3 out of 5

Serving as something of a preview of Chuck’s eventual JLA storyline, Pain of the Gods, this oner from Austen and artist Tom Derenick poses the question: How do these ‘gods’ deal? It’s not the most original pitch, but there’s something very grounded and heartfelt about the way Chuck approaches it, like he’s legitimately struggling with the question, in searching for a way to write these characters. It’s popped up in a lot of his hero book writing, expressing itself as the overreach exhibited in U.S. War Machine, or the indulgence in teenage proclivities of his X-Men run… but coming back to the looming luminaries of the DCU, there’s really no great answer. They don’t deal. Sometimes they have a bad day, and take it out on folks. Which may seem so uncharacteristic for Superman, but even he will have his limits. And no, that doesn’t turn him into a Mark Millar villain, but it does make him quite a bit more willing to punch folks into submission, and shrug off city damage like a Zack Snyder variant, as long as he can figure a way to pay it back.

The early 00s were still big and muscley in comics; Derenick draws Supes huge, but so are his villains. And the action is all ramped up to match, with Rapmund and Mendoza’s thick, solid inks putting us fully in a kind of animated-adjacent realm, and Tany & Rich Horie’s bright colors doing the same. That poppy look helps to balance out some of the shmaltz inherent in Austen’s tone.

A solid put-it-anywhere-in-run one shot.