Awesome information. Thanks for this.




D'oh! Totally forgot about Invasion. Thanks again.

I've been avoiding all the crossovers due to utter lack of interest in crossovers, but sometimes this means that I miss out on important little tidbits like the Omega Men belt.

Action Comics Weekly #629



Last issue, the letter column subtly indicated that plans were already in the works to return Action Comics to a monthly title starring Superman, and this week, there's no letter column at all -- just an ad with next week's cover, reminding fans (as always) to vote for their favorite features.

This issue feels more tedious than most, perhaps because I know it's all going to end soon anyway (therefore, why care?), and perhaps because it seems like more and more of the features are taking a page from the Black Canary playbook, asking us to invest far too much energy into following intricate plots and precise details of previous chapters without giving us a character or motivation with which we can really identify. Thus, the Speedy and Blackhawk features, in particular, just begin to feel like work.

Green Lantern: I get where James Owsley (later Christopher Priest) is going. It's an inversion of the personalities from O'Neil and Adams' "Hard Traveling Heroes" storyline, this time with Hal as the compassionate liberal and Captain Atom as the hard-headed believer in black and white justice. However, where O'Neil and Adams told this across many different self-contained stories, Owsley is attempting to draw it out across one uninteresting story that simply refuses to resolve itself.

Black Canary: Beautiful images. If only Sharon Wright weren't telling a story over them. I gleaned this one and found every line of dialogue I read obnoxious, every characterization trying far too hard.

Secret Six: Though we knew who Mockingbird was already, this chapter is choc full of explanations as we learn that August Durant (the original Mockingbird) gave an honest origin story in the original series but was essentially a stooge for the government as Mockingbird, giving the Six the orders the government gave him. We also learn that the agency was dismantled in 1969, but that the group kept in touch and, when the government ordered Durant back into service in order to extract his disease and weaponize it, he reached out to Dirienzi, explaining that he had been Mockingbird all along, to help him reunite the Six against the agency controlling him. Durant was killed, and so Dirienzi took his place as Mockingbird, using Durant's wealth and resources in order to do so.

If you didn't know anything about the original Secret Six, this might have seemed like an uninteresting chapter, but if you know the team's history (as we now do thanks to the helpful articles shared here by Hoosier X), then this chapter of explanations, in itself, comes off with its share of surprises. The original Mockingbird had never actually been in charge? Holy government conspiracies, Action Comics Weekly!


Nightwing & Speedy: Please note that, two chapters into this new story arc, Nightwing has not appeared nor been mentioned, and doesn't seem likely to appear anywhere in this storyline. ACW contracted for Marv Wolfman to write a Nightwing story and got Cherie Wilkerson writing Speedy instead. Wolfman isn't even credited with an assist as of this chapter. And the story is pretty tedious already. I stopped reading about two pages shy of the end of the chapter. Pretty sure I'm done with it unless Nightwing shows up.

Blackhawk: As indicated earlier, this once simple, guilty-pleasure reading franchise has become heavy with past continuity and minor details to be memorized. It's work to read, and the characters and storylines just aren't worth the effort. I think I'm done reading this one too.

So that's now more than half the book I'll be skipping each week.


But I'm simply stuck with Superman...


"Journey's End"

writer: Roger Stern
pencils: Curt Swan
inks: Murphy Anderson
letters: Bill Oakley
colors: Tom Ziuko
editor: Mike Carlin

grade: B+

Don't call it "Journey's End" if you don't intend to deliver on that promise. Still, I must admit, this is the chapter that should have come WEEKS ago. We finally meet one of the elder leaders of the Superman-following religious cult, as well as witness her weird ability to telekenetically control sand (and possibly more), and learn that the bad guys are about to launch their big assault, having witnessed Clark and Bob enter the secret hiding place of the Fellowship.

Swan art, ably inked by Anderson and colored by Ziuko, with a plot line that's finally advancing -- it's a good installment, even if it doesn't take away the pain of those previous plodding chapters, nor the fear that a pace this exciting has just GOT to get slowed down again next week.



Minor Detail: It's worth noting that, as of this issue, there are five pages of ads following this two page spread feature. If you're flipping the book backward instead of forward, it's actually really hard to even find this feature (and would that be such a bad thing?).

