Action Comics #867 Review

ACTION COMICS #867
Written by Geoff Johns
Art by Gary Frank and Jon Sibal

I had a few issues with Action Comics #867, but, for the most part, I really enjoyed the pro-active stance Superman took this issue in regards to Brainiac. It seems like he's always resting on his laurels and just waiting for the next crisis to solve instead of actively hunting down villains. For someone like Superman, it makes so much sense for him to do things like this. Hopefully he'll continue the trend in the future with his Earth-based villains.

Supergirl was surprisingly good in this issue. She added a nice emotional angle to the destruction of Krypton and the threat of Brainiac and it was good to see her and Clark together for a change.

She talks about the annihilation of Kandor and it's like they are talking as if they know nothing about what happened. Doesn't Clark have the bottled city of Kandor? Haven't they known what happened to it for the past several decades?  

However, this is where one of my problems with the issue stems from. She talks about the annihilation of Kandor and it's like they are talking as if they know nothing about what happened. Doesn't Clark have the bottled city of Kandor? Haven't they known what happened to it for the past several decades? I know it got smashed during that Third Kryptonian storyline, but are they talking about a different Kandor now?

Clark even went on to visit his parents and spoke about how there could be thousands of Kryptonians still out there and he had to go find the real Brainiac to try and help them. Maybe I'm missing something and there were multiple Kandors or the bottled city I know as Kandor is some kind of moon colony or something.

After saying his goodbyes to Lois and his parents, Superman leaves in a pretty cool looking spaceship made of the same crystal formations the Fortress of Solitude has. He ended up watching a video of Non, the lobotimized scientist and mentor to Jor-El that was with Zod. Johns seemed to make a big deal about Non discussing Jor-El's doomsday prophecies for the planet Krypton and how no one would listen to them and that Brainiac's motives might be tied to them. I assume it was to collect a dying species sort of like a zoo, but couldn't really see how this was worth noting or how it was new news, but Superman acted really surprised for some reason.

Finally, Superman caught up to Brainiac's probes and began destroying them with ease, with seems at odds with how one of them gave him a little trouble last issue and even cut him open. This sparks the appearance of Brainiac's mothership and he quickly bottles up another alien city before launching a probe into the nearby star and causing it to pulse (doesn't go supernova, so not sure what he did exactly) and sent a wave out into the solar system, destroying the planet and, apparently, knocking out Superman, who is then captured by the "real" Brainiac.

Verdict - Must Read. Not sure why Brainiac's probes became weaklings or what's going on with this the lack of knowledge about Kandor, but I still enjoyed this issue a great deal and can't wait to see the next one. Excellent use of supporting characters, specifically Supergirl, and a nice proactive approach by Superman combined with this creepy new version of Brainiac have me enthralled with the current storyline.

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Action Comics #866 Review

ACTION COMICS #866
Written by Geoff Johns
Art by Gary Frank and Jon Sibal

I'm pretty sure Superman has the most retcons in the history comics. To be honest, I don't even know what his origin is these days. Maybe he was the last son of Krypton, maybe he wasn't. Was Krypton super advanced and peaceful and ignored Jor-El's warnings or were they a war mongering race that ended up confined to their own planet by Brainiac? Did he go to school with Lex? Was he a jock or a nerd? Did he have powers as a kid or not?

It seems like every "all new era" of Superman when a new writer comes on board heralds a new origin for Superman, Krypton or one of his major villains. Johns has changed all three since teaming up with Donner a couple of years ago and I'm still not even sure what's being retconned or whether it existed, was retconned out and is not being brought back in again and this Brainiac story is pretty much in the same boat.

Brainiac, to me, has been a machine for as long as I remember. He's had upgrades and different looks, but was always a machine. It's only been one issue, but Johns has set Brainiac up as a living being, similar to Brainiac 13, I suppose, and I believe he is trying to tell us, much like in the recent Toyman retcon, that Brainiac's previous incarnations were merely imposters and machines he controlled from affair.

We don't see much of this Brainiac and, frankly, he was only in about two or three pages, less if you don't count the flashback to Kandor being bottled up, so it's hard to gauge what Johns is trying to do here, but I'm intrigued.

