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njdarkish 's review for:
The Man of Steel
by Brian Michael Bendis
I was really hoping that this would be a Superman book that I'd actually enjoy. I'm generally not big on most things he's the protagonist of, but I've been pleasantly surprised every now and then. And with a writer like Bendis, whose work I've generally enjoyed in his work for Marvel, I thought that there was a better-than-normal chance of me digging this.
Unfortunately, what The Man of Steel ended up being was a messy, convoluted story that jumped around in time a lot and that had a lot of narrative threads that didn't really seem to fit together. It was surprisingly repetitive, too, which is something I rarely ever see in this format. I also felt like, in spite of trying to be the kind of story you can read with only a marginal amount of foreknowledge (at least, that's the vibe I generally got was being attempted here), there was a lot that my lack of deep Superman lore-knowledge left me feeling very disconnected. Finally, the art was extremely inconsistent, sometimes even from panel to panel, where one would look very good while the next characters would look like they were drawn by a totally different (and less talented) artist. I felt like DC must have run out of money to pay the artist they wanted so they got a bunch of half-finished pages that other artists tried (poorly) to fill in the gaps of. I might excuse that a little more from a different publisher, but when it's DC and it's a book featuring one of their two biggest flagship characters, being written by an industry pro? It just makes me feel as a reader that the editorial attitude was "eh, even if it's crap we'll sell a whole bunch of copies."
Unfortunately, what The Man of Steel ended up being was a messy, convoluted story that jumped around in time a lot and that had a lot of narrative threads that didn't really seem to fit together. It was surprisingly repetitive, too, which is something I rarely ever see in this format. I also felt like, in spite of trying to be the kind of story you can read with only a marginal amount of foreknowledge (at least, that's the vibe I generally got was being attempted here), there was a lot that my lack of deep Superman lore-knowledge left me feeling very disconnected. Finally, the art was extremely inconsistent, sometimes even from panel to panel, where one would look very good while the next characters would look like they were drawn by a totally different (and less talented) artist. I felt like DC must have run out of money to pay the artist they wanted so they got a bunch of half-finished pages that other artists tried (poorly) to fill in the gaps of. I might excuse that a little more from a different publisher, but when it's DC and it's a book featuring one of their two biggest flagship characters, being written by an industry pro? It just makes me feel as a reader that the editorial attitude was "eh, even if it's crap we'll sell a whole bunch of copies."