responsibilities as a father which grounds him more.

Overall good book

ashleylm's review against another edition

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3.0

Can barely remember it. Was trying to get back into comics through the Comixology app. Had tried during the new 52 reboot (which I found terribly confusing, the series' were set in different time periods). I think the key (for us elders) is to pick one title, read the series, possibly reading a few others if your favourite character gets caught in a crossover, but trying to keep up with all the series at once, especially after the fact, made for an uncomfortable reading experience.

(Note: I'm a writer, so I suffer when I offer fewer than five stars. But these aren't ratings of quality, they're a subjective account of how much I liked the book: 5* = an unalloyed pleasure from start to finish, 4* = enjoyed it, 3* = readable but not thrilling, 2* = disappointing, and 1* = hated it.)

sodope's review against another edition

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4.0

This is a pretty good start for our new Superman, the best arc in this book is "Son of Superman"; this an intro for Superboy and how powerful he is currently, the other arcs ain't the best, but they may be a little fun.

jackphoenix's review against another edition

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3.0

This end to an epic but warm run on the Man of Steel will leave most fans satisfied and some craving more.

jackphoenix's review against another edition

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3.0

It's bonkers, fun and full of warmth and high-flying adventure, like one should expect stories to be about a family man who can fly.

jackphoenix's review against another edition

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4.0

Superman as a super-dad may just be the best iteration of the character yet, as this series focusing on Clark’s shared adventures with his family bring the series warmth and intrigue.

jackphoenix's review against another edition

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3.0

With a pitch perfect blend of a Superman who is back to basics while still embracing newer elements to the mythos, Tomasi and Gleason bring this run to a heartwarming close.

trike's review against another edition

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2.0

This was... okay, I guess? But also pretty stupid. I’m a bit confused — did DC reboot their universe YET AGAIN? WTF is up with these guys? Hey DC, have you heard that saying, “Doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results is the definition of insanity”?

You know what? I’m going to spoil this one, so

SPOILER ALERT — SPOILER ALERT — SPOILER ALERT

So, okay, despite this being a big ol’ #1, we apparently join this story already in progress. The beginning is front-loaded with an expository infodump about how Superman is watching Superman without getting involved, but then Superman fights, erm, The Human Torch, I think, so Superman helps out, except Superman is killed so Superman steps in to become Superman.

But this watching Superman is wearing the black suit from the Superman of the 1980s, and he tells Lana Lang (who we will never see again, because she’s just an audience stand-in to be talked at)... sorry, Superman tells Lana all about how he fought Doomsday and died, then rose again on the third day and that’s why we have chocolate bunnies delivering eggs at Easter. That last part isn’t in here but it might as well be because it makes about as much sense as anything else in this story.

Superman says he’s waiting for Superman to come back from the dead the way he did, but they make it very clear that this fireman guy INCINERATED Superman. Lana even carries his ashes in an urn. Even for a nutso superhero fantasy, how is that a resurrectable corpse? Yet they are surprised when it doesn’t work.

Superman then decides that the world needs a Superman, so he starts Supermanning again. Fine.

But here’s my question: is this Superman from the past of an alternate universe? Because he’s extremely very similar to the Superman we knew back in the day, except this guy is married to Lois Lane and they have a son named Jon. I freely admit I didn’t keep up with Superman back then, but I don’t recall there being a kid.

I thought they did away with parallel Earths, but since there is an Earth 2 comic running, I guess those are back now, too?

So anyway, this appears to be yet another soft reboot, since this universe has holdovers from the previous universe. Again. Does no one at DC have a dictionary which can explain to them what “reboot” means? This is the same stupid problem the New 52 had.

All right, so nevermind all that corporate we-must-make-changes-but-not-too-many-changes-because-we-killed-sales garbage, let’s look at the stories themselves.

So the first arc deals with Superman deciding to take up the mantle again. We know he will; he’s Superman. There’s a bunch of stuff with young Jon, who has uncontrollable power flare-ups due to being just a kid. In one scene the family cat is nabbed by a hawk, and Jon uses his heat vision to blast the bird... and vaporize the cat. This is straight out of Straczynski’s excellent reboot of the Squadron Supreme ([b:Supreme Power: Hyperion|3940|Supreme Power Hyperion|J. Michael Straczynski|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1320641701s/3940.jpg|7663]), where a very young Hyperion accidentally vaporizes a puppy given to him. That scene worked there because it was a gritty take on those heroes, but here the cat incineration is a bit much. Tonally it doesn’t fit the book. Plus, you know, ripoff.

Superman teaches Jon, there’s a fight with a giant octopus, people aren’t sure whether to trust this new Superman, yadda yadda. It’s all very surface level, and you don’t feel like anyone is actually going to distrust this guy. I mean, he looks and acts exactly like the old guy, so.

Somehow the guy who killed Superman gets bits of Jon’s blood from the octo fight and invades the Fortress of Solitude, where Superman and Lois bring Jon after he bumps his head, and he is revealed to be none other than THE ERADICATOR!

Who?

Yeah, me neither, man.

Turns out this guy is a robot built by Zod to kill his enemies by sucking out their lifeforce and sending it into the Phantom Zone while their bodies await trial. Except the souls of the Kryptonians are also inside the Eradicator, powering him. And his robot body transformed into a nondescript humanoid body when Krypton exploded because reasons. Also there were a lot of him. So he’s sort of like Braniac and sort of like Bizarro, which makes about as much sense as anything else here.

