Happy New Year, everyone! Here’s hoping 2025 isn’t as crappy as 2024, but I don’t have high hopes. We’re starting off a bit light this week with just a single comic read and reviewed. I read a few more, but this was the only one I felt like reviewing because it’s a good one!

Comic Book of the Week goes to Absolute Superman #3 for an unexpected, but no less delightful, take on a classic Superman trope.

Meanwhile, after many years, I finally, somewhat randomly started playing Stardew Valley. I’ve always considered the game, and when my brother mentioned in passing over Christmas that he was playing it again, I finally decided to give it a try. And, of course, it’s everything people say it is. The perfect chill accumulation game for a lazy weekend, just how I like it.

Comic Reviews: Absolute Superman #3.

Absolute Superman #3
Writer: Jason Aaron
Artist: Rafa Sandoval
Colorist: Ulises Arreola
Letterer: Becca Carey

DC Comics really hit the nail on the head with these Absolute Comics, let me tell you. They’re as refreshing and as fun as the original Ultimate Comics.

While Kal’s parents quietly prepare to evacuate Krypton, the young lad starts to see the signs for himself and takes note. His father tries to force the Science League to hear the truth and gets arrested, so Lara gears up in the supersuit and her lava-spewing gun to break him out of lockup. And Kal tags along to upload his story to the planetary network, including the fact that the ruling class has been building escape ships of their own.

Meanwhile, we learn a bit more about the Kent family in a teaser at the end.

Comic Rating: 9/10 – Great.

This was a real treat of an issue that had me smiling throughout. We don’t spend any time with the Earth-bound Kal-El, which is fine, because we’re very much still in the origin phase and finding out how he gets from Krypton to Earth is always an important part of the story. I’m very much in favor of seeing an older Kal-El on Krypton, and his rapport with his parents is quite excellent. The parents are fun characters, too. It’s darn cool when Lara gears up to bust her husband out of jail. We also get much more of a deep dive into what Krypton went through in its final days, and I like the added wrinkle of the ruling class building their own escape ships. Are they still alive going forward? Probably, and that should make for some fun future stories.

The real highlight of the issue is Kal-El embodying the classic Clark Kent reporter role. I did not see this coming and it was a wonderful storytelling choice, set up in the previous issue with the idea that Kal writes his own school reports instead of just parroting the school books. Then he investigates and tries to report on Krypton dying and the elites building life rafts for themselves, reporting this news to the entire world. It’s a wonderful capper to the issue that continues to highlight the cores of Superman’s character.

And then the Martha Kent tease at the very end was quite good at setting up some new mysteries.

TL;DR: I was grinning from ear-to-ear as this issue laser focused on a specific aspect of Superman’s character, and used it in new and interesting ways, while tying it into the mythology nicely. Loved it.

The comics I review in my Hench-Sized reviews are just the usual comics I grab from Comixology any given week, along with a few impulse buys I might try on a whim. So if there are any comics or series you’d like me to review each week, let me know in the comments.

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