Okay, so this whole Infinite Crisis thing is still giving everyone fits in the DC Universe, right? Well before the series is even over, DC decided to advance comics forward one year later and show the changes in the world after the Crisis event. Just about every comic in the DC gallery is being affected and DC’s big gun Superman is no different. Superman #650 is not only the first post-Crisis Superman comic that takes place One Year Later, but it also starts a six part story called ‘Up Up and Away’.
This comic is totally rad.
Like, I don’t actually go and buy comics a lot. I mean I don’t have space for them, and I totally don’t get that whole collecting thing some people have going on. I like them for the stories and not the value of the paper and stuff. But I do go to a local comic shop once every couple of weeks. I manage to use my feminine charms on the grumpy owner to check out a few issues before the nerds swarm around me and force me to jump through a window or something to get away. Can I ask some of you a personal question? Why do so many comic and science fiction dorks where those glasses that change from clear to shaded? But then they get that whole MIDDLE shade when they are in the comic shop. I don’t know, but I think it’s time someone told you that it makes you look like a serial killer.
Superman #650 opens with the usual synopsis of Superman’s arrival on earth. It shows him growing up in some undisclosed rural setting and then eventually arriving in Metropolis as a young man. All the while an undisclosed narrator fills in the general gaps about Superman’s life. We can all assume the narrator was like a electronic voice or over the telephone or something because the text balloons had those little electronic-y things around it. Anyway, it turns out that what we are seeing is a Superman retrospective being shown on a huge screen in Metropolis’ version of Central Park. Young Jimmy Olson is in attendance, and Clark and Lois are there too. It turns out that Superman has been missing in action for a year. They are very clever in not revealing why he has been gone. I assume they are saving that nugget for Infinite Crisis #7.
So the story follows Clark Kent from there on. Without his alter ego in play, he has become a stellar reported for the Planet and done his best to make sure the world knows what a duckweed Lex Luthor is. Speaking of Lex, he’s just getting released form holding after a judge throws out 175,000,000 counts of being a creepy villain out of court.
The interesting thing about the story by Kurt Busiek and Geoff Johns is that it not only establishes a new life for Clark sans Superman, but it’s handled so cleverly that one just assumes in reading the pages that Superman is not around anymore because Clark chose to retire. I totally don’t want to spoil this amazing read, but the surprises toward the end of the issue totally blew my daffy brain. There is also an incredibly clever seen involving a new villain where Clark has to duck out of site to signal for help from Supergirl with a signal watch like Jimmy Olson wears.
This promises to be an interesting storyline and I can’t wait to get ALL of them. God, I am so spoiled.
