Here it is: Mister Marvel himself, Brian Bendis, finally made the move over to the enemy, DC, after years of writing for Marvel, and this is his much anticipated first DC book, his big debut - with the most iconic superhero of them all, no less, Superman - in The Man of Steel. Ohhhh boy! Ohhhh… crap. Unfortunately we got Blandis. I was severely unimpressed with this one.
Give Doomsday an axe and you’ve got the big bad of this woefully dull story: Rogol Zaar. He hates Kryptonians. Hey, Superman’s a Kryptonian! Time for them to trade punches! Guess who wins? Also, someone’s starting fires around Metropolis! Snore…
Superman’s got his red panties back… yay…? He’s also back doing really boring good guy stuff like rescuing lil kiddies from burning buildings and punching giant robots - the kind of generic crap Superman’s been doing for decades - while Clark’s characterisation is the usual gawrsh shucks country boy routine, clumsily stumbling around the newsroom. I guess that’s the point, to signal a return to the classic character of yore, only it makes for yawny reading.
A couple of new characters are introduced to the cast: flame-haired Deputy Fire Chief Melody Moore, aka Obvious Potential Love Interest, and Robinson Goode, the hotshot City Desk Reporter, replacing Lois Lane at the Daily Planet. I didn’t dislike either but I didn’t like them much either. They’re just sort of… meh. Obvious table-setting.
Towards the end, we finally get something more than Superman and Supergirl punching the unimaginative one-dimensional villain over and over, with the appearance of a supposedly dead character (nobody stays dead in superhero comics, ever!), setting up Lois and Jon’s upcoming storyline. That might be fun, and the reveal of the firestarter was somewhat intriguing. It’s really not much though.
A bunch of talented artists drew this story and, while I can’t say any of the art is bad, none of the pages really stood out as all that special or memorable. Nobody took any chances and the comic looks like any other Superman book.
I’d hoped The Man of Steel would be a fresh, exciting beginning for both Bendis and Superman, a much-needed shot in the arm for the Superman line which has been stagnant for years. But Bendis was on autopilot for some reason, producing a story as uninspired and dull as the worst of his Marvel stuff was. It’s not poorly written, nor poorly drawn, it’s just not at all interesting.
The Man of Steel is Superman-by-the-numbers which couldn’t be more tedious for me as someone who’s been reading Superman comics for years. Hopefully Bendis finds his footing in his next Superman and Action Comics story arcs (definitely both trade-waits for me now after this!) but this one is an extremely underwhelming beginning to one of the comics year’s most anticipated events.
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