Comic Review: The Man of Steel #5

The Man of Steel #5

DC Comics

Writer: Brian Michael Bendis

Artists: Adam Hughes, Jason Fabok, and Alex Sinclair

As a wise, wise man once said in his review of The Man of Steel #3, “next issue is going to be make-or-break. Either Bendis fixes his mistakes and pulls us onboard for a hell of a time or he doubles down on them and drags us to the bottom along with him.” It is now The Man of Steel #5, and whoever this precognitive wizard is, he was right. Issue #4 tanked, and #5 is doing much the same. It is at this juncture that I feel comfortable revealing a particular secret to you, dear reader: This wise man I was telling you about? He’s not wise. He’s just a sweaty handful of jelly beans. That is to say, me. It was me. But – and here’s the important thing – I’m the sweaty handful of jelly beans that called it.

Let’s get the art out of the way first, as per usual. It seems to suffer from this strange ailment where it gets weaker and weaker as the issue goes on, starting fairly strong and then ending in this weird place where the artists just decided backgrounds were wholly unnecessary and texturing was optional. Now, don’t get me wrong: a lot of the art was legitimately good. Maybe even pretty good. And the art style shifts are, at the very least, synced up with different story beats. But there’s no shift in tone that would imply that an art style shift was required, so I don’t have the foggiest idea why they thought it was necessary. The first art style is fairly good, with nice heavy shadows and jagged panelwork. In fact, the best panelwork in the issue is on the bottom left of page 3, where a streak of the panel above is used as a motion line. That’s as cool as the panels get. The next art style is probably the best style in the comic, full of hatching and anatomy and facial expressions, and yet it is used for a bunch of people talking for a couple of pages. Nice. Good. Good allocation of talent there. For the next style, I get the feeling the colorist had the brightness up too high on their monitor because the tones feel extremely dull and drab even when I turn my brightness up all the way. It’s kind of strange, actually, since there are some places with bright color, but then you get to heroes like Flash and Green Lantern and their costumes look like you’re seeing them at twilight. It’s nearly disorienting how low-color they are. Green Lantern? More like Forest Green Lantern. Haha, got ‘im. It is in this style that the backgrounds stop happening as well. Why? Why do backgrounds just stop for a few pages? Is it some kind of thematic choice? I can’t for the life of me see what themes it emphasizes, but okay I guess. The texturing and linework is okay in this style, but only in the last couple of pages when the artist decides to use those tools again. The art in this comic is schizophrenic, disjointed, and unreliable. The individual styles are fine on their own (mostly), but they do not synergize to create a smooth experience, and that’s a serious flaw from an immersion standpoint.

The story, then. I’m just… I’m so disappointed. The first issue wasn’t bad, you know? It had genuine promise. I don’t understand what happened. A nervous breakdown? Did the pressure get to him? The explanation doesn’t matter. The point is that Bendis has gone full Bendis on us, as evidenced by the soon-to-be-infamous exchange from issue #4, brought up a second time in this issue:

[no spoilers]: “I’m here for the boy.”

CLARK: “Which boy?”

LOIS: “This boy?”

JON: “Me boy?”

This is the most Bendis exchange ever written. And while that kind of dialogue isn’t rampant in this issue, there are so many flaws in the dialogues and the monologues that it’s just sad to read. Characters act out of character, especially the Kent family. It’s like… well, it’s like somebody wrote a Simpsons parody of a Superman comic and then the script accidentally got switched and they made it into an actual Superman comic. It’s bizarre. It makes no sense. The decision Jon makes doesn’t make sense. The actions Lois takes make no sense. The actions Clark takes make no sense. Not to mention that [redacted]’s presence there has yet to be explained to my satisfaction (it was sort of explained, but in that “I’m here because of the plot” way). Why the hell did he show up? Why is Bendis telling this story instead of the story of Rogol Zarr? At one point, Supes narrates “I’m dying to know who… Or why… Or what this is. What brought on this deep-rooted madness and hate about Krypton?” Which, first of all, “deep-rooted madness and hate about Krypton” is a plain bad sentence. Just change “about” to “of” and you’d be fine, Brian. But whatever. The main thing is that this is, once again, Bendis trying to write a mystery and failing miserably. He’s trying to get us to feel powerless and confused like Clark. He’s waving his hands about and going “WOOOooooOOOooo Superman doesn’t know this stuff doesn’t that make this villain scary and inscrutable and whatnot?” When in fact all it does is make the villain hardly a villain at all.

Rogol Zarr has no character. He doesn’t even have a single line in this issue. I am a more present villain of this series than a character who is ACTUALLY IN THE COMIC. We are at five issues out of six. To put it clearly, Bendis is straight-up out of time. He’s done. One issue is not enough to retroactively make this series good. He cannot build an entire villain in a single issue. So far, Rogol Zarr is simply a very determined natural disaster that seems to take Kryptonian life personally. He might be a robot for all we know. He’s shown all the personality of one. “But Quinn,” you screech, flapping around my head in a circle, your leathery wings treading the air, “What about the plot?” Easy: no characters = no plot. You can have the smartest damn plot in the world (and believe me, this doesn’t), but if you don’t have characters to make it go then it all comes to nothing. I’m not even going to bother reviewing the plot because it is so completely beside the point in this comic. It’s like trying to review food at a restaurant when they forgot about the bowl and just poured soup onto the table. Also, the phrase “caca poo poo” was used not once but twice in this comic unironically. I just won’t stand for it. This issue intensifies the flaming wreck of the last one, sinking the entire thing another few miles into the black hole in which it seems to be trapped. Bendis has doomed himself. Now we can only hope he does not doom Superman alongside him. Godspeed, good fellows. See you next week for the shocking(?) conclusion.