Superman #700 *Spoilers*

[Tragic Angelus]

Now that all of the Big Three have hit their respective anniversary issues, I wanted to put up a short review of each.

Superman #700 features 3 distinct stories about the Man of Steel, one in the past and the other two in the present bridging the last years worth of stories to the next.

The first story, by James Robinson and Bernard Change, "The Comeback" deals with Superman finally returning back to earth, specifically to Lois, and saving her from Parasite. Having finally re-united after a year (or longer?) they talk about how what happened was necessary, yet Lois asks him to promise never to leave her like that again, and it's mostly about them re-connecting.

The second story, by Dan Jurgens, "Geometry" is set early on in Superman's history, and deals with him tracking a gang to Gotham, where Robin (Dick) has tried to shut them down after sneaking out against Bruce and Alfred's orders. Superman of course bails him out, in multiple ways, and helps him out.

The final story, by JMS and Eddy Barrows, "Grounded" is the prologue to the upcoming year long trek across America. Superman reacts to various media questions about having left the country for a year, including a personal story from a woman about the death of her husband due to disease, and her blaming Superman for being away on something that was too important to help. He talks to Dick on the JLA satelite about their upgraded monitoring system and then heads to earth where he encounters Barry to ask him what he sees when he runs at top speed. Their interaction leads Clark to reflect on the woman's story and the words of Pa Kent, before he touches down in a city park and starts walking.


The rest of the issue is previews and writer/artist comments on upcoming Superman stories and books, from Action, Supergirl, and Superboy. Sadly, it has no pinups, but each story is overal longer than any one of the Batman ones I believe.

To me, this was quite possibly the most fun and well written of the anniversary issues, especially for someone completely unfamilar with the Superman books from the last few years. I've only ever read Supergirl. I didn't read the War of Supermen, Action, Superman, World of New Krypton or anything else in the last 1-2 years, only the Supergirl books, so I had just a rough idea of how it went down. Robinson's story surprised me in how good it was, just Clark and Lois reconnecting. Jurgen's story was pure fun, with comedy thrown in here and there. The JMS prologue surprised me. The walk across America idea is something I'm actually intrigued by, and it was his conversation with Barry that really made the impact on me, so I'll follow that as close as I can.