Some thoughts about Future State: Superman of Metropolis #1

Who are the heroes of Metropolis now?

In an alternate future, Jon Kent is the Superman of Metropolis but he's far from the only person protecting the city.

The "long-awaited" (I guess) Future State line is here and we start to see how this particular reality is shaping. While this entry is mostly focusing on Jon Kent as Superman, there are other few surprising characters sharing the spotlight.

Sean Lewis gets the main section focusing on Jon and I assume he does a... decent enough job at handling the character in this timeline but there are a few issues that I have about the writing, particularly because of the exposition. It might be because I had to endure a lot of Brian Bendis' Legion of Super-Heroes or because I just read Scott Snyder's conclusion for Death Metal but I currently have a very low tolerance for too much narration and sadly that's very present here instead of letting us see more about this reality. Is not particularly bad mind you and the writer at least does a better job than Bendis at making the future interesting but still could be better.

John Timms I have no complaints with, I think he's actually getting better with his artstyle and manages to put a lot of energy in every image.

This leads to a segment about the Shilo Norman incarnation of Mister Miracle who is yet another hero of Metropolis. This is cool since I like Shilo and I feel like he's very underutilized, Brandon Easton does a good job at handling his character in an interesting situation and even showing a bit of the political state of this time, the narration is also much better than during the Jon segment. Valentine de Landro's art is also really unique while showing the story as precisely as possible.

Finally, there's actually a story about The Guardian who is very similar to The Manhattan Guardian from Seven Soldiers and this along with Shilo's appearance makes me think that this issue is really inspired by Grant Morrison's work. This is also written by Sean Lewis who actually does a better job here at showing us the future than during his previous effort, the narration is not as prominent and the visuals take a bigger importance. Speaking of which, is cool to see Cully Hamner back on pencils and his work is strong and clear as always, Michael Avon Oeming's pencils are also distinctive but their styles are a bit too different for my taste.

Overall, a decent installment, let's see if other books from the line are better.