Superman: The Man of Steel #57

Hi... Um... Long time, no see.

So, this has been interesting. I did a pretty good job of keeping this review blog "daily" right up until the time is should have gotten easy: summer vacation from school. All that free time, and my frequency of updates just fell off the proverbial cliff.

And then school started back up, and my schedule got filled up pretty intensely.

And then Nanowrimo happened. And I wrote 50,489 words of a totally ridiculous and awesome young adult dieselpunk novel with the working title "Airship Girls and the Land Beyond the Mist". And I wrote zero words of comic reviews.

So here we are in December, and I took the 1st of December off to recover from Nano, and I thought about just bagging this whole thing until it turned into a 2013 New Years resolution.

But that, of course, is exactly the problem. There is not reason I CAN'T re-start the reviews now, other than the fact that January 1 makes a nice arbitrary day for fresh starts.

You know what? December 2 makes a nice arbitrary day for fresh starts too.

Here's a comic that came in a two-comic (and a Power Rangers trading card!) grab bag that I got at the dollar store.

Title: Superman: The Man of Steel
Issue: 57
Date: June 1996
Publisher: DC Comics
Writer: Roger Stern
Penciler: Roger Robinson
Inker: Dennis Janke
Colorist: Glenn Whitmore
Letterer: Ken Lopez, Albert De Guzman
Editor: Mike McAvennie, KC Carlson

Oddly, the credits on the cover list Louise Simonson as the writer. Stern and Robinson are both given "guest" status in the interior credits.

Considering the seemingly temporary nature of the creative team and the fact that the only villain is bad weather,  there is a surprising amount of plot development here.

The plot essentially sticks Superman (and special guest the Jay Garrick version of the Flash; you know, the one with the silly tin hat) into the film Twister, and they get to try to stop a simultaneous outbreak of multiple tornadoes that threaten Smallville.

Sometimes it's nice to just see Superman doing what Superman is supposed to do. You know, saving people and and being the ultimate good guy. The interplay between Superman and Flash is great too, as they work together really well, but with just the tiniest hint of some competitive tension.

Underlying all of this is the theme of balancing superhero career and personal life. Lois Lane has just broken off her engagement with Clark Kent, and Jay Garrick provides inspiration the Clark as a superhero with a successful marriage.

Juggling a career and a relationship is metaphorically related to chasing down a series of tornadoes in a way that works better than I am making it sound.

There are a couple of other subplots that get some attention in this issue, which make for intriguing scenes, but which are mostly setup for future storylines.

I will also point out that this is a rare instance with appearances by FOUR "L.L." characters in the same issue, with Lois Lane, Lana Lang, Lex Luthor, and Lori Lemaris (!) all showing up at different points. It would be interesting to figure out how many issues all four have appeared in throughout the history of Superman. I would guess it's a small number that probably gets even smaller if you remove retrospective and anniversary issues.

For me, as silly as the whole flying in circles to stop a tornado stuff was (in spite of having a meteorologist listed in the credits as a consultant!), this is the kind of Superman story I like, with the emphasis on Clark's sense of duty and compassion, and his intelligent use of his powers.

Rating: 8.5/10