Superman: Ruin Revealed

Superman: Ruin Revealed

By Greg Rucka, Karl Kerschl & others (DC Comics)
ISBN 1-84576-244-4

Collecting Adventures of Superman issues #640-641 and #644-647, this slim volume reprints the final stages in the meandering, angst and testosterone cocktail of the revenge obsessed villain Ruin who had waged a campaign of hate and destruction against the Man of Steel and his closest friends.

With inelegant haste – presumably to clear the decks for the looming Infinite Crisis storylines – Superman, with guest-stars Zatanna and Steel, plough their way through a veritable rogue’s gallery comprising the Toyman, OMACs, the new Parasites, Lex Luthor and even Mr. Mxyzptlk, before the final confrontation with the vengeance-crazed Ruin, who is promptly defeated and revealed to be just who you expected him to be.

Although rushed and disappointingly written by Greg Rucka, Nunzio Defilippis and Christina Weir – through, I’m sure, no fault of their own – the art by Karl Kerschl, Renato Guedes, Darryl Banks, Adam Dekraker, Wayne Faucher, Cam Smith and Robin Riggs, and vibrant colouring of Guedes and Tanya & Richard Horie is varied and wonderfully effective. Illustration fans will at least have something to applaud in this otherwise shiny pretty, vapid pot-boiler that can only satisfy the completist fan.

© 2005 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.