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This week: Man Stars from Steel won a star in an oversized adventure at Superman Treasury 2025: Hero for All.
Note: The review below contains spoilers. If you need quick spoiler purchase/pass recommendations for the manga in question, please see the bottom of the article for the final verdict.
Superman Treasury 2025: Hero For All
Author: Dan Jurgens
Artist: Bruno Redondo
Ink Assist: Caio Filipe
Resurrection Sequence Pensyller: Dan Jurgens
Resurrection Sequence Inker: Bullet Breeding
Colorist: Adriano Lucas
Letter: Dave Sharp
Cover Artist: Bruno Redondo
This week is undoubtedly the pinnacle of Superman’s summer, with the release of a big screen kickoff to the DC Universe, a new film starring David Corensweat, Rachel Brosnahan and Nicholas Hoult, directed by James Gunn. You can read a review of this film here. DC took part in “Go Big or Go Home.” This marks the opportunity with a new oversized one-shot from artist Bruno Redondo, who will beat Superman Treasury 2025: Hero for All, authors Dan Jurgens and Eisner. One-shot finds Earth under the threat of an alien invasion is a massive adventure that doesn’t lose sight of its central character.
Jurgens brings confidence with him to this outing, not a stranger for the Steel guy who has been working on characters off and on for the past 30 years. It’s a recent story, with Clark and Lois’ son John still being last week, setting a large portion of Jurgens’ recent Superman works, with elements that link this story to both the author’s recent work and his classic Superman story from the early 90s. For example, the main villain in this story has, as far as I know, been in the manga for over 20 years, but the Superman fans of that identity are probably someone who can escape, even before a big release. Another character that pops up later in this issue has something to do with the adventures written by Young John and his Jurgens over the past few years. Jurgens has taken advantage of the opportunity to play with the many toys that have been added to Superman Toybox over the past decades.
But in such an oversized book, the visuals are the real stars of the show, delivered by Bruno Redondo and colorist Adriano Lucas. For full disclosure, I should say that I had no chance to review a Treasury-sized version of this comic, as the Publisher Review PDF system is what it is. But even on my tablet screen, Redondo and Lucas’ works are spectacular. Redondo’s page structure is fantastic. His storytelling is as top notch as usual. Lucas’ colors incredibly enhance Redondo’s linework, adding depth and vibrancy to the main action set in the middle of the Metropolis day, and uses a palette muted into non-fantasy fantasy sequences. The book has images and sequences of Redondo and Lucas, and is absolutely crushed in financial form.
The cover price is $14.99 and with a large in-store footprint for retailers to compete, Superman Treasury 2025: Hero For All is a Treasury size book other than a simple sell. Putting Redondo and Lucas in the artists for this book was a big selling point, and they put out incredible pieces as usual when given the chance. Jurgen, on the other hand, feels like the safest bet, and that is shown in the story. Before it becomes an old hat, how many alien invasions can meet? The personal connection between Superman and the villain in question adds some depth to the invasion, but their interaction is limited. In fact, Superman has completely removed the problem from the board and is trapped in a dark, black mercy-like simulation of what his life would have been like if he hadn’t developed the superpower. The big moment when that simulation ends and Superman is released is quickly interrupted by the expanded “resurrection” sequence of Superman’s life story (the bits originally told by the Jurgens.) by the breeding of Jurgens and his longtime collaborator Brett. It’s hard to believe that the sequence was cut in favor of Redondo and Lucas being always a Superman story, in favor of being wild.
I wish Superman Treasury 2025: Hero For All was a simple purchase. There’s nothing groundbreaking about the story. Redondo and Lucas’ works, while great, do not get the opportunity to shine with more interesting and original stories. Still, the moment of landing does so visually grand, which may be enough for some readers. But in my opinion, $14.99 is a lot to spend on a book with an OK story. It’s an opportunity I missed (forgive me the pun) for a big week of Superman, and that’s the most disappointing of all.
Final Verdict: View.
round up
The Superman Week theme continues, focusing on all the new Superman-related titles that DC has. Absolute Superman #9 is confident that Jason Aaron and Rafa Sandoval will continue to reinvent Crypton’s last son, and will have a major impact on the entire storyline across DC. Lois meets Ra’s Al Ghul, and Superman faces what Omega men have been doing and the length they do it. A rather solid mid-section of the storyline. Action Comic #1088 is the second part of the modernization of the Superboy of the origins of Mark Waid and Skyler Patridge’s young Clark Kent. Wade has a nice incorporation of elements of the Superboy/Man’s origins of the past. From there, the Steele boy appears in Wade’s own birthright explanation for why Clark Kent’s glasses work. The threats faced by Superboy in this issue are something that can’t be punched in the end, and are an important lesson for young superheroes to learn. This is probably Waid’s DC’s strongest book, and Patridge’s artwork is beautiful. Sophie Campbell’s Supergirl #3 continues to stolen Kara’s ongoing identity theft. This book has been a joy from the start, and has perfectly blended Silver’s age sensibility with modern storytelling. The introduction of a new iteration of Satan’s Girl was unexpectedly wild, and her connection between Lena Luther’s role in the story and the series’ identity theme was really strong. It may not be technically a super title, but Joanne’s starrer, Stephen Byrne’s Fire & Ice: Hell’s Freeze is set in Smallville, and this week’s #4 features a very prominently steel guy. In this issue, the confusion of body exchange continues with this issue as lessons are learned, super-powerful telepathic gorillas are fought, and Bee and Tora face separate challenges in hell. This book is just fun.
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