Superman takes the battle to Batman’s batcave on the dark side of the moon (which is literally dark in this universe, because fuck science, man), and the Eradicator eats Krypto. Oh, did I forget to mention Krypto the Superdog suddenly shows up out of nowhere? Yeah, he’s here. Then the Eradicator eats Superman, who explains to the Kryptonian ghosts in Raddie’s belly (I’m assuming) that they need to fight Raddie.

Meanwhile, outside in the cave, Lois manages to don some giant batarmor (we’re even treated to a shot of her a la Iron Man from the Marvel movies) and starts fighting The ‘Cator. Now, this being Batman’s moonhouse, you’d think he’d have some protocols in place to keep people from just stealing his stuff. Smartest guy in the world who is always three steps ahead of everyone, yet doesn’t use the thumbprint technology we have to keep anyone else from looking at our phones... sure, dude.

So anyway, the Eradicator, who apparently sucks souls out of people’s bodies also bodily consumes entire people, despite those two things being mutually exclusive, and those souls now possess Superman, giving him the power to escape from Er’s tummy and become full size again, just in time to save Lois and Jon.

It clearly states he only has 10% power, yet he’s standing toe-to-toe with a supercharged Superman, which causes me to ask the question: how did Superman stand against him in the first place when he was at 40,000% power?

None. Of. This. Makes. Sense.

Superhero stories are inherently silly, but you need to have *some* internal consistency FFS.

Raddie says that one Kryptonian soul still resides within, so Superman yells, “Krypto, heel!” And the superdog tears himself from inside the roboman. Easy win. Kryptonian souls fly off into space. Superman rights the fallen American flag and lunar lander, which everyone on Earth sees. Superman gets a medal. Yay!

Which would have been a cool moment except for all the goofiness that went before it.

Other adventures in this book include Jon building a flying saucer model that somehow connects to the Kryptonian crystals, thus transporting the two guys and the dog to Skull Island where they fight dinosaurs and an albino Gorilla Grodd. I mean, it’s not actually Skull Island, but it’s pretty clearly the same sort of place, complete with impenetrable fog that Superman can’t get out of. It also transports them back in time, I guess, because they find the remains of WWII soldiers and their tanks, boats and planes. Not to mention a soldier still living on the island. Since the guy looks to be no more than 50 years old, this must be somewhere around 1972.

Which is when the events of the movie Kong: Skull Island take place. Hmm.

So either this place has magical age-retardation powers or it’s in the past, or maybe some other explanation entirely. I suppose it doesn’t really matter, since this is no more ridiculous than the other arcs in this book.

Krypto gets swallowed by a pteranodon, which leads to the one amusing line of this whole series: “What is with you getting eaten all the time?” Which was exactly the question I asked the page before.

We also get the son of Batman teaming up with the son of Superman, which was honestly the best part of this book. I see that this is also an ongoing series, and that has promise — provided it’s not written by these guys, because we really need someone who understand basic storytelling to write these.

Preferably by someone who hasn’t taken the dictum of “save the dog, kill the cat” as the core of their yarn spinning.

tshepiso's review against another edition

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3.5

3.5 stars

This latest collection may just be (with one notable exception) my favourite stretch of comics in the Superman Rebirth run. This deluxe edition collects the stories Road Trip, Fear Itself, Breaking Point, and Imperius Lex and I really enjoyed them.

Unfortunately, this volume started off with a stinker. The first two issues Road Trip see the Kents on a whistle-stop tour of war memorials across the US. While I'm not opposed to themes being front and centre in a Superman story Tomasi beat the reader over the head with American pride. We're subjected to a series of poorly integrated history lectures that almost read like propaganda. The sanitization of US history was jarring and off-putting. From neglecting to mention the use of atom bombs on civilian populations when discussing Japan's surrender of WWII to the odd erasure of slavery in discussions of the Civil War the framing of Road Trip was a choice. In the end, it was a trite, poorly done series of lectures rather than an entertaining story and was thoroughly unpleasant to read.

Thankfully the following story A Minute Longer was a vast improvement. This story sees Superman face off against Parallax after a series of kidnappings of children of the Metropolis. Parallax's presence draws the attention of Sinestro who attempts to control the fear entity. This story was simple but satisfying. We see some solid exploration of Superman's deepest fears and his ultimate defeat of both Parallax and Sinestro with hope was well rendered.

Breaking Point was another well-done two-parter. After publishing an editorial on Deathstroke Lois is hunted by the mercenary. This all serves to test Superman's limits as the merc attempts to see just how far Clark would go to protect his family. While there's nothing particularly new or groundbreaking about Breaking Point's take on Superman and killing, newer Superman writer James Bonny kept Clark fantastically in character as he was pushed further and further closer to the line. I loved seeing Lois and Clark's relationship and his determination to save her while staying on that moral line. The dialogue, internal and external, was especially well rendered.

Finally, the deluxe edition ends with the four-part Imperious Lex arc. I'm genuinely surprised by how much I enjoyed this story because historically longer more involved and space-related Superman stories have been a struggle for me to connect with. But, Imperius Lex for some reason compelled me. This story sees the people of Apokolips in shambles after the Darkseid War and in desperate need of their prophesized leader who they assumed to be Lex.

I think this story perfectly balanced its plot with superfamily elements. We see Clark, Lois and Jon on separate adventures that eventually intersect but were all equally entertaining. From BAMF Lois to Lex and Clark having the most intense bitter ex's energy I had a lot of fun with this story.

Overall, outside of two exceptionally bad issues at the start of this collection, I thoroughly enjoyed this latest set of Superman stories. Newer authors to the run Keith Champagne and James Bonny did an excellent job with the character. I can't wait to wrap up this run of Superman with the last deluxe edition.
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