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Tangent: Superman's Reign #10

Tangent: Superman's Reign #10

Scheduled to arrive in stores: December 17, 2008

Cover date: February 2009

"Superman's Reign - Chapter Ten"

Writer: Dan Jurgens
Penciller: Carlos Magno
Inker: Julio Ferreira

Back-Up Story: "History Lesson: Chapter Ten"
Write: Ron Marz
Penciller: Andie Tong
Inker: Mark McKenna

Neal Bailey Reviewed by: Neal Bailey

Click to enlarge



Lola Dent confronts the heroes who have entered her home. They try to persuade her to help them with the Superman of Earth Tangent, with Batman taking the lead indicating that the reason she faked her death was in order to absolver herself of guilt over the Tangent Superman's actions.

Superman wakes up in the ocean, with his compatriots arriving to check on him. All have survived, but barely. They find that the Tangent Superman has nullified the radiation from the nuclear weapon, and beached the entire war fleet. Lola undoes this damage, persuaded to join the cause.

Guy Gardener's ring trembles, and the combined might of the Green Lanterns manage to pull the heroes from the Tangent Earth that were marooned there through the gap, along with members of Tangent's crew of heroes.

The Tangent Superman assembles a crew of the worst baddies of the DCU in order to fight the New Earth heroes.

Back-Up Story: "History Lesson: Chapter Ten"
Write: Ron Marz
Penciller: Andie Tong
Inker: Mark McKenna

Guy continues his tales, explaining Spectre's origin on the Tangent Earth. Suddenly, he turns into a form of Clayface, attacking his captors/hosts.

4Story - 4: The scenes where Batman persuaded Lola were well done, as was the recovery with Superman and Guy. It made the peril that they obviously survived not seem like an "Oh, I survived somehow!" scene that you see so typically in other titles like, say, Countdown or Trinity of late.

Generally, this is still an awesome story.

I am unsure, and thus the minus point, about the ending. The cool factor of seeing Luthor and Joker working with the Tangent Superman doesn't avoid the fact that it cheapens the Tangent Superman, to a degree. As portrayed, there's no reason he'd have any trouble taking on the heroes of this Earth, and I'm wondering why he doesn't simply do as he did on the other world and start offing them. That's his essential character, as I understand it. How can Joker help him, for example?

But other than that, still great.

5Art - 5: The art kicked up in this issue. Given all the crazy stuff going on, it was quite eye-pleasing and enjoyable. There were so many characters and so many odd scenes, it would be easy for an artist to lapse and for things to get confusing, but half of the success here is how clear everything in this story is for the reader.

4Back-up Story - 4: Spectre was a bit boring, but the escalation of the backup made it nonetheless enjoyable. What the heck is going on here? And I AM curious, unlike with other titles of late.

5Back-up Art - 5: Awesome depiction of all involved, nothing to complain about on this end.

5Cover Art - 5: The previous schema explodes outward into an awesome fight scene between the mains. No complaints here. Superman looks a little constipated, but he IS getting the crap choked out of him. Unlike usual, where he just looks constipated because constipation is, I guess, DRAMATIC!


Mild Mannered Reviews

2009

Note: Month dates are from the issue covers, not the actual date when the comic went on sale.

January 2009

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