This was another Kareem Abdul-Jabbar pick and while I liked it, I did not find it as compelling as Famous Last Words. Superman: Lost is a graphic novel that involves time travel, PTSD, despair and hope. It is a commentary on our current political climate but also a reflection on our responsibility toward others and the duty to help those in danger, even when our help is unwanted.
The story opens with Superman and the members of the Justice League going on a mission. Clark tells Lois he will be back in a few hours. Lois, meanwhile, is investigating a story involving a senator and his aide, whose car was found filled with a million dollars cash inside after she crashed. When Clark returns from his mission after a couple of hours, he is a changed man. The mission involved a strange space anomaly; Superman was sucked into some kind of time warp/black hole, and while to those on earth he was only gone for a matter of hours, in that anomaly, Clark experienced several decades of being lost in space. Upon his return, he experiences extreme depression and PTSD based on what happened to him during those decades/hours. Lois, other members of the Justice League and even nemesis Lex Luthor try to help Clark. Meanwhile, we the reader begin to learn exactly what happened to Clark, all the people he met off-world and the crisis he tried so hard to stop.
A whole lotta stuff happens in this story, but essentially Superman ends up on an earth-like world that is in extreme crisis. The population is divided between those who understand that their world is in immanent danger of physical destruction (The Republic) and those who deny the facts before them (the zealots). Sound familiar? The zealots won’t believe the facts before them, especially when those facts are presented to them by the Republic. Superman, being Superman, feels a responsibility to try to save these people, even though his powers have been compromised by the anomaly and even though the people in question do not want his help under any circumstances. Even members of the Republic don’t want or feel a need to help the zealots. They made their choice and they get to live or die with it. Clark, while trying to find his way home, takes up residence within the Republic in an area that looks a lot like Kansas. A young man named Szhemi (Jimmy) escapes from the zealot side and tries to help Superman figure out a way home. There is also a female Green Lantern named Hope who takes up with Superman. Hope doesn’t really understand what Green Lanterns are until Superman explains it to her, but she has experienced the loss of her own world and loneliness. Through this shared experience Superman and Hope bond, but it is still a troubled relationship.
I found the story of how Superman returns to his proper timeline somewhat confusing, but I think that is a common pitfall of time travel stories. Eventually, the writer finds a way to connect the Superman story to Lois’ story of the senator and themes of life, death, hope, and following your conscience. This is an ambitious story and for me it just didn’t hit on all cylinders but it was still pretty good. The depictions of Clark’s PTSD and of life on the planet with the Republic and the zealots were well done and it made me want to finish this story. I am less enamored of Superman: Lost than Abdul-Jabbar was but I still liked it and it certainly feels timely.
