Publisher: DC
Writer: Max Landis
Artist: Francis Manapul
Colourist: Francis Manapul
Editor: Alex Antone
Release Date: OUT NOW!
Price: $3.99

 

“It’s a bird!” “It’s a plane!” “It’s—” “HOLY #$@&!” That’s Clark Kent’s introduction as Metropolis vigilante, or as he puts it, “the good guy with spare time.” In Superman: American Alien #5, the Man of Steel tries to figure out his identity.

In Superman: American Alien #5, Clark’s biggest cheerleader already is Lois Lane. “I want to believe there’s someone out there that doesn’t suck…I want hope,” she says about the yet-to-be-named Superman, wearing an aviator’s cap and goggles, a Batman-like cape and a bullet-proof vest for misdirection.

But there is more afoot in Superman: American Alien #5, when an electricity-sucking monster attacks the city Clark traces him back to his budding nemesis Lex Luthor who treats Clark like Prince Myshkin from Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot, which Lex explicitly calls him. Clark’s goodness and open-hearted simplicity lead Luthor to dismiss the very things Lois Lane sees in Clark: “A shining mixture of naïve and cunning.”

For Superman: American Alien #5, Francis Manapul’s artwork is clean and rich. Facial expressions penetrate your gaze. Metropolis looks huge, bathed in blue and purple. The first look at the electric monster’s nightmare-toothed maw is legitimately disturbing.

Anyone who loves the Man of Steel will smile while reading Superman: American Alien #5. It’s charming and clever, full of surprises and layered. And thanks to Lois, unlike Prince Myshkin, Clark doesn’t go mad but instead evolves.

Superman: American Alien #5 is one of those rare things, a comic book that can tell that story in just a few pages and, therefore, well-worth reading.

 

Reviewer: Joe Lovece
Reviews Editor: Steve Hooker