[Editor’s note: This review may contain spoilers.]
Writer: Cullen Bunn
Artists: Emanuela Lupacchino, Ray McCarthy & Hi-Fi
Summary
Whenever the contents of a story happen to be a dream, I, and many others, critics included, tend to dislike the story. What impressed me is that not only is this story mostly dream, it is fantastic! In the wake of “Superman Reborn” this issue sees the Man of Steel confiding in Wonder Woman and Batman about his recent and hellish dream. In this dream he is in conflict with himself, or rather, the other Superman…..or is it the original Superman?
Tying itself back into the story started in the Rebirth Special, with the green robed figure and the mysterious hand from light, the Multiverse is back in the mix.
This issue is a beginning which will once again shift the direction of the DC Universe. Will this new shift once again erase those things that have happened previously? What will exist now, the original continuity? New 52? What little has been forged since Rebirth? Are we seeing the start of this era’s Crisis on Infinite Earths? Only time will tell.
Positives
Anytime I can finish an issue and honestly not realize that I’ve just read a full comic I’m impressed. I must commend Cullen Bunn as everything about this issue should be very boring as it is full of exposition and narration and yet it is quite captivating. As a lovely punctuation, Lupacchino McCarthy and Hi-Fi have created an awesome two page spread exploding with a variety of interpretations of the Trinity.
Negatives
One of this issue’s downfalls was something quite subtle and yet a critical part of the story, the Trinity! While the concepts and theories discussed in the issue as well as the foreshadowing are interesting, the characters and how they interact feels quite stale. I suppose that the hardest thing about writing these characters is that they are the original comic book heroes and literally are the archetype for many other characters. This means that when you write a story so focused on them and how they interact, it is bound to feel similar to many stories written with them all since it all began in 1938.
Verdict
This issue is fantastic, and will have readers turning pages right until the end. While the characters feel ever so slightly stale, the Multiverse and the DC Universe keep this issue from ever getting boring.
