Every Wednesday we take turns to delve into our trusty longboxes, pluck out a dusty back issue, and give you our thoughts. We’ll also try and place it in the context of the time it was originally published.

Although Garth Ennis is of course primarily known for his late-90s series Preacher, for many readers – myself included – his best original creation (taking account of the view that probably his best work overall has been on Hellblazer) was in fact a lesser-known DC Universe title that ran almost concurrently with the Vertigo epic – Hitman. An odd series of the sort that almost certainly wouldn’t get past DC editorial nowadays, Hitman took all of Ennis’ ideas about violent gun-toting anti-heroes, friendship, honour and a love of war stories, and threw the resulting mixture slap bang in the middle of the DC Universe – in Gotham City, to be precise. Tommy Monaghan and his supporting cast were inspired creations, and the entire series is a terrific read – well worth tracking down, although sadly its (even then inadequate) trades are long out of print.

But in truth, the setting of Gotham often seems like a strange one. Of course, one of the hooks of the series is that having acquired superpowers (during the Bloodlines crossover), Tommy – a hitman who already only kills those he believes to be “bad” – begins to specialise in metahuman contracts. But even though the series spun out of Ennis and McCrea’s Demon run (and features Etrigan quite prominently, early on), it still doesn’t feel like it has to be in the DCU – you wonder why it’s not just a creator-owned Vertigo project instead. After all, Ennis is probably the highest-profile superhero-hating writer out there – so why stick his lead character in a world full of them?

Indeed, in the early part of the series, superheroes came in for a fair amount of flak. The most obvious example is the almost parodic playing of Kyle Rayner’s Green Lantern as a thick-headed superhero jock – while, although Batman doesn’t really do anything to disgrace himself, his appearance in the first issue does see him being thrown up on. The only costumed character who really gets any respect in the first half of the series is Catwoman – and, of course, she’s not really a “hero” at all, enjoying the same sort of moral ambiguity as Tommy (hence why they get on so well).

But something dramatic happened with issue #34 – which also saw Ennis and McCrea win a “Best Single Issue” Eisner award – in that all of a sudden Ennis, the great anti-tights writer, started to take a superhero seriously. In the process, he turned in one of the best Superman stories of that barren late ‘90s period. Funnily enough, the issue was followed within a couple of years by another excellent standalone story that involved a reflective chat with the Man of Steel – but where James Robinson’s later Starman issue used Kal-El to explore the doubts of its lead character Jack Knight, Ennis instead uses his own lead to delve into the psyche of the world’s greatest hero.

And for someone more accustomed to cape-bashing, Ennis treats Superman with a surprising amount of respect and gravitas (even if he plays him a little overly strait-laced with lines such as “Well, there are no ladies or children present, you should express yourself as you see fit”). When he first shows up, you imagine this is going to be an encounter much like the one in an early issue of Morrison’s Animal Man – instead, though, an initially awestruck Tommy ends up acting as a sympathetic ear as Superman tells the story of a space-bound rescue gone wrong. Ennis shows a good grasp of the sort of issues that the character has to deal with while maintaining a front of “perfection” – he’s aware of the subtle distinction, for example, between his knowing that he can’t save everyone (as he puts it, “That’s something I learned a long time ago”), but the weight of expectation among the rest of the world that he somehow should.

It’s clear both from Preacher and this issue that Ennis has some pretty strong views about America and the concept of the American Dream – less the way they work in practice, but more how they exist as ideals. And irrespective of whether or not you agree with them, it’s hard to deny that Superman encapsulates them perfectly – and it’s a speech confirming this from Tommy (himself of immigrant stock, washed up on the shores of America, perhaps the one thing he shares with the Kryptonian) that eases Superman’s burden. And if Ennis is perhaps a little guilty of putting just a bit too much good sense and author’s voice in his lead character’s mouth, it’s made up for by the bitter irony of the closing pages, as Tommy – having earned the respect of a hero he truly admires – continues about his business, putting a bullet through the head of a mob leader. You could call it cynicism if you like – but it doesn’t feel like Ennis is undoing the work of the rest of the issue, merely acknowledging the moral grey area that exists (and this somewhat controversial aspect of the issue was later dealt with once and for all with the superb recent JLA/Hitman two-parter).

The tone of the issue is helped by John McCrea’s artwork – an acquired taste, he was nevertheless well into his stride by this point (not least thanks to the inks of Garry Leach), and if he struggles a bit to portray a traditional or inspiring-looking Superman (particularly on the emblem), it’s made up for by his expressive ability. Indeed, in a story that emphasises the “man” as much as the “Super”, he contributes well to the humanising of the character.

Comics continue to be full of surprises, and the fact that someone with such an avowed distaste for superheroes should show such an uncanny and sympathetic understanding of the foremost of them all is certainly among them – even notwithstanding the reputation for class and quality that Hitman had already established. Hitman may be far from the first place you’d think to find one of the best Superman character studies of the recent era, but this is one that stands shoulder to shoulder with the rest.