Future State: Superman of Metropolis Shows the City from Multiple Angles

Future State: Superman of Metropolis #1
Writers: Sean Lewis and Brandon Easton
Artists: John Timms, Valentine de Landro, Cully Hamner and Michael Avon Oeming
Colorists: Gabe Eltaeb, Marissa Louise and Laura Martin
Letterers: Dave Sharpe and AndWorld Design

The Action Comics of the far future reveals itself in Future State: Superman of Metropolis #1. Headlined by writers Sean Lewis and Brandon Easton, Superman of Metropolis takes us literally into the City of Tomorrow. 

It has been a year since Jon Kent took over for his father as the Man of Steel, and things have not been going great. Civil unrest stoked by a new offshoot of Brainiac has brought things to a head in the city, and Jon is desperate to do something about it. But in that desperation, he bottles the city like Kandor of old, putting him at odds with the governments of the world, the military and Supergirl, now the elder of the House of El left on Earth.

But while that idea is big enough to sustain the series (and handedly does throughout the main action of the debut), Superman of Metropolis isn’t just about Jon, and therein lies its real strength. In the backup stories, which focus on the Guardian and the Shilo Norman Mister Miracle, the issue reveals itself to actually BE about the city itself and its protectors, not either/or. This makes the issue feel much more expansive and inclusive, which writers Easton and Lewis then double down on throughout each story by providing us sizable check-ins with the whole of the Metropolis’ burroughs and not just the one section of the city around the Daily Planet we see over and over again.

There is a sleek but grounded feel to the artwork here as well. The main story’s pencils and colors, handled dazzlingly by John Timms and Gabe Eltaeb, respectively, provide readers plenty of classic Superman action, lots of mid-flight posing and cleanly colored set design as we pop from Metropolis to the Fortress of Solitude and all the skies between them. But as the backups start to come in, the artwork takes on a much blockier, firmly focused look and feel, giving us plenty of street-level action and weird, almost science-fiction inspired action. It might look like a bit of a trade-down in terms of scope. The transition from Cully Hamner to Michael Avon Oeming in the Guardian story is absolutely the most jarring of the shifts in this debut, for sure, but the way all three art teams mesh into a tonally resonant and genuinely cool looking experience is too neat to dismiss out of hand.

While I worry about the state of the Superman line post FS, mainly because the books will once again be handled by four white dudes (one of whom has already published some dubious Captain America event tie-ins we didn’t love here), Future State: Superman of Metropolis at least shows us what the title is capable of once it strives for more than just “decent Superman stuff.”