Some thoughts about Future State: House of El #1

What is the future of the Superman family?

The descendants of El have been protecting the universe for years now but a new enemy called the Red King might prove to be a stronger and close threat than anyone anticipated.

Here we have yet another possible fate for Superman in the Future State line, written once again by Phillip Kennedy Johnson who already did a quite solid job during his segment in the Worlds of War tie-in. However, creating a brand new future and story might be a bit harder of a job.

The story is centered around the children of Superman a few generations after the original which presents intriguing possibilities for the premise alone and the writer manages to offer a few compelling developments from this particular future. Just like in the Worlds of War tie-in, Kennedy really emphasizes the idea of Superman as an inspiration for everyone, including his own family which is reflected in different ways, both positive and negative, but all of them always achieve to be just like the original.

However, that idea is not enough to support this whole issue apparently because aside from that, there's not a lot to offer. The cast is not necessarily bad but is not particularly interesting either (and the dialogue describing them can be sometimes clunky), the antagonist is also nothing we haven't seen before and the worldbuilding is almost non-existant. It could be that the writer needed more time to expand all of these elements in an effective manner? Maybe, but unfortunately we have to deal with an one-shot that doesn't really engage the reader.

Scott Godlewski's art is pretty pleasent with a semi-cartoony style that gets the best from expressions and action.

Is passable I guess? I was hoping for more though.