Review: Superman: Up, Up, And Away
I'm going to put it on the table so everyone knows: I love Superman. He's the sort of character that turns me into the typical idiotic fanboy, constantly whining "If only they'd..." and following it up with an increasingly improbable, possibly incoherent rant relating to turning the title back to an imaginary status quo that only exists in some festering corner of my hindbrain. I steadfastly refused to read comics featuring him for years, only dipping back into the water for the Loeb/McGuinness period and then walking away when I realized, uh, Loeb's not a very good writer a lot of the time.1 Anyhow, this new trade paperback collection, Up, Up, And Away is the closest the mainline DC Universe has come to achieving this platonic ideal of the Man Of Steel's adventures. Yes, Morrison's making with the awesome over on All-Star Superman, but to see something that comes kind of close to his world in the mainstream title is pretty incredible, especially as it comes from the word processors of Kurt Busiek and Geoff Johns. These two writers, while quite accomplished in the comics world, normally do very little to excite me. They tend to pander to the fanboy mentality of continuity-as-story instead of writing tales that are entertaining on their own.
The logline for Up, Up, And Away is thus: It's a year after the events of the confusing, editorially-mandated Infinite Crisis. Metropolis has been rebuilding and Clark Kent, now without superpowers, is living as normal a life as possible, keeping an eye on the city and calling on the assistance of his former allies when needed. This all goes haywire when Lex Luthor, managing to worm his way out of an embarassingly long set of criminal charges and deposed from the company he built from the ground up, finds an ancient Kryptonian artifact.
This is fun superhero comics, to take a page from a certain stuffed bull. So many little sequences add to a very pleasing whole: Clark being offered a power ring by Hal Jordan; the return of "AWP!"; the Supergirl signal watch; The Avenue Of Tomorrow; Clark pondering a trip by the video store to catch up on TV he missed while flying around, saving lives. It's nice to see the core Superman supporting cast acting halfway normal, too. Jimmy's as goofy and affable as hell, Perry's a ball-breaker with a heart of gold, and Lois is...she's Lois. She's the capable and smart woman I've had that stupid little crush on forever. She's supportive to Clark, even when realizing that their year-long connubial bliss is about to come to an end - "Put it on. And do that thing with your hair. I like it when you do that." - while managing to act like a proper reporter when needed. She's clearly the same woman that appears in Birthright while managing to have evolved as a character.
Then there's Lex Luthor. This is the first time2 in years that the character has been written to my personal, very selective satisfaction. Luthor's hung on his own petard and kicked out of the company he founded after being acquited of the events of Infinite Crisis and Superman/Batman: Public Enemies and instead of realizing that he's a victim of his own hubris, he decides to ruin the lives of everyone that he feels deserves it. This means, of course, that his formerly-beloved city of Metropolis is going to have to pay and he's got a Kryptonian artifact to help him with that. This Luthor is tremendously smart and has a motivation beyond "he's just plain mean," which is about 90% of making the character work for me. In shorthand, he's the Elliot S! Maggin version of the character, essentially: pleasingly modern and up-to-date with a few touches that harken back to the Silver Age and the 70s without making a fuss of themselves.
Pete Woods and Renato Guedes owe more to clean graphic design and manga than many of their artistic peers and this story manages to be grounded in a reality that is vibrant and pop: the world where Superman should be. Playing towards one another's strengths, the duo switches off between issues cleanly and the reader just chugs away happily. Their character designs (in particular, Luthor's new look) are dead-on and instantly identifiable. Heck, there's one sequence near the end where Superman and Luthor are engaged in fisticuffs that manages to homage Curt Swan without seeming out of place at all.
Everyone concerned here acquits themselves well. This is a modern Superman comic that makes me want to read more comics featuring the character, and that's not happened in a long, long time. Highly Recommended
1He's got craft and technique out the wazoo, but quality is one of those constants that seems to elude him.
2Again, outside of the Morrison/Quitely take on the character.
