Superman vs. Meshi (Written by Satoshi Miyagawa, Illustrated by Kai Kitago)



I'm curious to know what the plan here was. Advertise Superman to the Japanese by showing him simping for Japanese food, then advertise Japanese food to Americans by showing Superman simping for it? Early on Superman is just flying all the way to Japan during his lunch breaks and gushing about how awesome the food is, or ordering pork when he wanted beef because he can't read kanji. Later on he and Lex Luthor are competing to see who appreciates Japanese food more than the other. The defining moment has to be when Superman gets killed by Doomsday, then wills himself back to life when the Justice League start cooking instant Japanese meals on a Motherbox. It's incredibly stupid but it's a dopey stupid that's hard to hate.

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52 (Written by Geoff Johns, Greg Ruka, Mark Waid, and Grant Morrison, Illustrated by Keith Giffen et al)



52 was an event DC did back in 2006 made with the goal of (A) publishing a full-length comic every week for one year where (B) the "Big Three" - Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman - are absent through the whole thing. They ultimately pulled it off, but it would have been nice if they'd included "make a compelling book" in the requirements.

There are so many storylines going on in 52 that it can take weeks for the book to come back to a given one, and when it does you're left wondering "Wait, how many weeks has Buddy been on that asteroid for?" Sometimes it's Booster Gold being a dickhead. Sometimes it's Black Adam being an asshole, reconnecting with his humanity, then becoming a genocidal maniac. Or Elongated Man looking for a way to bring his wife back to life. Or Renee Montoya and the Question doing whatever the fuck. Or scientists from across the DC universe being kidnapped and taken to an island to build weapons for a giant egg man. Or a ragtag group of superheroes lost in space trying to get home. Or Lex Luthor giving super powers to anybody willing to pay the price and Steel uncovering the conspiracy behind it. Or Lobo becoming Pope to a magic space dolphin.

Reading the production notes reveals Grant Morrison came up with that last one. Somehow I'm not surprised.

The storylines gradually connect to one another and I guess it was meant to reintroduce the Multiverse that was done away with back in the Crisis, only limited to fifty-two universes instead of infinite. Booster Gold was the first mainline DC superhero created after the Crisis and I thought the book was going to play with that but, no, he's just kinda here. Ultimately it's hard to call this anything more than a fun little experiment.

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