Today's Superman #51 Promises Great Things For Rebirth

Warning: MAJOR spoilers ahead for Superman #51, out today. Don't read past this point if you don't want to be spoiled.

You can get Superman #51 at your local comic shop, or at ComiXology.

Make no mistake: today's issue of Superman, the first written by incoming writer Peter J. Tomasi, is clearly setting up the events of DC's upcoming Rebirth event as much as it's wrapping up the last few tumultous months of Superman's life.

...And they are, at least as far as we can tell here, the last few months of Superman's life.

In the opening pages of the issue, it's revealed that Superman is dying. His body has not been able to recuperate from the high-speed beatings he's taken from his battles on Apokolips and against Rao with the Justice League, along with his Kryptonite-fueled battle against Vandal Savage and his armies. Quickly, our hero realizes that he can't allow himself to become frustrated with the hole he leaves behind but must instead focus on how to best prepare the world for the loss of Superman.

The issue jumps around a bit, but never too quickly. Tomasi gives each scene room to breathe and develop, and Mikel Janin provides beautiful art, expressive faces, and moody colors that help to offset the fact that the issue itself is light on action, and Janin's own layouts are all fairly straightforward and often not incredibly interesting.

"Light on action," in this case, is no indictment. This is the best issue of Superman I've read in the mainstream line in a while, and a big part of the reason is that Clark feels like a person again.

In the New 52, so much of Superman's reality has been wrapped up in being a larger-than-life figure: a godlike alien that inspires hope in some and fear in others. He's had very little time to be Clark Kent -- and then, about a year ago, they literally stripped that part from him altogether. This month, while spending most of the issue in the costume, he nevertheless reclaims the Clark Kent persona, and in so doing, embraces what makes him special.

The humanity and expressiveness of Janin's faces serve the issue well: it's a character piece, with a fair amount of talking and not a ton of action, and Janin -- who has delivered some bang-up action in for DC in the last few years -- really delivers.

Given the premise, the offbeat and sometimes photorealistic art style, and the minimalist dialogue, it's hard not to draw some parallels between this issue and Grant Morrison's best-selling All-Star Superman. If that's the model Tomasi and Janin are going for, then it works well in this one issue. How it will work out over the next seven parts of the story -- which runs through the final two pre-Rebirth issues of Superman, Action Comics, Superman/Wonder Woman and Batman/Superman -- is somewhat harder to say, especially since Janin can't possibly draw the whole thing (a shame, really).

If there's one thing that feels a bit more shoehorned in, it's the start of what seems likely to be a subplot running through all eight parts. An unidentified Chinese woman hacks into the Fortress of Solitude's computers to get...something...that will presumably help her with a mysterious experiment. The book cuts back to that story perhaps one too many times, and it feels a bit intrusive when frankly the idea of Superman/Clark dealing with his impending death and spending some time with the supporting cast seems far more pressing.

That said, it's clearly building to something big -- and presumably is setting the stage for Gene Yang's New Super-Man, which features a young Chinese man infused first with the powers and eventually with the moral compass of Superman. The woman featured in concept art for that series appears to be the same one trying to hack the Fortress here, based on her metal headgear.

Speaking Superman's powers getting shared around, we do see one man -- an ex-con on the run from the cops -- suddenly declaring himself to be "Superman," with an S-shield and everything. It's a jarring development, and one that leaves the reader with a lot of questions.

That scene, in particular, shows off Janin's coloring chops; a splash-page reveal could easily have been pretty boring, but there's a really compelling use of color. Cutting from that scene to one much more serene allows the creative team to juxtapose tone in the dialogue, the action, and the overall look, resulting in a really effective final scene of the issue.

Clark, here, manages to really get his head on straight. Besides an admirable sense of perspective about the possibility of his own death, Superman makes exactly the right decisions with regard to what supporting characters he should trust with what information and responsibilties. If it makes it through this alive, it suggests that Tomasi has a really solid handle on the supporting cast as well as a respect for Superman as a character that sometimes feels rare.

Writing: A-

Art: A
Overall: A

Bottom Line: This gorgeously-rendered issue is slow at times -- but it feels like it deserves to be. The Superman titles haven't always been great over the last 18 months, but what they have been is running at breakneck speed, non-stop. It's sometimes reduced the character to just what he's sometimes accused of being by those who fundamentally fail to understand him: just a guy who punches things.

In a rare character-driven issue, Tomasi manages to make the case for why he should be writing the post-Flashpoint Superman, even while all signs point toward that character making a swift exit from the monthly books before Tomasi takes over with June's Superman #1.