Action Comics #891 (September, 2010)
"The Black Ring, Part Two"
Writer - Paul Cornell
Pencillers - Pete Woods & CAFU
Inkers - Pete Woods & Bit
Colorist - Rob Leigh
Assistant Editor - Wil Moss
Editor - Matt Idelson
Cover Price: $3.99
Had such a good time with Lex Luthor's Action Comics yesterday, I decided to keep the ball rolling today. When last we left him, he was facing of with... of all peo... er, things, Mister Mind!
Worth mentioning, we're nearing the fourth quarter of our #Action100 endeavor. I've still got a few requested reviews on the docket, including a couple of the "hundredth" issues. I'm saving those for a little closer to the end though. That said, I'm still taking requests... so, if you've got an issue of Action you wouldn't mind seeing me spoil... and it's one I've got in the library, just lemme know... here, Twitter, Facebook... wherever!
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We open in... prehistoric times? Sure, let's roll with it. Lex Luthor is leading a loin-clothed band of cavefolk toward a temple bathed in light. There's a bit about class and privilege before Lex runs in and steals a bowl of fire... and tears down the temple for good measure.
Everything starts to make sense when we shift scenes to Mister Mind... a far cuter-looking Mister Mind than the one we met last issue. He reveals that he has taken over Luthor's consciousness... and he did so on behalf of, well... we don't know who yet.
Back to Luthor's head, where the fantasy has jumped ahead several centuries... and he is depicted like Dr. Frankenstein. His Lois-bot gets the Bride of Frankenstein makeover for good measure. On the table lays a man covered in a sheet. Before revealing who it is, Lex pauses... feeling as though something's not quite right here. Lois encourages him to remove the sheet... and wouldn'tcha know it, the "monster" is... him!
Lois asks if he'd have pulled the sheet if not for her prodding... and he realizes he wouldn't have. Lex is a man who works best when he has others to do his bidding (sort of like that hitman we met last issue). This troubles Mister Mind, because it's going against the fantasy he'd placed Luthor in. He realizes he's going to have to get involved.
Back in Luthor's head... townspeople crash through his window, pitchforks and torches in hand... before they can do any damage, however... Lex shifts into his next fantasy. In it, he is a Sheriff in an old Western town. His Deputy rushes the saloon to inform him that "Big Blue" is back.
"Big Blue" is... well, you know. He and Lex face off in the street in front of the saloon. Again, Lex is getting hip to the fact that this ain't all kosher. He decides to take control of the situation by... not shooting "Big Blue", but blowing the brains out of his Deputy!
Now this really vexes Mister Mind... who is not only losing control of the situation, but his own consciousness. His "benefactor", whoever that is, watches as Mind is pulled into the simulacrum.
Sheriff Luthor reenters the saloon, and finds Lois has been taken captive by... Mister Mind in an adorable black hat. He and Lex exchange some banter, and we (well, I) learn that this Mister Mind is the offspring of the original. Lemme pull out by best Johnny Carson... ahem, I did not know that. At this point Lex is all but sure that they are, in reality, still atop that building in Metropolis.
Mister Mind reacts to this deduction by growing to kaiju-size!
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| Ambushed... by a Bug?! |
Lex pulls the whole "Stand back..." bit, tearing open his shirt... revealing... well, his hairless chest.
He takes the fight to the giant Mister Mind... and realizes all he really needs to do to win this one, is to regain control of his actual motor reflexes. He does, and boots the poor caterpillar off the Metropolitan roof.
The simulacrum ends with a bang... and when the dust settles, Luthor and his kidnappers spring back to their senses. They apologize to Lex, claiming to have been under Mister Mind's control when they acted. Lex agrees to let them off the hook, so long as they tell him everything they know.
Later, Lex and Lois discuss the day's events. Lex worries that Lois isn't sure she's actually a robot... but she assures him that she fully understands. He then tells her that their journey has just begun. Since Mister Mind was so set on isolating Lex, he now knows his best bet is to assemble a team to seek out the Black Lantern ring.
We wrap up with Lex putting in a call to a potential third member...
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More fun than it had any right to be!
When I first heard that Lex Luthor was taking over Action Comics, I had braced myself for some... well, to be blunt, really boring "boardroom" stories. I feel like a lot of writers in comics today are tickled by scenes of "mundane intrigue" (probably because they're trying to use comics as a springboard into movies and television)... and I was glad to see this was most certainly not the case.
