Action Comics #33 – Review

By: Greg Pak (story), Aaron Kuder (art), Wil Quintana (colors)

The Story: As if Doomsday isn’t enough of a problem, now there’s mass narcolepsy going on.

The Review:
Last time we visited this storyline, I said that I was on the verge of giving it up, a proposition I was only half-joking about. I just couldn’t bear the idea of buying three comics a month for however long this arc lasted, knowing I wouldn’t really enjoy them. At least with Transformers, I only kind of knew I wouldn’t like it. But after dropping Batman/Superman, economic considerations aren’t as pressing anymore, and admittedly, Pak’s starting to take the story in an interesting direction.

Don’t get me wrong; the Doomsday Superman stuff is incurably dull. There’s little psychological gold to mine from Clark’s mental war with his Doomsday conscience; it’s your typical angel-devil set-up, but with superheroes. You also doubt that Clark will ever fully succumb to his destructive urges because once he does that, even involuntarily or by accident, it’s over for Superman—either that, or everyone, including Clark, will need to have a short memory. You might as well flip the page every time you see a craggy-faced Clark.

Action Comics #32 – Review

By: Greg Pak (story), Scott Kolins (art), Wil Quintana (colors)

The Story: Superman finds it hard to save others when he can’t save himself.

The Review: Now that Doomed has entered its second phase (“Enemy of the State”), I think it’s say that the arc is living up to all my worst fears about a Doomsday storyline, i.e., there really isn’t that much story to tell. Doomsday is a mindless killer, and it isn’t any less so in the form of Superman. In that kind of scenario, there’s really only one way for the plot to go: unbridled panic from the world at large, not unlike the chaos unleashed from a Godzilla attack or alien invasion.

As if a hybrid Superman-Doomsday isn’t perilous enough, this issue confirms that his very presence is murderous, setting trees ablaze and killing off “millions of living things…insects, protozoa, microbes,” turning Superman into a walking plague on top of everything else. Thus the story cycles through the same three beats over and over: Superman’s horror of himself, everyone else’s horror at what he’s becoming, and the competing loyalty from his most diehard supporters. The reactions are quite natural, but terribly monotonous; as in any disaster story, they serve only to kill time until the disaster inevitably escalates once more.

Batman/Superman #11 – Review

By: Greg Pak (story), Karl Kerschl & Daniel Sampere (art), Tom Derenick (pencils), Vicente Cifuentes, Marc Deering, Wayne Faucher (inks), Hi-Fi (colors)

The Story: When you’ve got even the ghosts in a panic, things aren’t going well.

The Review: Unenthused as I am by Doomed, it was with some dismay when I saw that Batman/Superman would be also be participating in the crossover. It shouldn’t have surprised me, what with Pak being an architect of this storyline and all. And on the plus side, at least I’ll be mostly up to speed on everything going on Doomed, which, as my recent frustrations with the Batman/Superman–Worlds’ Finest crossover show, isn’t something that happens very often.

Interestingly enough, even though Doomed is a Superman-centric storyline, he features hardly at all in this issue. I approve. At this point, there’s really nothing left to do with Superman except to see him decline further, and there’ll be plenty of that later on. If Superman has a presence at all, it’s in spirit; his friends spend a lot of the issue considering what he’d do in their shoes: Batman putting his faith in others; Wonder Woman repressing her warriors’ instincts; Ghost Soldier exchanging loyalties to stand up for what’s right; Steel risking everything to save everyone. It’s a sweet testament to Superman’s impact on the world, and a reminder of what’s at stake if he’s lost.

Animal Man #17 – Review

By: Jeff Lemire & Scott Snyder (story), Steve Pugh (art), Timothy Green II (pencils), Joseph Silver (inks), Lovern Kindzierski (colors)

The Story: Animal Man and Swamp Thing—reunited, and it feels so good.

