DCU Comic Book Reviews

SUPERMAN CONFIDENTIAL #14

Signal To Noise, Chapter Three

June 2008

Written by B. Clay Moore

Pencils by Phil Hester

Inks by Ande Parks

Cover by Ande Parks

Synopsis

At Winslow Schott’s workshop, Jimmy Olsen is being held captive.  Scott takes Olsen’s signal watch and determines the watch is used to signal someone with very acute hearing.  Elsewhere, Perry White is looking for Olsen.  Clark Kent is worried that Jimmy is in trouble.  Later, Superman hears Jimmy’s signal watch, but finds a teddy bear rigged with a bomb.  Almost immediately Superman hears the watch again, this time at the zoo with a balloon triggered to explode.  Meanwhile, Schott reveals he has bombs planted all over the city, all of them rigged to signal Superman, who won’t be able to get to all of them in time to stop the explosions.  However, Superman realizes what is happening and tracks down Schott’s workshop and saves Jimmy.

Review by Binkley (e-mail)

At the very least, the ending to the story focused more on Superman than on Jimmy Olsen, so this issue improved upon the problems of the last issue.  I even enjoyed Supes’ moment when he paused to consider what was happening and then used his brain to find the Toyman.  And we get a scene with Clark and Perry and Clark and Lois.  Granted, neither really added much to the plot and could’ve easily been removed and you wouldn’t have noticed, but it added to the story and it is always nice to see Clark interact with various characters from the Daily Planet.  Having said all that, however, the story was lacking any dramatic sense of danger; the Toyman doesn’t come across as particularly menacing.  There was no conflict between the two and, in fact, the situation is resolved pretty quickly and far too easily.  Even though I knew this was the final issue, it still felt like there was going to be more to the story.  This issue felt like it was a set up for the conflict between the two, not the resolution.

Given the fact that Superman has extremely super speed, would it have been that difficult for him to zip through the city and locate all of the bombs?  I suppose one could argue the sonic boom would cause more damage than the bombs, but that seems like a super geek type of thing to consider.  Let’s face it, Superman can fly really fast, why couldn’t he fly fast enough to get all of the bombs.

 

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