Booklist Review
How do you distinguish a Superman reinvention in a field filled with such reinventions, including DC's monthly Superman comic books? In this sequel to the popular first volume, Straczynski creates several original supporting characters and probes the temptations that face an invulnerable hero to put a relatively fresh spin on a young Superman's battle with the power-draining Parasite and the hero's growing understanding of what it means to be human. Straczynski's television and film background affords a cinematic structure and pacing, and Davis' sleek figures and epic battle scenes will feel comfortably familiar to moviegoers and comics fans alike.--Karp, Jesse Copyright 2010 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Superman's origin has been reimagined many times over the years, most recently in DC's "New 52" reboot (LJ 11/15/12), Geoff Johns's lackluster Superman: Secret Identity, and this compelling series. In the first volume, Krypton's destroyers track that world's last survivor to Earth and threaten to destroy this planet as well, forcing a young Clark Kent to step up to its defense and publicly reveal his powers. Here, he's pitted against a new, serial-killer version of the energy-draining Parasite, a villain who opens up new possibilities to the U.S. government's quest for a potential countermeasure in case Superman ever goes rogue. VERDICT Eisner Award winner Straczynski (Babylon 5; Amazing Spider-Man) does more than contemporize Superman's story; his hero is a wild card who grew up alienated and isolated, whose human parents' wishes for him are more about self-actualization than doing good deeds, and whose birth parents have tasked him with avenging Krypton against its enemies. And his new girlfriend, Lisa Lasalle, has a shameful secret that has nothing to do with aliens, villains, or super-science. Davis's artwork combines classic superhero design with contemporary detail and a slightly dark edge. Fine stuff.-S.R. (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.