Action Comics #898 – Review

By: Paul Cornell (writer), Pete Woods (artist), Brad Anderson (colorist)

The Story: Something went severely amiss in Larfleeze and Lex Luthor’s upbringing, as they seriously need to learn to share.

The Review: As far as I know, the guest star is a feature exclusive to television shows and comics.  In television, the guests have pull from their celebrity status, but for comics, the characters themselves have the star power.  As fun as these crossovers can get, more frequently you have cases where the guest character distract from the story at hand, occasionally poaching the spotlight from the title character.

Cornell’s plot device of featuring a new guest villain every issue of his Action Comics run has been notable for using them effectively.  As much personality he brings to their roles, they always serve to reflect or contrast our star character: Gorilla Grodd for Luthor’s intellect, Vandal Savage for his far-reaching ambitions, the Joker for his love of mind games.  This issue, Luthor’s base desires get brought out by Larfleeze’s mutual greed for the energy spheres.

Kudos to Cornell for giving us a Larfleeze who not only singularly pursues whatever’s on his wish list at the moment, but also has a lot more smarts than he usually gets credit for.  He’s savvy to Luthor’s ploys to get the sphere he’s collected, and is remarkably perceptive to when his chain is being jerked around.  On top of this much-needed depth, Larfleeze gets some growth, as his firsthand experience of the sphere teaches him there are a few things even he doesn’t want.

It’s worth mentioning again that Luthor remains the star of this storyline.  His hunger for the Orange Lantern ring he once grasped demonstrates why he got chosen as one in the first place.  But in the end, his view of the big picture of power allows him to resist even the ring’s allure, though not without casualties.  We’ve been avoiding the issue for a while, but Luthor’s purposeful, unrepentant shooting of one of his own serves as a pretty good reminder of why he’s still atrocious as a human being and a villain worthy to be feared.

Weekly Comic Book Review’s Top Picks

Dean’s Top Picks

Best From The Past Week: Thunderbolts #153 – Loved the way the Tbolts came together as a team to pound Hyperion while their handlers were kinda looking the other way.  I want Jeff Parker to get his paws on an in-continuity X-book asap.  The guy really knows how to handle a team book!

Most Anticipated: Scalped #46 – After a bunch of one-shot type issues, Jason Aaron got his next big Scalped story cranked up last week.  This will be a highly anticipated comic for a long time.

Other Picks: Detective Comics #874, American Vampire #12, Morning Glories #7, Turf #4, Amazing Spider-Man #655, Who is Jake Ellis #2

Alex’s Top Picks

Best From The Past Week: S.H.I.E.L.D. #6 – The worst thing about SHIELD #6?  The fact that we won’t be getting any more for a while as the series goes on hiatus.  That said, it goes out with a bang.  This is epic craziness unleashed with absolutely mind-blowing art and a ridiculously huge scope.  There’s no book like it and SHIELD #6 is, for me, one of the best issues thus far.

Most Anticipated: Iron Man 2.0 #1 – In a week so packed with quality releases, you’d think picking what I’m looking forward to most would be hard.  But it’s actually pretty easy.  Nick Spencer is on absolute fire right now and a smart, high-tech book like this new War Machine title seems right about his alley.  I’m really curious to see how Spencer fairs in the Marvel Universe and the short preview we got in Invincible Iron Man #500 certainly has my hopes up.

Other Picks: Fantastic Four #588, Detective Comics #874, Action Comics #898, Morning Glories #7, Amazing Spider-Man #655, Thor #620, American Vampire #12, Avengers #10, Secret Avengers #10, Captain America #615, Invincible Iron Man #501, Scalped #46