Action Comics #980 Review and *SPOILERS*

Lost In The Dark

Written By: Dan Jurgens

Art By: Patrick Zircher, Hi-Fi, Rob Leigh

Cover Price: $2.99

Release Date: May 24, 2017

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

It's time to get back to the Superman Revenge Squad and their ultimate plan to kill our Man of Steel.  In our previous issue, we saw Mongul brought in the fold from his Black Mercy Prison and if there's one thing I've learned in the course of my life....... it's that Mongul doesn't play well with others.  That is until, you slap him around a bit and show him who's boss, which Hank Henshaw certainly did after the group recovered the second half the Oblivion Stone for him, transforming him back into the Cyborg Superman we all know and love....... not that lame ass one from the Supergirl book.  Anyway, the team is almost fully assembled and all they need now to complete their roster is someone who can access the Fortress of Solitude........ which seems like something Eradicator could do, but whatever, who I'm talking about is General Zod.  Let's jump into this issue and see if the Superman Revenge Squad can recruit Amanda Waller's newest member of the Suicide Squad and if Superman has any chance in hell of winning the day against these heavy hitters.  Let's check it out.

Explain It!:

Our issue begins with Cyborg Superman making sure that everyone is up to date with who's in the Superman Revenge Squad and then giving us their motives for hating Superman so much.  Yeah, it's total recap to make sure that new readers are on the trolley, but it isn't too forced and we move into our story now that Superman at least knows that Blanque, Mongul and Eradicator are working together after destroying his Himalayan Fortress, which gets him to go and check on Lois and Jon to make sure they're safe........... since Eradicator and Blanque know Superman's secret identity.  Thankfully, the Kents bought that new apartment in Metropolis in the previous issue and even though Jon's bitching about moving to the city, this apartment is new enough in Superman's mind that the villains shouldn't be able to find his family.  Too bad Clark couldn't convince Lois of how easily he thinks he can control the situation because as he flies of he knows that she knows he's full of shit.

With the search being on for the villains, Superman goes to the Watchtower where he traces Eradicator's energy signature to Belle Reve and even though Batman offers to help with this situation, Superman claims that this is a Kryptonian problem and that he'll deal with it........ which is odd because you really don't think of Superman being as stubborn as Batman when it comes to help, but that's what we get here and I'm sure as this issue progresses, Superman wishes he would have asked his Dark Knight buddy for a little back up.

In the end, we discover that Amanda Waller has somehow turned the Black Vault into a security measure for Belle Reve and the whole prison has a Black Vault dome around it, which Eradicator and Cyborg Superman are trying to get through, but the properties of the vault make it so that you begin losing your mind once your within it and we see Cyborg Superman relive his past so that people know more about him....... only problem is, it's his old continuity and doesn't do a damn thing to explain how he was human again at the beginning of this story.  Superman doesn't fare any better once he enters the Black Vault and starts having delusions of his family coming out of graves and coming for him for failing to protect them.  As we close this issue, Eradicator leads Cyborg Superman to the inside of Belle Reve, leaving Superman to lose his mind.

That's it for this issue of Action Comics and even though this issue is a lot of filler with trying to catch new readers up on who all our villains are and Cyborg's Superman's original origin, I still found myself enjoying it for the most part and loving the art all the way through.  There just wasn't anything really to this story besides for the Black Vault stuff and Superman finding out that Cyborg Superman is back and involved with the rest of the villains that are after him.  I did enjoy the inclusion of Batman in this issue though and hope that he'll be a part of this as the story continues because who wouldn't want the World's Finest duo together to take on this kind of threat and Superman's gonna need someone to help his ass out of the Black Vault so that he can get on with this story.

Bits and Pieces:

This issue of Action Comics, while still enjoyable for the most part was really just a chance for Dan Jurgens to catch new readers up on who the villains of this story are and what their motivations for hating the Man of Steel stem from........ While giving us the original origin for Cyborg Superman instead of explaining how he became human for the beginning of this story.  That being said though, the art was great and even with the filler we got, I'm still excited for the continuation of this story.

6.8/10