Superman #14 Review and *SPOILERS*

Look At All Those Chickens Supermen

Written By: Peter J. Tomasi, Patrick Gleason

Art By: Ivan Reis, Joe Prado, Marcelo Maiolo, Rob Leigh

Cover Price: $2.99

Release Date: January 4, 2016

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

It's time to get Superman back in action after he was forced to witness the marital problems between Frankenstein and his Bride and from what it looks like here, that action will be us dipping our toes back into the madness that was Grant Morrison's Multiversity series.  Yeah, that series had a lot of fans, all I know though is that I felt like a bit ass dummy after reading it because Grant's concepts were way beyond my mental capacity........ that or it was just out there.  Either way, it was a hassle to understand and hopefully with Tomasi and Gleason at the helm of this foray into that world, we'll be able to get a full understanding about what they're throwing at us.  Let's jump into this issue and see why the Justice Incarnate needs to show up and what it has to do with our Man of Steel.  Let's check it out.

Explain It!:

Our issue begins with Clark Kent (Smith) driving home one night in Hamilton County, when he's met by an injured Red Son Superman standing in the road, asking for help.  It's at that point where shit starts going side-ways and I start speculating wildly about what's going on in this arc.  You see, it turns out that there is some big bad out there in the Multiverse, sending out his "Gatherers" as they're called here, more like Parademon wanna-bes if you ask me, but they're being sent out to collect certain Supermen throughout the Multiverse by their mysterious master and it turns out that Red Son Superman is on their list, but he seemed to escape to their next destination Prime-Earth, where it's up to our title hero, Red Son Superman and The Justice Incarnate to make sure that the Gatherers don't reach their next target, Kenan Kong. 

Now for that speculation I was talking about.  Way back in Action Comics #9 during the New 52 we saw the Superman of Earth-23, Calvin Ellis being told about a being that was created called SuperDoomsday, who was going throughout the Multiverse killing other Supermen.  Now, while it appeared that Calvin destroyed that monster, it could be that he survived his trip through the portal that Calvin sent him through and now has a new modus operandi of wanting to consume the power of the other Supermen in the Multiverse, while continuing to eliminate them in the process.  This could be completely wrong, but it does work as a way to catch you up and get you to start thinking about it too.

In the end, Superman and the Justice Incarnate are too late to save Kenan Kong from being consumed by some black goo and taken through a portal by the Gatherers, but it's not a complete lost cause because Superman is able to grab one of the kidnappers before it could escape....... So at least we have a lead going forward and with Superman joining the Justice Incarnate with their trip through the Multiverse to save other Supermen, I expect to get some cool exposition about how they see this Superman who is from another world outside of the Multiverse entirely.  As we leave this issue, we see the cells that all the Supermen are being held in and we even see that this mysterious villain has Val-Zod from Earth-2 as well, but the big part of this ending is that Captain Carrot from Earth-26 is put into some sort of machine that turns him from his cartoon superhero form into an actual rabbit........... with a cape.  Kind of looking like one of Supergirl's super pets from back in the day, but ultimately, it seems like Captain Carrot had what made him super taken away from him.

That's it for this issue of Superman and while the stakes have never seemed higher in this book, there is a lot of just smoke and mirrors happening here to make this issue appear bigger than it is because we really don't get anything except for Kenan Kong being kidnapped and the cliffhanger to peak our interest.  It's a setup issue and even with those smoke and mirrors I was talking about, this issue still is really enjoyable and I couldn't help but be swept up by the hype it created.  That's right, I'm a fan and I like that we're finally getting to go back to the Multiversity that Grant Morrison created even though it confused the hell out of me because it's been sitting dormant for so long it felt like it was gone forever.  The art in this issue is great and I love the bonus of having all these characters for Superman to play off of because I remain optimistic that we'll get some more information about Superman existing in this Universe even though his timeline was destroyed.  There's just a lot of potential with this story and I can't wait to see what we get.  

Bits and Pieces:

Yeah, this is a big bad issue with the promise of a lot of stuff going on in the future of Superman comics (at least for this arc), but with that though this is purely a setup issue that gets our Man of Steel on the trolley of what's going on in the Multiverse.  Now, with that out of the way, I'm still totally excited for what's to come from this and can't wait to read more of what Tomasi and Gleason have for us down the pipe.  

8.5/10