Superman #28

By Scott Lobdell, Brett Booth & Norm Rapmund

Superman #28 sheds some more light on some of the mysteries revolving around this title, but not all. We do find out some of the details involving the buy out of Clark and Cat’s website. The jury is still out on what the deal is with Lois’ powers, and the storyline involving General Lane and the tower is slowly progressing.

This run on Superman has been met with mixed reviews. Scott Lobdell gets criticized unfairly for many things, and some of them aren’t even his fault. Scott gives this issue a bit more of a playful tone, which is nice every now and then. He is keeping Lois’ storyline under wraps a little and keeping the reader guessing. There are no major villains or threats to the world this issue, but that’s not a terrible thing either; Clark deserves some down time as much as the next guy. Seeing Clark in a tight Flash t-shirt is amusing and is on par with the tone of the rest of the issue. Lobdell doesn’t need to make everything action packed to keep readers involved, sometimes decent characterization is all it takes. We get a touching scene between Jimmy and Clark, that probably is the highlight of the issue. Lobdell did a decent job this month, but it may leave some readers wanting more.

The art this month was handled by Brett Booth, who also seems to get ragged on a lot for his work. This issue he does a fine job with the Man of Steel. To be fair, Andrew Dalhouse does an excellent job on colors, but Booth is good here too. Lois Lane looks like the bombshell that she is and there is some wonderful shading in the General Lane panels. There are some off panels here and there, but nobody is perfect. There is an excellent panel near the end where Superman is in an interrogation room, his eyes are lit up and he looks just magnificent. Booth and Dalhouse brought their A-Game this issue.

While this was a little bit of a slower and light-hearted issue, the plot developed and some pieces were revealed. Lobdell and Booth have a good working rapport, and it clearly shows. Lobdell’s run has been entertaining in a group of New 52 Superman books that has failed to meet expectations. He’s been building toward something good for a while now and hopefully the reader will enjoy the payoff.