Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities Superwoman - A Phil Jimenez/Emanuela Lupacchino production

Wait he is? I didn't know.

Yes. I just double-checked the credits. Joe's not the regular Superwoman inker, the other guy is. It seems obvious to me they brought in Joe at the last minute. Of course, I could be wrong.

All of which inevitably raises the question:

WHERE IN THE WORLD IS ANDY LANNING??

I think Dan Abnett decided to absorb him back into his body until he's ready to let him out again.

^^I hope not. I like Lanning a lot more than Abnett. (The whys and wherefores are posted in the Titans forum; I'm in too good of a mood to dwell on that right now.)

If DnA were the Morrissey & Marr of comic book writers (Jack & Stan = John & Paul?), then Abnett is definitely Marr, an overrated, facile craftsman with nothing of substance to offer.

Okay, I'll stop, I don't want to sour my own mood.

And, Sarky, please be assured I don't hold your mention of Abnett against you at all. I know you meant no harm.

I can breath again.

Good. So can I.

In my view, the outlook on Superwoman's long-term artistic and commercial success does not look good after reading issue 3.

Page 1 is a thing of beauty. Emanuela Lupacchino seems to be on top form with her penciling, Lana looks lovely with clean hair, and the dialogue's witty and sharp. So far, so good.

But with each page that follows, Ray McCarthy's inking seems to gradually deteriorate, leading me to believe that the finishing was rushed for the second issue in a row.

And Phil's script just stumbles over and over (SPOILERS FOLLOW):

Misstep 1: Confirming my worst fear -- Lois is dead. Or at least for the foreseeable future. Bad idea all around. Lois is an icon, and a household name. Lana, not so much. Expect sales to plummet after this issue for that reason alone.

Misstep 2: A newly bloodthirsty Lana and her Good Cop-Bad Cop exchanges with John Henry Irons are stilted, shallow, and tedious.

Misstep 3: A brief step back into Dark Ages DC in the sordid descriptions of prisoner abuse at a Lexcorp-run prison for super-villains, capped off by a graphic panel of a prisoner being beaten to death.

Misstep 4: First of all, since when does Luthor have a sister? And why are readers subjected to such painfully tangled pre-Rebirth continuity to do with how Luthor's sister got to be Ultrawoman? I mean, isn't that what the Rebirth is supposed to be trying to get away from?

Misstep 5: Spoiling the big "she's bald and armored" reveal with the cover.

Misstep 6: Telegraphing the cliffhanger of Lana's pill-popping putting her in danger of self-combusting.

Misstep 7: What about the Insect Queen armor we glimpsed last issue?

I wouldn't quite say this book has jumped the shark with this issue, but the fin has definitely surfaced.

I like Phil as both a creator and a person, so I'll continue to support Superwoman for at least a full year (if it lasts that long), but unless Phil brings back the sense of fun that the series started out with, and manages a sharp turnaround, this is going to end up yet another superheroine solo book that just couldn't follow through on its initial promise.

Luthor has always had a sister. She figures quite prominently in pre52 continuity,(and per-Crisis as well). Superwoman co fronted the "real" Lois at the end of this weeks Action, so I suspect she'll have a big role to play in that series as well.

Fancy that.




I'm not following Action, and even if I was, it wouldn't make me feel any better about Super-Lois dying.

Yeah, Lena Luthor.

She started out as a friend of Supergirl who used the name "Lena Thorul" for a while so people wouldn't know Lex was her brother. She also had psychic abilities.

She was very prominent in the "Cosmic Adventures in the 8th Grade" miniseries where she was a budding mad scientist like her brother and ended up torn between being best friends with Supergirl and angry over how the Supers "unfairly" treated Lex. She was hilarious in this.

Geoff Johns... "reintroduced" her in his Adventure Comics run where it turned out something Lex did to Lena by accident left her in a wheelchair with some brain damage. She also had a daughter, Lori, who became friends with Kon-El. Superboy brought Lex to cure Lena, and he did... and then undid the cure in an effort to get Superboy to obey him.

