Here’s my advice to you, the reader, before reading this issue: Re-read ANY of the origins of Superman before this and skip this one. I say this because there is absolutely nothing new when it comes to the origin. Nothing. I kid you not.

You have Jor-El and Lara shipping Clark away with the tiny rocket and then Ma and Pa Kent finding him later on. I would put spoilers in this review but you literally have to be under a giant boulder not to know this origin by now. I’m disappointed that Morrison didn’t add much, if anything, to this origin because a guy like him could totally fuck things up and make it exciting. The issue is more about the rocket Clark was sent in then anything else and that stuff did interest me. Well it did until we get a bizarre, and unwanted, final sequence that doesn’t seem to gel with the four previous issues. I don’t mind if Morrison is going to jump in time a bit but his confusing methods of setting stuff in doesn’t certainly help.

The art by Andy Kubert is well….well it’s what you’d expect from a Kubert. It’s gorgeous, that’s all I should really say. The explosions, the character designs, and the colors by Brad Anderson mesh to make a good looking book. Which brings up my score just a little bit but then it goes back down because of the back up. Sholly Fisch definitely has the chops to do back story with characters after two stories. He did a good job giving a slightly new origin to Steel and here he has a deeper looking in the Kents before Clark came about. Again it’s a good read, but considering Ma and Pa are dead in the ‘current’ timeline of this universe I don’t see the reason to know why the Kents couldn’t have children in so many ways. The art by Criss Cross doesn’t help it with some obvious rushed panels and characters looking woefully off model. I swear the smiles can be bigger then the Joker’s from ‘The Dark Knight’ at points and it frightened me.

I was really hoping Morrison was going to go all out with this origin story and give us something discuss endlessly. But it’s the same old origin we’ve seen before and Morrison tries to end it with an interesting plot point with the rocket….but it’s a little too late for me. Kubert’s art does look really good but Fisch’s and Criss Cross’s back story really hurt the issue more. I’m still a dedicated reader to this series but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t getting a bit old at this point.