The Review: The most disappointing thing about Rotworld has been the fact that at the end of the day, it’s another apocalyptic scenario with humanity on the brink of doom and a bunch of undead shambling around.  Granted, there’s plenty of stories that can be gleaned from that premise, but this title in particular hasn’t done much with it except feature a bunch of those shambling undead in superhero outfits.  Not quite the groundbreaking crossover we hoped for.

Another disappointment was the choice to separate Alec and Buddy, forcing them to find their way back to each other on their own.  Although Alec has accomplished a great deal during his time sojourning the world alone, Buddy, despite his company, has done little to help the war effort by comparison.  This series has already made it clear that Buddy, in the grand scheme of the Red, Green, and Rot, is really a second banana—but did they have to reduce him to sidekick in his own book?

Animal Man #16 – Review

By: Jeff Lemire (story), Steve Pugh (art), Timothy Green II (pencils), Joseph Silver (inks), Lovern Kindzierski (colors)

The Story: This time, the Green Lanterns are really going green.

The Review: I generally don’t approve of internet speculation about the whys and wherefores of publishing or writing decisions, but I do love trying to predict what’s coming up next in a story.  With the former, my belief is unless you have a firsthand account of the business, you really have no basis for your theories.  With the latter, your basis is the story itself, as well as the vast ocean of comic book continuity that serves, in legal terms, as both evidence and precedent.

So I was mightily impressed by Ghost of Mars’ theory on my last review of Animal Man that the Lantern trapped beneath Metropolis was Driq of Criq.  For one, I just had to give props for Ghost’s knowledge of the Green Lantern mythos, and for another, considering Driq’s undead nature, it made a lot of sense for the story.  In fact, I could’ve been fairly disappointed by another choice of Lantern, had Lemire not used an even better one.

Animal Man #15 – Review

By: Jeff Lemire (story), Steve Pugh (art), Timothy Green II (pencils), Joseph Silver (inks), Lovern Kindzierski (colors)

The Story: So it seems like the monster has become the master—of the monsters.

The Review: Being an ardent follower of both Animal Man and Swamp Thing can be, to use a well-worn cliché, a double-edged sword.  The sharp, shiny side is you have a plot enriched by two titles working together.  The dull, blunted side is dealing with moments where the two books cover the same terrain.  And let’s face it: if you’re reading either one of these series, you’re probably reading both.

That meant dealing with a lot of the same kind of exposition for the early issues of this arc.  Animal Man particularly suffered because Lemire doesn’t have quite the fleetness of language that his writing buddy does and he hasn’t been quite as aggressive with the pacing as he could have been.  Last issue felt like an especially low point for this series as a whole, burdened with more talk than action, and only the barest exploration of what’s left of the Rot-infested world.

Animal Man #13 – Review

By: Jeff Lemire (story), Steve Pugh (art), Timothy Green II (pencils), Joseph Silver (inks), Lovern Kindzierski (colors)

The Story: Buddy discovers his world can cross its overpopulation problems off the list.

The Review: One complaint everyone pretty much has about Events from either of the publishers, one I join wholeheartedly on, is how many titles they end up invading.  Sometimes—who am I kidding?—almost all the time, there’s no actual reason to squeeze them into the plot.  But you can’t deny that there’s no better way to give a storyline an epic, important feel.  When one title has a world-spanning conflict no other title notices, why should you do any different?

Such is the rock and hard place we have in Rotworld.  I’m rather charmed that Lemire and Scott Snyder continue to claim that this dystopia their stars have entered is anything more than an alternate reality, as if there’s even a chance none of this grimness will reverse course after several issues.  Can we truly believe that once this arc ends, we’ll have other heroes sitting around, reminiscing about the time Hawkman turned into a deformed, flesh-eating zombie?

Action Comics #8 – Review

By: Grant Morrison (writer), Rags Morales, Brad Walker, Rick Bryant, Bob McLeod (artists), Brad Anderson & David Curiel (colorists)

The Story: Watch out, Brainiac—Superman’s gonna blow your mind.

