Superman ’78 #5: Come Sail Away

Wilfredo Torres absolutely owns this issue. Not only does he get the basics right, not only are the likenesses down pat, not only are there cameos galore (seriously, you’re gonna have to look at this issue twice to catch them all), but it took me five issues to realize that his page layouts are like those of a comic from 1978! When I realized this it blew my mind and made me appreciate his art on a whole new level. I don’t care what this guy’s next book is, I’m buying it. Unless it’s Spawn, I can’t even. Hopefully, it’s gonna be Superman ‘79, because there are so many places that this book can go. Torress throws in some designs that are some of the most well-known in DC history if you’ve grown up in a certain era and it’s very nice to see them “in action”, as it were. One thing that’s never mentioned is how detailed Torres is. Backgrounds a very rich and lush and detailed You’re not going to see a white background panel in this book, that’s for sure. He’s not over-detailed by any means, but you can tell he goes out of his way to make his backgrounds as full and detailed as possible, it’s very refreshing. 

Author Robert Venditti continues to plot a very organic story and fills each issue with very crisp dialogue. I would imagine a book like this has got to be hard to write. First, you’d have to imagine what film director Richard Donner would craft the whole story, then you have to come up with the dialogue that he’d use in telling the story, and then you have to come up with how each actor would deliver the lines. That’s got to be exhausting, but that’s the kind of attention to detail that’s at work here. No shortcuts taken here, that’s for sure. Another issue that’s a great, solid, read.