Action Comics #842

Written by Kurt Busiek and Fabian Nicieza

Art by Pete Woods

Cover by Dave Gibbons

 

Last issue, the ‘place-holder’ writing team of Kurt Busiek and Fabian Nicieza (warming the title up for the incoming superstar scripting team of Richard Donner and Geoff Johns) threw a completely random group of guest-stars into the Man of Steel's path, including Nightwing, Firestorm and the Teen Titans. Well, if you thought that group was pretty random, you honestly haven't seen anything yet.

Those characters still appear, but so do former Power Company member Skyrocket, the new Aquaman, Superman villain Livewire, minor Robin supporting cast member the Veteran and even Bluejay, the bird-themed hero, with the ability to shrink, from the old JLA/JLI days. Seriously, when was the last time you've seen him anywhere? He even seemed to sit Infinite Crisis out.

 

The weird mixing and matching of A- to Z-list characters in this adventure is probably its greatest pleasure, but it's not simply a who's who sort of story. Busiek and Nicieza present it in a way that makes perfect sense, and use it to subtly show why Superman is the superhero that even other superheroes look up to, the guy everyone in the room (or giant spaceship, as the case may be) looks to for leadership, even when they're not sure it's really him. And a lot of people aren't sure. That's one of the subplots the writing team is playing with here; that Superman has been gone so long that the world is slow to trust him, particularly given his bad habit of disappearing for a year only to be replaced by fake Supermen.

 

But the title of the book is Action, not plot or character development, and the action revolves around the gigantic alien who has sent robots to earth to appraise it for auction (See, they're not always invading earth to conquer it). He's like that annoying guy who talks too loudly into his cell phone in public, only he's a thousand times bigger and can hover. After getting a gander at Superman, he realizes that Earth's most precious export could be superheroes, so he starts collecting them like action figures and packing them into ships.

 

Superman busts out of his box (thus depreciating his collectability!) in the process freeing whichever costumed characters were in there with him, and it's up to this ragtag team to rescue everyone else and save the world. The catch being that they don't have any powers on the ship. This makes Bluejay even more useless than usual.

 

Pete Woods' art is great, and it's cool to see him drawing a story where he gets to draw so many of DC's characters (even big guns like Batman, Wonder Woman and the Flash get cameos). The cover, by Dave Gibbons, is a tabloid take off, and it's particularly eye-catching and refreshing in the age of so-called "iconic," character's-just-standing-there-posing covers.

 

Rating -7