Just a short one today, as a Superman/Question team-up doesn't quite gel: Supes gives Vic a veiled 'my way or the highway' speech that wouldn't be out of character coming from Batman; and the Question is tripping the hell out.
While I still enjoyed this limited, Rick Veitch made a couple of changes to the character: Vic Sage wasn't the nosy, opinionated, searcher that I remembered from his old series. Now he was a 'shaman of cities,' divining answers from ley lines, the flow of the city, and heavy psychotropic chemicals. When Vic looks at Superman in the panels above, he doesn't just see him, he sees his energy; which seems a long, long way away from the 'No-Face' guy that was the lone force for justice in Hub City. Still, the art in this one is great, even if you occasionally have to puzzle through what Vic's perceptions.
The old series also had established Vic as a confident, swaggering jerk, at least at the start; but in this one Lois Lane is revealed as his secret crush from college. But he never spoke to her, only writing her terrible, portentous poetry that hinted at what he would become. Hell, I really need to sit down and read both series again; but it might just depress me.
The plotting in this series is extra-twisty, too: A crime cartel has moved into Metropolis by building secret networks into bathrooms, on the premise that Superman wouldn't listen or watch people there. And Lex Luthor's new building is actually designed to channel ley line energy into a Superman-killing blast. You don't see enough evil architecture in comics, and that seems to have the virtue of having never been tried before.
I miss Hub City, though: it was supposed to be worse than Gotham, and it lived up to it's rep. I never knew why Blüdhaven was introduced, when they already had a perfectly servicable urban cesspool already, but then Hub would've eaten Nightwing alive. When I scanned this, I was just going to comment on Supes being more of a hardass than he lets on; but there was a lot more than that going on in this one.
From the Question (limited) #4, "Devil's in the Details part 4: Inside Out" Written by Rick Veitch, art and color by Tommy Lee Edwards.
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