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Mild Mannered Reviews - Specials

Superman: Metropolis #3

Scheduled to arrive in stores: April 16, 2003

Cover date: June 2003

Writer: Chuck Austen
Penciller: Danijel Zezelj
Inker: Danijel Zezelj

"Purpose"

Reviewed by: Neal Bailey (baileyn@attbi.com)

A security guard walks through a lab setting, hearing the sound of what seems to be two men talking to one another. Her arrives to find what looks like Sledge from Guy Gardner's roster of villains with tentacles sticking out of his head. He's plundering.

The security guard drops the gun and promises not to cause trouble. Sledge lets him live.

Later, Jimmy Olsen stands by while Lois Lane interviews the man, taking "color" quotes for her piece and showing Jimmy a little about how things are done.

Rebecca Muldoon arrives, and Jimmy finds out that this is the Rebecca Muldoon famous from Newstime. They decide to go to the Ace O'Clubs to try and figure out what's going on with the signal watch.

Upon arrival, Muldoon starts asking about the tech, and about Lena. Lena starts talking, saying she's not childish when Jimmy calls her such.

A fellow photographer appears and asks about the watch. Muldoon identifies him as Junior, and he calls Jimmy a loser. Lena goes nuts, pulling Jimmy's hand and smashing a glass.

As Jimmy flees, Junior asks Muldoon out.

Outside, Jimmy explains to Lena that he doesn't know how people will react to her, and he asks her why she attached to him. Lena says it's because he is the most interesting life form she scanned in terms of looking for purpose, and besides, he's cute.

Later, Lena leads Jimmy to where Sledge is going to be, because she's monitoring him. Sledge enters a building. As Jimmy is taking pictures, Ryder enters the car and starts haranguing Jimmy. He tells Jimmy he is on the story, and that he wants to sleep with Muldoon.

A blond doctor-looking man flies out of the window, presumably thrown.

Jimmy gets out and starts taking pictures. Sledge is screaming for the voice to get out of his head.

Lena explains that Sledge and Killgrave killed each other the other day and then she put them back together as one to see what would happen.

Creeper appears inside, and starts taunting Sledge/Killgrave with his voice. The man/men leap from the window and kill themselves, upset.

Jimmy convinces Lena to save them, that it would be important to the pursuit of purpose, and she does. They leave.

Sledge/Killgrave lives again, but swears to get Jimmy, because being two men is a fate worse than death.

Story - 3: A Numero Uno. There is a problem in any issue where The Ace O'Clubs is featured, for the first time in a long time, and is without a Bibbo. B Numero Dos. There is a problem in any issue where the Ace O'Clubs looks like any place you'd take a date. It looks like a ritzy, high class restaurant! What's with that! I'll try not to let this color my taste of the issue. But it did.

All in all, however, I'm beginning to get the point. Lena is meddling in people's affairs and trying to play God. This has been the case for two issues, now three, and I know the basic premise. One more issue of this and it will get redundant and annoying.

But this issue, on the whole, was okay. It's not pushing it too far, and it's nice to see the reason why Jimmy got Lena to come to him. And it makes sense. He is a special guy. I don't know if he's cute or not. I imagine he could get Betty OR Veronica with his Archie look alike looks, but then, he's not what he used to be either, in terms of appearance.

I don't know who Sledge or Killgrave are. Call me a non-geek, but they were a bit too obscure to me, and to be honest, it reminded me of the Parasite, in all ways. Minus for that.

The writing is great here, no doubt about that, but the concepts are a bit old, getting there, anyway, and the villain was kind of corny, and the plot was kind of a reiteration of what we already knew. And the Ace? Well, the quality is pretty up there for this book so far, but this one was just average. Sorry.

Art - 5: Like I said before, grim and gritty is not really Supes, but then, this is Jimmy. The art continues to fit to a T, and the characters are all very distinctive, which is hard to do in a dark setting. I particularly enjoyed Creeper. Very interesting and unique. And the page where Jimmy is cute? Well played.

Cover Art - 3: Unlike the last few issues, this one isn't really representative of the issue wholly. It has a representation of Sledge, sure, and Superman is on the cover, but Superman doesn't appear in this issue, and cut-outs of newspapers only make sense if there is some cutting done. I'm a "If it happens, put it on the cover, if not, not." guy.

Last cover was reflective of the story and very poignant. This one missed that, but it's still interesting.

But average.

Mild Mannered Reviews

2003

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Mild Mannered Reviews - Specials

Superman: Metropolis #3

Mild Mannered Reviews

2003

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