A slightly edited version of a post I made on the CBR Community.
The Special was very enjoyable – great art, exciting and dramatic, and lots of good vibes. Even though in theory it’s kind of weird that John Henry Irons didn’t get much focus on his own wedding day, I understand this is a Superman comic book and is mostly focused on Superman.
They sorta managed to sell it in the story with the global warming angle, but I’m not crazy about John Henry moving to Smallville…even Lana living there doesn’t really appeal to me. Smallville doesn’t really need to be a major factor in the present in the Super-verse. It’s just a quaint little town that it’s fun to revisit occasionally. Maybe they’ll rebuild it into something more exciting, but that sounds like it could be a double-edged sword, since if it loses its identity as a cute country town, what’s the point of it being Smallville? I’ll keep an open mind, though.
The idea that Clark’s romantic interest in Lana was tempered by a vision of the future (even if forgotten at the time) is kind of iffy to me. And I did not like the one page that literally had parts of covers from upcoming comics on it, that looked tacky.
They’ve been really consistent about pushing Mr. Terrific in Superman comics lately, haven’t they? (And maybe comics in general, considering he just appeared in DC x Sonic. I’m not sure since I mostly read Superman-related titles.) That’s fine by me I guess, it’s good synergy with the movie. But it does seem like John Henry is going to be pretty sidelined, with him going on a honeymoon and then moving to Smallville. I hope he isn’t completely neglected.
I want to say it’s possible to have multiple tech-focused characters in Superman’s supporting cast, but frankly his supporting cast is already stuffed to bursting, so needing to juggle multiple characters with somewhat similar niches seems undesirable. I would rather Steel get the focus since he’s a Super-family character, but again, I’ll try to be open-minded. I don’t know much about Mr. Terrific, and his recent appearances in Superman comics haven’t shown too much of his personality, but he has a great character design and I’m excited to learn more about him.