Back when I used to talk about Marvel... when I thought Marvel was almost worth talking about, I used to complain about how books like the Avengers and X-Men no longer felt like "fun" superhero comics. So often half the pages were taken up by members of S.H.I.E.L.D. sitting in a darkened monitor-filled room "sassing" at each other. Apropos of nothing, when it got to the point where Captain Freaking America had to get permission from Maria Freaking Hill in order to do... well, anything... I knew it was time for me to split.
Back to this story... I mean, this is the perfect way to show Lex in different situations. It's great seeing him so out of "control" at the start, and slowly regain himself as we move forward. I really can't overstate how much fun this was. I've always been intrigued by the idea of lucid dreaming... and taking control over your dreams. My wife claims she's able to do it from time to time... Just between us, I'm not quite sure I believe her. Figure if anyone can do it though... it'd be Lex Luthor.
Mister Mind made a really fun foil as well. I'm glad he wasn't the dripping, oozing mess he was last issue... and was back to a more cartoony-cute look. Shame he went splat though! I'm glad he wasn't the "big bad" though... seems like we've got quite a reveal in the making (one that I've actually forgotten the outcome of... so, yay for that!).
Art here was, as expected, top-notch. The addition of CAFU (or Cafu... not sure if that's all-caps) was great and absolutely seamless. Really just another beautiful chapter.
Overall... if you haven't read this run, I'd recommend you do so. I'll admit, I was a bit on-the-fence about it at first, but so far it's over-delivered on an engaging, entertaining, and excellent (EEE) story. As with yesterdays book, this has been collected in trade... and is available digitally.
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Superman: War of the Supermen #0 (June, 2010)
"War of the Supermen, Prologue"
"Filling in the Blanks"
Writers - James Robinson & Sterling Gates
Pencillers - Eddy Barrows, Julian Lopez, Aaron Lopresti, David Finch, Gary Frank, Cafu, Ethan Van Sciver & Diogenes Neves
Inkers - J.P. Mayer, Bit, Joe Weems & Vicente Cifuentes
Colorists - Rod Reis, Blond
Letterer - John J. Hill
Assistant Editor - Wil Moss
Editor - Matt Idelson
Free Comic Book Day
Today we're gonna look at one of my, relatively-recent Superman blind spots... and I'm going to complain about contemporary Free Comic Book Day offerings.
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We open with a rather peeved off Superman bursting through a wall. He has arrived at a Kryptonian Military Installation located one mile below the surface of New Krypton. He's there to... you guessed it, talk to Zod. Can't have a Krypton story without him... unfortunately. To fill us in a bit, Zod was made General of New Krypton's army (seems a stellar idea, don't it?)... and Superman had left Earth for a time to serve in that army... and make sure Zod doesn't act all Zoddy.
Speaking of acting "Zoddy", Superman is here to confront the big Z has because he's declared war on Earth. The two exchange punches for a bit, until Ursa (who I initially mistook for Zaora) slashes Superman across the chest with a Kryptonite knife! She claims it hurts to even hold the thing, but the satisfaction wielding it brings outweighs the pain.
Superman blasts the knife away with heat vision before once more, stepping to Zod. Zod's having a grand old time, and brings Superman up to speed, advising him he was about to surrender... and I am pleasantly surprised and thankful Robinson and Gates didn't resort to using this to shoehorn a "hilarious" "Kneel before..." reference. As Superman approaches, he is crushed from above by the body of Non (who I mistook as Quex-Ul). Zod always seems to have one big dude and one lady as his seconds.
With Ursa and Non holding Superman at bay, Zod reminds him that on New Krypton, he's no "super" anything... he's simply one of one-hundred thousand... all with the same powers.
He continues running through his justification for the war declaration. It appears General Sam Lane and his spies were responsible for the death of Supergirl's father, Zor-El. Zod's own spies claimed to have uncovered Earth/Sam Lane's own plans to declare war on New Krypton... before they were killed. It all feels very he said/he said... but whattayagonnado? Zod does wrap up his monologue by ensuring Superman that this isn't just about New Krypton's safety/sovereignty... it's also personal. He hates the House of El, and is still looking for revenge. If he can destroy Kal-El's adoptive home, and kill everyone he holds dear... well, that's all the better.
Superman breaks free, swearing to stop Zod before he can initiate the plan. As Ursa and Non tackle our man again, Zod just laughs and goes all Ozymandias on us... ya can't stop what's already happened, Clark... everybody knows that.
