Vance, Steve

AVERAGE REVIEW SCORE:

3 out of 5

(1 book)

Superman Inc.

(Art by Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez and  Mark Farmer) 

An Elseworlds story in which a mysterious orphan baby in Kansas grows up to be the world's greatest sports star.  However, Dale Suderman's media empire is threatened by Lex Luthor, who discovers the hidden truth that Dale is from another world.

I have to admit that I rolled my eyes a bit when the strange invincible baby is adopted by Darryl and Edna Suderman and was worried that this would be another 'comedic' Elseworlds story like the terrible 'Superman: True Brit' (reviewed here).  Thankfully the Suderman aspect is actually integrated pretty well, as Dale uses his adopted surname as the inspiration for his media persona Superman.

Unlike many Elseworlds books, there's also an element of satire to this book too.  It's pretty on-the-nose in the scene where Dale's marketing executives acknowledge the hope and aspiration that Superman inspires and immediately get down to how it can be exploited for merchandise.  I'm guessing the marketing executives at DC never got a look at this particular story.

However, despite having some interesting stuff in it, this book just isn't long enough to ever really develop its ideas to any great depth and the return to the status quo at the end felt like a bit of a cop-out.

3 out of 5

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DC Comics (here)