Comics Fondle

With a wonderful Eduardo Barreto cover of the Parasite menacing the super-cousins, I assumed this issue would be something of a team-up… forgetting what it said at the end of the last Supergirl, that the stories would be parallel. And it’s not Barreto on the interiors, it’s Curt Swan and, unfortunately, Swan’s not very tight here. He lets Superman get bigger and smaller, chest-wise, from panel-to-panel, but his action scenes are all right. It’s not his fault, either, the Parasite is boring to look at.

I’d assumed Kupperberg was just writing Action at this time too, but he apparently wasn’t (this issue being a special for Supergirl’s twenty-fifth anniversary. It kind of makes sense, since he’s got a couple panels of Marvel-style backstory catch-up, but his Clark Kent stuff is quite good. His Superman stuff is fine, but Kupperberg really has fun exasperating Kent as he tries to get through his morning. The action scenes with the Parasite, intentionally deceptive and sketchy on explanations (to get folks to buy the Supergirl tie-in?), are all right… like I said before, the Parasite is just boring to look at.

While Swan’s action scenes are okay, they’re not dynamic enough. Superman catching a crane… ok, it doesn’t have to wow. But Superman zooming around Metropolis hanging on to Parasite? Has to wow.

Since the issue’s mostly action, there’s very little meat to the story. But I’ve got hopes for the Supergirl tie-in, anyway.

C

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