Superman: Action Comics #1040 – Phillip Kennedy Johnson, Shawn Aldridge, Writers; Riccardo Federici, Adriana Melo, Artists; Lee Loughridge, Hi-Fi, Colorists
Ray – 9/10
Ray: The Warworld Saga is taking on a very different tone now that we know it’s possibly the final Kal-El story, as Superman is confirmed to die in the upcoming Dark Crisis. Will that stick forever? Of course not, but it adds a lot more emotion to this story that finds an aging Superman looking both more heroic and more human than ever. Stuck in the pits of Warworld, he’s gained the nickname “Unbloodied Sword” from the crowds and wears it with pride, doing his best to shield the warriors of the pit from Mongul’s cruelty. There’s something truly sadistic about Mongul in a way we rarely see in DC villains, such as this issue where he tries to pit two siblings against each other to prove themselves to him.
While Superman puts his neck on the line in the arena every day, the other members of his Authority face tests of their own. Midnighter heads deep into the infrastructure, planning a brutal strike on the planet—one that may be too brutal for Superman to swallow. And our young OMAC is given a twisted choice to have someone she loves back in exchange for a betrayal. And against it all, we have Superman, taking a massive risk to try to not just topple Warworld but make sure the Phaelossians and the other residents of the planet get the chance they deserve. It’s brutal, fascinating, and it’s quintessentially Superman. It strips him of almost everything that makes him iconic, and yet he’s never seemed more like himself.
The Martian Manhunter backup by Aldridge and Melo is consistently strong as well, as J’onn bonds with a cat and faces off against a former villain of his—a twisted assassin with a trap jaw and a massive grudge against one of J’onn’s alter egos. While this story doesn’t quite reach the depths of some of J’onn’s previous stories, it does a great job of showing the chaos that trying to live many lives at the same time has wreaked on his private life.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
