Superman # 656 Review
This Review Was Submitted by Knightwingbk:
Writer: Kurt Busiek
Artists: Carlos Pacheco & Jesus Merino
Wow, Batman and Superman are on the same numbering. A month apart anyway. The issue promises a knockdown drag out fight, and we get one. And no, he's not pink, that’s a weird internet coloring mistake. Besides a fight, we get some more back-story into Clark's past before he got to be Superman. Caroline Llewellyn (worst last name ever) and Clark were on a dig together in Australia and encountered a giant trilobite? Anyway, Kurt Busiek gives the monster a long back-story similar to Superman but raised in different circumstances, and then takes it all away! Remember that naked man in the past that was looking at Superman 2 issues ago? He comes back and effectively makes "Subjeckt 17" worthless. This felt like an issue of filler to get to the naked man. So why tell this story at all if there is no emotional payoff at the end?
Moving on, Carlos Pacheco is continuing to do a great job on this book, and keep it monthly, which rarely happens now. Superman looks heroic, royal, and tough, and that is all to Pacheco's art. His other characters look good as well, and I had no problems following the action in this issue. There is a great Alien and H.R. Geiger reference in one panel, and his backgrounds look and feel like real places. All in all, the story is a bust, the art is great, but the art can't save it enough. D.
I like Kurt Busiek's writing better here then I did in that one issue of Aquaman I read, I will say that much. I don't know, I think the Up, Up and Away storyline was just better cause for one it was Busiek AND Geoff Johns writing it, and also the thing was spread out over both the Superman & Action Comics titles.