LOIS AND CLARK AT DC

DC Comics has just finished re-tooling their entire funnybook line in order to eliminate the innumerable parallel universes with their compounding confusions, and then here comes Superman: Lois and Clark, in which we find our title characters married, with a newborn son, living on a different Earth, Telos, where Superman flies with a full albeit neatly trimmed beard but no cape. The narrator is Lois, written by Dan Jurgens, and most of the issue is devoted to acquainting us with the Kent family’s new circumstance. Fairly tame stuff, and since the principal characters are known to us, we don’t need to apply the usual criteria for a first issue — although the cliffhanger here, the final page that introduces a new, threatening villain, is a cliche.

This title may not survive the presently evolving upheaval, but the thing to remark about in this production is the exquisite artwork of penciller Lee Weeks and inker Scott Hanna. The delicacy of line and copious detailing of the locale in nearly every panel is superb. But Weeks’ power of observation as well as his skill in execution is worth noting. In the sample pages posted here, we see Superman and Lois standing, facing each other in profile; notice that Lois’s shirt-tail is hiked up in the back, just above her butt. That is exactly how that garment behaves whenever a woman wearing it arises from a seated position. Extraordinary.