For Tomorrow (2004, FROM SUPERMAN #204-215)

I certainly remember this as being better the first time I read it. Perhaps I was (and still am) wowed by Lee and Williams' art - which, for me, is how I envisage a modern Superman looking. Brian Azzarello's story, however, is a real clunker. I'm not sure why this was called "For Tomorrow". Was it an attempt to suggest that this version of Superman is how the creators saw him developing? Is it that it's about Kal-El's concerns about how he wakes up to the prospect of being Superman every day and how he manages to remain optimistic and up-beat?

The premise - in which a million people across the Earth including Lois Lane disappeared mysteriously a year earlier - is great. The problem is that the execution of the story is agonisingly convoluted and, ultimately, becomes pretty boring. What is central is a highly contrived narrative about Superman modifying a Phantom Zone projector to send people to a paradise and then mind-wiping himself so he fails to know where all the millions of people have gone. There's also various sub-plots, including involving a villainous OMAC prototype called Equus, who actually looks like a 1990s Wildstorm character.


Incredibly introspective and broody, it has the feeling that a four-issue story is stretched out beyond all proportions with lots of odd elements added that make it an unsatisfying read. Azzerello creates a morally ambiguous world for Superman to inhabit. All the way through it's impossible to know who the bad guys are because the good guys aren't really much better. Equally, some of the dialogue is pretty awful (there's one sequence between Batman and Superman that made me feel awkward - almost like reading a Hollywood scriptwriter's attempt who just doesn't "get" the idea of DC Universe).

Like I said, I remember this being better when I read it about 5 years ago but I think that the single thing that really doesn't work here is the character of Superman. He's far too introspective and angst-ridden (ok, I realise he's literally lost his wife and, somehow, he's responsible but he lacks the dogged, boy scout-ness that makes Superman Superman). The first half of the story has a pretty passive Superman who spends his time visiting a priest (although he does go into space to save Green Lantern - who, uncharacteristically, seems to shout "Save me!").

Much of the narrative is actually heavy-handed moral dilemmas: Superman musing about his role in the world, warfare, a priest dying of cancer and so on... To me they feel artificially forced and out of keeping with the sort of thing a Superman comic should be. I can see how DC could look at a comic like this and think it was time for a re-boot. It is, however, Jim Lee's art that I think is stunning. Whenever he draws members of the Justice League they look epic. Here, we get Batman and Wonder Woman in particular looking awesome.

I'm hoping that this "darker" angst-ridden Superman isn't the character we get in the Man of Steel movie. Personally, I don't think we need an intense, Batman-type personality. Or an intense, autistic character concerned about his discomforting alien-ness. Or an average joe who reflects on his desire to be ordinary when putting on the cape. I'm hoping he's the "Big Blue", the up-beat, inspirational symbol who saves the day because he is a super man. When Superman gets complicated we end up with a story like For Tomorrow.