Letters to Superman #6

Another strong issue, and a great continuation of the plots you've been seeding since the first issue. There’s a building sense of dread with each passing scene, and Xa-Du being revealed as the brains behind the recent attacks on Superman makes a lot of sense, but it feels like that mystery isn’t necessary solved yet.

Whatever PROJECT CLONE ends up being will be a shock, I’m sure-- we’ve already had Kon-El debut on the site, so what other clones can we expect to see? And how did it-- don’t know if it’s a he or a she yet!-- grow in the Fortress? Is it something Xa-Du set up during his repeated incursions?

I’m interested to see what happens, though with that final scene and Clark being taken off the board to heal from Kryptonite poisoning, it looks like things are about to get a lot rougher for everybody involved. And on that note, seeing the growth in the supporting cast is great, and I think a lead character is only as good as their supporting cast.

Again, you’re really capturing the era of the books I loved, that Jurgens / Simonson / Stern / Ordway / Kesel run in the 90s that was also revisited somewhat in the recent pre-#1000 era of the Superman titles that Jurgens worked on. That’s the highest-- and most repeated-- praised I can give.

And now, with Action Comics synching up with Superman, we’re about to get another dose of Super-family goodness per month, and it looks like you’re going to be running the same storyline through both titles! That should be a great experiment in bi-weekly storytelling, though I hope that each title has a different “tone”, so it’s not just a case of the same story being told in two titles when it can be told in one!

To be critical for a moment, I still think that the dialogue could use freshening up, as some characters aren’t using contractions still! Jimmy’s “I think he is climbing up the side of the building” doesn’t flow naturally, neither does Lois’ “It is farthest from this side of the building.” I would recommend revisiting dialogue after your first draft, and read it out loud or something, because if it sounds weird coming out your mouth, it’s going to sound weird in my head when I’m reading the issue!