Comic Book Review: Superman – American Alien #3
“When his plane crash-lands in the middle of the ocean, 21-year-old Clark Kent finds himself at a raging party on a massive yacht and is mistaken for the guest of honor: billionaire playboy Bruce Wayne!”
In this third part in a 7 issue series we see Clark in a plane crash while heading to a Bahamas vacation that he won in a giveaway. He makes it (with the airplane pilot) to a nearby Bruce Wayne yacht party and we see something that we don’t really get to see very often. He starts to have fun. It’s pretty funny to see everyone just assume that the tall, handsome, dark haired guy is Bruce Wayne and of course he just goes with it and parties with everyone else. We also get small cameos from Oliver Queen (Green Arrow), Sue Dibny (Wife of Elongated Man) and Victor Zsasz (Batman villain) who are all attending this yacht party. I’m a fan of Max Landis and his writing and I like that fact that we’re not seeing the typical Superman stories. He’s giving us something new! He’s taking the most famous superpowered character and grounding him so much and it’s great. We get a sense of who Clark really is and how he feels about being a small town kind of guy all while emotionally confiding in a woman on the yacht that knew right away that he wasn’t Bruce Wayne. It really is refreshing. There’s also a really hilarious moment involving Deathstroke (the ONLY “superhero” kind of moment in the issue) thinking Clark is Wayne. A drugged up Clark has a small exchange with the assassin and then a small fight happens and Clark casually flicks him off the yacht then goes back and cozies up with the young woman from before. The ending is very casual but spoke a lot about Clark in this time in his life. The art by Joelle Jones is beautifully done and compliments the writing immensely. Every panel makes it feel more like a TV episode rather than a comic and it literally had me visualizing it all. Then there’s the single page story of Mr. Mxyzptlk breaking the fourth wall and adressing us about what’s real and what’s not. For a single page this was weirdly creepy and yet it leaves you with something to think about. Interesting. This issue was definitely a hit with me mainly because it was so different and I can’t wait to see what the next moment in Clark Kent/Superman’s life is going to be.
Superman: American Alien #3 is available NOW from DC Comics
