Quick Change
Written By: Dan Jurgens
Art By: Viktor Bogdanovic, Trevor Scott, Scott Hanna, Mike Spicer, Rob Leigh
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: November 8, 2017
Release Date: November 8, 2017
*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*
The Oz Effect comes to a close with this issue and with it, hopefully some answers to whether or not Mr. Oz is in fact Jor-El and what's going on with that big bad outside threat........... Yeah, with Doomsday Clock being so close to release I doubt we'll get that, but some answers beyond just people being pieces of shit would be nice. When we last left Action Comics, Superman was still dealing with a world in chaos from the agents of Oz, but after stopping an attack that would have decimated Metropolis, Superman finally discovered that this mysterious Mr. Oz and the man claiming to be his father were one and the same and with that knowledge........ it was time to get some answers. Let's jump into this issue and see what Jor-El is willing to give up and see how this finale leads into the Doomsday Clock. Let's check it out.
Explain It!:
Our issue begins with Superman refusing to believe that his father could be a man responsible for causing so much hurt in the world....... and really, this disbelief continues through the majority of the issue, but at least we get a location change to the mysterious home/prison of Mr. Oz, where we saw Doomsday, Prophecy, Tim Drake and Mr. Mxyzptlk locked away and once we're there, Jor-El decides that he's done talking to his son and needs to act in order to get Superman and his family safe.
That act though is Jor-El blasting Superman with his fucked up eye, which because of the kryptonite shards that entered his body as Krypton exploded, allows him to shoot a kryptonite beam.......... Yeah, I don't know if this is how it would work, but he does say he's been evolved to be able to do this and as the fight between father and son goes on throughout this strange prison, Superman comes across Doomsday in a force field and Metallo's kryptonite heart and it's at this point that he realizes that his father was just trying to protect him, but with the way he's acting he asks Jor-El, who's going to protect him from you.
In the end, Superman breaks Jor-El's staff, which seems to be keeping his kryptonite poisoning at bay, while also making his mind warped to the point that he believes what he's doing is right and after that, a portal opens sucking Jor-El through, while transporting Superman back to the Fortress of Solitude. So yeah, it seems that Mr. Oz is Jor-El and that the staff was the reason he was acting all wonky, but Superman wonders as he hears the world still in chaos if he would have felt the same way if he would have arrived on Earth the way that Jor-El had. Now the search for sJor-El is on as we make our way to the Doomsday Clock.
That's it for this issue of Action Comics and while I found the majority of this arc to be really slow and just spending its time reiterating the fact that people are pieces of shit, this issue does do one decent thing and that's let us know for sure that Mr. Oz is Jor-El........... Yeah, him coming to his senses at the end felt a bit off and forced, but this is still a decent issue that shows that Jor-El was being controlled to a degree this whole time. The art in this issue was great and at the end of the day I just wish this would have had more substance behind it because it really felt like we were just dragging our feet just to get to this ending.
Bits and Pieces:
The Oz Effect finale comes at us this issue and while the majority of this arc just seemed like filler to get us here, this issue at least answers some questions that have been plaguing me since this arc began and leads us pretty decently into the Doomsday Clock. The art in this issue was great, but all in all I just wish that this arc would have had more weight behind it because while I enjoyed the ending, it didn't seem as big as it should.
6.8/10
Not very often do I think you rated something to high Mister Shea. This is one of those times. This whole arc as been part of the magic act. To bad it’s only the distraction that is meant to facilitate the illusion. 6 out of 10
ReplyDeleteI disagree. With how divided this country is right now and with internet media letting us know how bad far off countries are I loved this chapter. In the least cheesy way so far it illustrated how even someone as powerful as superman is powerless in todays world of constant crisis. I feel everyone is to focused on the mystery of Oz and missed out on how great of a story this was and did not pay attention to the message the story was trying to convey. Superman just had to fight his own father, then listen to out cry after out cry and realize people are losing what he stands for hope. They have been pushing it through out this whole arc how humans are naturally messed up, but before it had Oz meddling taking it to the extreme where as here it came off natural. Maybe naturally we as humans are just shit maybe Superman can't change the world. Superman looked completely broken by the end of the issue.
DeleteThis was a bad ending to a bad arc. Why did he take Tim Drake? Why did he murder his brother? The whole Mr Oz thing was basically him walking around doing god knows what and why acting mysterious, then a whole bunch of issues repeating the same mantra: I'm your father, humans are bad.
ReplyDeleteThen out of the blue Supes breaks the staff and the magic crumbles like everyones first D&D adventure and it turns out JorEl had nothing to do with any of his actions and was basically thrown into continuum for no reason. This was a 3/10 for me. Hoping it's over now.
Detective I'm giving one last issue to explain it's oz connection, if it fails I'm dropping it, but this the last straw for this book, at least i get a new creative team I can get back on bored with. What a utter waste of money and even worse, my time.
ReplyDeleteSeriously u can figure out the Oz effect yourself its not hard. Dr Manhattan kept Superman's dad alive and gave him the power to capture people in a pocket dimension and influence other humans based on their inner desires. Thats not the focus of this comic and they explained it enough but didn't spend much time on it to focus on the better emotional aspects of the story.
ReplyDelete