ACW #620 – Superman
Action Comics Weekly #620 (Superman)
“Too Late, the Hero?”
Writer – Roger Stern
Pencils – Curt Swan
Inks – Murphy Anderson
Letters – Bill Oakley
Colors – Tom Ziuko
Editor – Mike Carlin
Have I done the gag where I just yawn a whole lot before we discuss Superman?
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So, Bob Galt gets nyoinked into an alley… not by Vartox… but by just some random punks. Well, that sorta sucks, doesn’t it? Anyhoo, since he’s wearing the “S”, they call him both “Super-Waste” and “Superboy”… considering the year this came out, the latter of which makes me wonder if these geeks know about the pocket universe. They absolutely must, right?
Okay, probably not. One of the punks spits on Galt… which almost makes this “chapter” worth reading. Bob counters with an emotionless uppercut, which might have cost the baddie a tooth. Just as the rest of the gang-bangers proceed to pound the super-loving hell out of Galt, the Man of Steel arrives on the scene.
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Welp… I’ve tip-toed around it for, sheesh, twenty-weeks now, but… I think I gotta just come out and say it. This feature sucks. It’s dull, there are no stakes, and Superman has only appeared in two panels over the past two weeks. I thought covering this would give me a bit of a “breather” every week… just a quick two-page romp, where Superman does something… ya know, super.
Instead, this has become the day every week that I dread the most! I mean, since Black Canary ended, anyway. There just feels like no reason to even bother covering this anymore. Hopefully it turns around… but, it’s like I say that every week.
Oh well, at least we got this panel (and your next screen-saver) out of it:
Tomorrow: Meet the Twins!
I think your missing the pinot of the Superman feature. It was ment to harken back to the Superman comic strip that ran in the Sunday newspaper comics section from 1939 to 1966. Those stories were only 9 to 12 pannels a week and had to tell a continuing story over the course of months and years. This feature is a comic strip (as Superman was originally intended by Siegel and Shuster) and not a comic book like we are more used to.
Oh, I know what it's supposed to be… it's just not very good at what it does.
Before Action Comics Weekly was green-lit, DC was going to do a weekly series starring the acquired Charlton comics heroes… and they were going to reprint the actual DC "World's Greatest Superheroes" Sunday strips to better "tie" it to main DCU… so, this sort of format was *always* part of their Weekly plans… I just don't think they're pulling it off well here.