The search for home and healing continues in Superman: Lost as Priest and Carlo Pagulayan present a Superman dealing with his rough odyssey. The story will sometimes jump periods to show how this journey has affected Superman in the now and give us context as to what caused his affliction. Time jumps are all the rage in comics right now – Amazing Spider-Man and Fantastic Four have presented tales in that manner, so how is this different? Superman: Lost has two things to help differentiate it from those examples. One is that it is not happening in Superman’s main comics, and two is how it has attacked his personality.
With this latest installment in the story, there are quite a few jumps across Superman’s life, and, honestly, it made the story feel like it was missing some pieces. In previous issues, the creative team established that Superman would stop breathing because he was worried about his oxygen levels, so it was nice to see that return as a current problem, but that was just a quick feature as the majority of the story stays in the period where Superman was on the planet “Kansas.” While the usual layout has been to have a quick peek at the “now” and then go back to the “then,” it didn’t translate as well as past issues. Maybe the impact of the first splash page or the flashback within a flashback could be what presented shifting issues.
In this issue, a nice touch of the story was Superman dealing with the fallout from his anger in the last issue. We get to see how much Superman misses his robotic companion, Marquis. In a monologue that Superman speaks, it is said, “yet another piece of my soul taken completely for granted,” and talks about his survival pack; with those bits, Priest writes a passionate piece showing how Superman is clinging to his items and how they represent his last clings to Earth and his life. It’s a profound character moment, and it’s great to see Superman run across emotions that make him more human.
While the issue hops around, this is where Carlo Pagulayan gets to play in different locations and with reactive body language. The pages and moments where Superman was in his new white space travel suit were the best. In the first portion, Pagulayan shows us Superman going through many emotional reactions: anger, sorrow, hopelessness, and a sad reunion with a touch of joy. The second area then allows Pagulayan to show Superman saving the day with classic feats of heroics and then finishes with a Superman in debate. This interesting discussion puts Superman in a situation where he is unsure of what is right, and it isn’t his conflict, but can Superman ignore this situation?
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