Writer: Joshua Williamson
Artists: Norm Rapmund & David Baldeon
Cover Artist: Jamal Campbell
Publisher: DC Comics
Price: $4.99
Reviewer: StoryBabbler
Superman and Lex Luthor are facing the Lex Luthor Revenge Squad! Comprised of the villainous brothers Pharm and Graft, along with the telekinetic Chained, and even Lex’s own mother, Leticia Luthor. While they bested most of the Revenge Squad, the villains enacted the final phase of their plan to ruin Lex Luthor’s legacy in Metropolis. Read Superman #12 to see how these two former arch-enemies work together to save Metropolis.
Review:
Alright, it’s the final showdown between Superman and Lex Luthor against the aptly named Lex Luthor Revenge Squad. And….it’s something. Fair warning, there will be SPOILERS in this review.
So, right off the bat we get Superman and Lex Luthor working together to take down the Lex Luthor Revenge Squad, first with Pharm with a good right hook from Lex Luthor, who’s rocking his Superman armor from DC Rebirth. From there, he goes out to fight Leticia while Superman works with the rest of the Super Corps crew to dissipate the Kryptonite gas safely with the time they have. In the meantime, we get some backstory on Luthor’s “collaboration” with Pharm and Graft and it was as brief as the description. And underwhelming too.
Joshua Williamson really does a great job with the dynamic between Superman and Lex Luthor. I’m aware some people aren’t fans of this dynamic, but I feel it’s very natural for these versions of the characters, especially this version of Lex Luthor. They are the best parts of this comic, let alone this series. Unfortunately, everything else, not so much. The biggest issue that connects to all of the others is that this issue and this whole storyline was clearly rushed to get things finished. All so Williamson, and DC Comics, can get to the House of Brainiac storyline sooner rather than later for their Absolute Power event later this year.
I say this comic’s story is rushed because the resolutions between Lex and his enemies, including his own mother Leticia, were wrapped up way too quickly. We don’t see any new tricks from Pharm and Graft, the Chained was still down for the count. Leticia doesn’t really do anything except repeat what she said last issue about how Lex stole her company. It was really just Leticia fighting Lex at that point, and all we get of their fight is a couple of panels here and there, and not much else. And while it might not seem like that at first, it’s only because of the Superman portions where he’s working with the Super Corps crew to find the solution. Once they’re beaten, we just get one page telling us what happened to them while showing them in their respective cells.
Speaking of the Revenge Squad, let’s talk about the new villains Williamson made for this story arc now that it’s finished. So, this whole storyline set up these new villains as a big deal from the first issue. And while there was a kernel of potential for Pharm and Graft, we never get much from these evil brothers. Heck, Graft never does anything this entire series except let his brother Pharm talk for him while he works on….something. Even the backstory for them, little that we got, was boring. Their creations were boring except for Pharm’s Kryptonite glove, and even that didn’t last long as shown in the last issue. Not to mention, the Lex Luthor Revenge Squad was just boring in the end. Their membership was lacking, their goal was to expose one of Luthor’s past experiments and “ruin his legacy” but their plan was pretty bland too. Overall, these new villains didn’t bring much to the table other than introduce the concept of a “Lex Luthor Revenge Squad” that I’m sure other writers will use in future stories. Overall, a disappointing issue and conclusion for this storyline.
Final Thoughts:
Superman #12 brings the Lex Luthor Revenge Squad stroyline to a close. Unfortunately, the story here feels a bit rushed with the resolutions to the krpytonite incident and dealing with the Revenge Squad. What makes this disappointing is that the series built up Pharm and Graft since the first issue to be a big threat, but now that they’ve made their big play, now that we’ve got the Lex Luthor Revenge Squad, it’s all been sadly underwhelming. Despite that, the best parts of this comic are Superman and Lex Luthor and the dynamic they share, which is clearly growing stronger, at least in a way that makes sense for these two. So, it’ll be great to see more of their partnership in the upcoming story event.