Superman: The Stranger #1 Review

I have such a strange relationship with Superman (the character, the IP, whatever). It’s not that I dislike him – I joke about it (and part of that is because I have a Batman bias), but really it’s that I dislike most of his publication history. Superman is a character that works for me in very specific modes, within very specific contexts and status quos, and within the character having to be one of the two big mascots of DC Comics, it feels like he usually gets the smaller end of the stick as opposed to Batman, where his stories always circle back to being about Superman the brand, rather than Superman the character, and when it is the character, it’s in the mode that I personally am not into.

So that then begs the question, what is the mode of Superman that I’m into? 

I think rather than describing that, it’s better to go off what the Superman comics I love are:

• Action Comics by Grant Morrison, Rags Morales, et al.
• Action Comics by Greg Pak and Aaron Kuder
• Superman: Birthright by Mark Waid and Leinil Francis Yu
• And then, to pull from a recent favourite, Superman: The Kryptonite Spectrum by W. Maxwell Prince and Martin Morazzo.

When I saw the announcement for Superman: The Stranger by Wes Craig (not to be confused with the hit indie comic, The Stranger, by friend Devlin Baker alongside Tom Philipson and James Patricks), I was immediately pumped. I love Wes Craig’s work of course, and DC heads have surely seen it in DC All-In Special, but on top of that, having it be set in 1938 Metropolis (the real year Action Comics #1, the first appearance of Superman came out) was some really nice texture, alongside the Fleischer inspired Art Deco approach to the aesthetic. It was just checking all the right boxes for me.

And that newly designed S. I love that S.

In Superman: The Stranger #1, Wes Craig (alongside Jason Wordie and Tom Napolitano) taps into what I find to be the rawest essence of the character. It’s just him, that specific Action Comics #1 version of him, and then it spins out of that. I find a big appeal of Superman to be how lonely he is. He’s alone in a new place as he’s changing, and there’s just no one like him, no one he can relate to, and yet trying to do the right thing. Funnily enough, it is these traits that he kind of lost over time, that Spider-Man picked up on and is why he’s so popular to this day. But I’m glad we have a Superman project again that is tapping into that core and drawing from it. 

To make this all work, Craig utilizes a variety of different techniques, from the Master View, to a really effective splash, to my favourite in this issue – where all the panels are stacked on one side and the narration is on the other. What drew me specifically into those pages were how effectively it speaks to the idea that Clark is writing in his journal, even without Napolitano employing the caption box he uses for the writing within the pages themselves. Distancing that narration from the art really sells the idea of him reflecting on what he’s talking about, and it’s quite beautiful.

The whole book is beautiful really. Jason Wordie is a frequent Craig collaborator, and the two go way back to Kaya. There is so much texture in every single one of these pages – the specific one I constantly think of is the page where Clark stops writing and just kind of leans against the wall, it’s utterly breathtaking. Broadly, I think DC’s been doing great by having all of these unique styles in a lot of their books, but even within that, Craig and Wordie really stand out as one of a kind.

I can’t recommend this first issue enough. It’s rare that a Superman book meets the really high standards I have for the guy, so that’s how you know it’s the good stuff.