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Superman #15 Review

By Andy Frisk
January 6, 2013 - 18:46

H'el, the new Superman Family villain with the worst pun of a name ever, has taken over Superman's Fortress of Solitude and is planning to destroy the solar system in an attempt to resurrect Krypton. Superman needs to summon up the will to eliminate H'el once and for all...in a much more permanent manner than he eliminates most of his enemies. To do so he visits his greatest foe, Lex Luthor, whom I guess is still Superman's greatest foe-he hasn't been to active in The New 52 for a while-to "summon up the blood" (to quote The Bard)...and for the first time in quite a while we see a Lex Luthor that is actually someone to be feared.

By morphing Luthor into more a Hannibal Lecter type character (complete with similarly required prison restraints) writer Scott Lobdell actually presents his readers, and Superman fans, with a version of Lex Luthor that we haven't seen in quite some time in the pages of a Superman comic book: one who is actually scary. While Lobdell's portrayal of Lex isn't unique as far as portrayals of supervillains go, his portrayal is a frightening one. This is a Lex Luthor that I wouldn't mind seeing more of.

Other than the new portrayal of Luthor, there really isn't much else that is outstanding or interesting about the whole "H'el on Earth" storyline...still. Several issues in and this little crossover isn't doing much to bring the Superman Family of characters together. I still think that The New 52 characterizations of them all is still way off from what we expect of the Superman Family of heroes. This is still the status quo though, and at least we got one issue of a Superman book that was worth the read, even if it wasn't because of its portrayal of the title character.

Kenneth Rocafort's art remains one of the best looking in the business. I do like his visual characterizations of Superman, Superboy, and Lex Luthor, even if Superman (due to a current running plot element) is running around in jeans, boots and an S-Shield t-shirt again.

While I still cannot get into this new characterization of Superman and his "family," I still hold out hope that this coming summer's Man of Steel feature film will finally convince DC Comics to put the effort into Superman's comic book titles that they are finally putting into Batman's as far as quality storytelling goes.  

Rating: 7 /10

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12