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In Adventures of Superman #633 Greg Rucka and Matthew Clark deliver a tight and promising first chapter in a new story arc. First we meet bad guy Ruin, a sinister Darth Maul lookalike. Despite the funky makeup, we immediately get the sense that Ruin is cold and calculating and that he's patiently setting up his chess pieces for an endgame that he's sure to win. His game pieces happen to be new incarnations of the classic Superman nemesis Parasite. Matthew Clark's interpretation of the parasite twins is excellent. He manages to make them sleek and sexy yet simultaneously alien and forbidding. The thin pencils and angular faces are reminiscent of fashion designer sketches. Although expressive, all the faces are just a shade away from fashion-model pouts with slightly parted lips and upward glances from beneath lowered brows.

The absolute strongest aspect of this issue is the creative team's treatment of an overwhelmed and slightly depressed Clark Kent. Clark's home has been overrun by family and friends who are "helping out" as Lois recovers from a gunshot wound. Art and dialogue combined do an excellent job of communicating Clark's feelings. Sometimes a story's or character's greatest strength is in what's left unsaid and unwritten. Reading between the panels it's easy to guess that with all the family and friends constantly in attendance at his home Clark has temporarily lost one of the few places where he can let his cape down and just relax. Instead he has to constantly be on guard to protect his identity.

The subtext of Clark being overwhelmed even manifests itself in Matthew Clark's rendering of Superman. The larger-than-usual "S" on his costume combined with his depressed demeanor become a metaphor for Superman's own feelings of inadequacy, perhaps a fear that he, this one time, won't be able to save the day or live up to the world's expectations of him.