The Kents, Lex Luthor

The Kents 1-12

A historical maxi-series about the Old West, tying Pa Kent’s ancestors to Bleeding Kansas and the Civil War.  The Superman connection is tenuous at best, and the story would have been better without it - Pa and Clark’s written correspondence provides clunky exposition when even standard omniscient narration would have been better.

John Ostrander’s epic isn’t bad.  His story of the two Kent brothers, Nate and Jeb, stays engaging for the duration of the story.  Nate fights to make Kansas a free state, fights for the North, falls in love, and seeks revenge against his brother, who shot him in the back.  Jeb is the classic bad seed, riding with the outlaws William Quantrill and Jesse James.

Through it all, the major players narrate the action through the journals they conveniently keep and letters they write to family back east.  Pa Kent, who must have done an extraordinary amount of research, fills in the history.

Tim Truman and Tom Mandrake’s pencils suit the time period of the comic quite well.  There’s no need to be flashy, and their storytelling is solid in the best possible way.

Regret buying? No

Would buy again? No

Would read again? Yes

Rating: Nice

Lex Luthor 1-5

Lee Bermejo’s the star of this miniseries.  His art looks amazing.

The story by Brian Azzarello is less good.  If the point of the book is to tell things from Luthor’s point of view and portray him as the hero of the story, then it does not succeed.  From what I can tell, this is Luthor’s plot:

1. Build the tallest building in Metropolis.
2. Create a female superhuman named Hope.
3. Sacrifice Hope and the building to frame Superman.
4. Be sad and feel like a martyr because he fell in love with Hope, but was still willing to sacrifice her to defeat Superman.

It makes no sense.  Aside from being a stupid plan and enormous waste of resources, Azzarello also does a horrible job of making me believe that Lex actually loved Hope, rendering the final part of his plan moot.  

What makes it more disappointing is that Azzarello starts the first issue off so well.  His Lex is genuinely respectful of his janitor, and I thought I was going to see a whole different side of this man.  But that aspect of his character is never revisited, leaving me to wonder why it was put there in the first place.

It's actually quite decent of Lex.

Regret buying? No

Would buy again? No

Would read again? Yes

Rating: Nice