SUPERMAN 657 was wonderful - Carlos Pacheco's incredible vision of a Metropolis broken in half was real spectacle, not to mention the creepy imagery of the Parasite who had drained Superman speaking with Big Blue's voice and asking Lois to call him "Clark."
My favorite detail was the characterization of Luthor. Here, he was heroic - when that Arab Fu Manchu guy assembled the world's villains to attack together (much like Kang did in "Kang Dynasty") Luthor was actually protecting Metropolis.
Arion is my favorite DC wizard. He's got so much arrogant personality to burn.
What I like about Busiek's DC work, both this story and his JUSTICE LEAGUE, is that he takes his time to develop the worlds he's creating. He took his time to build up the threat of the Void Hound in JLA, and here with this possible future, he spent a whole issue to show what a tremendous menace the Assassin Master is, and the consequences of failure.
Now THIS is the sort of Superman story I was expecting when I heard Busiek was going to be writing the character - a massive, high-stakes battle against an over the top superfoe where even Superman (at first glance) appears to be the underdog. You feel real fear for the character and wonder how he will be victorious. It's very exciting. When I read in an interview that Busiek originally intended this story to be in his JLA (before some witless manatee at DC removed him from that book), I was not in the least bit surprised.
Never before did I notice, though, that to write a giant, high-stakes Superman story you have to plot it very similarly to a JLA or Legion battle: and since...well, to be as honest as possible here...Superman is the JLA in one man and seldom needs the other guys. If you can make a menace that challenges Superman, you pretty much have made a menace that challenges the JLA.
Subjekt 13 was great and all, but this is the story arc where Busiek is saying "okay, I'm through dicking around here. Let's get serious."
What I especially like so far about Busiek's SUPERMAN is that, apart from his story arc with Johns, he is for the most part using NEW villains: Subjekt 13 and that Fu Manchu-style Arab guy that sort of looks like Steve Gerber's Presence. What a great look he has.
Subjekt 13 is a tragic, reverse Superman story. I think considerably less of the Jerry Siegel Super-Menace story than others do, but THIS is Super-Menace done properly and tragically.
What I think is the most depressing detail about the Subjekt 13 story is that he came to earth with his parents...including his pregnant mother. Both were killed, and thereafter at no point in his life was he ever shown love.
Busiek and Pacheco created a whole world through flashbacks and history, and yet managed to be totally unique. What MORE do you want from a good-sized 23 page comic?
Best Superman story of the past seven years.
I am almost intrigued enough to actually look at an issue next time I'm in a comic shop....
(I liked parts of Pacheco in Avengers Forever)
In a more just world, THIS would be the Superman book everybody would be reading.
It's great to read Busiek's Superman and wash out from one's mouth the bitter taste of ASS.
And I love Pacheco too. I was amazed by the sea-monster riding German troops in ARROWSMITH.
Busiek's run is a huge dissapointment fo the most part.
I was praying for a change of the post modern sueprjock portrayal back to the Authentic Superman but really, this is just a continuation of the Byrne Era's 'Peter Parker, Simperman' portrayal for the most part.
If you can show me
one occasion of Kurt Busiek's Superman "simping" or angsting...I will send you a YouTube video of me EATING my collection of Astro City issues with ketchup and salt.
I don't really see any evidence of that. Yes, poor Clark Kent couldn't buy a break with Perry White, but Pete Parker got that from Superman, not the other way around. All the hard-luck stuff is concentrated on Clark Kent where it belongs.
"Superjock?" Yeeesh. Yes, I too was disappointed a scientist had to tell him how to beat Subjekt 13, but there are many, many other occasions Superman demonstrated not only intelligence but SUPERINTELLIGENCE. One issue had him using microscopic vision to read a microbiology journal he placed inside a single punctuation mark. He found Manheim with knowledge of medicine, and disabled Neutron with science.
And if I had a dollar for every time Busiek's Superman used Reed-Richards style fifty buck words, I could probably buy the Arion/Assassin Master story in TPB for all the forum regulars!
If anything, I don't think Superman is responding emotionally ENOUGH for my tastes. The battle with Subjekt 13, for instance, should have been more emotionally difficult for Superman than it was shown to be.