Kauã Barreto’s Reviews > Man and Superman Deluxe Edition > Status Update

Superman using fear as a tool against Lex. Superman is not always the gee louise good guy, smiling clown the hopecore fanatics make him to be

Now that's a Superman story with depth. Giving space for Clark's makings as a reporter, his writing, him struggling before getting a job at the Planet—and now there's a whole class angle with Clark being friends with his coworkers

The law and order candidate portrayed as a bloodshot populist lusting for power and the candidate saying “we need to attack the root of crime as well as its effects” portrayed as a moderate thinking man. It's common sense, pretty liberal, but I've been used to read comics infatuated with the law and order rhethoric, this feels like a breath of fresh air.

The way the characters are frozen in time, like Baroque statues, like capturing true movement on a photograph.

Castellini is a detail freak. If it's written on a script 'Panel 1: a messy bedroom', this alone would prompt the guy to draw a bedroom with history brimming out of its pores. The trash in the trashcan, the posters on the wall, the clothes fallen on the bed, each little thing would serve to accurately portray the mental image he had when reading.

Page one is complete silence, page two is cacophony. The transition is cinematic in a way, you can almost hear it. Visually establishes the change of worlds: from quiet, bucolic countryside Kansas to a city that never sleeps. People talking, car horns, ambulance sirens. The advertisement and all that (what Alan Moore calls texture) also works as a sign of contrast.

The first page left a great impression; what an elaborate style of art, with clean lines and richness of detail and texture; the last panel with all the skyscrapers dominating Metropolis horizon, the accurate architecture giants that sells the idea of a concrete jungle, busy and noisy; and Clark's shadow looming over the globe of the Planet is a nice touch. Beautiful.