Comic Book Review: Action Comics #900

Let’s just acknowledge the significance of the occasion. Action Comics — the book that introduced Superman and thus helped push comic books from a cheaply produced delivery system for reprint newspaper strips into something unique — has reached its 900th issue. To commemorate the occasion, DC has released the ish as a “96-page spectacular,” opening with a 51-page lead, followed by five shorter pieces examining facets of the Man of Steel’s life. Written by such familiar names as Damon Lindelof, David S. Goyer and director Richard Donner, it’s the latter half of the book that’ll most likely appeal to readers who haven’t been closely following the DC Universe.

The lead story, Paul Cornell and Pete Woods’ “The Black Ring/Reign of Doomsday,” proves a bit more dubious. Culling together plotlines from five different DC titles, it primarily features our hero in an extended debate with a god-like version of perpetual villain Lex Luthor. The chapter ends with a resurrection of the monster who once “killed” Superman, Doomsday, and whether that will warm your heart most likely depends on if you were the right age to fall for the original “Death of Superman” storyline when it was first published/publicized in the nineties.

The other tales examine our hero’s original and place in the superhero world. Lost’s Damon Lindelof, aided by artist Ryan Sook, looks at Superman’s father Jor-El in the time before Krypton’s cataclysm, and while Sook’s art is typically moody, the story details themselves seem a bit too Earth-bound, not alien enough. In contrast, Paul Dini and R.B. Silva’s “Autobiography,” which also shows the Man of Steel’s home world, has an appealing visual strangeness typified by Silva’s depiction of a hippopotamus-y alien named Serva.

Geoff John and Gary Franks’ “Friday Night in the 21st Century” is a lightweight look at Lois and Clark’s relationship, while director Donner and Derek Hoffman’s “Only Human” uses a faux movie script/storyboard (sketchy graphics courtesy of Matt Camp) to tell the tale of a scientist who tries to artificially replicate Superman’s powers. Of all the back-of-the-book entries, this ‘un reads most like a story rather than a vignette.

Article Author: Bill Sherman

Bill Sherman is a Books editor for Blogcritics. With his lovely wife Rebecca Fox, he has recently co-authored a sudsy comic fat acceptance novel entitled Measure By Measure.

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