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Superman: The Coming Of The Supermen by Neal Adams (graphic novel review).

Anything with the name of ‘Neal Adams’ on it is going to sell in comicbooks. This 2017 graphic novel is a gathering of the previous year’s 6-part ‘Superman: The Coming Of The Supermen’.

It should come as no surprise that the three Kryptonians who come to Earth in spacecraft are from Kandor, now full-size, and reminds me of the Superman Emergency Squad. As we discover later, someone’s added some red sun material to our sun and none of them are as powerful as Superman, although no one explains how he’s kept his own powers. I think we’ll have to forget the physics that says you can’t really add a chunk of another star to a star and change its composition.

Superman is in the Middle East where he saves and ultimately takes care of a young Arab boy, Rafi, and his dog, Isa, ultimately taking him to Metropolis after sending Kalibak packing. He slowly unwraps a plot where Lex Luthor is helping Darkseid who is determined to take over the planet on the other side of the sun where Kandor is.

Basically, it’s Superman and the New Gods versus Darkseid and his people with an interesting twist spoiler at the end. Adams doesn’t exactly channel Kirby and his Granny Goodness has to be one of his most ugly depictions. Even Darkseid isn’t as laid back as he normally is, especially as Luthor tends to keep the upper hand. I do sometimes wonder at artists who write as well because I’m not always convinced they will do anything to challenge themselves. There are very few pages with Superman on them and, for Adams, very few with detailed backgrounds. Even so, if you can draw this well at his age, then you’ll just buy this graphic novel because it’s Neal Adams.

GF Willmetts

July 2018

(pub: DC Comics, 2017. 160 page graphic

UncleGeoff

Geoff Willmetts has been editor at SFCrowsnest for some 21 plus years now, showing a versatility and knowledge in not only Science Fiction, but also the sciences and arts, all of which has been displayed here through editorials, reviews, articles and stories. With the latter, he has been running a short story series under the title of ‘Psi-Kicks’ If you want to contribute to SFCrowsnest, read the guidelines and show him what you can do. If it isn’t usable, he spends as much time telling you what the problems is as he would with material he accepts. This is largely how he got called an Uncle, as in Dutch Uncle. He’s not actually Dutch but hails from the west country in the UK.

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