Action Comics #14 – Review

By: Grant Morrison (story), Rags Morales (pencils), Mark Propst (inks), Brad Anderson (colors)

The Story: Is the god among men ready to face the legions of heaven?

The Review: Like a lot of people, I imagine, I was immediately struck by the covers to this issue.  You have Superman assailed by a flock of angels—with wings and togas and flaming swords, the whole deal.  How can you look at that and not think, What the what? or some more vulgar equivalent?  That there, my friends, is the very thing that gives Morrison a big name among comic book writers: an unwavering commitment to the wondrously strange.

As it turns out—spoiler alert—these angels actually represent the Multitude, which has laid waste to various worlds, rebuffed only once by Jor-El of Krypton, and now targeting Earth.  True to any Morrison concept, the Multitude requires a great deal of abstract imagining on your part, for it is “all one thing—a single weapon with countless points aimed at us from a higher, 5th dimension.”  That’s comparatively tame when you consider some of the truly crazy ideas seen in other Morrison projects, but nonetheless, a worthy challenge for Superman.

WCBR’s Top Picks

Dean’s Top Picks

Best of the past week: American Vampire #32 – What a great issue.  Snyder & Albuquerque put the allegory away and just told a story of betrayal and hatred.  Both the story and art are hitting on all cylinders with this series.  I’m still sad that it is going on hiatus, but know that the next couple issues should be explosive.  Runner-up: Bedlam #1

Most anticipated this week: 1) The Manhattan Projects #7 – Is it just me, or does this series not come out often enough?  This series feels to me like all the really good ideas that Hickman had during this outstanding run on FF.  I love all the oddball characters: Parallel Universe Einsteins, Cannibal Oppenheimers and other assorted crazy scientists we’re being introduced to.  When does the story begin though?

2). Sweet Tooth #39 – Next to last issue.  By the end of this issue, we should have some answers to who lives and who dies since I anticipate that the finale will be devoted to some kinda “aftermath” story.  With Jeff Lemire getting a deservedly higher profile at DC as a writer, we should enjoy these issues as it may be a long time before we get 40 issues of ongoing comic that is written and drawn by Lemire.

3). Storm Dogs #1 – The story sounds very science fiction: scientists arrive on strange alien planet to investigate alien civilizations.  I’ll check that out to see if it’s any good.

4). Uncanny X-Force #33 – Even though UXF has fallen off a LOT since the first 10 issue and even though it feels like it exists in a Marvel universe that has moved on, I’m still kinda curious to see how Remender wraps up his run on the title.

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Alex’s Top Picks

Pick of the Week:  Fatale #9 – There were several good books this week, but nothing truly blew me away.  So I’ll go with Fatale, which has proven to be one of the “old reliables” of my stack.  High quality, polished creator-owned comics by two creators doing what they do best.  Nothing to dislike here.

Most Anticipated:  The Manhattan Projects #7 – And so it begins…Marvel NOW!  And yet, it’s an Image book that takes my most anticipated slot this week.  Go figure.  As much as I wanted to put a certain Marvel book here, I can’t deny my love for Jonathan Hickman and Nick Pitarra’s Manhattan Projects and the delay between issues has only served to make the heart grow fonder.  I love this book and you should too.

Iron Man #1 – This is my only Marvel NOW book of the week, but I’m looking forward to it.  Giving Kieron Gillen a quick-witted, roguish character with a silver tongue is a recipe for success and we need to look no further than Journey into Mystery to see that.  Gillen, master of dialogue and character-work that he is, is at his very best when he can sink his teeth into a multi-faceted, single protagonist with a strong personality and that’s exactly what he’ll get in Iron Man.  My only cause for hesitation with this book?  Greg Land.  Gillen seems better able to work around Land’s limitations than most writers but still….it’s Greg Land.  Hopefully most of the issue sees Tony in the suit because while Land can’t draw facial expressions to save his life, at least the suit looks cool, judging from the previews.

Action Comics #14 – I’ve not been the biggest fan of Grant Morrison’s Action run for the most part, as it’s been far more mediocre and subdued than a Morrison comic should be but…seriously look at that cover.  It looks like Superman is going to be fighting a horde of raging…angels?!  Alright Morrison, you’ve hooked me, now give me some of that trademark crazy.

Defenders #12 – Another good book bites the dust.  While the first arc, admittedly, sucked, this book ended up being a lot of fun after that, even if it occasionally suffered from never gaining a regular artist.  That said, I’m more interested in this issue out of morbid curiosity than anything else:  the story Fraction has created is so huge that I have no idea how the hell he’s going to finish it in one standard sized issue.

Animal Man #14/Swamp Thing #14 – The crossover between two of my favourite properties by two of my favourite writers continues.  Yippee.  Swampy and A-Man are two of my top 5 DC comics so picking these up is a given.  Also, apparently all the zombified heroes in Lemire’s Animal Man are characters Rob Liefeld has written in his last stint at DC prior to his public flame-out (which included initiating a bizarre war of words with Lemire’s buddy Scott Snyder), which is pretty funny.