Superman #7 Review

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

Written By: Brian Michael Bendis

Art By: Ivan Reis, Brandon Peterson, Jason Fabok, Oclair Albert, Alex Sinclair, Josh Reed, Carlos M. Mangual

Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: January 16, 2019

Even though I was pissed last issue because we had all that build up for an amazing team-up between Superman and General Zod going up against Rogol Zaar in the Phantom Zone, only to have ripped away from us by Superman getting yanked out and then just going on with his normal save the day shtick like nothing happened.  We did get a pretty interesting cliffhanger with Jon Kent Superboy returning to Earth and looking way older than he did when he left.  Hopefully, Superboy's return is enough to get me over the fact that we never got that General Zod team-up with our Man of Steel, without the explanation being too convoluted.  Let's jump into this issue and check it out.

So Superboy is about seventeen years old now and this issue is all about him telling his parents about what happened................ what happened while Lois Lane was still with them.  I mean, isn't it weird that Bendis would decide that Lois would want to hear all about the time she spent with Jor-El and her son in space before deciding to leave, which I'm sure she also told Superman all about once he learned that she had returned to Earth?  The worst part about all of this is...... it ends when Lois leaves so not only do we get information that we should have gotten in Action Comics when Lois Lane was shown to be in Metropolis, but our main characters don't even get new information.

Yeah, I'm upset that Bendis decided to age Jon Kent up by seven years, but I'm not going to let that anger make me biased to this issue...... the thing that makes me biased is that nothing was ever set up for Superman or Lois to really trust Jor-El in the first place.  So the idea that Superman would even let his father, who he knew nothing about take his family into space is nonsense, but the idea that Lois would then abandon her son with this weirdo is even sillier.  It's all rather forced to get to Bendis' conclusion of Jon being seventeen here and I really hope that things start feeling more natural with the continuation of this story now that the aging is out of the way.

All in all, I love the art in this issue, but everything story wise feels forced and out of character for everyone involved.  Hell, Jon calling Superman "Pa" over and over again felt weird too.  Just the idea that Superboy would start his story about what happened to him at a point where Lois was there felt weird and I really hope that Bendis' Superman starts feeling more like the characters we know and love as they go along because what we're getting right now just isn't cutting it for me.

Bits and Pieces:

Jon Kent is back and tells his parents a story that Lois should have told Superman the moment he discovered she was back.  We get it here though and nothing about this feels natural, especially for how forced the situation was to begin with.  The art in this issue is amazing though and we get Jon Kent back so at least you can say those are positives to what we get here.  Sadly, that's about all my positives.

5.8/10