Superman #13

A good comic should make the reader think. It shouldn’t just be about heroes fighting bad guys, it should be about the lengths people will go to stand for what they believe in, and the moral line that can separate heroes from villains. The reader should be forced to question things about their world and what they believe. The Superman title just makes me ask why I still read it.The only answer Scott Lobdell (Teen Titans, Red Hood & The Outlaws) has been able to give me is that I probably shouldn’t be.

In the 14 issues that the New 52 has given the flagship Superman book, this is, without question, the worst. There’s a degree of lunacy involved in how truly bad this particular book is. DC’s New 52 has been plagued with asinine writer and artist decisions. The famed company has made bad choice after bad choice and this is easily one of their worst. I have no idea how anybody at the corporation could have read what he was doing at Teen Titans and thought that it was a good idea to add him to more books.

I love the Teen Titans, and Lobdell has gotten about as close to ruining them as somebody can get. I’m near the end of my rope. If H’el On Earth, the event that this book is a prelude to, doesn’t blow me away, I’m done. Most of the issues of Superman have been pretty benign. They’ve all middle and puttered, but there was nothing that really forced me to reconsider the value of the book existing. This book did that.

Towards the middle of the book, Clark Kent goes on one of the most delusional, idealistic and just plain ignorant rants that I’ve ever read in my entire life. There are children’s books that more subtly and eloquently express a point than this. Kent goes off on a tirade about the integrity of journalism and how its incredible importance. I have no idea what this rant was attempting to demonstrate, but unless it was supposed to be a citable testament to Clark Kent’s complete and utter idiocy, it failed. Clark Kent literally sounds like a 3^rd grader talking about what he wants to be when he grows up, and it’s plainly horrible. So because of the rant he is fired from the Daily Planet, and that’s a huge deal. Except for the fact that I couldn’t even bring myself to care about that, because the Clark Kent that Lobdell has presented me with isn’t anything like a Clark Kent that I’m familiar with.

There’s nothing else to say about this particular issue. It was horrible, and Lobdell will probably drive the book straight into the ground. If anyone is looking for a Superman book, read Action Comics and try really hard to pretend that this doesn’t exist.