JMS has been hit or miss for me.  I REALLY enjoyed his work on Thor, and “Silver Surfer: Requiem” almost moved me to tears.  This book, however, was terrible.  This run of Superman is getting progressively worse. 

The plot of the issue, as with the rest of the “Grounded” storyline, was so-so.  The real travesty here is the art.  The anatomy is all over the place.  There are several panels where Superman has a brow bone that rivals that of a Geico caveman.  And the little boy in the story was drawn so poorly, he looked like Sloth from “The Goonies”.  (They even wear the same shirt.)  It was almost like Barrows was trying to see how far apart he could get away with drawing the eyes on the boy’s face.

Not to put it all on him, because the colors are disgusting.  The pallette is overwhelmingly warm and saturated.  At one point you can see where the colorist actually missed the mark where Superman’s eye was supposed to be, even though it was clearly laid out by the linework.

I’m dropping Superman for the first time ever.  I think I’ll buy two issues of “Scalped” every month instead.