Superior 1

I suppose after the fresh take on the basics of Batman that Nemesis offered us (and I’ll note in passing that the main good guy is clearly Bruce Wayne if he didn’t put the costume on – most seem to be talking as if there is only one alternative Batman in the book), we were always likely to get an alternative Superman too. Though in fact this bears a little more resemblance to Captain Marvel, maybe even Captain Marvel Junior, in that his civilian identity, Freddy Freeman, was crippled, and the powers come to him by magic. This first issue focuses on a teenager who is largely confined to a wheelchair because of multiple sclerosis, until a space monkey appears to grant him a magic wish, and he becomes Superior, a Superman-type he has seen only in movies and comic books up to then – I assume the world of this story is superhero free.

That’s about it for story. The lead and his best friend are well sketched, the monkey is suitably odd, and tells him “All will be explained in one week,” so there is the promise of more than just superhero adventure. There’s also a neat problem for our hero, in the Marvel tradition: the moments in space with the monkey equate to a day of him away from home, and given his limited mobility all sorts of bad scenarios are feared by his mom and a detective. Now he can’t be the kid, just the huge superhero, so how can he reassure them?

I’m not sure about Leinil Yu as the artist – nothing at all wrong with the quality of his drawing, layouts or storytelling, all of which are very admirable, but he makes everyone look rather distressed or unhealthy, as if they have been up all night drinking or something and desperately need ten hours of sleep. This obviously suits a youngster with MS well enough, and it worked okay for the outlaw Avengers run, where they were hiding out in various places, but it’s not a great fit for a glamorous and ultra-powerful invulnerable superhero. There’s also something very retro about the costume design – it’s kind of basic, with a cloak and what looks like a WWE championship belt, and it’s in russet, an odd choice. Clearly I don’t know if this character is going to be a huge and bright Superman-type or if there will be something else going on that makes this exactly right, but the subdued costume, the raddled faces and the generally muted colours (there’s an awful lot of brown and grey even in the opening Superior-movie sequence) seem at odds with the concept so far.

I actually enjoyed this, but it’s rather slight, and I can’t say that yet another version of one of the two great archetypes of superheroes is completely welcome: we’ve had an awful lot of them over the last few decades, and although some have been great – and I am loving Nemesis so far – there isn’t enough here yet to convince me that this will overcome my ennui. Then again, his hit rate is absolutely outstanding, and he is for me the most consistently exciting writer in mainstream comics (I love Morrison even more, but he is less reliable). If he can give us great new versions of the Avengers and Batman, I should probably have a bit more faith…