The Return of Superman (The Death and Return of Superman #3)

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Title: The Return of Superman
Series: The Death and Return of Superman
Author/Artist: Dan Jurgens, et al.
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Comics
Pages: 480
Format: Paper Graphic Novel




 


Synopsis:
4 Supermen have appeared in Metropolis. One is a young clone with all the attitude and haircut of the 90's. One is a man encased in steel who makes no claim to be Superman. One is a violent vigilante who has Superman's powers but not his heart. Finally, one is a cyborg who claims to have been mysteriously rebuilt from kryptonian tech.
One of these is a traitor bent on the destruction of Humanity. Can they figure out which one of them is the traitor and stop him?
Only the real Superman can stop the destruction of the world [again].


My Thoughts: Spoilers Ahead Matey!
A fitting conclusion to the whole story arc.

The first thing that struck me when I pulled this book off my shelf yesterday was just how the garishly primary colors dominated everything. Nothing but Blue, Red and Yellow. That is one thing that makes comics stand apart from graphic novels.

My second impression was just how fast things developed. Now given that I read this in one afternoon from one book definitely helped that along. But all the pretenders are revealed and while the world is still reeling from trying to figure out which, if any, are the real Superman, the Cyborg suddenly is about to turn the world into a new War World?

Third, the utter ridiculousness of it all. The pure absurdity. However, that level is needed to pull something this big off. This story arc spanned multiple comics for months. It HAD to be over the top to keep the teens interested and wanting to spend their money.

Fourth, I still enjoyed this. It was fun, it was explosive, it was garish, it was high octane. It was everything I expect a comic book to be in other words. I don't expect comic books to be on the same level as The Count of Monte Cristo. Reading this also brought me one step closer to reading Superman: Doomed which I bought back in January. I have not read that before. It is just as big and I think I'll be able to judge it more objectively than I did Return of Superman.

In conclusion, this was just as big as I remembered while definitely belonging to my younger days.