Superman and the Authority #4 Review

 

Warworld Here We Come!

Writer: Grant Morrison

Artist: Mikel Janin

Cover Price: $4.99

Release Date: October 12, 2021

This book is an odd one.  Supposedly, it would be the ongoing Clark Kent/Superman book of 5G, but after that was canceled, it became a setup for Philip Kennedy Johnson's Warworld story.  It doesn't entirely jive with the book it's leading into, and readers have to look past things that don't make sense in the overall continuity, but despite that, I've enjoyed it.  Grant Morrison is giving readers some underused characters and doing some damn good character work on them. But, it all ends here, and I can't be the only one worried about how the ending will or will not tie into the ongoing Action Comics story. So, let's see what we get and if it's any good...

The issue opens inside the Bottle City of Kandor as Ultrahumanite prepares to take over Superman's body by scooping out his brain and replacing it with his own.  For issues now, I've thought this is a weird play with Superman's waning powers, but I'm not here to judge, and it's still better than being stuck in Solomon Grundy's body!!!

It doesn't get that far, though, as a green-skinned Lois Lane shows up shooting a White Kryptonite gun, and that's when it became apparent that this book was going to get wacky in its final issue!

This is an odd book to review.  On the one hand, this mini isn't complete in this form and even came out in a different context than initially planned. On the other hand, though, this is what we are getting, the final issue of a four-issue mini-series.  Judging what we get and nothing more, this issue is hard to follow and introduces things that seem unnecessary in the long run.

After Clark and Lois figure out that Brainiac is pulling the strings, we head to Dubai to continue the Authority's first mission.  Morrison focuses on introducing the bad guys here, and while I would like to see more of them, it feels like wasted space here.  I may be wrong in the end, but I would have rather had more info on Lightray and the new Omac instead.  Plus, you can't just have Eclipso show up and only have him in a couple of panels.

Oh well, most of this issue felt like the remnants of a story long canceled until we get to the ending and set up some classic villains for Jon to deal with later and Superman and his team leaving for Warworld.  It doesn't fit in as neatly as I hoped, but we get there, and I am looking forward to seeing them all continue in Action Comics.

Bits and Pieces:

Superman and the Authority eventually get to where it needs to be, heading off to Action Comics, but takes some odd detours along the way.  Mikel Janin's art continues to look spectacular, but this mini was all about diminishing returns. 

6.0/10