Action Comics #4 Review
It’s Superman and Steel versus Metallo and an army of robots in the fourth issue of Grant Morrison’s Action Comics.
Action Comics #4
As The Collector’s (Brainiac?) virus forces the factories of Metropolis to turn out dozens of robots, the same virus turns John Corben’s Metal-Zero suit into the ultimate Anti-Superman Weapon. While the robots ignore the human population and focus on preserving important artifacts, Superman, the Army and Steel battle to save the city. But all seems hopeless when the entire city is shrunk and bottled!
Nothing really mind-blowing here.
We already knew from the solicits that Steel would be showing up to help fight Metallo. We were all pretty sure that the Collector is Brainiac. And we all knew that the world would beg for Superman’s help after telling him to go to Hell last month.
This is pretty much just one huge fight issue. Par for the course in the Trade Paper Back era. Nothing wrong with that. I guess what surprises me is that it feels like anyone could have written this issue. Nothing overly Grant Morrison about it.
I am intrigued by the idea of combining Metallo, Luthor’s battle suit, and Brainiac all into one ultimate anti-Superman weapon. The fact that John Henry Irons is the source of this awesome Earthly tech is great. I would have expected Luthor to be responsible for that, but we seem to be getting a Luthor that is all talk, who doesn’t actually DO anything. It contributes to the idea of Luthor being Superman’s opposite.
Brainiac looks truly alien now, but still has some echoes of Gary Frank’s tech designs. I am surprised that Brainiac actually shrunk Metropolis for a number of reasons. One, I’m just amazed that it happened at all. I figured we would be getting a distinctly information-focused Brainiac, who just took info and didn’t go all Silver Age with it. Two, it happened so fast, this is only the fourth issue of Superman’s new origin and Brainiac has already shrunk Metropolis. It’s like if you merged Secret Origin and Brainiac arc into one book.
Now what I really want to know is if Kandor is on Brainiac’s ship and will turn up in this arc as well. That would be nuts!
The Steel back-up was definitely a step-up from the crappy page-fillers they’ve thrown at us lately across the whole DCnU. The story and art were top-notch. But I just can’t help feeling that this “plot” was drawn out, and could have been done in two pages in the main story. But at least we got a peek into Steel’s personality. Ironically, maybe a little more than we’ve got into Clark yet.
The only thing that really bugs me about this issue is the last page, which informs us that we’ve got to wait 3 months to see what happens next. The upcoming issues featuring the Legion should be fun as hell, but I hate being kept waiting like this. But at least we’re not expected to wait all that time with nothing else being published.
A COMIC BOOK BLOG RATING
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Amazed at how much is going on in this story | Everything cool about this issue was already telegraphed months ago |
| Rating |
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3 Comments
Grant Morrison is a drug using over related asshole.
Action Comics absolutely sucks. As predicted the title is dropping in numbers. He will be out by issue 12. Then the title will tank.
Stupid 52….gimmick
Morrison is capable of better than this. He’s shown that he’s capable of better than this. Why is he writing this?
The only DC comics worth reading are Batman and Batwoman.