But, if you came looking for only Brainiac in this issue, you came away disappointed. Johns focused most of the issue on the new Daily Planet cast, in the form of returning gossip columnist, Catherine Grant, and the new sports editor, Steve Lombard. It's a humourous scene where Clark Kent really shined. Lombard made a sexual crack about Lois and Clark immediately busts out the heat vision on Lombard's chair, sending him crashing to the floor.

And when Grant, fresh off a boob job and in a low cut shirt, tries to put some moves on the bumbling reporter, Clark shows more restraint than me by looking Grant right in the eyes and never even taking a glance at her chest as she flaunts it right in his face. She storms off in anger with a cute, "You're from another planet, Clark.", line.

That's all followed up with some nice Clark / Lois interaction before Superman goes into action for an unidentified object entering the atmosphere. Turns out it's a Brainiac robot that immediately attacks Superman. It manages to get a small cut on his forehead, which it promptly analyzes, and then shuts down after transmitting the data back to the "real" Brainiac aboard a giant floating Brainiac robot head. He's in a room filled with bottled cities and I hope this signals we'll finally get a resolution to the damn Kandor bottled city. After all these years, I'm tired of seeing that bottle and Clark make promises to try and restore them to full size.

Verdict - Must Read. It was a lot of fun reading the scene with Clark and the new members of the Daily Planet and the new Brainiac has me intrigued to the point I want to know more about how this fits in with everything we already know.

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Action Comics Annual #11 Review

ACTION COMICS ANNUAL #11
Written by Geoff Johns and Richard Donner
Art by Adam Kubert

I'm at a loss as to how to treat this book. I felt the same way as I did when Ultimates 2 finally ended or any other random oft-delayed title finishes up a story after months and months of void. It's hard not to be bitter over the delays and at the same time I'd like to at least judge the book on its own merits before harping on the lateness.

In the end, I can't help but feel underwhelmed, even without the delay. First off, the art is subpar, by Kubert's standards. The colouring and inking help it a lot, but backgrounds are completely barren at times. Off the top of my head, when Clark rescues Lois, it's just ground and a blue background for every panel on the page. Maybe a little bit of generic crystal slapped in for posterity. It's not a major character moment or artistic decision either.

One double page splash with Superman and Lex talking consists of the same background copy and pasted in about a dozen or so separate panels. It's just rushed and / or lazy work. Also, many of the buildings seem like they were either "referenced" or digitally coloured over pictures of New York or any other real life city. The striking difference between them and the colouring of the characters really pulled me out of any images with them in it. Superman has like two blue and two red colours used for his costume and its shading, making him look pasted on the background instead of a part of it. Is it the artist's fault or the colourist's? I'm not sure, but I think it's whoever did the backgrounds and that's probably Kubert.

There are many pages like this and seeing that the delays are all Kubert's fault, seeing the art turn out like this is a disappointment. At least Ultimates always looked fantastic, despite the huge delays by Hitch. Note, the characters look fine, but it's almost like he drew the images and a ghost writer (ghost artist?) came in and did his backgrounds for him.

As for the story, I'm left a little unimpressed by its conclusion, but, for the most part, enjoyed it. We get the prerequisite brawl between the Superman Revenge Squad and Zod's army and Superman and Zod's fight has a lot of impact, but the ending just fizzles with most of the Kryptonians coming off as cannonfodder, even though they have the powers of Superman, and instead of any resolution, everyone just gets dumped back into the Negative Zone by Lex Luthor's tinkering with an escape pod and a random "reverse propolsion whiplash effect" that pulls anyone that was in the NZ back into it at the push of a button.

The things I did like, though, were mostly concerning Lex Luthor. This, and I don't recall him being written like this in the regular DCU before (I didn't read the One Year Later stuff if he began acting like this there), was basically an All-Star Superman version of Lex and I loved it. He's usually much less entertaining than seen here and his early verbal sparring match with Superman was great. Later, he has a similar chat with Lois concerning her choice in husbands that was great. Finally, I loved his "doing this for humanity" excuse and motivation for his hatred of Superman and some of his points about Superman not inspiring humanity to be better, but to only rely on his godly powers makes sense if you think about it. The last pages with Christopher Kent getting the credit for saving everyone instead of Luthor and his reaction to reading the article was great as well.

