ACW #641 – Superman

Action Comics Weekly #641 (Superman)
“Justice For All”
Writer – Roger Stern
Pencils – Curt Swan
Inks – Murphy Anderson
Letters – Bill Oakley
Colors – Tom Ziuko
Editor – Mike Carlin
Special Thanks – Tom Peyer

Forty-One Weeks… Eighty-Two Pages.  This story wouldn’t even fill a hundred-page giant… and yet, it’s been released in trade paperback?


Granted, I wouldn’t touch that TPB with a ten-foot pole, for all I know there might be an extra or two in there that’s worth looking at!


—

Superman catches up with the xenophobic arsonists, and gives ’em a “talkin’ to”.  One of them reminds him that he (Superman, that is) once wiped out the Quraci Air Force… so, he figures they’re all on the “same side”.  This gives the Man o’ Steel a moment of pause, but he still nyoinks them up by their belts and flies them back to the scene of the crime.


The nogoodniks lash out at Superman for being in cahoots with a terrorist… and, then… we get the lecture this entire mini-arc has been building toward.  The man may be Quraci by birth, but he is not responsible for the atrocities of his former government.  Ya see, he fled from the brutal dictatorship… and is actually an American citizen at this point.


Then Superman gives the quick and dirty on how he already lost one planet… and he isn’t keen on losing another, especially not to hatred.  The End.


—


Well, this is the only way this one could have ended… and while it might’ve been a bit heavy-handed and cliche, I will say it was worlds better than the Fellowship arc we trudged through for the better part of the year.  Wow, I can say without hyperbole that we spent nearly a year with the friggin’ Fellowship!


Anyhoo… this feels kind of like a PSA… something that could run in lieu of a Letters Page or something in a month’s worth of books.  Not bad, not great… just a story.  Gotta wonder if they had something a bit more “fleshed out” planned in the instance that Action Comics Weekly didn’t go back to “normal” with #643?  I guess we’ll never know… and, ya know what… considering the first 38 parts of this serial, I’m willing to take that as a “win”.


Wish I had more to say about this… but, honestly, I’m just glad it’s over.


Tomorrow: The Phantom Stranger returns… just so he can leave again!