“You taught fear itself to seek revenge”

With Superman now possessed by Parallax, can anyone stop him?!  In Superman #30 writer Keith Champagne brings one of maybe two or three characters who just might be capable of bringing down the Man of Steel in his new state, Sinestro.  Granted Sinestro isn’t up to full power since he and Hal Jordan had their last major throw down in Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #7 where both men disappeared in a major explosion.  But if anyone can come up with a plan get control of Parallax back it’s Sinestro.

The plan that Sinestro comes up with to wrest Parallax free from his Kryptonian host body is pretty cool and it’s great to once again see the Weaponers of Qward involved with Sinestro.  With Kal-El rendered helpless the battle for the fear entity clearly tips to Sinestro’s favor, but in no small part due to the Korugarian’s weakened state Superman is able to triumph and not only escape back to Earth, but in possession of Sinestro’s ring and Parallax himself.  This sets the stage for Superman to appear in October’s Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps issues for a two part follow up to this story.

I’m admittedly not a big Superman comics fan and I’m not current to what’s going on in this series, but Champagne does a good enough job with what little connection this story has to the book’s current state that it’s easy for a reader like myself to follow along.  I really liked seeing Sinestro get the upper hand on Kal-El, but I do think that Superman defeated Parallax a bit too easily.  When Parallax jumps from one person to another while under interrogation by Sinestro it was a little confusing as we’ve never seen the fear entity move about like that without seeing him emerge from one host and leap into another.  That aside the story itself was pretty engaging.

I thought it was a little weird to see Sinestro make his return outside the confines of a Lantern centric series, but at the same time I truly appreciate seeing stories like this that promote the fact that these books co-exist in a shared universe.  Nobody truly expected Sinestro to have died when he and Hal clashed last fall so it’s certainly no surprise to see him back despite the lack of an explanation of how he returned.  I expect we’ll get that eventually and while it’s a point of interest it really isn’t something we have to know in order to move forward.  At least the story was entertaining and set the stage for future conflicts between Sinestro and Superman in an organic fashion.

Artistically there are three different pencillers on this issue, something which is usually a bad sign, but Ed Bene, Tyler Kirkham and Philip Tan are all on point for this installment.  Their styles are different enough that you notice the transitions when they happen if you’re paying attention, but otherwise they blend together pretty well.  One two page spread where Superman experiences his greatest fears was particularly well done.

Superman #30 is a fun conclusion to the Man of Steel’s time under Parallax’s influence.  Even though Superman gained the upper hand a little to readily for my liking the story was engaging and sets up Superman’s guest appearance in October’s Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps issues.  Seven out of ten lanterns.