Our back-up is framed around Lois Lane writing a story for the Daily Planet... nothing we haven't seen before. This is pretty good stuff though... it serves to fill all of us Johnny-DC-come-latelies (and, read-this-stuff-so-long-agos,-we-can't-remember-what-happeneds) in on the New Krypton clusterschmazz. Of course, we open with a page telling us about that fateful day a rocket was sent from Krypton with a "baby on board" placard. Seems we can't go more than an issue and a half anymore without reading about that.
We jump ahead years later to Superman and Supergirl rescuing the Bottle City of Kandor from Brainiac. Upon enlarging it, they discovered 100,000 new Kryptonian brothers and sisters. Humans would invade the city (Which apparently wasn't destroyed-to-dust upon enlargement like the first time this story happened) and Supergirl's father Zor-El would be killed. This led to Zor-El's wife Alura creating a new planet for the Kryptonians... a New Krypton, if you weeeeell.
For protection, these New Kryptonians would turn to... no, not Superman... General freaking Zod. Ya kinda get what you deserve sometimes, right? I don't understand the logic of grabbing a fella you imprisoned... for e-ter-ni-ty... and asking him to protect you. Gotta figure there might be some sour grapes there, no? Anyhoo, this is where Superman decides to move to the new planet, and join its army.
While away from Earth, Superman made arrangements for his adoptive home to be protected. This crew includes, Kon-El, Mon-El (and, I just realized their names are only one letter apart!), Steel, Krypto, the Guardian, and Nightwing and Flamebird.
Lois next discusses Project 7734, which is a military black-ops organization focused on countering potential alien invasions. It is being run by her father, ol' General Lane. She talks about some of the operatives, which includes some 1st Issue Special love in Atlas... also, Lois' own sister Lucy Lane is now somehow a "Kryptonian killing machine" going by the name Superwoman. I don't remember that at all.
She begins to wrap up her article, discussing the death of her pal and co-worker, Jimmy Olsen! It appears he "got too close" while investigating Project 7734, and was found at the bottom of the harbor. If only that were true... because a few panels later (a still wet?) Jimmy arrives with all the information Lois was looking for. He claims that Natasha Irons rescued him and kept him out of sight (but not dry). Now, Lois can learn the whole truth about her father.
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Man, whatever happened to DC Free Comic Book Day issues that meant a damn? All we get these days are garbage reprints with zero context aimed at people who only go to the comic shops one day a year... if they remember "which Saturday in May" they get free crap handed to them.
This is how ya do it! What a great way to kick off a story... a free issue front-loaded with prologue, and back-loaded with everything you might need to jump into the impending event. Both stories promise "to be continued... in four days". If you wanna get readers (new, old, lapsed, whatever) interested and excited, this is the way to go. You don't promise something "in thirty days" or "Summer 2017" or with a nebulous "Next", you give them less than a week. You remind some of them that comic book shops are open more than one day a year... and you also catch shop regulars who may not necessarily be into Superman... but decide to give him a go after checking this out. It's crazy, it's almost as though DC thought this one out!
For the story itself... well, it's called a prologue and that's precisely what it is. We learn of our threat... and it ramps up to the point where it's about to boil over. A great bit of storytelling that sets the stage for whats to come. I'm still no fan of Zod... I find him kind of a bore. I'm just thankful there were no requisite cutesy "Kneel before..."s in here.
The backup was really well done, even if framing a story with "writer writing about something" is a bit tropey. I suppose things become that way for a reason. This worked well for me, as a lapsed reader... who, if I'm being honest, walked away from the Superman books early/mid-New Krypton... so a bunch of this was new to me.
The art throughout the issue was another high point. Another really good use of the platform (and opportunity) that Free Comic Book Day can (and should) be. I hope I'm not coming across too angry (or old-manny) sounding here, I just feel pretty strongly about using things like FCBD as ways to promote comics and comic shops... not whatever movie might be coming out. Contemporary "throwaway" offerings, like an issue of Suicide Squad without context or a half-decade old (and no longer in continuity) issue of Action Comics are part of why I sometimes refer to the event as "Pretend you care about Comics Day".
Overall, if I were to have read this during that weekend in May, 2010... I'd be totally psyched to check out the War of the Supermen and the entire New Krypton schmazz. Having read it in 2017... I only wish I had the time to! If you're interested in checking this one out, you've got no excuse not to... it's available digitally FOR FREE!
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Worth mentioning, we're nearing the fourth quarter of our #Action100 endeavor. I've still got a few requested reviews on the docket, including a couple of the "hundredth" issues. I'm saving those for a little closer to the end though. That said, I'm still taking requests... so, if you've got an issue of Action you wouldn't mind seeing me spoil... and it's one I've got in the library, just lemme know... here, Twitter, Facebook... wherever!
