Action Comics #964 Review and *SPOILERS*

A Day With Superman

Written By: Dan Jurgens

Art By: Patrick Zircher, Ulises Arreola, Rob Leigh

Cover Price: $2.99

Release Date: September 28, 2016

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

With all the world changing secrets that Rebirth has presented us with, this title is one of them that seems to want to keep it close to the chest and not reveal anything.......... Yeah, no title really wants to reveal what's going on, but this one seems extra secretive because of all the Doomsday and Mr. Oz play we've gotten so far not to mention our current story arc, dealing with the not so mild-mannered Clark Kent, who has apparently never been Superman.  Yeah, we have a ton of "Super" characters running around after the New 52 Superman died and for as weird as that is, it's even weirder to me to have a Clark Kent character who isn't super at all.  Let's jump into this issue and see if we can get any more answers out of Clark's investigation into the Geneticron company and if our Pre-Flashpoint Superman can get any answers about who this Clark Kent actually is.  Let's check it out.

Explain It!:

Our issue begins with Superman taking Clark Kent to his Fortress of Solitude and while we know that the Pre-Flashpoint Superman has his own Fortress, it seemed odd at first and I didn't know which one I was looking at because up until this point, I never thought of the Pre-Flashpoint Superman's fortress being in a cold area.......... but by the chattering teeth and knocky knees on Clark, it does appear cold as hell.......... not to mention Clark complaining about the cold.  Anyway, the whole point of bringing Clark to the Fortress is so that Superman can use an alien artifact on him that reveals the inner most thoughts and desires of the person who's touching it............. and shockingly, it seems that this Clark Kent is somehow legit.  Even Superman is shocked at how close, yet different this Clark's memories are to his own, but ultimately, after that test and a few scans, it appears that we have ourselves a completely human Clark Kent.......... even though it still doesn't make sense.......... but there could be some clarity coming because Superman was able to use his fortress to hack into the Geneticron company and found out that they did in fact have Doomsday there and apparently one other.  It's the one other that intrigues me because could this Clark Kent be something that Geneticron had from another time or place or simply created?  He did only show up after Doomsday was released after all.  

During Superman's tests of Clark, we had some other strange things going on over at the Geneticron company, where we see that mysterious man in the red hat, who was in the crowd during Clark Kent's press conference in the previous issue and who I originally thought was simply Batman in disguise, moving in the shadows outside of the company and planting some kind of device on the outside of it............ which really looks like a proximity mine from Golden Eye for the N64.  Yeah, that's weird, but the weirder part comes from when Superman finds out about Geneticron keeping Doomsday and Clark and him race back to Metropolis to find that the entire building has disappeared.  

In the end, we see Clark Kent writing a story about his day with Superman, that pretty much sums up that this might not be the Superman that the world once knew, but nonetheless he is a Superman that the world needs.  During this strange writing montage, where everyone's reading the article as Clark writes it, we see that Superman has built a escape tunnel underneath his home just in case Lois or Jon needs to get out of there in a hurry............ which you know will come into play pretty soon, but the cliffhanger for this issue is the mysterious man in the red cap going back to him home and inside we see a portal to what looks like Apokolips, with the Superman crest embedded into it and the mystery man saying that the path is clear, the only answer is death........... Hopefully he means himself and not our Man of Steel, but what are the chances of that?

That's it for this issue of Action Comics and while it is more of the same about Clark saying he's not Superman and no one believing him, it does feel like we took a turn to get away from that with Superman's tests proving what Clark has said all along and Clark doing his own Lois Lane type story about why the world needs Superman........ Even though nobody should let this go because it doesn't make sense that there's a human Clark Kent, but like we had with the Doomsday story, the mysteries just keep coming without explaining the ones we already have because for some reason this mystery man has Apokolips in his apartment.  I don't know, the mysteries are getting tedious, but I found myself enjoying this issue nonetheless because of how the characters acted and because of how great this book looked throughout............ but that dude's got to be breaking his lease by having a portal of Apokolips in his living room.

Bits and Pieces:

The mysteries just keep coming in this series and while this might piss off some......... you know, since we're not dealing with the ones we already have, I found that the character interactions are what really made this story worth reading and why I'm not pulling my hair out about nothing being explained yet.  With that, I really loved the art in this book and kind of look forward to seeing more of Clark Kent in the role he's currently playing.

7.5/10