The Review: Back in 2006, NBC premiered two new shows, both premised on the backstage activities of a sketch-comedy show.  One was Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, a powerhouse production created and written by the great Aaron Sorkin, with veterans of both big and small screen, Matthew Perry and Bradley Whitford, starring.  The other was 30 Rock, a frugal sitcom led by Alec Baldwin and SNL’s former Weekend Update co-anchor, Tina Fey.

I bring this up to illustrate the fact that you can never predict what creative projects will work out in the end.  Suffice to say, no one would’ve expected Studio 60 to get canned within a year, while 30 Rock years later (and still running—I won’t say “strong”) would bring on Sorkin as a guest to mock him for his costly failure.  It just goes to show that A-list producers and ideas don’t always translate to quality material.

Back in the comics world, we’ve seen this semi-paradoxical situation in Justice League, which, despite its tremendous sales numbers, will likely go down in history as a largely mediocre affair.  Lately, I’ve come to find a similar problem with this series.  You would think pairing Grant Morrision and Superman, with Rags Morales on art, would be a shoo-in for a sure win.  Yet somehow, for whatever reason, the talent hasn’t gelled with the story as much as anyone imagined, and the disappointment is all the greater since your expectations were so high.

Not to imply the story has been terrible, exactly—more like we’re getting just your garden-variety Superman origin story with some snazzy dialogue and a T-shirt thrown in.  Speaking of which, Morrison’s rapidfire style of speech has gotten a bit out of control.  Between Glenmorgan’s pill-laden breakdown (“It’s like one of those films where—those horrible films—they’re trapped in hell and the bartender is the devil…”) and Corben’s rage-induced malfunctions (“I read what she wrote about you.  About your eyes!  Search: ‘Faster than a speeding bullet!’  That’s Metropolis’ latest wonder of tomorrow…”), it gets a bit wearisome to read at times.

Action Comics #7 – Review

By: Grant Morrison (writer), Rags Morales (penciller), Rick Bryant (inker), Brad Anderson (colorist)

The Story: Ooh—I love your miniatures in a bottle collection.  Wait, is that my house in there?

The Review: I tend to feel Superman has the same problem as the Flash in terms of appeal.  The whole heart of the Man of Steel is he’s one of the finest and purest superheroes you can think of, a blank perfection which makes him respected and admired, yet also inaccessible.  To exacerbate matters, he’s just so darn powerful that he can afford to stick to his guns; if you have the ability to solve any problem without sacrifice, you never have the problem of making tough choices.

In All-Star Superman, Morrison overcame these obstacles by giving our hero big, Herculean challenges which allowed him to actually struggle.  Morrison’s attempting something like that here by taking away a sizable amount of Superman’s strength and knowledge, putting him on a lower footing than his problems.  It’s certainly raised the stakes for him across the board, but for us readers, seeing him wheeze as he jumps hurdles that wouldn’t have even made him blink some months ago has been a rather jarring gear-shift.

That’s why this coming showdown with Brainiac (I’m pretty sure we all saw him coming some time ago, so I won’t even bother calling this a spoiler) is a very welcome event.  Superman’s not only going to have to fight without the benefit of his peak abilities, he’s going up against one of his greatest foes of all time—don’t let that “1.0” designation fool you.  Brainiac, like Luthor, derives his menace from his mind, not his brawn.  Even though Superman spends only a very brief part of this issue physically fending off Brainiac’s various robo-guards, he’s under attack the entire time as Brainiac constantly strives to screw with his mind.  The climax of all this is Brainiac’s attempt to force Superman into one of those sticky choices that plagues so many of his heroic peers from time to time: save the people of his origin or those of his adoption?

Ultimately, while the question may be a nail-biter for the rest of us, it’s a moot point for our hero.  For one thing, Brainiac miscasts the decision as a “nature versus nurture” problem, as if Superman choosing to save either Kandor or Metropolis is a symbol of loyalty.  The issue is Clark knows nothing—or at least, very little—of his pre-Smallville life.  So the real question is whether his desire to learn more about his background is powerful enough for him to betray the life he lives now.  No matter how you slice it, the answer is probably not.  Besides, this is Superman; he would never allow anyone to force him into such a quandary: “I won’t choose between any one life and another!  All of these people are under my protection, you got that?”

