Superman: LAST SON
By Geoff Johns and Adam Kubert
Reviewed by: Munawar Mobin
In the world of 9-panel crime fighting with latex and underwear on trousers, Geoff Johns is a legend. After so many issues of Geoff Johns' Batman, the fact that he is extremely talented and can actually use his head is a fact that has been well established.
This being the first Superman story of his I've laid my eyes on, it was exactly how I expected it to be but with a little extra bonus. Superman being who he is, his story being what it was, you can't really expect much of a challenge in terms of physical battles or even ones involving alien technology when it comes to the great Man of Steel. He's the most powerful superhero of all time - there isn't much that can challenge him. When writing Batman, you can write a number of different storylines with numerous villains. Batman, being mortal, is easy to weave into intricate stories involving detective work and mysterious murders. You can bring in mobs, crooks, thugs - anyone from anywhere could have a good shot at Batman; yes, Batman would whoop anyone's butt, but the point is he wouldn't do it by flying around, laser beaming the bad guys' guns away, and ice breathing them to a vegetative state. Thus, when you expect a good Superman story, you expect some alien interference as the main negative energy in the story.
So, when the book turned out to be about General Zod and how he sends his boy to earth through a crack in the phantom zone, I was not surprised. Zod's boy is mistaken as another son of Krypton, one who Clark himself takes in and adopts. Zod comes in after his son, using the then-widened crack in the dimensions, along with a whole horde of men who had been imprisoned in the phantom zone by Jor El years ago.
The story, somewhat predictable as it was, does not interfere with the rest of the book, which is a testimony to the old Superman movies. Superman is pencilled and sketched to look like good old Christopher Reeves; the artwork is stunning and Geoff Johns even included the phantom zone section in 3D. The book thus comes with 3D glasses. A fun touch to a great book.
