Once more, I read a comic book with no familiarity with its background. But I know a little bit from reading Action Comics. Here’s the thing: as families of titles grow, I tend to disregard tertiary characters such as Superwoman and Batwing, in favor of their parent characters. And apparently Lana Lang feels the same, as she quotes Clark more than once in this issue.

She believes she has lost her powers, but soon realizes there is more to it than that. All this in the face of the kidnapping of John Henry Irons’ nephew. John Henry’s brother Zeke is determined to get his son back, at any cost. But can Lana and John Henry save Zeke from his own destructive tendencies? Or will the villain Skyhook claim another member of the Irons family?

The artwork is first rate, except for one sequence when Photoshop clearly becomes a crutch, rather than a tool. I’ve enjoyed both Segovia’s and Thibert’s artwork, and they make an excellent pairing.

As a whole, Superwoman reads somewhat like a variant on the Superman character, a novelty rather than addition to the canon. To fully understand what I mean, check out Superman #349 (July, 1980), in which superman encounters gender-bent variations of himself and his friends, courtesy of Mr. Mxyzptlk. There’s a lot of meat on this bone, but it requires reading between the lines. However, this issue of Superwoman reads like a heavily-edited story, with some sequences seemingly unrelated – or not, perhaps they pertain to events in previous issues, or those yet to come.