In the wake of the mysterious fire creature’s attack on Metropolis in ‘Superman’ #1, the Man of Steel is trying to figure out exactly where the creature came from. The scientists at Star Labs tell Superman that the creature is not extraterrestrial in origin. If that is true, Superman must find out why the creature spoke in a language that seemed alien and why only one word was spoken that Superman could understand. That word? Krypton.

Before Superman can figure out much of anything, General Lane confronts the hero and accuses him of being the cause of the monster’s attack in the first place. Superman begins to think that Lane just might be right when a second monster attacks. The new monster is somehow invisible to all of Superman’s vision-based powers. So, while the people of Metropolis can see the beast tearing up Supes like a rag doll, the hero is nearly helpless… until he discovers a way to fight back.

The first issue of ‘Superman’, while not terrible, left me a little cold. George Perez’s writing was very wordy and was lacking in any of the light-heartedness of Superman’s central character. This issue, while still lacking in humor, is much tighter in the story department. Perez is still overly verbose and fills page after page with huge chunks of dialog. But, unlike last issue where it was a lot of set-up and fluff that left me feeling bored while chugging through the text, this issue’s dialogue actually moves the story along at a fairly brisk pace. While I’m still not a fan of the style, Perez does do a much better job this go ‘round and leaves readers with a mystery that is intriguing enough to want to see through to the end.

The art from Jesus Merino, with breakdowns by Perez, looks as you would expect. It is obvious that Perez did the layouts since the style has that late eighties or early nineties vibe with lots of tv screen shaped panels. But , as I said last issue, Merino’s pencils on top of Perez are amazing and a great fit for the title.

So far, ‘Superman’ is decent but nowhere near as good as what’s going on with the Man of Steel over in ‘Action Comics’ so if you want to wait for the trade paperback on this series, I don’t think you’d be missing much.

Final verdict: Borrow

SUPERMAN #2
Written by GEORGE PEREZ
Breakdowns and cover by GEORGE PEREZ
Art by JESUS MERINO