Adventures of Superman #451



writer/art: Jerry Ordway
letters: Albert DeGuzman
colors: Glenn Whitmore
asst. editor: Renee Witterstaetter
editor: Mike Carlin

grade: C


I was really expecting more from this storyline by this point. I wasn't surprised when Stern's installment was a bit ho-hum, but Ordway hit it out of the ballpark last issue, and yet this chapter leaves me yawning. Superman is still aimlessly wandering through space and running into random conflicts that seem to exist simply for the sake of giving him something to do on panel, and the world believing Clark Kent is dead isn't really making for any exciting drama just yet. I don't know why Ordway is holding off on showing the Daily Planet staff and their presumably emotional reactions to all this. That's the story that's worth reading here.

Instead, the issue gives its focus to Luthor using Jose Delgado as DC's answer to Deathlok, and it just doesn't make any sense. I could believe that Luthor is trying to punish Delgado for past deeds, but he never says nor implies this. He's just using Delgado as an overly expensive remote controlled cyber-thug with which to terrorize his minor enemies. Speaking of which, even before Prof. Hamilton decided to exploit the scenario, I decided it was damn right careless for Luthor to be brazenly threatening to kill a man over a remote feed, let alone to a technology wizard in his laboratory. How could he be sure there weren't any recording devices on, or people able to intercept the feed? How could a man this damn clumsy when dealing with a low-on-the-totem-poll enemy ever expect to hold on to power?

I can't say I particularly enjoyed any aspect of this issue, and that comes as a sincere disappointment to me.


Important Details:

- The world believes Clark Kent is dead.

- Luthor believes Superman is far away from Earth, thanks to Brainiac's telepathy failing to sense him anymore.

- Prof. Hamilton publicly embarrasses Luthor by putting him on TV while he was threatening Hamilton, and doing it via a pirated broadcast that appeared to originate from Luthor's television station with the seeming intention to aggrandize Luthor's image.



Minor Details:

- Though Ordway is solely credited for art in this issue, it still looks like Dennis Janke is inking him in places, especially when Amanda McCoy, a woman who was young and attractive enough to be a personal assistant to Lex Luthor a little more than two years ago (more like one within comic continuity), is inked like a homely old woman much in the same way that Lois Lane looked like an aging crack whore in previous issue. The penciling is all right; it's the inks.

- Toby Raynes, reporter for the Metropolis Star, under editor in chief George Taylor, reappears here after having not been seen since Superman #9. Ordway does his homework.

- Wait. The breathing apparatus Prof. Hamilton gave Superman is just a glorified oxygen tank? I'd assumed it was some impressive invention that was creating more air for him. How could Clark have taken such extraordinary preparations for his trip as we saw last issue, fully realizing he might never come back, with a limited oxygen tank and no plans on how to refill it once he was deep in space? This makes absolutely no sense.

- Happerson, the assistant Luthor was displeased with so many months back when he first pried the kryptonite from Metallo's body that became his kryptonite ring, is still working for Lex in this issue. I find that surprising.

- For someone who's been so careful about following Byrne's continuity, even going so far as to resurrect the loose plot points from Superman #2 in this story arc, Ordway sure blundered on the cover. That very same Superman #2 was where Byrne put forth the absurd explanation that the reason no one ever realized Superman looked like Clark Kent was because Superman always vibrated his head at high speeds in order to prevent cameras from taking non-blurry shots of his face, yet the newspaper photo on the cover of this issue shows a clear picture of Superman's face...and it's right beside a photo of Clark Kent. To be clear, I think Ordway is trying to show how the two faces don't look that similar after all, largely because Clark apparently takes the time to do his hair completely differently when he turns into Superman, but it's still a poorly timed continuity glitch.



Plot synopsis in one sentence:

Superman accidentally space leaps into a giant space creature's digestive system and spends the issue fighting its stomach microbes, the world believe Clark Kent has been murdered by intergang, Morgan Edge has ordered his people to discover who Kent's informant was on the Intergang exposé, Luthor, aware that Superman is off-world thanks to Brainiac, decides to finally get revenge against Prof. Hamilton by sending a remote controlled Jose Delgado after him, Toby Raynes of the Metropolis Star calls Ma and Pa Kent, who do not know the world believes Clark is dead, and is told that Clark is staying with them, thus sparking her curiosity, Prof. Hamilton is able to both free Delgado from Luthor's control and publicly embarrass Luthor by broadcasting his death threat on live television, and Superman decides to head back to the alien planet that worshipped him because his oxygen is depleted and he realizes his space leaps have been reckless and dangerous.

Great to have you back, old friend!



So I've been told repeatedly. I believe you guys.

No, I need that kind of repetition when approaching a run that starts so tediously. Believe me; it's welcome

Is this the only time John Severin drew Superman?