Landis, Max

AVERAGE REVIEW SCORE:

3 out of 5

(1 book)

Superman: American Alien

(Art by Nick Dragotta, Tommy Lee Edwards, Joelle Jones, Jae Lee, Francis Manapaul, Jonathan Case and Jock)

A collection of vignettes from across Clark Kent's life, from his childhood in Smallville, to his first big break as a reporter and on into his discovery of his purpose as Superman.

This book's own cover says that it's not a story about Superman, it's a story about Clark Kent and that's one of the more engaging parts of this book.  Superman is often something of the opposite to Batman, and where Bruce Wayne is the mask, here we see that who Superman really is is Clark Kent.  It's also nice to focus on other characters' relationships with Clark far more than their relationships with Superman, Lois Lane in particular.

The big problem with this book is that none of this is actually terribly new.  Clark's childhood has been explored more times than I can count and his early days as Superman even more so.  Aside from the slight shift in focus to Clark rather than Supes, this book doesn't really do anything that hasn't been covered a dozen times before and is, therefore, left feeling rather redundant.

The other thing I disliked was how contrived the appearances of other famous DC faces are.  For example, Clark just happens to stumble across a very young Dick Grayson for no particular reason or, in a much more egregious example, Clark's plane crashes in the ocean and he is rescued by Bruce Wayne's yacht, which also just happens to have Oliver Queen, Victor Zsasz and Barbara Minerva aboard.  It breaks the willing suspension of disbelief.

3 out of 5

Collaborations & Anthologies:

Superman: Action Comics - Volume 2: Bulletproof (here)

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DC Comics (here)