Superman: Action Comics #1079 – Mark Waid, Mariko Tamaki, Writers; Michael Shelfer, Skylar Partridge, Artists; Matt Herms, Marissa Louise, Colorists
Ray – 9/10
Ray: With the battle with Aethyr over with surprisingly quickly, I was wondering what Waid had in store for his last act – and he delivered in a big way in this issue with a massive invasion of the Phantom Zone prisoners, all empowered by the yellow sun. Superman was quickly overwhelmed by them, and lies unconscious recovering thanks to his black suit – while the escaped prisoners attack city after city and claim it for themselves. While the superheroes try to fight about a hundred Supermen with none of his moral scruples, Mon-El emerges from the phantom zone – using a unique cloaking device that allows him to essentially exist between the realms and not die from his poisoning – temporarily.
The portrayal of the Phantom Zone prisoners here pretty much casts them as irredeemably evil to a man, which I’m not sure fits with the corruption of Krypton we’ve seen. But it makes for an imposing threat here, and the villains have a massive head start – the Gold Kryptonite is missing, each criminal is carving out their own slice of territory, and there aren’t enough magicians to hold them off. This issue moves very fast, but still has time for some great interactions between Superman and his closest allies – including Jimmy, Kara, and Mon-El. We haven’t seen a full Kryptonian threat in a long time, and it’s easy to forget just how dangerous even one can be if out of control – and hundreds is an apocalyptic threat.
As we get to the final chapters of the Supergirl backup, the threat we’ve been chasing the entire time has come to the fore – another mystery masked alien, the partner of our prisoner – and her brother and abuser, who has convinced her that they are essentially part of the same being of destruction. Kara does her best to try to break this cycle, but it’s clear that whatever this being is, he’s gotten in way too deep in the prisoner’s head. This is a fascinating story, albeit one I’m not sure works best in these short chunks.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
