Superman #5 Review

Nod If You Want Zod........ I Hope You're Nodding

Written By: Brian Michael Bendis

Art By: Ivan Reis, Joe Prado, Oclaire Albert, Alex Sinclair, Josh Reed

Cover Price: $3.99

Release Date: November 14, 2018

Superman has been a strange book for me since Brian Michael Bendis took over...... especially since we're getting more action here than we are in Action Comics, which I have been enjoying more.  With that though, I saw a glimpse in the previous issue that made me reconsider my stance though and made me realize just how good this title could be........ you know, aside from Rogol Zaar just wrecking house and Phantom Zone rules that I just don't agree with.  That aside though, I have hope and that hope will lead me into this issue, where we previously saw the Man of Steel strand himself in the Phantom Zone, while the Earth escaped thanks to the work of The Atom.  Let's jump into this issue and see if the good feelings continue.

In this issue we see General Zod enter the picture and while he doesn't do much here, except make me realize that I really want to see more bad ass Zod, it's the lack of action in this character that really gets me interested in not this story specifically, but with what Brian Michael Bendis plans on doing with not only this character, but with this series going forward.  There's a lot of cool stuff possibly coming down the line and all we have to do it seems is get through this to get to it.

Now, I'm not saying that I hate this story and want to get past it as soon as possible, but the beginning of this issue got me really hyped for what's to come, while the ending of this story got me really hyped for what General Zod is going to do for the rest of this.  While the prospects of awesomeness are here, we also take a moment with our Man of Steel here that while it's your pretty blatant "Brian Michael Bendis wants to show you that he knows Superman" moment, it actually digs a bit deeper than the usual surface stuff that we've seen from both this title and Action Comics that for the first time is really making think that Brian Michael Bendis does know the character and as long as we continue seeing him in this light, I'm all on board with what he's going to give me going forward.

All in all, the art in this issue is fantastic, while we take some time to really show behaviors and motives of both Superman and General Zod here that were both equally enjoyable.  Yeah, we didn't really move the story forward all that much besides for getting Zod involved, which is a bit disappointing, but I'm happy as hell with what we got out of this issue.

Bits and Pieces:

While this issue doesn't do much but add a character to the current story, it does make me optimistic for what Brian Michael Bendis plans on doing with the series going forward and it probably has one of the best moments that we've seen where the writer wants to show us that he knows the character...... Yeah, I've been getting tired of those moments, but this one really worked for me, not to mention that I really enjoyed the art that depicted it.

8.5/10