By: J. Michael Straczynski & Chris Roberson (writers), Jamal Igle (penciller), Jon Sibal & Robin Riggs (inkers), Marcelo Maiolo (colorist)
The Story: Stop eating those French fries, Superman, have some self-respect! Don’t you know you can fly?!
The Review: Superman has been around for so long, has been written by so many different kinds of writers, and has gone through so many permutations that it gets a bit harder every year just to give him a story that avoids the formulaic, let alone one that brings something new to the table. And while “Grounded” as a premise made an admirable attempt to try break away from familiar plotlines, it long ago lost its novelty and is now knee-deep in clichés.
It doesn’t get any more so than Lois Lane in a threatening situation and Superman coming to her rescue. To start off an issue with this kind of thing already tells us not to expect much in the way of mind-blowing material. And even though you have zero doubt Supes will get Lois out of this safe and sound, it’s amusing to see him accomplish the task within the first three pages. Not surprising, though; we all know Lois is just a tool to get Superman into action, nothing more.
That said, the action we get hardly counts as the big blowout you’d expect at the end of such a long, hyped story arc. Part of the problem lies with our villain—I’m sure she mentions her name somewhere, but I don’t care enough to really remember or look it up—who nurses, predictably enough, a misdirected, personal vendetta against our hero, and has no qualms about stating it with ridiculous explicitness: “I want you to suffer, Superman! Like you’ve made me suffer!”
I can only imagine Roberson’s fatigue with this storyline (it does feel like it’s gone on forever, doesn’t it?) has caused him to throw the dialogue to the wind, as it all falls into embarrassingly corny territory: “I am your shadow. I am all of the doubts and fears you’ve been afraid to face!” Superman’s response? “What you are is annoying!” Terrific rejoinder, big guy. Your time on New Krypton clearly deprived you of practice in the art of American repartee.
Speaking of America, Roberson attempts to sell the worth of Superman’s misguided journey by collating all the mini-lessons he’s learned on this utterly weird road trip into a claim we all knew anyway: there will always be a place for Superman. By the way, it’s never a good sign when “Truth. Justice. And the American way” gets repeated more than once in a single issue.
All this explains why there’s as much mockery and prejudice towards Superman as there’s respect and love for him. He just has so much symbolism and iconography attached to him that you can’t take him seriously as a character. It doesn’t help when writers spend such inordinate amounts of time talking about what he represents rather than who he is. This whole issue reads more like a metafictional treatise on Superman as an archetype than a living, breathing story.
Igle sure seems to be the go-to man for fill-in art, as his quick lines have enough flexibility to get across almost any kind of scene convincingly. But even though his delicate lines get sympathetic inks from Sibal and Riggs which give them some depth (as opposed to the sloppiness we’re used to), there’s still a very distinctly corny look to his art. I find it hard to describe other than to say it’s very comic-booky, which works for lighter titles, but defeats ones that try to be more serious.
Conclusion: This final issue perfectly encapsulates all the grief people have taken with this title: a careless, thoroughly disengaging plot with cheesy dialogue and unlikable, high-minded ideas.
Grade: C-
– Minhquan Nguyen
Some Musings: – I’m just gonna say it: seriously, Roberson? A network of heroes Superman can call on at any time in case he can’t be there himself? Why don’t you just call it Superman Incorporated while you’re at it? Although personally, I prefer the name, the Signal Watchmen.
Grade
Conclusion