Typical Johns writing, then. :rolleyes:

Yet another reason for him to concentrate on mentoring other writers and midwifing scripts, and on writing TV scripts, since I almost never watch TV anymore.

No but seriously the best take on her is in Cosmic Adventures.

That is the greatest Supergirl comic ever written and the fact that DC refuses to publish the sequel is the reason they should all be strung up by their pinkies in Hell.

Hmmm...

I'll check the library catalog and see if they carry any Supergirl Cosmic Adventures in the 8th Grade trades.

Thanks, Sarky.

After reading Superwoman #3, I need just that kind of tonic.

There are a few Legion references, and Kara got her own Bizarro, Belinda Zee. She was the Veronica to Kara's Betty, a black-haired, preppy, sarcastic cheerleader who hated Kara and wanted everyone else to hate her as well. She wasn't evil so much as she was chaotic and antagonistic and was more content in making Kara miserable than being a supervillain.

She thought being a super anything was uncool.

This was SUCH a disappointing issue. The kind that you pretend that you haven't read when running into Jimenez at Comic Cons.

I am right there with Fanfic - the art was SO irregular and bad that it was hard to read.

The characterization is all over the place.

Thanks, Andy, glad we agree on that issue.

But...uh...just to clarify, I *did* say that Page 1 was beautiful, and that McCarthy's inks are to blame for the rest of the art's ugliness, not Emanuela's pencils.

Is it the inks? I have a hard time trying to discern where the penciller and inker meet

But I tried to read it again. And it's bad. I'm almost ready to drop it

If it was just about anyone other than Phil, I'd have dropped it right then and there. I don't know...I mean, his Wonder Woman run certainly had ITS ups & downs, and yet overall, that's still my favorite Wonder Woman run.

I'm still locked in for a year, but my expectations will be a lot more modest from here on.

Oh, and for a look at how good Emanuela can be with the right kind of inking, have a look at Volumes 11 through 15 of the X-Factor trades...if you can find them. Dammit, Marvel, we need X-Factor omnibuses already!!

But I digress.

Quick post, a prelude to a full-length review of Superwoman #4:

In a nutshell, my faith in Phil & Emanuela was not misplaced, and I'm glad I didn't drop Superwoman after the last issue.

In 20/20 hindsight, the last issue was the darkest hour before the dawn, and Phil obviously does know what he's doing, and Emanuela's back at the top of her game, and even McCarthy does a good job (in fairness, he was most likely rushed on the last issue.)

Stay tuned...

So for whatever cosmic reason, I wasn't meant to find a copy of #5 on the shelves this months.

I'm trying to be philosophical (Phil-osophical, as in the Tao of Phil Jimenez? Sorry. ) about it, and I definitely plan on getting the trade, as this arc will undoubtedly read better that way.

I regret not having posted a full-length review of #4 as promised, due to...um...extenuating circumstances, but I think my post above captures the gist of my feelings on this book and on the post-Rebirth DCU overall.

OMG #5 was awesome
The art is beautiful
The story jibes
Some of the supporting characters don't have the light to shine, but the main protagonist and antagonist do for me
I like this version of Lana
I'm still not sold on "I'm smarter than John Henry Irons" but I like Lana's vision and personality

I'm hoping Lois comes back

People are speculating one of the Bizarros may turn out to be the Rebirth version of Cir-El. I'd be for that.

When the series was announced, I had mixed feelings. I've been wanting a Lois Lane series my entire adult life. I didn't like the idea of her getting powers, but I considered that the the price of a mission. Not only did the bait and switch leave a bad taste in my mouth, it actually removed my entire reason for reading the book and I bailed. If there are any spoilers that would cause me to reconsider, I would love to know. (IOW, if Lois came back from the dead, tell me and I'll be back in a flash!)