REVIEW: Superman #39
Superman #39, “Prime Time Part Four: Superboy-Prime Versus Infinite Crisis!”, is a mind bending, world altering smackdown between Prime and Manchester Black. C.K.’s commitment and resolve are pushed to their limits as Manchester takes us on a twisted ride through the DC Multiverse.
The standard cover is by Dan Mora. Reaching through the page as a nine panel display creates bars imprisoning him, Prime pleads to us for help. The various depictions of other art styles has instant recognisability of where and when these panels take place and is a true testament to Dan Mora’s impressive skills.
Chris Burnham and Tamra Bonvillain’s variant will hit home for some comic collectors. Assembling comic boxes can be a daunting task and it looks like Prime is having a difficult time putting his together. The struggle is apparently more real w my en burdened with unbridled super strength.
The Supergirl Movie variant is a great portrait of Milly Alcock as Supergirl by Stanley “Artgerm” Lau. It really is a gorgeous painting of her and makes it hard to see anyone else embody Kara as well as Ms. Alcock.
Other great variants for this issue include works from Sanford Greene, Ariel Diaz, and Aaron Bartling.
Dan Mora gets colored by Alejandro Sánchez for an amazing sampling of interior artwork. Their skills are absolutely remarkable as they not only jump eras of comic history they jump genres. While that is fun by itself, they also change their art styles to accommodate those eras and genres in ways that make you forget they’re the only art team for the story. If you’re a fan of Dan Mora’s work, it’s worth picking this issue up just to see him flex some creative muscles we don’t normally see.
Joshua Williamson, lettered by Ariana Maher, takes us on a mangled mess of a tour through Prime’s past mistakes. Manchester Black’s motivations are also revealed and even though what he wants isn’t completely unreasonable, he’s definitely going about it in the most destructive way. Prime shows some real willpower through this assault so Manchester changes it up and sends him into romance, horror, indie, and other various genres to get C. K. riled up enough to break bad once again. Much like the art team, Williamson and Maher change up their writing an lettering styles to make this issue fully immersive and creatively brilliant. Manchester Black is truly terrifying in this iteration but the aftermath of his assault on Prime will have to wait til next month.
(10/10) Superman #39 is some of the best work in comics I’ve ever seen. This issue blew me away on so many levels and I feel this creative team hasn’t come close to peaking yet.