In the end, though, I never really felt any emotion or impact from this. I'm not sure if it's because of the writing or if I should blame the complete distatchment on the months since I last read this storyline and how my excitement for this issue coming into it was almost zero. For something as Earth shattering as a Kryptonian army invading and conquering the world, imprisoning all its heroes and destroying all human based resistence, this story had no impact on anything and makes the supposed threat seem laughable in comparison to how they try to build it up. Add in the ineffective Superman-like army that gets taken down by scrubs like Parasite and Metallo in seconds and how there is no actual conclusion to this fight other than everyone getting put back in the Negative Zone and it's as if this story, which could have easily been a major event for DC, is barely worthy of a footnote.

Verdict - Check It. It's not a bad issue, but not worth the huge delay either. Add an indecisive conclusion and it's really only worth picking up if you absolutely must read how this storyline finishes. Maybe it'll read better in trade or for people less jaded over delays.

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Action Comics #863 Review

ACTION COMICS #863
Written by Geoff Johns
Art by Gary Frank

This marks the final chapter for the Legion storyline and the last time I'll be picking this title up for a while. It has nothing to do with this issue, in particular, but I hopped on for Frank's art and this hyped Legion storyline and wasn't planning to stick along forever from the get go.

This issue, as I said, is the final chapter to this storyline and features the entire Legion versus Earth-Man. It started out with him trying to kill the powerless Superman, but Brainiac manages to free Sun Boy in time and our sun returns to it's yellow status. I won't bother trying to figure out how the sunlight reached Earth instantly to give Superman his powers back before he smeared on the pavement, as this is comic book science, but this was about as predictable a turn out as could be imagined.

From there, all the Legion members take turns trying to stop Earth-Man, who has all of their powers and then some at his disposal. It was a basic, "hey, we have powers, look at us!", scene where they end up all failing to stop him. This leads to Superman punching him once to knock him out and ending the threat. Way to kill any credibility Earth-Man or the Legion has by making them all look like fools, Kal. Felt like a rushed ending to a very Silver Age-esque story.

Verdict - Check It

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Action Comics #862 Review

ACTION COMICS #862
Written by Geoff Johns
Art by Gary Frank

Alright, now that this story has finally hit the battle sequence, I have to ask, why didn't they Legion just clean house long ago? There's like 5 bad guys, all of which are losers, with the exception of Earth Man, who is only strong now because of the multiple Legion members that they've captured. One half assed assault would be more than enough to stop this nonsense for good and wouldn't have required Superman.

As for this issue, there's some nice dialogue in the opening, especially the random comments from Brainiac, but, otherwise, this introduces even more Legion rejects to help attack the Justice League. They distract everyone, all 4 of them, and Superman and Brainiac's team goes about freeing the other Legion members and trying shut down Solar Boy, who is generating the red shifted Sun. Earth Man sneaks up on them with shapeshifting powers and a fight ensues where he fights the depowered Superman. I'm not sure how Superman lasts more than 2 seconds, let alone takes him flying out of the building into space. I'd imagine the glass would be re-enforced and impossible for him to bust through, even with a flight ring.

Next issue? Ya, Brainiac shuts down Solar Boy and Superman saves the day. Fairly generic. If there's any bumps, it'll probably have Superman get beaten and the entire freed Legion beats down Earth Man. Not much payoff coming from this story, but I'll stick it out for one more issue.

Verdict - Check It

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Action Comics #861 Review

ACTION COMICS #861
Written by Geoff Johns
Art by Gary Frank & Jonathan Sibal

I think this was probably the strongest issue of the Legion storyline. It seems like Johns has finally gotten past the fan wankery of showing off splash pages of Legion shots and introducing eleventy billion different characters and the story is finally starting to take shape and build to a conclusion. That's not to say the early issues were bad, but they were definitely lacking any focus from my point of view.

