Tales of the Sinestro Corps: Cyborg Superman #1 Review

TALES OF THE SINESTRO CORPS: CYBORG SUPERMAN #1
Written by Alan Burnett
Art by Patrick Blaine

Cyborg Superman was a vast improvement over last week's Parallax one-shot. It actually related to the Sinestro Corps War and gave us a recap of who Cyborg Superman is, his origin and what his current motivations are for joining Sinestro's Corps.

That said, the bulk of the issue was dedicated to retelling Cyborg's origin. They did a good job summarizing his origin and, as someone who knows who he is and his origin, I found it to be a nice quick summary that didn't seem like filler or wasted space. This is how the Parallax special should have handled itself. If it had dedicated a bit of time to showing what the Parallax entity was and recapping how it came about, I think that issue would have at least felt somewhat worth while.

On top of the origin, the book actually managed to deliver a bit on the cover with the Sinestro Corps' assault on Earth beginning in this issue. I was a little disappointed with how they handled the Manhunters here though. The Manhunters have been able to single handily take on Green Lantern and are almost always a threat to him in any large groupings. Here, the JLA sends out Black Lightning and Hawkgirl, along with some random Watchtower drones, and promptly tear through most of the Manhunters. If it was Superman or Wonder Woman, I could see them possibly taking them out with a bit of ease, but Hawkgirl destroying Manhunters in one hit with her mace is a tad disappointing for me.

The final part of the issue deals with Cyborg Superman versus Superman. I was very surprised with the fight to be honest. Typically, DC does not allow Superman to be easily beaten or showed up in any title. So having Cyborg tear Superman a new one in this fight was very entertaining and caught me off guard. Usually the cover images are quite misleading, but aside from Green Lantern not showing up in this issue and being on the cover, the rest is pretty accurate, as Cyborg does defeat Superman and the Statue of Liberty was destroyed along with lots of collateral damage. Considering Cyborg was a strong enough opponent for Superman before joining the Sinestro Corps, I'm glad to see him take him out now that he has like 8 Sinestro rings, one for each finger.

This issue pretty much did everything right in my eyes. Solid retelling of Cyborg's origin to let people unfamiliar with Cyborg learn all about him in a quick and concise manner. Excellent progression of the Corps War storyline - something last week's Parallax failed to do. And, finally, the excellent insights into Cyborg's desire for a final death and his climactic battle with Superman capped off a great issue and a more than worthy addition to John's space epic Sinestro Corps War story.

Verdict - Must Read

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