Read My Mind!
Release Date: October 13, 2020
In our previous issue of Superman, we saw the Synmar people watching as Krypton was destroyed and after they witnessed a baby Kal-El being rocketed to Earth, they decided to continue watching the Last Son of Krypton grow since with Earth's yellow sun and the baby's Kryptonian DNA, they knew that this survivor would become a god in these conditions. With this idea in mind and the inspiration they saw Superman bring to the planet Earth, the Synmar people decided to appoint their own "Superman"...... then a bunch of their people died and the new character of Synmar was blamed because he didn't protect them........ for some reason now he's pissed at our Man of Steel. Let's jump into this issue and see if Synmar's reasons are made clear..... or if we spend an entire issue dealing with other things that don't matter... hint, hint.
So in an issue where you want to learn more about Synmar's beef with Superman since he is the villain of this arc and all, we spend the majority of the issue with Superman making sure that we all know that he loves his wife Lois Lane...... which could be nice and all - since Superman's been dealing with a lot of anxiety in his life since Bendis took over this book, but it's just a quick moment that just recaps what we've been seeing from this series before Superman is alerted to a "UFO" heading towards the Fortress of Solitude by Kelex.
Okay, so we'll learn about Synmar here, right? No, we learn that Jimmy Olsen's been sleeping at the Fortress of Solitude because the FBI is raiding the Daily Planet...... I guess maybe that makes sense to someone, but we then head off to the Daily Planet to continue dealing with the fallout of Superman revealing his identity to the world, which means making sure that Steve Lombard knows that Clark and he are friends. Really though, we have to let the readers know that there's a technology protecting the Daily Planet in case of attack and we need to know that now because it will be used in this issue, where eventually Symar attacks Superman where their fight from space leads directly to the Daily Planet. The technology activates, sending Superman and Synmar to the Phantom Zone, where Superman just keeps yelling that he's opening his mind for psychic communication. So yeah, Synmar's pissed and we don't learn anything new here except Jimmy sleeps at the Fortress and there's a phantom zone projector attached to the Daily Planet...... but can only be activated by voice command by Superman.
All in all, I did enjoy the art a lot in this issue and think that the entire team behind the way this issue looks did an amazing job, but in usual Bendis fashion, we get an issue that's padded out and ultimately doesn't amount to much. Maybe if this is the first issue of Bendis' run that you've read you can enjoy something from it because it uses its page space to catch pretty much everyone up with what's been going on in not only this but Action Comics as well, but it just reminded me why I've not been enjoying Superman for years now and the one thing I was interested in, Symar, is pretty much relegated to a cliffhanger and a fight where Superman just keeps yelling for psychic communication. With Bendis' run ending soon, this is not the time to have a filler issue that doesn't progress the story in a fulfilling way.
Bits and Pieces:
Superman loves his wife and Jimmy's been sleeping at the Fortress of Solitude. These are the big reveals of this issue, but as far as the new villain Symar goes, you just get a fight that you don't understand, nor does Superman. The art looks great, but the story doesn't do much for this arc.
Yeah, this book falls into the category of "bad story, great art." I like the design of Synmar and his species, but the book keeps dancing around the subject of his motivations for attacking Superman.
ReplyDeleteWell, can't say I'll miss Bendis, bye bye hahaha
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