I liked how they finally made mention of the lightning rod from the JSA / JLA crossover. Seems it can't be used until the crisis of the 31st century, which I guess is going to be in Final Crisis. Can't imagine there being another crisis after a final crisis, but DC does like that naming convention. It was good to see they tried to explain all the stars turning red through the use of one of the captured Legion members. Still doesn't make much sense, but it's a comic book and at least they tried.

Verdict - Check It

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Action Comics #860 Review

ACTION COMICS #860
Written by Geoff Johns
Art by Gary Frank

I really feel like I'm missing half the story whenever I read a new chapter in this Legion storyline. I've never followed their exploits, for the most part, and every issue seems to throw more and more new, to me, characters into the mix. Whenever something happens or there's a fight, I need a little cheatsheet to keep track of everyone and I'm left wondering if so and so character was important or just some throwaway in terms of the story.

Despite that, I'm still enjoying this arc. Frank's art is still a little odd compared to his Supreme Power and earlier work, but good none the less. I'm quite interested in finding out what caused all these problems and why Brainiac 5 is now a badguy.

But, for the reasons in the opening paragraph, I still feel like I'm being left on the outside looking in with the overwhelming amount of characters being introduced. On top of that, I have no idea where this fits in established continuity and the number of times the Legion has been rebooted. Heck, the current Legion series doesn't seem to sync up with this one and I don't even think this is the same Legion from the JLA / JSA Lightning Saga from earlier in the year. So, I can't even really look up any information or backstory on these characters as it's most likely wrong.

This month's issue just has Superman and the Legion free some of their friends and finding out that Brainiac already escaped. From here, they head to the underground Legion base where the evil JLA tracks them down. Before they can capture them, the Legion makes their escape as they head to Brainiac's homeworld to find him. There, they find him and he's apparently evil, ending our issue.

Verdict - Check It.

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Action Comics #859 Review

ACTION COMICS #859
Written by Geoff Johns
Art by Gary Frank and Jonathan Sibal

Johns is trying his best to make this return of the Legion easier for the people, like me, that have never followed them before. Having dozens of new characters that you don't know thrown at you in a story can be quite overwhelming and that is my only real complaint with this issue.

Johns spends most of this issue bringing the reader up to speed on why the future is so out of whack in this storyline. Apparently, some washed out tryouts from the Legion, all of which were Earthlings, discovered Superman's Fortress of Solitude and perverted the facts about Superman's past to turn the entire population of Earth into a xenophobic, alien hating culture that hunts down any and all aliens and has ceded from the all treaties with other races. To accomplish this, he used a school setting with random children answering history lesson questions. It felt a little forced and out of place to be honest, but got the job done.

The remainder of the issue introduced us to the defenders of this future Earth in the form of the previously mentioned Earth based Legion washouts. I'm not really sure what to make of them, as I mentioned, I know nothing about the Legion outside what is given to me in this story. So, I'm not even sure if they are a credible threat or how powerful they really are, but the Legion seems to be in trouble and most of the members are already captured or are in prison camps.

However, I feel this issue was a much better offering than the first one and, with a few exceptions, Frank's art is much better thist ime around.

Verdict - Check It. Legion fans might view this as a Must Read, but coming in fresh, it's a bit overwhelming for me and I'm sure anyone else who is not a Legion faithful. Still a solid read that's worth checking out at the very least.

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Action Comics Archive

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Action Comics #859 - Johns / Frank Superman & the Legion of Super-Heroes arc begins - Verdict - Check It
Action Comics #860 - Verdict - Check It
Action Comics #861 - Verdict - Check It
Action Comics #862 - Legion rejects vs. JLA - Verdict - Check It
Action Comics #863 - Superman defeats Earth-Man, returns to our time - Verdict - Check It
Action Comics Annual #11 - Oft-delayed Zod storyline's "conclusion" - Verdict - Check It
Action Comics #864 - Verdict - Check It
Action Comics #865 - Verdict - Check It
Action Comics #866 - The "real" Brainiac revealed - Verdict - Must Read

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