Publisher: DC
Writer: Max Landis
Artist: Jock
Colourist: Lee Loughridge
Editor: Alex Antone
Release Date: OUT NOW!
Price: $3.99

There are two schools of thought regarding whether Superman masquerades as Clark Kent, or vice versa. In Superman: American Alien #7, the mini-series’ last issue, writer Max Landis falls squarely on the latter view.

We immediately learn Superman: American Alien #7 Clark is dating Lois Lane. Not Superman, Clark. She doesn’t know about his alter ego. It’s just another day in Metropolis when galactic mercenary and all-around bastich Lobo shows up to wreck a building. Their fight takes up the remaining pages of Superman: American Alien #7. But opposite a line in the recent Captain America movie that, “There’s usually not this much talking” during a superhero fight, the pair continually discuss their situation while trading blows.

The lengthy fight scene in Superman: American Alien #7 is intimate, and avoids the collateral damage the movies usually embrace with gusto. Superman’s solution is clever and so obvious one wonders why he doesn’t do it all the time.

Jock’s art is funky and stylistic, better to portray the deranged Lobo. The artist’s interpretation of Superman isn’t a muscle-bound god, but a tall, wiry figure wearing pads. In other words, it’s Clark in a circus suit.

Superman: American Alien #7 wraps up one of the best Superman stories in years, and I certainly wish Landis would be given the character to write on a regular basis. Read the series if you can, it’s worth it; not just because of the strong psychological and emotional underpinnings, but also because it’s a great story.

And great comic stories like this are rare.

 

Reviewer: Joe Lovece
Reviews Editor: Steve Hooker