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Not Comparing Scott Lobdell To Alan Moore… Superman #30

Published Sun, 27 Apr 2014 11:00:34 -0500

Geeked Out Nation reviews Superman #30,

The book starts out with a couple that happens upon what appears to be a piece of Doomsday. It is several wasted pages that don't progress this book or even the Doomsday storyline. It only serves to put Doomsday in this book, and I suppose to get the reader excited for what is to come, although there isn't much to be excited about from these pages.

Dangermart reviews Superman #30 and says.

PADDING IS HERE. Pages and pages of irrelevant stuff, and set-up for the Doomed crossover, or whatever it's called.

Take that young couple. Scott Lobdell writes their scene with skill and not a little wit. It's an enjoyable vignette – but in a 20pp comic I could do without four pages devoted to a pair we've never met previously, and will never see again.

Weird Science reviews the book saying,

Superman is a busy book. A new creative team is on the horizon, but first, Scott Lobdell gets to say farewell with his part in the upcoming Doomed story. In Lobdell's world, that seems to mean throw a whole bunch of plots and ideas at the readers with little to no transition, explanation or resolution. Like I said, it's a busy book.

There is so much going on it's hard to sort through it. Doomsday kills some honeymooners, Smallville's residents all fall into a coma, the eradicator holds Superman lovingly and warns him about Doomsday, Cat misses Clark, Kandor's citizens wake up and Lois is a 12th level intellect and newlywed to boot. Did you notice my lack of transition and explanation? Get used to it if you read this issue.

So I read Superman #30 and there was one bit I really liked, at the beginning. Introducing a couple of characters, deftly introducing them to their lives so that we actually got some insight into the peculiarities of life and there lives (even if the guy seems to de-age remarkably over the four pages before his death) but for many folk, this is a waste.

And that perturbed me a bit. Take this scene from Community that illustrated this narrative technique.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z906aLyP5fg[/youtube]

Steve the Pencil now has his own fanbase.

The Superman scene also reminded by of an opening page by Ann Nocenti and John Romita Jr from an old Daredevil, highlighted on Millarworld.

It's something you used to get more of. Grounding superheroes in the real world. Hell, it was one of the things that made Watchmen work so well. You had your trips to Mars and your Rorschach fighting scenes, but you also had the crossroads, one place in space, repeatedly revisited so you knew the people so well – so when the destruction of New York came, it wasn't just the millions of people who died, but the several who you'd come to know really well.

Now, I'm not comparing Scott Lobdell to Alan Moore, but this is the exact same thing he was doing in the opening pages of Superman. But there seems to be less of a welcoming, a tolerance for such now.

It doesn't help that the standard comic length has reduced from twenty-two to twenty pages. It's just this kind of characterisation that has been cut out now. Added to the appeal of the event comic, the big spectacle, the effect of superheroism on the rest of the world has been lessened in such stories, even rejected by the core audience, which only makes the work less relatable to other readers, and contributes to the attrition of sales.

It's not universal, of course. It's a trend. It's just worrying to me that some readers think that this is a good thing.

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