Broken Frontier

We delve deeper into the machinations and motivations of Lex Luthor; meet the new Super-Chief, and Doc Magnus discovers it isn’t paranoia if people really are after you.

Week 22 continues the redemption of Lex Luthor as a world-class villain, the ongoing saga of Will Magnus – genius hero or mad scientist? And the introduction of Jon Standing Bear. Who is the latter you may ask? Apparently he’s the new Super-Chief. And who or what is that? Well...Among DC’s many long-forgotten heroes was Super-Chief. A creation of the Silver Age, this Native American hero was granted powers by a magical stone. While the Silver Age version of the character played to a lot of stereotypes of his time, writers Geoff Johns, Mark Waid, Grant Morrison, and Greg Rucka have managed to rework the character with some cultural sensitivity but without losing touch with the Silver Age roots. The result feels like a more honest introduction of a new Native American hero for the 21st century. The new Super-Chief, though, may not be so shiningly heroic. Jon Standing Bear has hints of a troubled past and a chip on his shoulder that is more the size of a 2 x 4 and then there is Jon’s shocking action that I assume will have some readers talking and debating.

Meanwhile, Lex Luthor’s narcissism is on full display along with the revelation of some serious cape envy on his part. With the last two issues of 52, the writers have made great strides at increasing Luthor’s position of villainy in the DCU. At one point in time Luthor actually was a JLA level threat but recent years had placed him solely in the domain of Superman. It appears that, once again, Luthor is headed back up the scale to a point where he could be a palpable threat to the Justice League. It couldn’t happen to a viler villain and it is nice to see it happening.

Finally, there is Doc Magnus and the Metal Men. After several weeks of dropping hints and cryptic clues, the Magnus story arc finally appears to be heating up here. Readers start to see some familiar names crop up (like S.H.A.D.E. from both Grant Morrison’s Seven Soldiers of Victory series and Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti’s Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters title) and some familiar (metal) faces. There is a touch of continuity clean-up as well that most fans will probably be pretty happy with. The questions posed by the missing mad scientists and Doc Magnus’s role with them continue to be intriguing and it will be interesting to see where this story goes from here.

Eddy Barrows continues the line of solid pencilers on this title. Barrow’s work is nothing extremely flashy but he does have the superhero "look" down pat – Standing Bear could give Superman a run for his money. Barrows also does a good job with the facial expressions, taking them up to the emotional edge but not over it into histrionics.

Normally, I do not mention much about the back-up, "Origin Of...." feature to this title but I do feel that, this time, writer Mark Waid fell down on the job. The two-page "Origin of Green Lantern" focuses on Hal Jordan but glosses over too many important story points as well as giving too short a shrift to the rest of the Green Lantern Corps members. Even though the feature is limited to two pages I think Waid could have fit a bit more information in.

With twenty-two weeks on the stands, 52 continues to weave an intricate plot focusing on characters long lost, long forgotten, or long considered B-list or lower. This title is proving in a lot of ways that the old adage is true: There are no bad characters, just ones waiting for the right writers and the right plot. The population of the pages of 52 continues to be interesting, intriguing, and strong additions to the story. Once 52 weeks have passed I, for one, sincerely hope that this is not the last we see of them.