I think I understand what writer Peter Milligan is trying to do with this book, but that doesn’t make it any less odd when reading it. The very first panel of this one-shot story features the main villain telling us that this book will feature, ‘None of that modern crap,’ and he’s true to his word. This book features no ‘modern crap’ at all. No mobile phones, no computers, no Internet, no computer games and nothing else that would give you any idea about what era this book is supposed to be set in. Is it 1950? 1980? 1930? I know one thing for sure, it can’t be 2014 because Lois Lane is worried that her gender is precluding her from being taken seriously as a proper journalist, and people still seem to be getting their daily news from print media platforms like the Daily Planet.
To me this book read like a Bronze Age comic book of the 1970’s. It was purposefully naïve and a bit childish as well. It was the kind of book that I’d love to read as a ten year old kid because it had simple villains, a good guy struggling with doing the right moral thing, was easy to follow, and had nothing to do with the real ‘boring’ world. The story was nicely wrapped up at the end of the book with the good guy (eventually) doing what was right and the bad guys being put in their place. The rightful order was restored, moral lessons had been learnt, and all was right with the world.
The big problem of course is that I’m no longer ten years old. I’m an adult now, and when I read a book that has seemingly been designed for the reading pleasure of the 1970’s version of myself I find it a bit odd. There should be a sense of nostalgia, but I didn’t get it from this book. All I got was a sense that this is an unbelievably simplistic and not half as good or as interesting as the other comics that I’m reading in 2014.
The plot of the comic has a huge element that I don’t want to spoil in this review, because even though the book didn’t work for me personally, that doesn’t mean that I want to ruin it for anybody else. Without spoilers, Superman is flying around the city being nice to the naughty villains whilst a rival superhero is also flying around the city being nasty to them. Superman sees the good in even the worst of them, whilst this new superhero (A black clad character known as ‘The Destroyer’) prefers to break their bones and threaten them with even worst kinds of violence if they don’t stop their naughty ways.
The good citizens of Metropolis are fed up with the villains, so are starting to cheer for the more brutal law enforcement style of the mysterious new super hero in town. How can Superman convince the people that his way is the right way, and will her anachronistically sexist boss ever treat Lois Lane seriously as a journalist? That’s the story, and with a few fairly standard comic book twists that’s all you are going to get in the Adventures of Superman #12.
The art in the book is not very good. The drab colouring giving it all a washed out, and distinctly unappealing effect. The backgrounds are uninteresting and the square jawed superhero looks like your Granddad’s version of what Superman should look like. And why is everybody frowning? Seriously, I’m flicking through the book right now and the only person smiling is the stupid villain. What’s up with that? This is supposed to be fun, isn’t it?
It would probably be a good idea if this review were to be done by a ten year old boy rather than myself, as this book is certainly not for a jaded old comic book reader like myself. The big problem of course is that the main consumer of comic books these days is somebody far closer to my own age than a ten-year-old kid. So why does this book exist? I guess it’s trying to conjure up feelings of nostalgia, but if that’s what it’s trying to do it failed for me. It was too dumbed down, too simplistic and played too straight. There was a lack of humour throughout, and no sense of fun. In the end it becomes one of those books that you end up laugh at, and not for the right reasons. If you didn’t laugh you wouldn’t bother to read it at all. It’s naff, very naff, out of date, lost in some strange era of a forgotten 1970’s childhood, it has no relevance to anything, fails in the nostalgia department and ultimately just reads like a very bad comic that is a bit embarrassing for all concerned.
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