Comic Book Review: Superman #658

I haven’t been all that impressed with the past several issues of Superman. They haven’t been terrible; they just haven’t been anything great. I have found this current storyline to be a bit pedestrian. I don’t think that Superman #658 is going to be anything that is going to really impress me. Let’s go ahead and hit this review.

Creative Team
Writer: Kurt Busiek
Penciler: Carlos Pacheco
Inker: Jesus Merino

Art Rating: 7 Night Girls out of 10
Story Rating: 6 Night Girls out of 10
Overall Rating: 7.5 Night Girls out of 10

Synopsis: We begin with our rag tag heroes in the future squaring off against Khyber’s army. We see Lex Luthor and Jimmy Olsen armoring and getting ready to join the battle. The Parasite also arms himself and readies for battle. Jimmy tells Lois to stay in their base and do her reporter’s duty and keep a record to tell the world what happened here.

Lois stops the Parasite and tells him that he has been holding onto what he absorbed off of Superman for years. But, now he is running low. Lois urges Parasite to find more power and absorb it and keep fighting. Parasite says if he does that en he has to let go of the rest of what Superman thought and felt. Lois tells the Parasite to let it go. Parasite says that he knows he isn’t Clark, but what he feels is real.

We then see Sirocco getting dressed and leaving the sick bay. Sirocco says that a part of Khyber was placed within him centuries ago and this ties Sirocco to Khyber. That he must fight against Khyber.

We cut to the battle. Parasite is running low on energy, but he refuses to let go of the remaining bit of Clark and absorb someone else. We see Parasite getting killed in battle. We then see Khyber enter the battlefield. Lex goes to attack Khyber when a red and blue blur appears and blasts Khyber. It is Superman.

Khyber is stunned that Superman is still alive. The two men brawl with each other. Superman opens up a huge can of whoop ass on Khyber. However, just when Superman is about to kill Khyber he hesitates. Superman can’t kill him. This gives Khyber the moment of opportunity to launch a counter-attack and kill Superman.

Suddenly, Sirocco appears on the scene and brawls with Khyber. Since Khyber is still weak from his battle with Superman, Sirocco is able to kill Khyber. All of Khyber’s forces disintegrate once he dies. Sirocco also dies from the battle with Khyber.

We then flash forward a few years to 2014 and Lois Lane writes in her journal how Khyber’s death caused a power vacuum and every remaining villain scrambled to assume power. The fighting that she thought would end with Khyber’s death continued.

We zip forward to 2017 and see Lex Luthor finally falling in battle. Lois buries Lex’s body next to Superman’s grave.

We zip to 2020. Lois writes that the Flash finally dies. Wonder Woman has disappeared. Green Lantern left Earth and went searching for help.

We jump to 2032. Lois writes that there are few remaining people in their camp and that they need to find more people in order to survive.

We hop to 2045. Jimmy writes in Lois journal how Lois has died. Jimmy buried her next to Superman and Lex.

We zip to 2056. Jimmy is an old man and is the only remaining survivor. Jimmy says that he hasn’t seen another human since 2045.

We cut back to the present day. Arion and Superman are face to face outside of the Daily Planet. Arion tells Superman that it doesn’t matter if Superman is able to stop Khyber and prevent that future from occurring. That someone else or something else will appear to take Khyber’s place. That is the way of this world. Ages of reason end. Civilizations rise and fall. Camelot fell. Atlantis fell.

Arion says there is no spring without a winter. That the inevitable falls are part of nature. That alien elements like Superman and Martian Manhunter don’t end the coming darkness. They just hold it off and the longer they do that the more force and power it builds up. And when it finally breaks it will have such devastating strength that it may destroy all of humanity.

Arion says for the good of humanity and the continued existence of humanity that Superman has to stop fighting. That when the next horrible event occurs, there will be bad, but humans will survive and humans will rise again. That Superman must give up. For mankind to live, Superman has to let civilization fall.

Comments
The Good: Superman #658 was a slightly better than average read. We got a pretty cool brawl scene between Superman and Khyber. Superman’s unwillingness to kill proved to be his Achilles’ heel. Superman is great super hero and a wonderful symbol for truth and justice. However, when it comes to fighting a war, Superman is just not the man for the job.

I liked that Busiek had Lex buried next to Superman. It is just so odd to see these bitter enemies lying in eternal peace next to each other. I dig that Busiek showed how complex a character Lex Luthor is. That Lex does view himself as a hero and a champion for humankind. And that in face of a great threat to mankind, Lex ends up being a much more useful warrior than Superman. Very cool.

Busiek delivered a nice hook ending that was pretty much the only part of this issue that grabbed my attention. I’m very curious to see where Busiek goes with this story arc. It certainly had a nice overly dramatic silver age feel to it.

Pacheco and Merino provide plenty of very solid artwork. The fight between Khyber and Superman was well done.

The Bad: Busiek just hasn’t been able to get me sold on this current story arc. The main reason why I’m not so wild about this story arc is that I just don’t dig the format that Busiek has chosen to frame this story arc. I don’t like Arion sitting down with Superman and telling him a dark tale of a possible future. It made the future scenes a bit boring.

Since we know that this future is just a tale of one possibility that may or may not happen it lost some of its power. At no point are we genuinely worried that it is going to happen. Since the future story line was a big “What if?” story it made me less attached to the characters and their perils.

I thought the pacing was too slow. It seemed like this story about the future just went on and on and on with no end in sight. The constant jumping to various points in the future going all the way to 2056 just seemed a bit too much. It made this issue drag and the story seemed to lose some of its focus and it became a bit dull.

The past two issues have basically been just a big ghost story with the purpose of scaring Superman out of being a super hero. I just don’t think Busiek needed this much set up for this story arc. I think that Busiek could have had Arion tell this ghost story in one issue and gotten this story arc off to a more interesting and faster paced start.

I don’t think it was necessary to burn two issues telling Superman this story of a possible future. It seemed like an awful lot of set up for the final two pages where Arion finally let the reader on to what this story arc is really centered around. The final two pages were more interesting, better paced and more focused than the rest of this issue and the previous issue combined. Busiek really beat around the bush before finally getting the foundation laid for this story arc.

Khyber continued to unimpress me. He was nothing more than your generic mystical based character. There was nothing in Superman #658 that made me change my opinion of his character. And that also limited the appeal of this story arc. A comic book story is really only as good as the villain. Without a compelling villain, it is tough to deliver an interesting story arc. Khyber definitely wasn’t an intriguing enough villain to carry these past two issues.

Overall: Superman #658 was nothing great. I do think that this story arc has the potential to be pretty interesting. Hopefully, Busiek can turn up the pacing a couple of notches in the next issue. I don’t think that Superman is nearly as strong of a title as Action Comics. The big difference is that I would recommend Action Comics to anyone regardless if they were a Superman fan or not; whereas I wouldn’t do that with Superman.