Action Comics #4 – Review

By: Too many to list—check out the review.

The Story: Man of Steel, meet Man in Steel.

The Review: I’ve become a bit wary of DC’s backup and co-features over time.  The fact they hang on to a bigger, stronger storyline definitely poses some drawbacks.  Only rarely do they have a charm and intrigue of their own.  More frequently, they either serve as dead weight or lackluster sideshows to the main event.

Sholly Fisch’s “Steel” backup leans more towards the latter.  It doesn’t break out John Henry Irons by any means, nor does it offer much of a realized identity.  Fisch relies too much on obvious beats (“It wasn’t until after my parents died that I finally understood why they chose my name.  They wanted me to grow up to be like John Henry.”) to flesh out John’s narrative, and repeats them to the point of embarrassing predictableness (“I’m a steel-driving man!”).

It’s a problem all these smaller features run into, sooner or later; with such limited space, writers feel the pressure to tell their stories rather than show them.  For all of John’s quirks (including a genuinely odd fixation with scientists who play bongos), he does little more in this issue than take down a second-tier villain so Superman can handle the real enemy at hand.  Besides rather admirable art from Brad Walker, this backup is mostly a forgettable “bonus.”

As for the real meat of this issue, Grant Morrison makes good on the series’ title and delivers plenty of action.  The animated mechas from last issue, dubbing themselves “Terminauts,” don’t go out of their way to harm people as their Kandorian counterparts did, but their very presence creates quite a bit of chaos in Metropolis anyway, and that’s before the city gets shrunken and bottled up by an entity with centipede limbs and a fondness for pairing pink with green.

Action Comics #902 – Review

By: Paul Cornell (writer), Kenneth Rocafort & Axel Giménez (artists), Brad Anderson (colorist)

The Story: And I was like Doomsday, Doomsday, Doomsday, no…  Stop singing?  Okay.

The Review: One thing you’ll notice with a lot of movies nowadays is that they’ll pile on the action to keep you from noticing how little story there is to begin with.  After the last explosion has flared from the screen and you come blinking out of the theater, you’ll suddenly think, What the heck was all that about?  That trend has definitely infected the decompressed story arc in comics, though some writers manage to disguise it better than others.

But even a writer as clever as Cornell can only do so much to cover for a largely nonsensical storyline, though he uses every trick in the book to do it.  Actually, the whole thing reads like a hysterically spliced mashup of every action film trope ever made: rampaging clones, time-traveling killers, giant objects from space hurtling towards Earth, massive tidal waves, and ensuing global hysteria.  With all that, you can’t actually say nothing happens in the issue.

And yet nothing does happen in this issue.  To begin with, you have a very hard time following the premise of the story: someone (you don’t know who) has cloned a number of Doomsdays, who obviously threaten to destroy the Earth, so the Super-family intervenes, only to have their brawl interrupted by an intelligent Doomsday from a parallel universe who to wishes destroy the cloned Doomsdays, but when he’s prevent from doing so, he unleashes them to destroy Earth.  Got it?  Good—now explain it to me, because frankly, I can’t make head or tail of it.

In a complete turnaround to the complex character development Cornell brought to the title when it still starred Lex Luthor, subtlety flies out the window here.  Doomslayer gets the broadest moments by far (“The essential anger of what I am makes me do these things!  But all that ends today!  Do you understand?!”), but Superman’s thought bubble sequence definitely takes the cake in leaving nothing to the imagination: “Lois.  I could get there first.  Fly her away.  Then to Ma’s—NO.  You don’t get to choose one life over another.  Never mind one over millions.”  I’m usually a sucker for pure-hearted virtue, but this just reeked of fishing for respect.

Action Comics #901 – Review

By: Paul Cornell (writer), Kenneth Rocafort & Jesus Merino (artists), Brad Anderson (colorist)

The Story: To kill five Super-people, of course you need five Doomsdays, right?

