Superboy #10 & Superman #714

Let's switch gears and bravely take a trek to the DC side of things... I have two comics with the name, “Super” on the cover, so I guess I might as well give them a read/review together. And don't worry Marvel fans, after this brief trip to DC land it's back to the world of Marvel for me.

Superboy #10:

Summary: Well here's an easy comic to review... This issue tells the story of Tannarak, the wizard responsible for the Hollow Men, as well as the multitude of Superboy clones hidden deep beneath Smallville. The bottom line is that Tannarak is an uber-powerful mage who has butted heads with the Phantom Stranger for tens of thousands of years. He's always tried to create duplicates of people to send throughout the world to conquer and/or destroy it. After biding his time for several hundred years, he resurfaced in 1880's Smallville, offering to give Smallville's town doctor, the immoral Eben Took, the children his wife lost in childbirth. The two plotted for over a hundred years until they managed to acquire Superboy's DNA, at which point the cloning shenanigans began. From there we head back to the present where Tannarak tells Superboy that once SB was defeated he'd harvest the souls of the people of Smallville to power his army of Superboy clones... And that's about it.

Thoughts: I have no real complaints here. We now know exactly who the villain of this storyline is, and what his major malfunction is. I don't know that we needed an ENTIRE issue spelling that out for us, but since Tannarak's story wasn't boring, I guess I can't complain... Much. I don't quite grasp spending this long on a villain's origin story, especially since there's only one more issue before DC blows Superboy to smithereens, but what can ya do?

Score: 7 out of 10.Since Superboy only appeared on two pages in this one, it was pretty easy picking out a page to scan!


Superman #714:

Summary: This issue begins with Supes rescuing Lois Lane from the crazy woman in Seattle that had kidnapped Lois last issue. With Lois out of harm's way, Supes returns to Seattle, and is surprised when the crazy woman begins to battle Supes with an array of Kryptonian powers. Realizing that a battle with another Kryptonian type individual could wreak untold damage in a major city, Supes calls to the Superman Squad from the future(UGH!!!), who open up a portal taking Supes and the crazy woman to the Still Zone, a place where only Supes and this woman existed. With that, the crazy woman, Lisa Jennings, gives her origin story... Basically she was a mild mannered teacher until she happened to touch a Kryptonian Sunstone at the very moment Supes was walking past her house. The Sunstone forced all of the negative emotions Superman was thinking at the time into Lisa's head, driving her crazy... As well as inexplicably giving her Supes' powers, but let's casually forget about THAT, since it makes no real sense... Now knowing why Lisa was crazy, Supes grabs the Sunstone that Lisa had conveniently brought along with her and thinks only happy thoughts into it, um, reversing the negative thoughts in Lisa's head and causing the Sunstone to explode. With that taken care of, Supes exits the Still Zone, takes Lisa to the hospital, makes out with Lois(for the last time I guess...) and sails off into the sunset, concluding this series until the reboot.

Thoughts: The biggest problem with this issue for me? The Superman Squad. I absolutely hate that idea, and in a universe that already has the Legion of Super-Heroes running around in the future, I don't see the need for this Superman Squad... Kind of like how I didn't see the need for this storyline in general. It added nothing worthwhile to the Superman mythos, and didn't tell a particularly interesting story. If you did happen to enjoy JMS' gazillion part storyline, more power to you. Me? I found it plodding, boring, and completely anti-climatic. Here's hoping post-reboot Superman is WAY better than this.

Score: 4 out of 10.The end of Superman... For now...