A new villain arises!
Creative Staff:
Story: Brian Michael Bendis
Art: Patrick Gleason
Colors: Alejandro Sanchez
Letterer: Josh Reed
What They Say:
The devastating repercussions from the Man of Steel miniseries still reverberate as Metropolis enters a new age! The Daily Planet teeters on the brink of disaster! A new criminal element has made its way onto the streets of Superman’s hometown!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
After finding a good chunk of the Man of Steel series something of a mix bag, albeit one that hooked me well enough at the end, I picked up the first issue of the new Superman series by Brian Michael Bendis and this installment of Action Comics where he’s on board to write as well. Paired with the fantastic Patrick Gleason, the two will make for a solid team in telling Superman’s tales going forward, though the first installment didn’t exactly wow me. Part of that is that Man of Steel setup multiple storylines and the ones that interested me aren’t being followed up in these books. Thankfully, it does seem like the fire story subplot is getting dealt with fairly quickly but at the same time it’s not exactly engaging yet.
There’s a lot of little material in this that helps to showcase Bendis’ take on Superman more here and it’s well-presented with what Gleason does in making him feel imposing yet accessible. When we see him dealing with some robbers in masks with automatic weapons at the start, he knows the routine so well that the robbers are embarrassed by what they’re doing when you get down to it. This kind of view of him is carried over nicely later when a young kid gets paid to rat Superman out for something he didn’t do and Superman confronts him with Chief Moore in order to get to the bottom of it. There’s a good authority figure element to this that plays out and just seeing the way the kid handles it, and how Moore does as well in realizing what it is that whoever paid the kid accomplished with it, is a good bit of fun. More so than the subplot back at the Daily Planet with Trish trying to get dirt from Clark about why Lois left him, presumably for Superman.
Now, there is a good number of pages spent on the opening arc storyline here as we get a varied group of people operating under a mastermind of sorts that are meeting on the outskirts of Metropolis. They know Superman is their main problem so they’re meeting in a giant lead pipe underground where the mastermind wants to know who’s been kicking off the fires and just how problematic its become as they don’t want to attract attention of Big Blue. This whole thing just felt murky and disconnected since we don’t really get who anyone is and it serves to introduce us to the powered villain with a mysterious woman called the Red Cloud who kills the man behind the fires. It’s a typical power play kind of thing but it just doesn’t come together right because, at least for me as someone jumping on after not reading Superman books since the 90’s, it’s so empty of any reason why. Yeah, we get that it’s a group of bad guys plotting something big but that’s not what I’d expect out of a fresh launch like this.
In Summary:
While I continue to enjoy Superman as a character, and I’m likely to try and pick up some trades for Bendis’ run down the line, the Man of Steel series simply introduced me to stories that I liked more with the other characters that I want to follow, such as Lois and Jon as well as Supergirl. The new storyline in Action Comics is rough in its back half with the bad guys that are being introduced as it just comes across as out place, essentially. I liked the first half with the Superman material and even his time at the Daily Planet as observing how Bendis deals in showcasing the two sides of himself that he presents in public is interesting. Admittedly, my favorite is his “third” self that we see when it’s him and Lois and close friends that know everything, but that won’t be happening anytime soon. I didn’t hit subscribe on this series but I’ll be back to it down the line when I can read arcs in full.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: July 25th, 2018
MSRP: $3.99