The Review: In my review of Superboy #6, I described Doomsday as a shallow character who no one cared (or at least, I didn’t) much to see again, a statement worth elaborating on given how this issue plays out.  Doomsday, for all the hype surrounding him, simply exists as a means to endanger Superman, that’s all.  D-day has little thought or depth to his character, and almost no potential to be anything more than a convenient way to threaten Superman.

Small wonder then Cornell’s previously excellent writing on this series has devolved along with the class of villain featured in this storyline.  Mind-boggling as it is to believe, the script comes off generic—at best!—and confusing, a big step down from the thoughtful, elaborate, and witty material we’ve been used to getting when Lex Luthor ran this title.  Cornell even descends to moments of melodrama: “Lois, I will find my way back to you!”

It’s hard to tell whether the confusion of this issue comes more from the almost absolute lack of direction (the Super-family literally don’t know how to get out of the starship) or from the puzzling motivations of the characters, like Superman choosing to drag Doomsday along with them because he’s “worried the other Doomsdays might harm it.”  Why exactly would they harm essentially the source of their creation?  And how can the original Doomsday get harmed by his lesser-powered clones anyway?

There’s a lot of chattiness in this issue, yet without much purpose to the chatter except to kill time before we can claw our way to getting this storyline over with.  It really shows how the characters have no idea what to do with themselves.  Eradicator: “—this looks like a language…  If we could start to translate it…”  Superman: “Yes, that should be part of our long-term plans.”  The implication they could be staying here for much longer is enough to make you wince.

Action Comics #900 – Review

By: Too many to list—check out the review.

The Story: Lex Luthor is about to bring fun, love, and joy to all the people of the universe—the crazy part is I am being totally serious right now.

The Review: Say what you like about Superman: he can be overly naïve, overbearingly preachy, arguably antiquated, and a hopeless optimist.  But any character who can support a title through 900 issues is doing something right.  This unassailable milestone is evidence that Superman remains a deeply embedded icon in our culture.  To be rid of him, our society would have to drastically change—and not necessarily for the better, as this issue demonstrates.

Paul Cornell wisely downplays the Big Blue’s return to his original title to finish off his epic Lex Luthor storyline in grand fashion.  In attempting to break down Superman by forcing him to experience the depths of human emotion, Lex reveals his own under-appreciation for humanity.

Superman already knows more about being human than most of us ever will, while Lex’s quest for his own divinization constantly sets him apart from his fellow man.  He squanders his chance to bless the universe with true, eternal bliss and gain ultimate power by his need to irrevocably prove himself superior to Clark Kent, best man of Smallville, of all people.

The grandeur of this plot gets blemished by the constant distractions from the Reign of Doomsday storyline, which seems obviously forced on Cornell.  He tries to accommodate it as best he can by using it as Lex’s “bait” to get Superman to come to him, but even so it comes off a clumsy, ill-conceived, far more superficial plotline (a grim portent of the material we’ll be getting in upcoming issues) in comparison to Superman confronting a godlike Luthor in space.

Justice League of America #40 – Review

By James Robinson (writer), Mark Bagley (pencils), Rob Hunter, Scott Hanna, & Marlo Alquiza (inks), Pete Pantazis (colors), and John J. Hill (letters)

The Story: Dr. Light, Vixen, and Gypsy battle the Black Lantern versions of the former Dr. Light, Vibe, and Steel.

What’s Good: Mark Bagley continues to satisfy me with his output on Justice League.  All told, his characters have a cartoony, accessible, Saturday morning feel that’s very comfortable with the series, and unlike last month, there aren’t any botched facial expressions.

I also did rather enjoy Vibe and Steel’s continual calling out of Vixen and Gypsy, essentially calling them underpowered C-listers that no one cares about.  It only hurts, because, well, it’s kind of true.  It’s also in many ways an apt criticism of the JLA comic and a great segue into next month’s major roster shuffle.