“Up, Up, And Away!” picks up as part of DC Comics’ “One Year Later” storyline, which follows its previous “Infinite Crisis” storyline in which Superman has not had his powers for more than a year.
But wait, when did he lose his powers? For those of you who do not read comics regularly, this is a perfectly understandable question. He lost his powers in “Infinite Crisis” when he was fighting two other Supermen from two alternate universes and lost his powers fighting them inside the Kryptonian sun.
Now, I know what you’re thinking: “This dude has no life or sense of reality if he really buys this stuff month after month and enjoys it!”
To that, all I can say is: “Lighten up and suspend your disbelief for a brief time!”
At the beginning of the story, we find Superman living a life of normalcy with his wife, Lois Lane. Without his powers he finds himself focusing more on his journalistic work, using it to try to bring down his arch-nemesis Lex Luthor.
Luthor, having just been acquitted of several dozen charges through the magic of money and the easily manipulated American legal system, decides to focus his efforts on creating a new weapon based on Kryptonian technology. Will Superman regain his powers and thwart Luthor’s plans? …Don’t look at me; I want you to have a reason to read the book after all!
There are a few more things I can tell you to encourage you to give the book a read. For one thing the book is written by comic book legends Kurt Busiek and Geoff Johns. Kurt Busiek is a man who really understands Superman and has done some of his best work while writing about the character. Besides having written “Infinite Crisis,” Geoff Johns is known for writing “Justice Society of America” and co-writing DC’s epic year-long series “52.” They collaborate with artists Pete Woods and Renato Guedes, with covers by husband-wife team Terry and Rachel Dodson.
For those of you who may not have enjoyed “Superman Returns,” this is probably the returns story you would have enjoyed more. It is well paced with more dialogue than “Returns” and is loaded with the type of fight scenes that comics are known for. This story also seems to go more in depth into the mind of Superman than “Returns” did at a surface level. This book has a great deal of voice over narration, which explains his feelings, as opposed to “Returns,” in which director Bryan Singer used facial expressions and other subtleties to tell his story.
Though the main focus of the book is Superman, the scene in the book that truly touched, and almost moved me to tears, was a scene involving Lois Lane, in which she explained to Clark how she felt about his responsibility as Superman. She related it to how a fireman’s wife deals with her husband’s responsibility as a firefighter. This scene is not a straight black and white cliché, the love oath that we all know by heart. This scene is like real life; it’s in shades of gray. This is the kind of scene that I have been waiting for years to read as Lois finally comes through as more than just the perfect counterpoint to Clark.
Overall, as more than just a diehard Superman fan, but as a fan of comic books in general, I cannot tell you how happy I was to read this book. I read it all in one sitting and considered reading it a second time before writing this review (but I had midterms to study for this week). If you are really looking for an uplifting story or want to get a sense of why I love comics so much, read this book and you will start to understand.
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