Adventures of Superbro: The End

Morrison's rebooted Superman, often called Superbro to differentiate from other Supermen, ended up dying, or getting absorbed into another Superman or whatever. Good ending is the one where you feel comfortable with leaving character and Final Days or Reborn storylines certainly weren't that. So lets try to find a better place to end things.

Easy answer would be to say Action Comics #18, Morrison's run ended and thats where we end things. Or we could pick some random issue from Pak's run and say that this is where it ended. But where would be fun in that? Lets try to go forward as much as we can before we hit the wall.

So obviously Final Days ain't it, what else was being published at around same time? Maybe lets start with what wasn't. As the New 52 initiative (and Superbro with it) was ending some stuff got cancelled early or didn't get collected editions. In Superbro's case we got 5 issues that weren't published in monthly format and were added to his collected editions to make them standard size.

Superman/Wonder Woman ongoing had #30-31 issues published in the last collection. It is mostly about Wonder Woman coping with Superbro's upcoming death. Art is very mediocre and writing ain't great either. Then we get Batman/Superman #33-34 and Annual #3 in collected edition as well. It is a better story than what we got in Superman/Wonder Woman, but at the same it is not good enough to justify buying a collected edition that also has incomplete Final Days storyline. Never liked collected editions having only parts 2 and 4 of 8 parts crossover.

Jumping ahead a bit there is that Sideways annual where Superbro in his t-shirt costume appears and... I don't really like it. I mean, I like Sideways and Superbro's appearance in that story makes some sense. What I don't like it is that it gives in to this idea that Morrison's Superman was t-shirt and jeans Superman.

For me Morrison's Superman is the one we see on the final page of Action Comics #18. T-shirt Superman was just a phase on his journey, an evolutionary step till he reached his final form. So this focus on t-shirts version doesn't really sit well with me, as if other two thirds of Morrison's Superbro is of lesser importance. 

Furthermore, Sideways story was basically about discarded what-if versions of Superman. Superbro being on that list makes sense when you take real-life things into account, but it doesn't mean that I have to like it.

So at the end I arrive at Bryan Hitch's Justice League: Power and Glory story. Yes, it is Justice League story, but focus is clearly on Superman. What with Rao being central figure in it and the threat of Superman dying. I did like many small and big things that Hitch set up in this story, but sadly I think it has been largely forgotten.

Hitch is not a fast artist and things get even slower when he is writing as well. Due to delays and being launched towards the end of New 52 initiative things got a bit out of hand. It obviously didn't help that Hitch ended up writing relaunched Rebirth version of Justice League as well. And well, by the time last issue was published Rebirth ongoings were already in their fourth or fifth month.

But thats not the worst part, worst part is that Hitch didn't write or draw the last issue, he provided only the plot that a fill-in team of Bedard and Derenick completed. I think that overall ending was fine, but many secondary story points didn't connect as well as they should have, but what can you really expect from a fill-in team? There is also terrible last page basically saying by the way, don't forget to buy our next crisis crossover. But despite all these shortcomings I think it is a story worth reading for Superbro's fans.

But if Hitch's JL story works for me as an ending why not add Darkseid War as well? It was published at around same time after all and is way bigger story. So why not? Because I think it is a weaker story and Superman plays smaller role in it. So yeah, Power and Glory at the moment is where I'm comfortable with leaving Superbro.