All right, it’s time for another Superman review. Unfortunately, this one is not quite as positive as Unchained and it actually looks pretty bad in comparison. It lost focus on what it means to be a Superman comic. I had actually enjoyed the first two volumes, but this one just wasn’t that good. It has its moments, but everything is too chaotic and it makes it hard to just have fun. Superman is also on the run a lot, which takes away opportunities for big fights.

The plot….well, the first story is a quick one about a guy from the Phantom Zone who learns that you can escape it by inhabiting a mummy suit that allows you to move in the real world. The main positive from this is that we finally get to see Krypto. The main chunk of the comic is about a new villain who’s from the same world as Mr. Mxysptlk. He wants to destroy Superman (For awful reasons that are explored in a flashback( and with his reality warping powers that shouldn’t be hard. He gets a little greedy though and decides to destroy Superman at many points in time all at once. He attacks Superman in the past, present, and future. He disrupts a lot of things in the timestream so Superman’s life has been radically changed. How can he possibly defeat this villain? Let’s just say that it involves the limitless power of words.

First of all, I have to say that the cover of the comic is an instant warning sign. There’s way too much happening on it to the point where the comic doesn’t look interesting. I’ll take a classic “Superman holding a car” over this any day. It does work as good foreshadowing for how confusing the comic is though so I’ll give the cover some props there. It’s going to need it!

One thing that you will notice right away is that the art is nowhere near the quality that we have come to expect from DC. It’s not very streamlined and the art fluctuates so much that it can be pretty scary. Gone are the days of Superman Unchained folks! The art isn’t very bad, but it’s a considerable step down from the average DC comic. It’s like adding more fuels to the flames.

All right, I’ve gone over some pretty minor weaknesses of the comic, but let’s go into the bigger ones. The main problem with the collection is that the stories simply aren’t that good. I didn’t really care about what was happening in the first adventure and it didn’t make a whole lot of sense either. The villain’s will power was just so strong that he created a suit and escaped? I really don’t buy that. As for the long arc with the Mr. Mxyz ripoff, that wasn’t much better. This guy is virtually all powerful so it’s hard to fight him. It means that we won’t get a real nailbiting finish as we have to settle for plot hax instead. How does Superman stop this guy? Wait for it…wait for it…waiiiiiiiitttt-he talks to him. See, talking in 5D actually hurts people so Superman just talked along with the citizens of the planet and the villain was defeated. Game set and Match…thanks!

That was rather anticlimactic. Now, there were some pros to the whole time travel aspect. I did enjoy seeing the Legion of Superheroes make an appearance and Superdoom makes for an intense opponent. He’s a Superman who gets stronger and stronger as you think about him. It’s impossible to not think of someone that you’re currently fighting so this makes him pretty tricky. The villain group who each have different Kryptonite abilities was also pretty neat. They seem pretty weak on their own though so I don’t see them doing too well without some outside help.

Lex Luthor joins the fray as well through a robot that he has under his mental control. It doesn’t last for very long of course, but it’s good to see him helping out. Things wouldn’t be good for him either if the villains win so it’s a good time to swallow his pride. Krypto looks pretty great and I’m glad that his character was depicted correctly. He’s fearless and not an opponent that you want to underestimate. It’s too bad that he couldn’t crush the villains some more, but I suppose that it would have been tricky without getting hit with the animal violence badge. Maybe it was for the best.

So, the comic certainly had some good additions to it. It’s fun to see Superman have to team up with Lex and I also liked the references to the older comics. Like Superman’s team up with Ali and he death against Doomsday. We also got to see Captain Comet return along with his new team. They came out of nowhere, but they seem like they could ultimately become a fighting force to be reckoned with. If the comic had been written a little better, this could have been a winning formula.

Unfortunately, there are too many parts to the story that simply aren’t interesting. Anything that had to do with Mr. Mxyz and the new villain was rather boring and the Legion should have actually helped out a little more. A lot was going on and yet, the situation would hit a stand still at times. I just couldn’t get into the comic the same way that I could get into most of them. The art, writing, and lack of action just blended together in a way that didn’t work out.

Overall, Action Comics fell down a step or two here. Considering that this was a Superman comic and that we even got guest stars in the form of the Justice League, it should have been a lot better. A 7 is essentially the minimum for how good a Superman comic should be. I definitely did not expect to walk out of this with a 6 at the ready. It just doesn’t seem right or natural and the comic was actually very close to scoring a 5. The action at the end saved it from that fate. The writer was probably trying to be clever by thinking of such a convoluted plot, but it epically backfired. If you want to check out a Superman comic, I recommend buying Unchained. Otherwise, you may as well just skip this volume since it’s practically filler. You won’t be missing much.

Overall 6/10