When looking at all of the Flashpoint tie-in series, “Project Superman” sounds like one you would expect to be good. Seeing Scott Snyder’s name on the cover should make it’s success a given, right? Not even close. To be fair, Snyder only helped with the plotting. Lowell Francis does the heavy lifting but never gets this title off the ground. The first issue was a perplexing book that never featured Superman until the final page. The second issue wasn’t great but was an upgrade as we finally get to see Kal and Lois. Then there’s issue #3, what should be the exciting finale to Superman’s Flashpoint series but instead is a muddled example of comic book mediocrity.

The story tries to tie in to several different Flashpoint books and that’s the only thing that saves it from utter disaster. One particular sequence answers a very significant question from “Lois Lane and the Resistance” #3 and the ending features a pretty important turn that points to the final main Flashpoint book. There’s also a couple of fairly interesting pages that show Kal’s exposure to the true horrors of war. These are some of the few good moments in the issue. Everything else is focused on the very dull and lifeless Sinclair or Subject Zero. Not only is he a banal and uninteresting character but his showdown with Kal was equally uninspiring. Also the issue’s poor construction really ruins the panels meant to be tender and emotional. There is some good in this issue but for the most part it’s lost among the many, many flaws.

Gene Ha’s art doesn’t do the book any favors. He tries to draw the issue with two distinct tones, one for Kal’s pages and the other for Subject Zero. While Kal’s pages aren’t beautiful, they’re head and shoulders above the ugly and thoroughly distracting Subject Zero pages. From the unattractive panel borders to the shoddy angles and framing within the panels, Ha’s work falls terribly short. The final battle sequence is hard to follow and at times I wasn’t sure what was happening. I could go on but you get the point, this isn’t a great looking book.

This is a frustrating issue. There are some decent Flashpoint tie-ins and references and the ending is very significant. But at the end of the day, this is just a poorly conceived issue and series. Little is done to build these characters so the emotional scenes pack almost no punch and I’ve rarely cared less about “villain” than I did Subject Zero. With the exception of a few of Kal’s pages, the art is subpar at best. How this book fell so short, I don’t know. The bigger question is how did I stay with it to the end?