Let Me Tell You About My New Best Friend
Written By: Dan JurgensArt By: Stephen Segovia, Art Thibert, Ulises Arreola, Rob Leigh
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: January 25, 2017
*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*
Who would have guessed that Lex Luthor would have to save Superman from anything, let alone a couple of intergalactic bounty hunters who are trying to save the future? Yeah, they're really after Lex and Superman is doing his hero thing by standing in between them, but now that him and Lex have been boom tubed to a world with a red sun......... Well, our hero isn't exactly at his peak. Let's jump into this issue and see not only if Lex and Superman are able to outgun and outwit L'Call and Zade, but also what's up with human Clark Kent seeing John in Lois' doppelganger's apartment. Let's check it out.
Explain It!:
Our issue begins with Lex continuing to be very impressed with this Superman because even without his powers, he seems to be a force to be reckoned with........... which gives us a little callback to Convergence, where Clark spent a year without powers and had to hone his body and agility to continue doing heroics without the abilities of a god. With that though.......... there's really not a lot to this issue besides for Lex and Superman holding their own against L'Call and Zade until finally, Superman gets Zade to listen to him and in turn, Zade gets L'Call to listen to Superman. Even with L'Call's future telling orbs saying that Lex will become the future Darkseid and leave a wake of destruction in his attempts to conquer world after world, Superman assures L'Call that as long as he lives, he will never let something like that happen. This is proven when Superman asks L'Call to look at his orbs and see what the future holds for him and after a looky loo and a moment of consideration, L'Call ends his hunt for Luthor and allows our two heroes to go on their way.
While Lex and Superman are fighting for their lives, Lois is having the shock of hers when human Clark Kent shows up at her doppelganger's door and sees John. After a few clever lies saying that John is her nephew and that she doesn't have time to work on the Geneticron story with Clark, she shuts the door on him and we leave this scene with the human Clark walking away wondering why he's being lied to.
In the end, Superman and Lex return to Earth and actually have what they call "A Fresh Start", where they leave all the misgivings they had about each other behind and actually shake on it. Knowing the history between this Superman and Lex Luthor, it's actually a really cool moment to see that our hero is super enough to turn the other cheek and trust a man who may very well lead to the end of the world. As we leave this issue though, it looks like if that actually does happen, Superman will be there to stop Lex because we see what L'Call saw in his seer stones and we see that Superman will have his hands full with things other than Lex Luthor coming up. The future is still unwritten though and Lex's true character shines through in this issue when after having this handshake with Superman, he realizes that the world already has a Superman and he doesn't need to be their beacon of hope anymore and with that, returns the New 52 Superman's cape to the glass case at the Daily Planet so that it can be seen by all and inspire.
That's it for this issue of Action Comics and while we spend a lot of this book just seeing Superman and Lex run around on an alien planet and duke it out with their pursuers, it's still a lot of fun and I love the fact that we get to see how impressed Lex is with this Superman throughout and I love how this respect that Lex has for our hero leads to him actually giving up the cape and allowing our Man of Steel to be the only Superman in Metropolis. Yeah, I don't know if Lex will keep up with his super heroics, I kind of wish he would, but if this is it, it was a great way to see him hang up the cape and move on to whatever he'll do next. I love the bits with Lois, John and Clark too and while we don't get much here, we do get Clark seeming like he may be up to no good in the future and while I think that's all a red herring, I dig the development and look forward to all the future adventures that Action Comics has to offer us. The art was great all the way through, but like I said, we do spend a shit ton of time seeing our heroes just have a slug fest with Zade and L'Call and even though this is called Action Comics, this happens too much in our stories.
Bits and Pieces:
We end our Men of Steel arc with this issue and man is it satisfying. We not only continue to develop the story of human Clark Kent, but also get a intriguing conclusion to Lex Luthor's future despot possibility. The art is great and my only real complaint here is the amount of time used to simply show Lex and Superman duking it out with their foes.
Explain It!:
Our issue begins with Lex continuing to be very impressed with this Superman because even without his powers, he seems to be a force to be reckoned with........... which gives us a little callback to Convergence, where Clark spent a year without powers and had to hone his body and agility to continue doing heroics without the abilities of a god. With that though.......... there's really not a lot to this issue besides for Lex and Superman holding their own against L'Call and Zade until finally, Superman gets Zade to listen to him and in turn, Zade gets L'Call to listen to Superman. Even with L'Call's future telling orbs saying that Lex will become the future Darkseid and leave a wake of destruction in his attempts to conquer world after world, Superman assures L'Call that as long as he lives, he will never let something like that happen. This is proven when Superman asks L'Call to look at his orbs and see what the future holds for him and after a looky loo and a moment of consideration, L'Call ends his hunt for Luthor and allows our two heroes to go on their way.
While Lex and Superman are fighting for their lives, Lois is having the shock of hers when human Clark Kent shows up at her doppelganger's door and sees John. After a few clever lies saying that John is her nephew and that she doesn't have time to work on the Geneticron story with Clark, she shuts the door on him and we leave this scene with the human Clark walking away wondering why he's being lied to.
In the end, Superman and Lex return to Earth and actually have what they call "A Fresh Start", where they leave all the misgivings they had about each other behind and actually shake on it. Knowing the history between this Superman and Lex Luthor, it's actually a really cool moment to see that our hero is super enough to turn the other cheek and trust a man who may very well lead to the end of the world. As we leave this issue though, it looks like if that actually does happen, Superman will be there to stop Lex because we see what L'Call saw in his seer stones and we see that Superman will have his hands full with things other than Lex Luthor coming up. The future is still unwritten though and Lex's true character shines through in this issue when after having this handshake with Superman, he realizes that the world already has a Superman and he doesn't need to be their beacon of hope anymore and with that, returns the New 52 Superman's cape to the glass case at the Daily Planet so that it can be seen by all and inspire.
That's it for this issue of Action Comics and while we spend a lot of this book just seeing Superman and Lex run around on an alien planet and duke it out with their pursuers, it's still a lot of fun and I love the fact that we get to see how impressed Lex is with this Superman throughout and I love how this respect that Lex has for our hero leads to him actually giving up the cape and allowing our Man of Steel to be the only Superman in Metropolis. Yeah, I don't know if Lex will keep up with his super heroics, I kind of wish he would, but if this is it, it was a great way to see him hang up the cape and move on to whatever he'll do next. I love the bits with Lois, John and Clark too and while we don't get much here, we do get Clark seeming like he may be up to no good in the future and while I think that's all a red herring, I dig the development and look forward to all the future adventures that Action Comics has to offer us. The art was great all the way through, but like I said, we do spend a shit ton of time seeing our heroes just have a slug fest with Zade and L'Call and even though this is called Action Comics, this happens too much in our stories.
Bits and Pieces:
We end our Men of Steel arc with this issue and man is it satisfying. We not only continue to develop the story of human Clark Kent, but also get a intriguing conclusion to Lex Luthor's future despot possibility. The art is great and my only real complaint here is the amount of time used to simply show Lex and Superman duking it out with their foes.
8/10
For me this has been the best story arco from Jurgens' run. Maybe because it didn't add more misterys to the list.
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