Originally Posted by
Vordan
Just finished up reading this run so I though I’d share my thoughts given the New Krypton thread went so well. I had dropped the Superman comics a few issues into Pak mostly because at the time I was bitter at DC for their perceived mishandling of the character in my eyes. Now years later I decided to read Pak’s run after finding his entire run’s trades at my library.
Vol. 5 What Lies Beneath - One thing that Pak doesn’t get enough credit for is the great work he did with Lana Lang. Post-Crisis Lana was literally Lois Lane lite, and they never really figured out what to do with her. She was CEO of Lexcorp, then worked at the Daily Planet (what?), all the while never really doing much beyond pining over Clark. Pak really revamped her for the New 52, and New 52 Lana is my favorite incarnation of the character. In Vol. 5 Lana is working as an electrical engineer and she and Clark team up after Lana and her team discover an underground civilization. I thought this volume was one of the high points of the run and a strong start for Pak. I love how everyone gives Clark crap for trying to make friends with everyone (another hole in the “New 52 Supes was edgy” fallacy).
Vol. 6 - Superdoom - Fair warning: I am not a Doomsday fan. Besides Death of Superman I have yet to find a story with him in it that makes me give a damn. This came closer than any other post Death Doomsday story to making me care. The whole event was a crossover which had some high points and some low points which I might make another thread about to discuss. If Pak had sole control over the story, he might have made a Doomsday fan out of me, his pages, like “Bro Doomsday” were hilarious and yet he had a ton of great emotional beats. I really liked how Pak actually had Doomsday evolve to the point he has a death field where he kills everything around him just by existing. Hate that Jurgens reset him to gray Hulk with spikes powersetwise. I really liked Clark’s struggles with his inner Doomsday after he got infected. One underlying attribute of Superman that a lot of writers overlook is that he’s got a lot of anger inside him. Part of that comes from his creator Siegel creating Supes in reaction to the death of his father at a young age to a burgler, and I’m not surprised that Pak, who wrote the classic Planet Hulk storyline used his run to look at Clark’s struggles with anger. Overall I liked it but it was weaker than the previous volume, and it should’ve been a solo arc for Pak.
Vol. 7 - Under the Skin - This was either the best or second best arc in the run. I’ve always believed Superman is ironically perfect for horror. Smallville is a small town in America’s heartland that attracts weird ****. Tell me that doesn’t sound like the setting of a Stephen King novel. Pak uses that well to tell a story of the dead seemingly returning, and Clark and Lana coming into conflict with one another. I loved Pak’s update of Ultra-Humanite, if they’re not going to use Ascended’s “science terrorist”, then I really hope to see Pak’s Ultra-Humanite again. The ending has got to be one of the best Superman moments ever where he lets the Ultra-Humanite, who feeds on fear, drain him dry to save everyone. Also I actually enjoyed the Irons/Lana romance, if Clark and her can’t be together I prefer Lana move on rather than forever pine after Clark. Irons was a badass here and he got a couple great moments. I liked how his metal skin was able to inhibit emotions so Clark and he could get close to Humanite.
Vol. 8 - Truth - Ah the infamous “Superman punches a cop” storyline. I wasn’t reading at this point and hearing about it out of context just made me think DC was being edgy. Now that I’ve read it though? I gotta say I actually liked this arc, I think it’s one of the best Superman stories in fact. Wrath is a really cool villain who will probably never be seen again, and I loved the part where Clark told Kentville that they were all going to have to be Superman to each other now. This arc showed off Clark’s unstoppable spirit, doesn’t matter how weak he is, doesn’t matter if everyone hates him, he’ll never stop taking a stand for what’s right. This arc continues Pak’s exploration of Superman’s anger as well, with Wrath growing stronger the more ticked off Clark gets honestly being a perfect powerset for a Superman villain. I wish more had been done with the shadow monsters though, and I still think it was a bit of a “cop out” (forgive the terrible pun) to tackle police brutality but then have it so everyone was under Wrath’s control. But otherwise I really liked it. Fleschier symbol is awesome, they should give it to Kon if Clark can’t use it.
Vol. 9 - Last Rites - The finale and also the worst part. I didn’t really like Savage Dawn at all, and I wasn’t really impressed with Pak’s portions either. I really do like Vandal Savage being a Superman villain, and several of his children like Wrath were cool, so I kinda hope Savage will get another chance to throw down with Supes in the future. Disappointing ending to Pak’s run.
I really do wish Pak would get another chance at Superman. If he could get the freedom from nonstop crossovers that Tomasi, Jurgens, and now seemingly Bendis got than I really do believe Pak could be one of the top 10 Superman writers. I believe the same thing of Yang, whose New Super-Man run showed that he’s a fantastic writer when he’s not forced to comply with editorial’s stupid mandates. I guess I’ll just keep hoping.