REVIEW: Summer Of Superman Special #1

Summer of Superman Special #1, “The Past, The Present, The Future” is a three chapter story with a different writer for each one. It not only reintroduces older Superman lore we haven’t had canon for several decades, it also drives forward Superman’s current story and the over arcing DCU storyline. This is definitely an issue you don’t want to miss.

The standard cover is by Jorge Jiménez and Tomeu Morey. Promising a new era of Superman, we get glimpses of stories on the horizon as Jiménez and Morey give us their awesome take on a classic Superman pose. It’s also a good sneak peak to the interior art as Jorge Jiménez handles most of it as well. There’s also a foil version that’s sure to heighten their work.

Chrissie Zullo-Uminga gives us an adorable variant featuring Krypto. Using a retro cartoon style, the Superdog’s good boy nature shines through and really depicts him as the fun loving character he is.

The variant by Dan Jurgens, Norm Rapmund, and Hi-Fi gives us the cover debut of current Clark as Superboy. Taking off from a field on the Smallville farm, Superboy flies at us with a friendly smile. During Jurgens’s legendary tenure Clark never was Superboy so it’s fun to see his take on what the character’s younger self would look like.  

This is definitely a jumping on point for many Superman stories going forward so there’s plenty of variant covers to choose from. Mahmud Asrar & Matheus Lopes, John Giang, and Alexander Lozano lend their talents for three more fantastic covers.

Jorge Jiménez does most of the interior art with some finishes by Belén Ortega and epilogue work by Dan Mora. The art is simply fantastic as is expected from such high caliber talent. There’s some great visual foreshadowing as the temporal elements of the issue play out around the wedding of Lana Lang and John Henry Irons. The emotional beats hit where they should and the action is top tier. We even get a cameo nod to Pete Ross and his and Lana’s son Clark which acknowledges her long history within the DCU.

Dave Sharpe letters the entire special that’s framed around Lana’s wedding day. In Chapter One, Mark Waid has Clark reminiscing about a particular Summer day he nearly told Lana his secret when they were younger. That secret being he’s Superboy! This marks the canonical return of Clark Kent’s early adventures as Superboy which hasn’t been the case since his reintroduction after “Crisis on Infinite Earths”. We then effortlessly segue into present day’s Chapter Two with Dan Slott writing. A temporal anomaly causes a destructive storm to rip through Smallville. Everyone jumps into action to save the residents but the storm has left the farm town in shambles. Feeling an appropriate amount of deja-vu, the writing baton is handed over to Joshua Williamson for Chapter Three as Clark takes a proactive approach to the temporal anomaly’s presence. From there we head into the epilogue which ties directly into the ending of “DC All In Special” #1 from last Fall. This issue sets up a lot for the Superman stories going forward and judging by all that happens, it’s going to be epic.

(9/10) Summer of Superman Special #1 is a solid issue that really has me excited for the next few months of stories. Is it Summer yet?