In Superman Adventures #19 and #20, we get the "Saved" storyline which opens with a character singing the praises of Superman and then jumps off a building with Superman saving him from falling.

The theme of people putting themselves at risk in hopes of Superman saving them is a familiar theme in this series as it was covered in Adventures of Superman #15. But this time, there's a twist. The kid's jumping because he belongs to the Church of Superman and all 900 members of the Internet "congregation" are going to jump simultaneously from all over the world expecting Superman to save them.

Superman goes "undercover" and discovers that the church began as one young girl's Superman blog who her parents turned into the church in order to exploit it for money.

The story has been discussed as a cautionary tale about the dark side of religion". The message seems to be that religion is: 1) stupid and 2) a con game.

While there are con games out there, this book doesn't give any feeling of context of being balanced.

Beyond the religious angle, this is just not a very good story either as a Superman tale or just a good comic book.

Rating: 1.5 out of 5.0

The End of the Adventures of Superman

The Adventures of Superman series is not complete, but it's done for me. I loved the first fourteen issues of this series, but the last few issues have been downhill.

The depressing Issue #15, in which a young man parks in front of a train in hopes that Superman will save him was followed by a mediocre retelling of Superman's origin story in Issues 16-18, then we had "Saved" and following "Saved," we had a story of Superman fighting two members of the Justice League controlled by Darkseid while a little Russian girl struggled with people not liking her. What those two stories had to do with each other, I still don't know.

So, I'm done. The first 14 issues of this series showed me that one thing I've thought as wrong. People do know how to write good Superman stories.

A good Superman story can be inspiring, fun, amazing, or it can be all three.

Superman on a "slow news day" matching wits with Lois for a story while quietly saving the world? (Fun)

Superman flying through space to encounter evils across the universe. (Amazing)

A Day from Lex Luthoer's diary (Fun)

Reflections of Superman's mother on her son. (Touching, Inspiring.)

Unfortunately, the last seven issues has shown that there are many writers who just don't want to do that, who may get the chance to writer Superman, but not the chance to get it.

The series was timed to coincide with the launch of the Man of Steel Movie, which I think is why we had so much good writing up front. With the moving in the background, we're getting treated to the same sort of tripe being served up in the mainstream DC universe, and if I wanted that, I'd just read the existing Superman titles.

In the end, I think DC is just too blind to the fact that there's a sizable group of people who don't like their approach to the mainstream titles. Adventures of Superman started to be a great alternative for that, but unfortunately the long-term trend is more of the same.