Action Comics #958 Review and *SPOILERS*

Extended Fight Sequence

Written By: Dan Jurgens
Art By: Patrick Zircher, Ulises Arreola, Rob Leigh
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: June 22, 2016

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

Goddamn did the last issue of Action Comics just wow the hell out of me.  I mean, there I was just sitting back thinking to myself what fun it would be to see Lex Luthor take on the Superman moniker, when all of a sudden I was transported back to '92 and besides for the fact that I was instantly wearing Zubaz Stripes, I was having a great time seeing how our current story was mirroring the Death of Superman and also the Reign of Superman story arcs from that grungy time of the 90's.  If you thought that was all we got though, you'd be buggin'.  We also had Clark Kent come out of nowhere and he may or may not know that he is actually Superman and he also may or may not know about his own apparent death.  It was a strange inclusion to this story, but I got to tell ya, I need to know the answers to what the hell is going on in this series and that gets me excited because I haven't needed to know shit about Superman for awhile now and it's a good feeling.  If all of that wasn't enough, we were introduced to the real Doomsday containment/burial suit and all.  Let's jump into this issue and see if our new Superman can get along with Lex Luthor long enough to take down this monster or if history will repeat itself and our hero will have to go out swingin'.  Let's check it out.

Explain It!:

Our issue begins with Superman catching everyone up on what's going on in case they happened to miss last issue and even though I think it would be crazy to have missed last issue, I hope that this is something that continues because for years I've been hoping that DC would have a page dedicated to new readers because nobody wants to go into a story blind if it happens to be their first comic or their first comic in awhile.  So yeah, after the catch up, it's rock 'em sock 'em robots going on because goddamn do we spend a lot of this issue with Superman and Doomsday just beating the holy hell out of each other like it was the 90's all over again.  As NBC told us in the 90's though, if you haven't seen it, it's new to you so even if this issue has a re-run quality to it, it may be something new to some readers and luckily for me, it's a decent re-run.  That being said though, there really isn't too much to this.  Yeah, we get some new scenes with Mr. Oz being all kinds of mysterious about things we don't really understand yet and we've got Lois and Jon watching the news about Superman's fight with Doomsday, which is pretty enjoyable because Lois has to watch her husband go up against the thing that killed her husband........ again, and she has to keep her cool for Jon's sake because who wants to worry their child.  

The newest and coolest aspect of this book....... at least in my opinion is the inclusion of Clark Kent just being on the scene as the mild-mannered reporter and Jimmy kind of freaking out about it as he tries to capture the story of a lifetime in the process.  Yeah, everyone knows that Superman was Clark Kent thanks to Lois outing him during the Truth story arc and everyone...... at least kind of knows that Superman died thanks to Lex Luthor announcing it in the previous issue, but here we have a Superman fighting a big ass monster and Clark Kent just being on the scene reporting it and when Jimmy calls him out about it, our mild-mannered........ hero?  Well, he tells us he did what he had to do to survive and later on tells us that he can't fly because that was never him and while that's cool and all........ that's all we get and we don't dab our toes in that bit of water again this issue.  The rest of the issue though is simply Superman fighting Doomsday and wondering how it's possible that the monster is here.

In the end, after an extended fight sequence between our hero and the monster, Lex Luthor comes to the rescue.......kinda, and to my surprise Superman has a moment where he thinks to himself that maybe this Lex Luthor isn't as bad as the one from his Universe...... and for the type of obsession that it seemed that Superman had over believing that Lex had to be a villain, even though he could never find any proof about it, it's weird that Superman would just flip flop this easily in his beliefs.......... or maybe seeing is believing.  Even though we now have Superman and who Clark is calling SuperLex tag teaming Doomsday, it seems that still isn't enough because as this issue closes, it looks like Lex is about to have his pretty face smashed.

That's it for this issue of Action Comics and while there's a bit of subtle substance with Lex saving people in danger and even coming to the rescue of our hero, that got the Man of Steel to possibly change his mind about his old nemesis and Clark Kent referring to the fact that he was never Superman, for the most part this issue was a big ass fight scene that feels like a been there done that moment, especially since our hero has actually been there and done this.  There just wasn't enough to this story that wowed me like the previous issue did because while that previous issue set up a whole bunch of shit that got me interested as hell, this issue did little to continue it besides unleash Doomsday on the Metropolis populace.  Hopefully the story picks up more in the next issue because I'm salivating over here to find out what the deal is with Clark and to see if Superman and Lex can actually work together as a team to take Doomsday down.  This issue does have excellent art and colors all the way through though and luckily that's one thing from the last issue that's stayed the same and didn't let me down because of it.  

Bits and Pieces:

Action Comics continues its big over the top battle, but where the previous issue threw a ton of things at us, each more WTF than the last, this issue really only continues the fighting while giving us glances at the things we really want to see.  Yeah, it's still an enjoyable issue and has great art all the way through, but it just didn't have the presence that the last issue had that got me all ga-ga for Action Comics.

7/10