Comics Fondle

The biggest development in this story–Jimmy learning Clark’s identity–gets no attention. Maybe it’s just because Final Crisis will undo it, but it might have something to do with Busiek not really having a handle on Jimmy as a protagonist. He just isn’t an interesting main character with Busiek’s narration and thought balloon-heavy approach. Jimmy doesn’t make interesting observations, doesn’t have interesting thoughts. He’s just some guy who doesn’t have the girl he wants or the job he wants or the respect he wants. The idea of Jimmy’s Mr. Action joining the Justice League is absurd.

Worse, Busiek pads his story out to three issues when two would have done. Most of the first is blown on a flashback to the origin of the signal watch, which is fine, but the second and third issues do nothing but reintroduce Krypto. But since Busiek’s got Jimmy in the center spot, it’s all about his observations of Krypto, which don’t have much emotional weight. Worse is how Busiek cheats the reader out of the best possible scene–Jimmy rushing a super-dog to the vet.

I can’t remember who Brad Walker is or why I remember not liking him, but his Superman is awful and his Jimmy is exuberantly weird looking. Jimmy’s hair looks like Martian grass and if Walker spent as much time on faces as he did on Jimmy’s freckles, the art would be good.

It’s kind of unfortunate the issues turn out so poor, given the potential. But with Superman as a disinterested party and Jimmy’s adventures poorly illustrated and boring, it’s about as good as it ever was going to get.

I mean, Busiek does the impossible in these issues–he makes monkeys lame.

C+

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