The Loeb Review: Superman for all Seasons

Since my exploration of the work of Jeph Loeb seems to be so popular, here's a review I did some time ago during my quest to find something he'd written that didn't ultimately suck.

This is clearly an earlier work by Loeb, and although it has his trademark monologue captions, here they are not as polished as more recent works, and in places it's hard to tell who is talking. It also thankfully doesn't bring in a lot of guest stars for no very good reason. But it does have annoying plot holes, Lex Luthor acting like an idiot, and those dumb powersuits.

It starts off quite well, dwelling on Supes coming into his powers and the bewilderment this causes him, but then it continues to dwell on this at length while rehashing Superman's leaving Smallville and setting up in Metropolis in a way that adds nothing to previous versions. I'd reccomend replacing book 2 with John Byrne's Man of Steel, since it covers the same ground and is more interesting. It also doesn't include the stupid plot with the submarine. Issues never addressed here: Why was the submarine shooting at Metropolis? What was Lois Lane doing aboard it? What did Luthor possibly have to gain by this (if he was indeed responsible)? The whole thing is just one big plot hole that really has little to do with the story at all.

And then we get to Luthor idiot plot #2: Make everyone in Metropolis ill and then tell Superman it's his fault so he'll be sad. Show him up by conveniently providing an antidote and then have someone drop dead in his arms for no good reason to make him even sadder.

Whenever Loeb writes Luthor he characterizes him as an idiot with the vast resources to turn his whims into reality. Luthor sets up a rescue team to upstage Superman but appears to have staffed it with thugs rather than trained specialists. They wear uniforms that look sinister in an absurd color scheme kind of a way. Why do such a half assed job when you have the resources to hire real trained firemen/doctors/astronauts/whoever else you'd need, and a promotional department who could make them look like a friendly, serious emergency service. His absurd virus plot only succeeds at all because Loeb writes Superman dumb enough to fall for it.

And what was the deal with all that stuff about Jenny Vaughn? Superman saves her from a burning building - fine. She becomes a total Superman nerd; I can see that. She's an expert in viruses - okay. Lex Luthor hires her and then brainwashes her with film of Superman being heroic - why? She was already a complete Supes groupie. She then helps Luthor develop the virus, or the antidote, maybe both, and dresses up in a superheroish costume and calls herself Toxin (what a giveaway). Lex then manoevers the situation so Supes has to carry her up into the clouds as everyone has conveniently forgotten about Lex's flying powersuits. She then gets a couple of pages of captions telling us how she had a miserable childhood and promptly drops dead for no explained reason so Lex can blame Superman.

I'd really like it if someone could explain to me what the hell is going on there because it makes no sense at all to me.

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