Publisher: DC Comics
Story: Peter J. Tomasi and Patrick Gleason
Art Team: Tony S. Daniel, Clay Mann, Sandou Florea, Seth Mann, and Dinei Ribeiro
Release Date: 1st February 2017

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Superman has been hands down, my favourite story to come out of DC’s Rebirth. The creative team have managed to encapsulate everything that I previously kind of liked about the character and put it into one big, fluid Super-bubble. The recent multiplicity story arc is the perfect example of this, with throwbacks to Final Crisis, Captain Freaking Carrot and an extra hint of the Morrison, it has been a wild few issues to say the least, all culminating in issue sixteen.

The story team have done a great thing here, taking what could have probably been a badly stretched out summer event with a million crossovers and tie-ins and distilling it down into a few issues of one series with a massive amount of scope. I mean, this is a BIG story in terms of reach, folks.

As should be expected, the finale pulls no punches as it ties up yet another successful arc for the team. There’s also a few nice seeds sown for potential callbacks, and the obvious influences from the Crises don’t come across as cheap or shoehorned. Instead, it’s just a small nod here and there that ties in with the “these things are always going to happen” theory. The plot itself remains relatively thin – the ‘heroes unite to fight a giant enemy’ trope is well worn, however it’s the small things that make the story shine.

Speaking of making the story shine, the colossal art team were definitely on-point with this issue. Keeping with the Crisis tone, everything was huge. Big, bold lines, strong colour palettes and splash pages galore. I’ve always been a fan of Tony Daniels’ work, and he’s on rare form here. The art flows perfectly, with only a few janky features here and there which can be forgiven. The red racer scene was a personal favourite, but I’ll say no more. Sometimes having such a large art team can be detrimental to the overall flow of the story, but perhaps the best thing I can say about it here is that I barely even noticed.

Gleason and Tomasi have made me care about Superman again. This series is that good. An amazing start to the year, then, and proof once again that this is how superhero comics are meant to be – fun and packed with action. Oh, and for what it’s worth, that last page is a doozy.

Rating: 5/5.

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PREVIEW ARTWORK
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The writer of this piece was: Chris Bennett
Article: And Now For Something Completely Different
You can also find Chris on Twitter.

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