Review by Frank Plowright

The One Who Fell pairs two stories of Superman teaming with his son, now also Superman, with Phillip Kennedy Johnson’s unifying theme being father and son realising things about each other.

The first threat concerns aliens invading through a breach in space, with Amanda Waller taking the opportunity to gauge Superman’s limitations, while the second begins with a message from across the galaxy. Both Supermen investigate, the original recalling how he’d helped the planet years previously and left a communicator just in case there were further problems with an invader. On arriving they’re assured that all is well, and the person who sent the message can’t have done so as they’re long dead. Superman prefers to make his own investigation, though.

Phil Hester and Scott Godlewski have very different methods of drawing Superman, Hester’s version all angular and pointy, while Godlewski’s is more traditional, but both are valid, and crucially both are excellent storytellers.

Johnson would go on to write a lot of Superman material, but on the basis of The One Who Fell he’s getting the little things right, while the bigger picture eludes him. The observations of both Supermen concerning the other have the right emotional tone, the father worried about the son and the son anxious about his father, and Johnson’s clever in having Jon Kent conceive new ways of using his powers. Both stories, though lack impact. The threats are testing, but without being memorable or greatly visually stimulating, both standard feral and rapacious aliens, although the implications of the opening story take effect in the superior Warworld Rising.

Everything here is also available in the first Superman by Phillip Kennedy Johnson Omnibus, where it precedes better material.