Action Comics #899 – Review

By: Paul Cornell (writer), Jesus Merino (artist), Brad Anderson (colorist)

The Story: My, those are some big black balls you’ve got there, Lex Luthor.

The Review: It’s been a long, wild journey we’ve had, following Superman’s arch-nemesis on his quest for ultimate power.  He’s faced off against some of the baddest of the baddies in the DCU’s canon of villains; had numerous near-death experiences; and traveled some of the most exotic locales on the planet.  Considering the epic scale of his story so far, it’d be a waste for the conclusion to be anything less than enormous.

Cornell certainly delivers a pretty grand finish, what with an ultimate showdown between Luthor and Brainiac in (deep?) space and the appearance of some Galactus-like entity from a giant Phantom Zone portal.  And you surely can’t say you expected any of what happens in the final pages.  And definitely Cornell has things set up so Superman will already have a huge task at hand when he finally returns to this title.

All very impressive, but to be honest the whole thing comes so out of the blue that it feels a little too convenient somehow.  It’s not just that this cosmic being is entirely brand new, so you had no way of predicting its coming.  Cornell had dropped all kinds of vague clues about the power at stake in Luthor’s quest, but none of them, in retrospect, led very naturally to this creature.  The plot threads don’t really gel together as well as they could have.

Maybe you just get thrown off by the confusing logistics Cornell throws at you.  There’s a lot of re-explaining of past events, like the reason why Luthor plays right into Brainiac’s hands is Robot-Lois injected nano-worms into Luthor’s bloodstream when she treated his head wound six issues ago.  It has the same feeling as when comics characters die and then come back to life, saying, “Well, what really happened is…”  You have to humor it to let the plot unfold.

Weekly Comic Book Review’s Top Picks

Dean’s Top Picks

Best From The Past Week: Kick Drum Comix #1 – From artistic genius Jim Mahfood comes this wildly awesome issue with two stories centered on the urban music scene.  The stories are very high quality, but the art is just at another level.  I always love to see an artist who isn’t pulling any punches and just letting the art be what they want it to be.  Do yourself a favor and be sure to check this out.  Runner-up: X-Men #9

Most Anticipated: Butcher Baker the Righteous Maker #1 – What a stacked week for non-Big 2 comics and rising above it all (at least in terms of anticipation) is this new entry by Joe Casey.  The teaser images features what looked like some kind of cosmic she-male and the preview pages showed what appeared to be Jay Leno and Dick Cheney going to a bar together.  That’s enough for me.  It is already “sold out”, but you may be able to score one at your LCS and, if not, there’s always eBay if you don’t want to wait for the second printings to drop.

Other Picks: American Vampire #13, Detective Comics #875, Scalped #47, Undying Love #1, Age of X Universe #1, Amazing Spider-Man #657, Incognito: Bad Influences #5, Kick Ass 2 #2, Scarlet #5  (I usually try to limit myself to FIVE ‘other picks’, but this is a STACKED week)

Alex’s Top Picks

Best From The Past Week: Captain America #615.1 – The best issue of Cap since #600, this .1 book delivered everything you’d expect from a quality Captain America comic.  Great story-telling, great atmosphere, great character-work, and great action with a sign of big things to come.

Most Anticipated: Jimmy Olsen – Once again, courtesy of the big two, the final Wednesday of the month is ridiculously stacked.  That said, it’s an easy pick for me.  Nick Spencer and RB Silva have been delivering 8-pages a month of superhero-sitcom fun in the back of Action Comics, it’s been a total blast thus far.  While this issue marks the end of the feature, it also means we get a giant sized helping of what has been an awesome comic.

Other Picks: Detective Comics #875, Action Comics #899, Captain America #616, Thor #621, American Vampire #13, Scarlet #5, Incognito: Bad Influences #5, Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors #8, Amazing Spider-Man #657, Scalped #47, Wolverine #7, Avengers #11, Secret Avengers #11